We are disposed to take advantage of the interest Miss Dix's publication may excite, and also of her name, which is an authority, to say a few words on a question much agitated, and already the subject of many books,--the comparative merits of what are called the Pennsylvania and Auburn Penitentiary Systems. This question is, perhaps, the most important of all that grow out of Prisons; for it affects, in a measure, all others. It involves both the construction of the prison, and its administration. The subject of Prison Discipline, and particularly the question between the two systems, has of late years occupied the attention of jurists and philanthropists in no ordinary degree. The discussion has been conducted in all the languages of Europe, to such an extent that the titles alone of the works would occupy considerable space in a volume of Bibliography. We have before us, for instance, a list of no less than eleven in Italian. But we must go back to the last century, if we would trace the origin of the controversy. To Howard, a man of true greatness, whose name will stand high on the roll of the world's benefactors, belongs the signal honor of first awakening the sympathies of the English people in this work of benevolence. By his travels and labors he became familiar with the actual character of prisons, and was enabled to spread before the public an accumulation of details which fill the reader with horror and disgust. The condition of prisons at that time in England was appalling. Of course there was no system; nor was there any civilization in the treatment of prisoners. Everything was bad. As there was no care, so there was no cleanliness, on which so much depends, and there was no classification or separation of any kind. All commingled, so that the uncleanness of one befouled all, and the wickedness of one contaminated all. While this continued, all hope of reform was vain. Therefore, with especial warmth, Howard pleaded for the _separation_ of prisoners, especially at night, "wishing to have so many small rooms or cabins that each criminal may sleep alone,"[121] and called attention to the fact he had observed in Holland, that "in most of the prisons for criminals there are so many rooms that each prisoner is kept separate."[122] [121] Howard, State of the Prisons, p. 22. [122] Ibid. p. 45.