By the instituting of a State Penitentiary, it was
intended that the ends of public justice should be
fully answered; that convicts should become reform-
ed; that their labour should be equal to the en-
tire expences of their keeping ; and that habits of
industry > should be engrafted upon them, beneficial
to the community, and salutary to themselves. The
inculcation of virtuous precepts, and the practised
developement of moral truths, were esteemed by its
advocates, as indispensable auxiliaries to the work
of reformation. Every suggestion of philanthropy
was cheerfully adopted. A chapel was fitted up in
the prison for religious instruction, and a library of
moral and religious books, was purchased, for the
edification and improvement of the convicts. The so-
ciety of Friends, peculiarly eminent for good works ;
the first ever in the field of humanity, and the last to
atandonit; teaching virtue to others, by the pious



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practice of it themselves ; were zealously employed
in the advancement of the interests of the institution,
and the morality of its incumbents. Economy pre-
sided over the immediate concerns of the prison ;
the labour was not entirely unprofitable, and, for
the first few years after its organization, its founders
and advocates, were cheered with the prospect, of its
answering their warmest and most sanguine expec-
tationi. But, there was an evil vegetating in the very
desert of solitude, calculated to thwart all the pur-
poses of benevolence, and defeat all the warmest de-
signs of philanthropy. In a word, the convicts cor-
rupted each other. They were constrained to si-
lence during the time they were at work ; but inter-
vals of leisure would unavoidably occur — their cun-
ning was a match for the vigilance of their keepers —
however closely they were watched, their inter-
course was unrestrained — upon retiring from labour,
they conversed freely in their rooms — and depravity
was generated, by the very steps taken, in humanity,
to prevent it. It was a radical defect, and was
much to be lamented. Like a cancer in the natural
body, it extended itself daily — a vice of the most
alarming magnitude — baffling all the efforts which
could be made to suppress it, or to retard its baleful
progress. 