- can character in general that I treat of. My opinions
and assertions are founded on my own limited observation, and on what I conceive to be authentic facts.
The European, on his first arrival in the United States, may perhaps expect to find sound republican principles, and good morals, pervading nearly the whole population. He has probably heard that capital punishments are rare, and from that circumstance, may have inferred that there are few crimes to punish. For some time this ideal character may be entertained. Newspapers will naturally be looked to, as the current records of delinquency; in these, multitudes of cases regarding the proceedings against criminals are entirely omitted. After some correspondence with the people, and after some observation of incidents, a sojourner from the old world will be apt to modify his original opinion.
{141} Last winter, a committee of inquiry into the state of the prison at Baltimore, stated in strong terms the inadequacy of the present modes of punishment, and the deplorable increase of offenders, who by their numbers threaten to overwhelm every lenient corrective. The confinement not being solitary, and the young being mixed with older and more experienced desperadoes, the institution intended for reformation is literally converted into a school of vice, where plans for future depredations are regularly concerted. The speech of Governor Clinton,[82]
