Fifth, the foreign element in our population is far more apt to lapse into crime and pauperism, than the native. About thirty per cent. of our county prisoners, and nearly fifty per cent. of our county paupers, are of foreign birth. A large proportion of the remainder are of foreign parentage. As between the Irish and the Germans, who form the principal part of the foreign popalation, it may be said that the Irish are more apt to become paupers, while the Germans exhibit a larger relative proportion of criminals.

Sixth, crimes are infrequent, in proportion to the energy with which they are resisted. Thus crimes against property are four times as common as crimes against the person; and of crimes against property, more than two-thirds are larcenies.

Seventh, pauperism tends to become perpetual. Four-fifths of the inmates of the almshouses are classed as permanent paupers. Eighth, that nine hundred and forty-eight out of eighteen hundred and seventy-eight paupers reported, are idiotic, insane, deaf, blind, crippled, sick, or bed-ridden, and that two hundred and seventy-seven are minors, shows that the county almshouse system is not greatly abused, at present, in this state.

Ninth, the tendency of education to prevent pauperism, is more apparent than its tendency to prevent crime. Estimating the pauper children at one tenth of the whole number, and leaving them out of the calculation, forty per cent. of the inmates of the almshouses could not write, and twenty-five per cent. could not even read.

Tenth, pauperism and crime are so closely allied, that the same individuals belong to both fraternities. Five per cent. of the county paupers acknowledged to have been in jail. The same man is a criminal or a pauper, according to circumstances. He steals, when he cannot beg; he begs, when he cannot steal.

A FALSE THEORY.-Whoever should undertake, by a mere inspection of our county jails, to determine the relation between the criminal and non-criminal classes, would be driven to the conclusion that their mutual attitude is that of antagonists, wageing against each other a war of extermination, in which all risks are taken, all measures regarded as justifiable, and every reprisal so much clear gain. Mere suspicion of crime places the accused under ban, and deprives him of all rights, except those of an en

emy. The conversion of a criminal into an honest man, seems to be looked upon as so hopeless an undertaking, as to be unworthy even of an effort. He is treated as an outlaw, a foe to mankind, an Ishmaelite, whose hand is against every man, and every man's hand against him.

This view, unjust and untrue as it is, lies at the foundation of the county jail system.

ITS FALLACY POINTED OUT.-1. The first error, in the theory just stated, consists in a failure to discriminate between accusation and conviction.

The Roman law sharply distinguished the carcer, or house of detention, from the vincula publica, or house of punishment. Its maxim was, " Carcer enim ad continendos homines, non ad puniendos habere debet"—the carcer should be regarded as a place for detaining men, not for IMPRISONING them.

We overlook this distinction, and in practice confound the innocent with the guilty, by associating those awaiting trial with others who have been tried and sentenced, and subjecting both to the same hardships.

This evil will never be remedied, until the county jail ceases to be used as a place of punishment, and the state assumes the charge of all convicted criminals.

2. But the attitude of society toward criminals is equally shortsighted and injurious.

A man who becomes a criminal, in consequence of his own weakness, the strength of temptation, and the intensity of his unlawful desires, does not cease to be a man. As a man, he has rights, which, as men, we are bound to respect. We have no more right to infringe upon his rights, than he has to infringe upon ours. We may demand restitution. We may use all wise and lawful means to cure him of his weakness and criminal tendencies. But to outlaw him, to cut him off as an unworthy member, is like amputating a sore finger, without first endeavoring to heal the sore. Injustice to the criminal is an injury to society. Every wrong works out, in time, its own punishment.

The true light in which to regard offenders against the law, is that of men in whom there exists some natural or acquired defect, remediable or irremediable, due to the operation of causes* which may be ascertained.

*See pp. 16, 19.

Among these causes are physical organization, mental imbecility, ignorance, and the like.

The rational treatment of criminals involves an effort in each case, individually, to discover the cause of aberration, and if pos sible, apply the appropriate corrective or antidote.

If no corrective can be found and applied, then the question must be met: Is this man dangerous to society, or not? If not dangerous, he may safely be granted his liberty. If dangerous, then arises the further question, shall he be detained, as we detain a dangerous and incurable lunatic, for life?

According to this view, the attempt to graduate penalties according to the degree of the offense, upon the quid pro-quo theory, the lex talionis, is impossible in practice and wrong in theory. Why should a man who steals one dollar, be sent to jail? and the man who steals ten, sent to the penitentiary?

The supreme end of the penal system should be reformation, spiritual healing, the transfer of transgressors from the criminal to the non-criminal class.

The protection of society is a secondary object, and can be secured only by life-imprisonment of the incorrigible.

In the reformation of offenders, love is a more powerful instrumentality than fear. Fear degrades; love alone elevates.

Love and justice are identical. They are different phases of the same principle.

But the county jail system is founded upon fear, its aim is to terrify, it is unjust and unloving, it assumes that a certain amount of suffering will expiate a certain amount of guilt, it confirms criminal tendencies instead of eliminating them, it is questionable whether it diminishes crime, and it is terribly expensive.

It is expensive, because jails are houses of enforced idleness. Under competent management, every prison might be made selfsupporting. The criminal class ought to be made to pay the entire cost of caring for them.

III. REMARKS UPON THE COUNTY JAIL AND ALMSHOUSE SYSTEM.

JAILS.

Even a cursory reading of the accounts of the visits paid by the commissioners to the several counties, will make it evident, that the jails of Illinois, like those of all the other states, are, as a class, open to the following general criticisms:

1. As to their design.-The sole aim, in their construction, in the majority of instances, appears to have been security. "A good jail," in the popular estimation, is one which holds the prisoners confined in it. A jail from which they succeed in breaking out, "is a very poor jail."

2. Security. Notwithstanding the fact just stated, many of our jails are insecure. A jail is no stronger than its weakest part; and some part, either the floor or the roof or the walls or the windows or the doors, is by oversight or ignorance on the part of the builder, deficient in strength. Locks are used, which can be picked. Hiding places for tools and weapons are provided. The prisoners are so placed, as not to be at all times under the keeper's eye. Communication with outsiders is not rendered impossible. Some one of these, or if not, some similar criticism may be made concerning almost every jail in the state, though, some of them have cost large sums of money.

3. Ventilation.-The ventilation, in nearly all of them, is exceedingly imperfect. There are no openings for the ingress of fresh air; or if there are, there are none for its egress; or else there is no current, and no means of creating one; or the corridors are ventilated, and not the cells; or the ventilation of the cells is prevented by close iron or wooden shutters, with openings of insufficient size.

In many jails, in addition to the lack of a supply of fresh air, the atmosphere is contaminated by the gases from close stoves, and by the odors from privy vaults or from night tubs.*

*The following maxims concerning prison ventilation are condensed from an essay by John H. Griscom, M. D., of New York:

Fresh air is as important to health, as pure water or wholesome food.

Fresh supplies of food are required only three times a day, but air must be furnished twenty times every minute.

4. Sewerage.-Probably a majority of the jails visited have no sewerage. It is not an uncommon arrangement for the vault for the reception of excrements to be placed immediately under the jail, with openings, unprotected by traps, into the corridors, if not into the cells themselves. The inmates virtually spend their days and nights in a privy. The influence upon their morals as well as upon their health, cannot be otherwise than injurious.

5. Light.-An insufficient supply of light is almost universal. To prevent escapes, as few windows as possible, and these as small as possible, are placed in the walls. The light which enters the corridors often does not penetrate the cells. Sometimes the upper tier of cells is sufficiently well lighted, but the light is excluded from the lower tier by a platform nearly as wide as the corridor. There are jails in the state where an outsider, upon entering and closing the door behind him, cannot distinguish an object. There are others, where a prisoner in his cell cannot see to read, in the middle of the day.

6. Bathing.-Very few of the jails have proper conveniences for bathing the person. In fewer still, is personal cleanliness obligatory.

Impure food may be rejected by the organs of digestion, but the lungs have no power to reject impure air.

Unless oxygen is supplied, in sufficient quantities, to the lungs, digestion is impossible.

In ordinary household life, ten cubic feet per minute are required, to supply the lungs of each individual with perfectly pure air at every respiration. In prisons, where there is generally no cooking and but little combustion for warming and lighting, a supply of four cubic feet per minute, may be regarded as sufficient.

In a cell of the ordinary size, six feet by seven or eight, the supply, supposing no fresh air to be admitted from the outside, would last a prisoner about one hour and a quarter. In six hours, the same air would pass through the lungs four times. Two prisoners in a cell would of course consume it twice as fast.

A grated door to a cell furnishes about three times the amount of air contained in a cell entirely closed.

A cell of the size mentioned, contains about three hundred cubic feet. An ordinary bed-chamber contains from twenty-five hundred to three thousand cubic feet, and is better ventilated than most jails.

The effects of defective ventilation are physical exhaustion, disease and death. "Jailfever" (typhus carcerum,) is proverbial.

The supply of air furnished, by means of a ventilating apparatus, to the inmates of Pentonville prison, England, in their cells, is thirty cubic feet to each individual, per minute.