APPENDED STATEMENTS.

THE STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN.

At this branch of the Prison at Sing Sing, Mrs. Pierre Van Cortlandt has carefully studied the wants of every inmate, and, with all the concern that a christian lady could have for the unfortunate and depraved of her own sex, her counsels have been given to the convicts before their liberation, and as long as her communication could be kept up. The summary of certain records kept by Mrs. Van Cortlandt concerning the liberated women, as shown upon a subsequent page, presents abundant evidence that, as she has remarked, were none of the unhappy women rescued from crime and wretchedness, still those causes that made them criminals must be ascertained and understood in order to prevent their occurrence in other lives. The duty thus undertaken by a most careful student of penal and reformatory discipline and instruction may ere long produce other fruit than that which the liberated women exhibit, as some do, in their penitent lives; the richer fruit of improved methods in the new organization of a State Prison and an Industrial Refuge for Criminal Women. In former reports the necessity for a classified or graded Prison, and especially for an Industrial Refuge for the convicts on their release from imprisonment, has been alluded to and strongly urged. The time has now arrived for a thorough investigation of the question, What ought the State Prison for Women to be?

It is not our purpose in this introductory note to the usual summary of the record from Sing Sing, to present any outline of a future duty, which must be largely shared by such ladies as Mrs. Van Cortlandt and Mrs. Lowell; but the time is near when all enlightened communities will arouse themselves to the fact that, terrible and costly as the career of a man wholly given up to crime may be, that of a woman is vastly more dreadful and more costly. Let the veil of silence be drawn between the scenes of depraved and desperate women in Police and Sessions' Courts and the citizens, who must instruct their police and court officers never to degrade woman or child in any place nor by any method. Until the State shall have provided a Prison and a Reformatory Refuge for criminal females, and until every county and city has more suitable places of detention for women than the present common jail, most of those who suffer arrest and conviction

for crimes will become destroyers and injurers for their lifetime. It must be remembered that hope cannot be extinguished in any mind without hazard to society itself, and that if smothered and blotted out in a female offender, her life thenceforward will cost the people vastly more when she is free from prison than when in, however great the expenses of the prison for women. The "Crofton system" of penal treatment as applied to female prisoners, provides so completely for rekindling the inspiration of hope and the light of religion in the minds and lives of the convict women, that the results have surpassed all that was promised or expected. But under that system, and as we may now expect, if a new prison for women is organized in New York, under the N. Y. Reformatory and Refuge system, convict women will never be sent rudely back into the communities whence they came, but only by preparatory and well-protected degrees, and through an Industrial and Instructional Refuge, in which each one acquires both the habits and the means, and even some well earned accumulations for her self-support. The Carlisle Refuge at Winchester, and the Wakefield Prison and Refuge in England, and the Industrial Refuges at Mountjoy and Golden Bridge in Ireland, have already borne riper and more abundant fruits of penitence and reformation than their founders would have predicted. The best of results attainable are those which prove that far the greatest number of convict women may be permanently withheld from crime and vice in all the future, and at the same time become selfsustaining by their well-learned trades and diligent occupations.

E. H., Cor. Sec'y.

REPORT ON THE STATE PRISON FOR WOMEN.

BY MRS. VAN CORTLANDT.

During the past year, seventy-nine female prisoners have served out their term of punishment, receiving commutation (one of the number dying on the day her sentence expired). I have visited all of these except two, from seeing whom I was prevented by illness, and was gratefully received by all save one a convict serving out her third term who rudely repelled all attempts at conversation. I mention this as a solitary instance, having visited up to January 1, 1877, 221 women, and having been cordially and pleasantly welcomed by them. Of the seventy-nine discharged convicts, thirty-seven own themselves intemperate, twenty-nine are under twenty-five years of age, sixty-five were serving out their first term, thirteen their second and one her third. Eighty-four women have been received at the prison during the year, two of them being convicts who had escaped and been recaptured, and two returned from the Lunatic Asylum; four have been transferred to the Asylum, two have been pardoned, and four have died in prison. I regret that I can add nothing to my last year's report on "Improvement in the Classification of Crime." The limited accommodation still makes it often necessary to put two women in one cell; and detrimental as this is, physically, the moral effect is far worse. Nothing can be accomplished in the way of reform until sweeping and radical changes are made. These will, no doubt, be made during the coming year, if the Legislature listen to the voice of the Investigating Commission, who unite in recommending the removal of the Female Prison from its present most unsuitable location. I forbear, therefore, from urging more room (a ward for the very sick and dying, and a place where the dead may be laid during the brief space intervening between death and burial) in the hope that, in a new prison, all these demands may be fully met. greatest importance to be done for those which should begin at the very threshold door close on those liberated women than speak advisedly, when I say that temptations assail them before they reach the railroad station at Sing Sing. In England, a matron accompanies every discharged convict to her home, if within a reasonable distance from the prison, delivering her over to her friends, or at least

There is a work of the leaving the prison-one for no sooner does the their danger begins. I

procuring her ticket and seeing her safely in the cars. As most of our convicts are from New. York, the expense of sending a matron would be small (infinitely small when compared with the good effect gained). Three hundred dollars per annum would be a very liberal allowance for this purpose. Beside, in some few cases, insuring the future well-doing of the convict, by returning her to home influences and restrictions, the matron, if sensible and shrewd, would obtain some inkling of the surroundings which might be of use hereafter. Should the State grudge this small amount of expenditure, are there not Christian men and women in the great city who can and will place this amount in the hands of the managers of the "Isaac T. Hopper Home," and enable them to send a proper escort for the outgoing convict? Within the last six months I know of two women who, I think, would have gone to that Home, but who, before they reached New York, were induced to give up their good intentions. I do not pretend to say that the

home influences are in all cases good; many of the women have been trained up to crime in their own homes, and follow it with a persistence which, if applied to better things, would have distinguished them; but there are many young girls who would fain go to their homes, and, for shame's sake, dare not; yet who, escorted and cheered by a judicious matron, might be induced to return and lead lives of honesty and virtue. Is not the experiment worth trying for at least one year? For those who have no home or friends, a place ought to be provided where they may be trained for honest labor. The "Isaac T. Hopper Home" could not take in all these women; and, indeed, a Country Home would be preferable, for obvious reasons. No one but those conversant with these convicts can realize under what discouraging circumstances they are launched from the prison into the vortex of the city streets. If they escape the perils of the way, and do not desire to return to their old haunts, what are they to do? They are penniless, and "move on," from a policeman, is their first experience so they move on, and where? Those who return to serve out a second term can best answer that question! Kindly-hearted people talk over this sad state of things, and would gladly, they say, help to remedy it, and there it ends! They cannot take a discharged convict into their homes; indeed, it would not be wise to do so. They could, however, give practical aid by establishing a "Country Home" where these poor struggling sinners might rest for a short time before going out into the world again. We cannot rid ourselves of this responsibility. In the truthful words of Miss Mary Carpenter, "they are part of our society,' they belong to ourselves, they are our convicts'" and we must help them to better

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things; aiding them to "live down" their guilty past, providing them with honest employment and watching over and guiding them.

One word for the little children born in the Prison. The State does not cumber itself with these "waifs and strays," save to order where they shall go when old enough to leave their mothers; and the very scanty wardrobe needed by them is usually given by the matrons out of their meager salaries. This should be remedied at once.

I cannot close without acknowledging the unvarying kindness and courtesy of Mrs. Clark and her assistant matrons. Every visit I make affords more and more insight into their duties, trials and responsibilities, and causes fresh'amazement at their patience and endurance.

CATHARINE E. VAN CORTLANDT.

REPORTS OF SPECIAL COMMITTEES.

It is expedient to present only a few of the reports from the counties in this place, and to invite attention to the special points which these contain. The efforts which must be put forth for the total reconstruction of the system of jails and minor prisons, for the use of county authorities, before any reconstruction of the old county jails is thought of, cannot be much longer delayed.

ALBANY COUNTY.

"The county jail contained 68 inmates on the 1st of January, 17 of which were females, and 3 were children under 16. *** Giving permanent employment to men leaving the Penitentiary does more for them than it would be possible to do with money." ""**

ALBANY, January 25, 1877.

CHARLES REYNOLDS,

Secretary."