William Crawford, from whom we have already quoted, a commissioner of the British Government, and a man distinguished for his humanity and intelligence, who during more than twenty years had devoted his time to visiting the prisons and penitentiaries in the United States and England, in a report on the systems just referred to, made to the British Parliament, places them in contrast in the following manner, to wit: “In judging of the comparative merits of the two systems it will be seen, that the discipline of Auburn is of a physical, that of Philadelphia of a moral character; the whip inflicts immediate pain, but solitude inspires permanent terror. The former degrades while it humiliates, the latter subdues but it does not debase. At Auburn the convict is uniformly treated with harshness, at Philadelphia with civility; the one contributes to harden, the other to soften the affections. Auburn stimulates vindictive feelings, Philadelphia induces habitual submission. The Auburn prisoner when liberated, conscious that he is known to past associates, and that the public eye has gazed upon him, sees an accuser in every man he meets. The Philadelphia convict quits his cell secure from recognition, and exempt from reproach.” He also says, “It is a curious fact, that some of the strongest testimonies in favor of individual separation, may be collected from those who are the best acquainted with the operation of the Silent System. We can assert with confidence, that there is not one of the best conducted prisons, in which the Silent System is effectually enforced, that we have not repeatedly visited and closely inspected; and we can truly state, that with one exception only, the governors of those prisons have acknowledged, that had they to decide upon the merits of the respective plans, they would unquestionably give their unqualified preference to the Separate System.” The enlightened and excellent Count Gasparin, in a letter to George Sumner of Boston, then in Paris, in commending the system (with the practical operation of which in France he was perfectly familiar), says, “Every government which in the actual state of society, and of the progress of social science, adopts any other than the Separate System, will expose itself to the necessity of having, before long, to reconstruct its prisons.”