Non fortia loquor, sed possibilia

If I have been so fortunate as to convince my readers, that crime and misery are the natural and necessary consequences of our present system of prison discipline. I must now endeavour to demonstrate, that these may be avoided. I do nothing, I freely admit, if I shew that these evils exist, without proving that they might have been prevented. I may be answered thus:–It is true, that our jails are nurseries, schools, and colleges of vice;–true, our prisoners are rendered miserable as well as guilty;– true, their health and morals are tainted; but guilt and wretchedness are the inseparable concomitants of confinement, and must ever be so.

To prove that the reverse of all this is true,–that instead of health being impaired, it may be improved; that instead of morals being corrupted, they may be reformed; that these objects, so desirable to the state, may be accomplished by methods humane to the criminal, by a system of classification, industry, and religious instruction, is the design of the Second Part of this Pamphlet; and, abstaining from abstract reasoning, I shall appeal to experience and example.