When we consider that the obligations of benevolence, which are founded on the precepts and examples of the Author of Christianity, are not cancelled by the follies or crimes of our fellow-creatures: and when we reflect upon the miseries which penury, hunger, cold, unnecessary severity, unwholesome apartments, and guilt, (the usual attendants of prisons,) involve with them, it becomes us to extend our compassion to that part of mankind who are the subjects of those miseries. By the aid of humanity, their undue and illegal sufferings may be prevented; the links which should bind the whole family of mankind together, under all circumstances, be preserved unbroken; and such degrees and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested, as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow-creatures to virtue and happiness. From a conviction of the truth and obligation of these principles, the subscribers have associated themselves under the title of “THE PHILADELPHIA SOCIETY FOR ALLEVIATING THE MISERIES OF PUBLIC PRISONS.” For effecting these purposes, they have adopted the following CONSTITUTION. ARTICLE I.--The officers of the Society shall consist of a President, two Vice-Presidents, two Secretaries, a Treasurer, two Counsellors, and an Acting Committee, all of whom, except the Acting Committee, shall be chosen annually, by ballot, on the second Second-day, called Monday, in the month called January. (See 3d page of Cover.) [Illustration: FRONT VIEW. J. M^C ARTHUR JUN^R ARCH^T.] [Illustration: PLAN] APRIL, 1849. VOL IV.--NO. II. ART. I.--HOUSES OF REFUGE. I. _Twenty-first Annual Report of the Managers of the Philadelphia House of Refuge to the Legislature and to the Contributors thereto._ 1849, pp. 32. II. _Twenty-fourth Annual Report of the Managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents to the Legislature of the State and the Corporation of the City of New York._ 1849, pp. 50. We need, in some parts of the United States, a grade of penal institutions between what are called Houses of Refuge, or of Reformation for Juvenile Delinquents on the one hand, and the highest and best class of penitentiaries on the other.