to the State Prison, or to a house of correction or a jail, he will only in the first alternative be subject to a prison discipline of which the State under whose laws he is condemned, maintains the oversight. Thus prison discipline as a science, gains nothing from all the mass of experience of which these prisons are the repositories, nor does any thing learned at one of them, accrue to the benefit of the others.

I had proposed, in assuming these official duties for the first time, to devote myself to careful observation of our system of managing and dealing with the various exceptional classes, whether of crime, poverty, or misfortune. But I have not been able to do so. Commanding duties have left time only for the most superficial examination, and for but little and rude reflection.

I am satisfied, however, that with all the good these institutions accomplish, and all the suffering and evil they prevent, they will require in the future a more systematic control. The annual visits of the governor and council are of but slight advantage. They give, and can give, no intelligent direction. They can only help prevent or cure flagrant abuses. But where is the intelligent, educated body of experts and learned philanthropists and practical thinkers, to supervise this mass of human nature, in which the laws of either physical or moral being, or of social order, are broken, or awry? Who is there to analyze and sift out the knowledge that lies buried in the mass of

statistics which contain the dry bones of each year's certain range,

history? Who knows, beyond a whether the administration of all these institutions is really going right or wrong,-having reference to the advancement of society, and the real good of its unfortunate members?

There ought to be some person or board, whose business it should be to observe carefully, constantly, critically, with heart, mind, and eye; to compare from year to year what is done here and what is done elsewhere; to think out, and write out the scientific and practical directions of this comparative observation and experience, for the consideration of the people and the government.

I do not speak in the spirit of criticism, but simply of conservatism. I believe in knowledge and its uses; and that it does not come by accident or neglect. These public institutions, are, so far as I have been able to observe, better than I had supposed. We are fortunate in those who preside over them, and I cannot too thankfully applaud the wisdom and humanity which especially distinguish the administration of our retreats for the Insane. There, as in the School for the instruction of Idiots at South Boston, which is patronized by the State, we find the fruits of patience, learning, and humanity; and the saddest inflictions endured by our poor human nature, we see alleviated by the wise and kind intelligence of the leech," who has learned the art, by which he can

"minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out the written troubles of the brain."

I am obliged, however, to confess that the statutes of the Commonwealth regarding the Insane, and the legal proceedings to be had for inquiring into and adjudicating upon cases of insanity, and regulating admissions into the State hospitals, and concerning insane prisoners, are defective by reason of incompleteness, inconsistencies, and contradictions, needing thorough redrafting, simplification, abridgment, and alteration, without which they must remain behind both the humanity and the intelligence of the age. In revising the General Statutes these laws, passed at different times, with different puposes, and without systematic method, were brought together, but were not amended. The business of the revision was not thought to include that of amending; but simply of arranging the statutes as they were found; and therefore in this instance the revision serves to make more apparent the need of new legislation.

Criminal Costs and Procedure.

The subject of criminal costs, which has recently attracted especial attention, still challenges our care. They are still excessive, owing, in part, to the fact of the freedom with which prosecutions of no public utility may be promoted, and in part to the character

of criminal proceedings. The payment of trial justices by salary, requiring all their fees to be paid into the public treasury, the bringing the subject home more nearly to the people, by charging the costs of prosecuting minor offences upon the towns instead of the counties, and practicing greater care in the creation of new and artificial offences, somewhat abundant in modern legislation, would all tend to diminish costs by limiting prosecutions. And a reform in our criminal pleadings and procedure might well be inaugurated, which, by simplifying the pleadings, reducing the opportunities to criminals of escape through technical and formal accidents, and discouraging frivolous exceptions, would prevent mistakes, expedite judgments, and promote justice. It would be interesting, and if time would permit me, it would be instructive, to expose some of the peculiar infelicities of the ancient methods of criminal pleading; from which the statute commonly known as "Lord Campbell's Act,"-since substantially adopted in Pennsylvania, and some of the provisions of which were anticipated hereextricated the English practice some ten years ago. These illustrations, however, would readily occur to an intelligent committee in exploring our system and its operation. I respectfully recommend the investigation, with the single remark that many of the decisions, which, passing into precedents, have controlled the judicial mind, seem to mark the struggles of humanity in the hearts of the judges to escape the

consequences of cruel and sanguinary penal laws. What society needs is parental and not tyrannical government, firm, serene, and just, executing judgment without long delays, and with no uncertain aim, with penalties merciful and proportionate.

The Death Penalty.

I deplore the presence of the penalty of death still lingering on the statute-book of Massachusetts. Gradually receding in civilized legislation, as needless and dangerous, corrupting to some persons, and shocking to others, years of study and reflection confirm the opinion that it must certainly disappear from the category of penalties inflicted by the best ordered and most refined commonwealths. A natural method to the wild justice of the ruder forms and stages of society,-a hard necessity sometimes in the code of war,-it erects the gallows in a community like ours, only as a horrid spectacle, scaring the imagination and haunting the dreams of the sensitive; an intrusive reminiscence of more barbarous times; while it suggests to the hardened in crime only another disease, by which nature may one day pay its inevitable debt to mortality.

Education and Schools.

In casting our eyes over the resources, the industry, and the institutions of the State, we are struck by the idea of permanence, intelligence, and power they, in