The Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (Vol. VIII, No. II, April 1853)Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Religion
The Pennsylvania Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy (Vol. VIII, No. II, April 1853)
Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons
Charities -- Periodicals; Prisons -- Periodicals
DEATH FROM SEPARATION!--A London paper tells us, that Mr. Bedford,
the coroner for Westminster, held an inquest lately in Millbank
Penitentiary, touching the death of Thomas Wilkinson, a convict,
aged nineteen years, a clothdresser, who was found one Sunday
morning lying dead and bleeding on the floor of his cell, having
cut his throat with a razor which was given him to shave, _during
the momentary absence of the warder in charge_. From the question
of convict prison discipline having recently been slightly agitated
in the public journals, the separate system was inquired into by
the coroner, who asked Dr. Baily if he could throw any light on
the case, to guide the jury as to the cause of the act. Dr. Baily
thought that it was brooding over the length of his sentence, and
stated further that, during eighteen years, in that prison, from
1824 to 1842, with an average of 454 prisoners, only three had
committed suicide, but then their sentences were only two, three or
four years. Again, in the ten years as a convict prison, from 1843
to 1853, there had been thirteen suicides. So that he thought it
was more the length of the sentences than the separate confinement,
although he must own that the latter would accelerate or aggravate
any disease which might be on a prisoner, and also tend to suicide,
by giving them an opportunity when they would be brooding over
a long prospect of imprisonment. The jury returned a verdict to
the effect that the deceased destroyed himself during a state of
temporary insanity, _brought on by the separate system_!
We have put a few words in italics to mark the absurdity of such
a verdict. (1.) No evidence of insanity is stated, except that
which the fatal act furnishes. (2.) As favorable an opportunity is
offered, during half of every twenty-four hours in a congregate, as
in a separate prison. (3.) If it is brooding over an unusually long
sentence that produces suicidal insanity, the verdict should be, that
the deceased destroyed himself during a state of temporary insanity,
brought on by a mistake of the law or of its administrators!
MURDERS IN PHILADELPHIA.--It is our painful duty to record three
deliberate and atrocious murders committed within the bounds of the
city of Philadelphia since our last issue.
The first was committed in broad day, in one of the most frequented
parts of the city, upon a man in his own store, and was attended with
circumstances of ferocity rarely equalled. The perpetrator of the deed
has not been discovered.
The second was the wanton butchery of an unoffending man, apparently
without any motive, except the indulgence of a blood-thirsty
malevolence.
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