shouse at Philadelphia, which was nearly
destitute of material aids, and had only superintendent, matrons, and
assistants, was, all in all, the best insane asylum in America.

We cannot neglect the claims of security, discipline, and labor, in the
erection of jails and prisons; but to acknowledge these merely will
never produce the proper fruit of punishment--reformation. Indeed,
walls of stone, gates of iron, bolts, locks, and armed sentinels, though
essential to security, without which there could be neither punishment
nor reformation, are in themselves barriers rather than helps to moral
progress. Standing outside, we cannot say what should be done either in
the insane hospital or the prison; but we can deduce from the experience
of modern times a safe rule for general conduct. In the insane hospital
the patient is to be treated as though he were sane; and in the jail the
prisoner is to be treated, nearly as may be, as though he were virtuous.
This rule, especially as much of it as applies to the prisoner, may be
recklessness to some, to others folly, to others sin.

"The court awards it, and the law doth give it," is no doubt the essence
and strength of governmental justice in the sentence decreed; but it
would be a sad calamity if there were no escape from its literal
fulfilment. And let no one borrow the words of Portia to the Jew, and
say to the state,

"Nor cut thou less nor more,
But just a pound of flesh."

As the criminal staggers beneath the accumulated weight of his sin and
its penalty, he should feel that the state is not only just in the
language of its law, but merciful in its administration; that the
government is, in truth, paternal. This feeling inspires confidence and
hope; and without these there can be no reformation. And, following this
thought, we are led to say, it is a sad and mischievous public delusion
that the pardoning power is useless or pernicious. It is a _delusion_;
for it is the only means by which the state mingles mercy with its
justice,--the means by which the better sentiments of the prison are
marshalled in favor of order, of law, of progress. It is a _public
delusion_; for it has infected not only the masses of society, who know
little of what is going on in courts and prisons, but its influence is
observed upon the bench and in the bar, especially among those who are
accustomed to prosecute and try criminals. This is not strange, nor
shall it be a subject of