In France the subject had undergone most thorough discussion, in journals, in pamphlets, among professional men, and in official documents. The Government and the highest authorities in state and in medicine had declared in favor of the Separate System. Their conclusions were founded on ample inquiries by commissions visiting America, England, Scotland, Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Italy, Germany, Prussia, Spain, and even Turkey. In 1836, Count Gasparin, Minister of the Interior, wrote a circular informing the prefects of the departments that the Government had decided to adopt exclusively the Separate System in the _maisons d'arrêt_, or what may be called the county jails. In 1839 the grave question of the influence of this system on health, bodily and mental, was submitted to the highest living authority, the Academy of Medicine, who referred it to a committee consisting of MM. Pariset, Moré, Villermé, Louis, and Esquirol. Their report, drawn up by the last named distinguished authority, expressly declared that "separate imprisonment by day and night, with labor, and conversation with the overseers and inspectors, does not abridge the life of the prisoners, nor compromise their reason." This report afterwards received the sanction of the learned body to which it was addressed. In 1840, M. Rémusat, Minister of the Interior, submitted the project of a law for the building of prisons on the principle of _separation_. This was sustained by a masterly report from M. de Tocqueville, dated June 25, 1840. It was followed in 1841 by another circular from the Home Department, communicating an atlas of plans to the departments as their guide in building prisons. I hold one of them in my hand now. * * * * * Mr. DWIGHT, looking at the atlas, said, "The cells here are on a circumference, whereas in Philadelphia they are on radii." * * * * * Mr. SUMNER. In some of the plans the cells are on a circumference, and in some on radii. Does this make any difference in the system? I will proceed. In 1843, 17th April, Count Duchatel, in behalf of the Government, introduced a bill providing for the extension of the principle of _separation_ to all the _maisons de force_ throughout France. It was calculated that this could not be carried into execution at an expense less than one hundred and seven millions of francs, or nearly twenty millions of dollars. At the same time it appeared that the extensive prison La Roquette, in Paris, had been for several years in most successful operation. Still further, in 1843, it was stated by M. de Tocqueville, that, since 1838, _thirty_ prisons, containing two thousand seven hundred and forty cells on the Separate System, had been built, or were in an advanced state of building, in the departments of France. Yet nothing of all this is in our Report.