How far this calculation may prove correct, remains to be proved by an actual enumeration. It is probably the nearest approximation that can be made in the absence of better information.

The Districts of Passyunk, Moyamensing, and East and West Southwark, contained in 1821, 4015 taxables, and in 1828, 5095-making an increase of nearly twenty-seven per cent.

Vice and Immorality-Messrs. Sullivan, Leech, Selfzer, Fullerton and Jackson.

To compare bills and present them to the Governor for his approbation-Messrs. Hay, Scott, Bertolet, Touston and Drumheller.

State Library-Messrs. Duncan, Burden and Kerlin. Thursday, Dec. 4. The message from the governor was read, and referred to Messrs. Hawkins, Hay and Scott.

On Friday morning John De Pui, Esq. was unanimously re-elected Clerk of the Senate.-Mr. De Pui nominated Walter S. Franklin, Esq. as his assistant, which was unanimously approved of.

Samuel S. Stambaugh was elected printer of the English Journal; and Jacob Stoever printer of the German Journal.

of the Senate.
E. F. Cryder & Co. were elected printers of the bills
Friday, Dec. 5.

Mr. Bertolet-the petition of citizens of the county of Schuylkill, praying for the creation of a fund for the formation of a general system of education. Referred to the committee on education.

The Districts of Kensington, Penn, and Northern Li- Mr. Hawkins, from the committee appointed to arberties, contained in 1821, 7396 taxables, and in 1828,range the several items of the governor's message, re10,971-being an increase of about forty-eight per cent. The result of the whole will stand thus:

The increase of taxables, from 1821 to 1828—

City

Northern Districts

Southern do.

City and County

27
33

66

46

ported sundry resolutions, referring the governor's mesage to committees, which were twice read and adopt

ed.

Mr. Krebs read in his place, and on leave given, presented to the chair, a bill, entitled an act authorising the governor to incorporate the Schuylkill Valley and Navigation Company.

Saturday, Dec. 6.

In 1786 there appears to be a striking difference between the taxables of the county and those in 1779, probaMr. Wise presented the petition of citizens of Westbly the effects of the revolution. Also, between the tax-moreland county, praying that a state road may be laid ables in the city in 1793 and 1800, occasioned perhaps by out from Robbstown in said county to Cooks-town in the different fevers within that period. Fayette county. Referred to Messrs. Wise, Drumheller and Ringland.

It is to be observed, that in 1825, there was an alteration of the limits of the Eastern Wards of the City, and an addition of a new ward, (Pine,) formed out of New ❤Market and Cedar wards.

From the table of votes it would appear that at neither of the late elections, did more than one-half of the taxables vote.

PROCEEDINGS OF THE LEGISLATURE OF
PENNSYLVANIA.
SENATE.

Tuesday, December 2, 1828.
At 11 o'clock the Senate met-present twenty-eight
Senators.

A resolution for furnishing each senator with three daily newspapers, &c. was adopted.

Mr. Hawkins offered a resolution, which was adopted, inviting the electors of president to convene in the senate chamber, to-morrow, at 10 o'clock.

The following are the standing committees of the senate, with the names of the members composing them. Accounts-Messrs. Logan, Hunt, King, Hay and Mor

ris.

Claims-Messrs. Herbert, Leech, Ray, Scott and Sul

livan.

Judiciary System-Messrs. Hawkins, King, Kelley, Miller and Morris.

Mr. Burden the memorial of Thomas F. Gordon, praying for legislative patronage for a Digest of the Statutes of Pennsylvania, about to be published by him. Referred to Messrs. Burden, Ray and Houston.

Mr. Hay-the petition of citizens of the city of Philadelphia, praying that the aldermen of the said city may be elected by the people. Laid on the table.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

DEC. 2d. The house met at an early hour, but adjourned till half past two o'clock in the afternoon, when 94 members answered to their names. Ner Middleswarth re-elected Speaker-resolutions passed to furnish members, &c. with newspapers, and to pay postage on letters, &c. documents to and from members.

Wednesday, Dec. 3.

In the House of Representatives-Mr. Wilkins presented a petition from inhabitants of Allegheny county, praying for an appropriation in aid of opening a road from Uniontown to Pittsburg.

Mr. Frick-four petitions from citizens of this commonwealth, praying for an appropriation in aid of imMilitia System-Messrs. Ogle, Ryon, Hambright, Ring-proving the state road from Rodger's Ferry to Sunbury. land and Seltzer.

Mr. Moore-a petition from inhabitants of Erie county, praying for the repeal of the acts which prohibit the issuing and circulating bank notes of a less denomina tion than five dollars.

Mr. Kerr-two petitions from inhabitants of Washington, Fayette, Westmoreland and Allegheny counties, praying for the erection of a new county out of parts of the said counties. Referred to Messrs. Kerr, Patterson, of Mifflin, Shindel, Lawson and Martin.

Mr. Simpson-two petitions from inhabitants of the city of Philadelphia, praying that provision may be made

Messrs. Bonsall, Cooper, Blodget, Petriken, Post, Caldwell and Lambert, a committee on education. Resolved, That a committee, to consist of three memMessrs. Kreps, Lauman, Siter, Gebhart, Cox, Hes-bers, be appointed, in conjunction with a similar comton and Livingston, a committee on domestic manufac-mittee of the Senate, if the Senate shall appoint such tures. a committee, for the purpose of respectfully inviting the President elect, and in the event of his acceptance, escorting him, as the guest of the people, from Pittsburg to Harrisburg, to participate in the anniversary festival of the 8th of January, 1815.

Messrs. Snyder, Champneys, Banks, Workman and Simpson were appointed a committee to arrange the va Messrs. Shannon, Hergesheimer, M'Reynolds, Has-rious items of the Governor's message. singer, Fuller, Galbraith and Boals, a committee corporations.

THE

REGISTER OF PENNSYLVANIA.

DEVOTED TO THE PRESERVATION OF EVERY KIND OF USEFUL INFORMATION RESPECTING THE STATE.

VOL. II.-NO. 23.

EDITED BY SAMUEL HAZARD.
PHILADELPHIA, DEC. 20, 1828.

NO. 51.

spectable position in society, how great a debt of gratitude dn you owe? Acquit yourselves of some small portion of it by helping your destitute fellow creatures. Think of the little neglected wanderer, abandoned to his own weakness, without parental instruction, without counsel, almost without a home, and extend to him some support, when he is in danger of falling; help to provide for him a Refuge, that the blossom of hope, which has lived through poverty and neglected, may not be finally blasted by the impure atmosphere of a jail. You will still be debtors, largely debtors; but when you are bestowing a parent's benediction upon the tender objects of your love, the tear of thankfulness and joy that springs from a grateful heart, will not be the less sweet or pure. for a consciousness that we have done something to impart to others a portion of that comfort which is so freely given to us.

Address delivered by the Hon. John Sergeant, on Saturday, 29th November, 1828.-(Concluded from p. 351.) The unhappy beings who are thus by the nature of our institutions, and for the security of society, placed in a course of training which must inevitably lead to misery and vice, who are hurried, as it were, to maturity of wickedness, often to premature, and sometimes to infamous death, are the children of the poor. They are generally neglected and destitute, frequently without parents or friends to advise or direct them; and there are not wanting numerous instances in which abandoned parents, for their own gratification, direct their children into the paths of vice, by sending them into the streets to beg or to steal. There is, besides, a case of by no means rare occurrence, appealing, if possible, still more powerfully to our sympathy-the case of a widowed We would remind our fellow citizens, in the next mother, who sees her son rushing upon destruction, and place, that the objection to individual aid applies equalis unable by any authority she can employ, or by any in-ly to every sort of contribution, of time as well as of fluence she can exert, to reclaim him from his evil ways, money; and, indeed, to every kind of exertion. Those or arrest him in his progress to ruin. Where can she who give their labour, give that which is as substantial, look for assistance or relief? If the power of the law and as valuable as money. But would it for a moment be interposed, it sends him to jail, where he becomes be insisted, that the faculties of individuals, their time, still more degraded, and is condemned to deeper con- their exertions, and their means, are to be entirely and tamination. The true judgment of a mother's never-exclusively devoted to their own individual concernsdying affection would readily assent to restraint, if ac- that no effort is to be made to devise improvements, no companied with care and instruction, and freed from the contribution of time, or talent, or money, to introduce stigma and the poison of a confinement in prison. But them-that the human intellect is to be bound up in the the jail she regards as an extremity so disastrous, that narrow limits of our own personal affairs, and the feeltears and prayers, and every exertion she can employ, ings of man to be quickened by no generous sympathy are used to avert it; and when at last it comes, it is an for others? Happily, there are very few who practioverwhelming calamity. Thus is she doomed to wit- cally adopt this doctrine. In a government like ours, ness the downward course, and final ruin of her child, where the representative is chosen from amongst ourwithout the power to save or to help him, like the poor selves, and is constantly dependent upon public opimother bird, that sees its unfledged brood, which it has nion, or support, he must be animated and sustained, in fed from its mouth, and sheltered with its wings, vio- all new undertakings of magnitude, by the expressed lently torn from the nest, and, helpless to preserve them sense of the community, and the assured co-operation of from the destroyer, can do nothing but utter a piercing his fellow citizens. His powers are limited; those of cry of anguish and despair. individuals are without restriction. This has been the This is no fancy sketch; nor is it drawn from other history of all improvements, and this is the history of all countries, or from other times. More than one unhap- the institutions of humanity which constitute the pride py and anxious mother has already applied to the mana- and the ornament of our city and our state. The enthu gers, and found a new hope in the prospect of a Refuge. siasm of private benevolence, guided by individual inIf such be the nature of the institutions and laws, and telligence, has led the way, and the Legislature has such their inadequacy, or worse than inadequacy, in the never been slow, in proper cases, to afford its aid in adcase of juvenile delinquents-if the security of society vancing the work. Look around you in every direc requires, that without regard to their feebleness, their tion: begin at a remote period; explore the foundationr destitution, their inevitable ignorance, they should be of all those establishments which Philadelphia can exhitreated as criminals, surely it is a noble charity which bit as "her jewels," and you will find that they were seeks to devise and to execute a plan for extending to laid by the hands of individuals, and in part, or entirely them parental aid, affording them the means of instruc-built up and sustained by individual contribution. There, tion, and leading them into the ways of industry and innocence-which endeavours to rescue them from the effects of their unfortunate condition, ascribing, with equal justice and humanity, their errors, and even their vices and their crimes, to the want of that aid which childhood always requires.

You, whom the bounty of Providence has blessed with the means of conducting your children with every advantage, through the periods of childhood and youth, of cultivating their moral and intellectual growth, of guarding them from the approach of danger, and in due time placing them with strengthened powers in a reVOL. II.

45

too, you will find, (its source hidden by time or distance,) the beginnings of the reputation of our benefactors; there you will discern the means by which the memory of the dead has come to us embalmed by their works of beneficence, still fragrant and fresh; and there too you will learn how their living followers are to make themselves worthy to be associated in the remembrance of posterity with their illustrious predecessors. What would Philadelphia have been without her institutions of humanity and charity? She would scarcely have deserved the title of a civilized or a Christian community. It may be difficult to draw with precision the line be

yond which individuals not to be expected to advance; riod referred to. Tried and untried prisoners, of all where they may, without hesitation, trust enti, ely to the ages and colours, and of both sexes, of every grade of interposition of the public power. There are cases, offence, and of every variety of character, and even the undoubtedly, where the legislature ought to have the poor debtors, who had conmmitted no offence at all, exclusive cognizance, and where the charge should fall were thrown into one common herd, in an ill contrived upon the public purse. There are cases too, where building, which retained the abomination of a subterrathe burthen must be borne by individuals. But there neous dungeon for prisoners under sentence of death. are cases where they may most beneficially co-operate, "What a spectacle," exclaims Mr. Vaux, "must this and in which it is impossible to determine the exact abode of guilt and wretchedness have presented"" proportion which shall fall upon each. But let us not be Well might he ask the question. A den of wild beasts, too anxious on this point. Charity, like mercy, "is desperate from confinement, and mad from hunger, twice blessed; it blesseth him that gives, and him that abandoned to the work of mutual destruction, would be takes;" and it is in the order of Providence that this bless- hut a faint type of such an assemblage. The brute ing shall never be wanting to him that gives. "He hath obeys his instinct; but to condemn a human being to an dispersed," says the inspired psalmist: he hath given existence where mere brutal ferocity will assume the to the poor; his righteousness endureth for ever; his dominion over him, is to be accessary to the crime of born shall be exalted with honour." In the very act of effacing the image of his Maker, and robbing him of charity there is a process of purification in the heart of the attributes of humanity. Many details will be found the giver, which elevates his feelings and improves his in the pamphlet, which time will not allow to be repeatcharacter. Besides, it is an individual duty, which ed. There is one, however, which is not less curious individuals only can perform. It must be voluntary. than important. Á clergyman,* who was a member of The moment it becomes compulsory, it is no longer the acting committee, proposed to preach to the prisoncharity. It may benefit "him that takes," but its virtucers. His efforts were resisted by the keeper; and when "to him that gives" is gone. at last by perseverance he gained admission, he found For this particular object, as entitled to individual (on a Sunday) a loaded cannon, with a lighted match care, we have the countenance of precept and example, beside it, prepared by the keeper, pointed at the priand the encouragement of the success which has follow-soners, and ready to do the work of destruction upon ed exertion in the same career. A little more than the least commotion. Such were the fears the keeper forty years ago, "the Philadelphia Society for alleviat-felt, or affected to feel, of his inmatesing the Miseries of Public Prisons," was founded by a few of the citizens of Philadelphia; and that venerable man, whose long life has been devoted to the service of his Maker and his fellow creatures, with exemplary purity and faithfulness, was appointed to the station of president, which he has since occupied without interruption, and still continues to occupy. "When we consider," they say in the preamble to their constitution, "that the obligations of benevolence which are founded on the precepts and example 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 these miseries. By the aids 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 ereatures to virtue and happiness." They soon after addressed the public, asking for pecuniary aid, stating that the funds of the society were confined to an annual subscription from each of its members, and a ground rent of fourteen pounds, the donation of John Dickinson, Esq.

It was with the sanction and the approbation of this society that the present plan was put forward, as a most material and humane improvement.

Is it necessary for me to add, as a further motive to influence the charitable, that wherever a Refuge has been established, its support, in whole or in part, has been supplied by the contribution of individuals? The London Refuge was thus begun, and has thus been maintained. In our sister city, which gave us an example of a Refuge in full operation before we had yet moved, the subscriptions of individuals have not only been larger than here, but they have borne a larger proportion to the aid afforded by the state. Shall we be outdone in charity? They laboured in an untried work; we have the light of their experience. They persevered in the face of doubt, and their exertions have been crowned with success. We have every ground of confidence, and yet the work languishes in our hands. The Legislature has given us a liberal carnest of its intentions. We have no reason to fear that it will ever be less disposed to extend its aid. It is for ourselves, then, to do what is now wanting, in humble reliance that what we do will not be done in vain.

But, the motives which have now been adverted to, are not the only ones which address themselves to us upon this interesting subject. Our interests, as well as our duties, are deeply concerned in it. The increase of juvenile delinquency has for a long time past occasioned the most serious apprehension and regret, wherever inquiry has been made into the state of crime and punishment. From this calamity, we are by no means exempt, On the 13th of the present month, there were in prison, under conviction, thirty-nine white boys, and twentyone black, making a total of sixty. Of the untried boys, we have no account: nor have we any account of the girls, as they have not been separated from their se niors in vice. The whole number, however, if ascertained, would by no means ascertain the extent of the evil. The repugnance to prosecuting children, even when they are detected in offence, and the inclination of courts and juries to acquit them, out of compassion for their tender years, rather than consign them to the destruction of a prison, leave many at large to pursue their course of iniquity. The aggregate cannot be conStill, with all its imperfections, our present system of jectured. It includes a great variety. Among the thirtyfers a striking contrast to that which existed at the pe-nine white boys named in the list from the prison, there are eleven who are styled by the keeper "good boys," * The Right Rev. Dr. White, Bishop of Pennsylvania from which we may understand that there is nothing in

This little band of philanthropists went resolutely to work, and in the forty years that have elapsed, have persevered unceasingly in their exertions to promote the humane objects of their association. Their history has lately been given to us by Mr. Vaux. It is not too much to say, that to their labours, under Providence, we are chiefly indebted for an entire revolution in the conduct and management of our prisons; to them, in a great measure, we owe the credit of having been the first to introduce the penitentiary system, as well as the amelioration of our penal code. If the penitentiary has failed of its purpose, from want of accommodation, or from other causes, it is to be hoped that the Legislature will afford the means of remedying its defects, and of giving it a fair and full experiment.

their dispositions or habits decidedly vicious. With care and instruction they would probably be reclaimed, and become useful members of society. But what is their condition now, and what are their prospects? Branded with the infamy of a jail-lost to the feeling of shame-turned loose upon the world-cut off from intercourse with the honest part of the communitywithout counsel, aid, or instruction, they are forced into the society of the vicious, and driven to crime for a subsistence. They are irretrievably lost, when they might have been saved. Rejected by society, excluded from honest occupation, with the world in hostility against them, they naturally become enemies of the world, and grow into the most desperate offenders.

ter them in the fulness of their stature and strength.-
She counsels us to eradicate them by culture before
they have struck too deep into the soil, and in their
place to sow the seeds of wholesome instruction.-
Wherever we succeed, we save a human being to so-
ciety, and we disburthen the jail of a permanent tenant.
If, notwithstanding our best exertions, some should be
lost, still we have the satisfaction of knowing, that but
for those exertions, all would probably have perished.
To fulfil that "obligation of benevolence," which, in
the language of the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating
the Miseries of Public Prisons, is not cancelled by the
follies and crimes of our fellow creatures," especially
towards those of them whose follies, or even crimes,
are the least reprehensible, and to supply that defect in
our criminal institutions which experience has shown to
contribute to the increase of crime, rather than to its
prevention, is the design of the House of Refuge.
It imposes restraint, for restraint is necessary no less
for the good of the subject, than for the security of so-
ciety. But it inflicts no punishment; it affixes no badge
of disgrace; it stamps no degradation; it regards its in-
mates as unfortunate children, exposed in their weak-
ness, without support, and bowed down by the storms
and temptations of life, but capable of being restored
to uprightness by steady treatment and judicious care.

An intelligent magistrate of England, in a letter recently published, has some very striking remarks on this point. They are entitled to great attention, because they are founded on actual observation, made in the course of a long experience. "Early imprisonment, therefore," he says, "is the great and primary cause from which crime originates. From this source most of the evils flow which affect the youthful offender, and at the earliest age lead him into those paths of vice, from which afterwards there is no escape; from which the light of hope is almost excluded, and where the tears of repentance are generally disregarded. Whatever may have been his first propensities at his first commitment, Upon this simple and humane basis, all the regulations he invariably becomes worse and worse, and leaves his of the House are framed. The general object is, to prison fully instructed in all the mysteries of crime. You impart to the inmates religious and moral instruction; will find the still lingering blush of shame quickly give to form them to useful and orderly habits; to furnish way to the stare of habitually profligate associates; and them with wholesome occupation; and at a suitable age, you will hardly recognise in the familiar boldness of the if they prove themselves worthy, to bind them as apfelon, the distressed and desponding novice in his pro- prentices to some reputable employment, so that they fession. To him to return is as fatal as to proceed; he may be enabled to earn an honest livelihood, and mainis impelled onwards by every impulse which bad exam-tain an honest station in society.

ple, bad company, and the scoffs of the world have rais- It affords me sincere satisfaction to be able to say, and ed in him; till at last he is driven down the gulf, which has so long yawned to entomb its living victim of destruction." (Sir Eardly Wilmot's letter.)

to the managers it affords the most confident hope, that the plan has proved eminently successful. So long ago as in the year 1819, Mr. Hoare, in his examination before a committee of the House of Commons, made this statement:—“In the different prisons I have visited, the reformation of the boys is generally considered as hopeless; in the Refuge we generally succeed. The classification is not so perfect as I think desirable, but the funds of the society are very low, and we are obli

In the sixth report of the committee of the Prison Society of London, it is remarked, that “Many hundreds of these lads (committed) have either no parents, or have been deserted by them. Thus abandoned, they have made fellowship with others alike friendless, contracted a desire for wandering, and an aversion to restraint; they live from day to day by preying on the pro-ged to do the best we can." perty of others; at night they usually sleep in the open air. Their minds are in a state of the darkest ignorance, and the grossest vice. They are very frequently brought up before the magistrates for petty offences. They are committed for short periods; and when liberated, are very soon again in prison. They continue pilfering, increasing in guilt as they advance in years, until their career is terminated by transportation or death." And in a note it is stated, that "one boy, but nine years of age, who has been under the notice of the committee, had been eighteen times committed to the different prisons in the metropolis."

The Warwick county Asylum (an imperfect Refuge, it would seem, where boys were generally received only after conviction, and consequently after the contamination of a prison,) established in 1818, and supported solely by voluntary contributions, is stated to have been of infinite benefit. Out of eighty-one boys, thirty-nine have been ascertained to have been permanently reformed; twenty-one have been since tried at Warwick, and sixteen remain. Boys, says Sir Eardly Wilmot, have occasionally been received into the Asylum without being tried and convicted; and I have it on the best au thority to say that the facility of reform is incalculably greater with such boys than with convicted felons,

In the London Refuge, and in the Refuge of New York, a friend who has accurately examined the statements, informs me that a permanent reform has been effected in the proportion of nine out of ten. The cases detailed are numerous and interesting, and it is desirable that they should be extensively known, as they present a most powerful argument in favour of the plan.

It is needless to dwell upon the facts which have been stated. They speak a language too plain to be misunderstood, and addressing itself to every thinking mind with irresistible force. Do you desire that crime should increase, that criminals should be multiplied, and become more hardened and dangerous? Do you wish that your security from depredation should be every day rendered more precarious, and the expense of providing guards for your property and pence, be constantly aug- There is reason to believe that a solution has thus been mented? Are you willing that the generation which is found for a difficult and afflicting problem. The public rising, and of which your own children form a part, security may be reconciled with a just and humane atshould be exposed to the evils that have just been exhi- tention to the circumstances of unfortunate youth. Our bited? You cannot be. The dictates of prudence, as feelings may be spared the dreadful sacrifice of juvewell as the suggestions of charity and mercy, say, No. nile victims, which existing laws and institutions have While compassion is pleading to the heart for the friend- demanded-prosecutors, magistrates, courts, and juries, less children of poverty and want, wisdom, speaking to may be relieved from the painful struggle between their the understanding, is telling us to beware how we en-duty and their strong inclination-the appalling increase courage or permit the growth of ruffian and lawless of juvenile delinquency be checked the quantity of propensities, lest, by and by, we should have to encoun- crime be diminished--and the seeds of vice, which are