European Prison Discipline [pp. 772-781]

European Prison Discipline.
God in Saint Lazare, than in any
ordinary prison or workhouse.
Two objections which may be made
to the system of treatment adopted
at Saint Lazare, I will try to answer
before enumerating the very details
which would probably suggest them.
In the first place, it may be urged
that the prisoners are made so comfortable that imprisonment becomes
a reward rather than a punishment,
a bribe rather than a threat. Secondly, it may be with truth asserted that
the wicked poor receive better care
in such an establishment, than society gives to the virtuous poor who
have never seen the inside of a jail.
To the first objection I answer,
that imprisonment is never easy for
such women to bear, because the
passions which bring them so low,
love of excitement and vanity, find
no food in a well-ordered prison;
that the opposite system has been tested ever since the world was, and still
the world overflows with impenitent
sinners; that at least half the prisoners of Saint Lazare are wicked for
want of precisely what they find
there-judicious training; a decent
dwelling-place, good example; and,
last and best reason of all, that this
system is the one most in accordance
with the teaching and example of
Christ.
And my answer to tle second objection is this. Let us seek out the
honest poor, provide them with decentlodging-houses at low prices, with
practical education, useful and entertaining reading, innocent amusement,
and, above all, with religious and moral instruction; but do not let us relax our efforts to reform sinners
merely because we have shamefully
neglected our duties toward saints.
We may say truly that the respectable
poor are hard to find, because their
very virtues conceal them from the
public eye. XWe have no such excuse
where sinners are concerned; for
they are festering in every jail, penitentiary, and almshouse in every city
throughout the world. Justice, not
charity, demands that society should
provide decent asylums where its victims may hide their wretchedness.
But let us examine the discipline of
Saint Lazare in detail, that the reader may judge for himself whether
these objections have been satisfactorily disposed of.
The inmates are divided into three
classes: ist. Women who have been
tried for crimes and condemned;
2d. Filles pubiques, consigned to
St. Lazare by the police for sanitary
or other reasons; 3d. Young girls
and children sent thither by their
parents (correction paernelle) for safe
keeping, or brought there by the police as vagrants.
The uniform is neat and inconspicuous, dark blue for one class of offenders, and maroon for the other; I
think the children wear no uniform.
The clothes-rooms are arranged very
methodically, under-clothing and
dresses being laid on shelves in orderly piles which would satisfy the
most fastidious Yankee housekeeper.
The common prison garments are
comfortable and well made; but there
is a higher grade of clothing for those
who can afford to pay for it, who are
there on "pistole," as the technical
term is, taken from an old French
coin. The same is to be said of
food and lodging; comfortable accommodations being provided for all,
while smnall luxuries can be purchased at a small expense. Tariffs are
posted all over the prison, that the
inmates may know the fixed prices
of various articles, and not be subjected to dishonesty on the part of subofficials. The present writer, who
endured the terrible ordeal imposed
on all conscientious visitors; of tasting everything the various kitchens
778