Rules and Regulations for the government of the H. of Refuge, 104 275 PREFACE. THE subject of Penitentiary Discipline is of great and increasing importance to civilized communities. As the dictates of humanity gain an ascendency over the feelings of revenge in penal inflictions against crime, the judicious substitution of milder punishment in place of the more severe and sanguinary, is a matter which must necessarily engage the attention of wise and prudent Legislators. The welfare of society is deeply involved in the question of the most effectual mode of restraining vice, and preventing the commission of crime; and whether we consult the pages of sacred or profane history, or compare nations with each other in every stage of advancement from the savage to the most civilized, the soundest induction appears to be, that the most effective Legislation is that which is most conformable to the precepts of Christianity. In moral as well as corporeal diseases, it is a sound maxim, that "prevention is better than cure." A slight observation of the nature of the crimes which disturb society, and of the char acter of the criminals, will convince any intelligent observer, that the greater portion of those crimes originated in early moral debasement;-in the contamination of youth by vicious associations. It is on this ground that the Refuge establishments are founded-on the conviction that they will save to the communities in which they are erected, by their conservative and reformatory influence, a much greater sum than the cost of their maintenance. The House of Refuge in the city of New-York, being the first of the kind in the United States, by which the experiment of Juvenile Reformation has been fairly attempted, it has been thought desirable that the several papers and reports which relate to its rise and progress, should be brought together, in order to prevent their being scattered and lost, and to this end the present volume makes its appearance. |