The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864)Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
History
The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (New Series, No. 3, January 1864)
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
One other instance of the effect of zealous, affectionate kindness and
watchful care in this department may be mentioned. A visitor who has for
twenty years been constant in the discharge of his voluntarily assumed
duties, found in a cell a lad who had by bad association and repeated
crimes deserved and received a sentence for many years imprisonment. He
was one of those impressible persons who yield to circumstances and
follow out fully the course into which they may have been conducted.
Notwithstanding the effect which several years’ bad conduct had produced
on the perceptions of the youth, separate confinement had afforded him a
means of preparing himself for that species of mental hostility to the
world which the young convict is likely to entertain, and when the
visitor entered his cell and asked for a statement of the circumstances
of his short but miserable career, the voice of affection and the tone
of deep, almost of parental interest with which the prisoner was
addressed, secured his confidence, and his tale of wrong doing was
readily told. In time the unfailing attention of the visitor became
almost necessary to the existence of the prisoner, and the prescribed
devotion was performed. The Scripture lessons were well studied, and all
that could be required of the inmate of the criminal cell seemed to be
so well done that the “visitor” felt authorized to second the wishes of
the prisoner for Executive clemency. A full pardon was obtained, and in
a short time afterwards, the released convict was seen occupying a place
of peculiar trust, where his own word was all that could be demanded as
a statement of cash received. The many failures and disappointments
which pain and mortify the visitors in their labor of love, are not
recorded. But such an instance as we have noticed above, will serve as a
reward for many years of toil, as compensation for many hundred
disappointments, and as encouragement to future exertions, and
especially to careful studies as to the best mode of improving the means
of usefulness. We are not to forget that the labors of the visitors are
low down. In other callings it is a comfort to know that the good have
been made better by well sustained efforts. The mission of the Society’s
Visitors is to those whom the world deems already lost. To snatch even a
few from the many, very many, of those who constitute the class of
depraved and criminal, publicly exposed, is a work in which the laborers
must find much of their reward in the sense of suffering mitigated, and
the feeling of kindness gratified. Their highest boast must be that God
has accepted the services for the permanent benefit of even a few.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account