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Beyond Penn's Treaty

The Life of Thomas Eddy; Comprising an Extensive Correspondence

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inspectors, and also the sole power to appoint the
keeper, agent, and other officers, and to remove them
in case of improper conduct, or want of sufficient
qualifications to discharge their respective duties.

I do not approve of dividing the prisoners into dif-
ferent classes, and distinguishing each class by dif-
ferent coloured clothing; and, if the plan I have pro-
posed be adopted, of having separate prisons for the
different descriptions of convicts, this plan of classi-
fication in any one prison will be useless, except
having a separate yard for those committed for second
offences.

The different prisons I have proposed, might be
built adjoining each other, but to have separate yards.
The whole might be under the same board of inspec-
tors. Recapitulation of my views of the most effectual
system for the protection of society against crimes:

A careful attention to early education, by amend-
ing our laws, so that every poor family in the state
should partake of the benefit afforded by our Com-
mon Schools. To establish a House of Refuge for Juvenile
Delinquents
. To erect in each county a prison to contain a
number of cells, to receive common drunkards, pros-
titutes, keepers of houses of ill fame, for gambling, or
those guilty of petty thefts, or vagrants, to be commit-
ted by a single magistrate, and confined from three
to thirty days, and kept on low diet without any
employment. Two State Prisons or Penitentiaries, properly
constructed, and subject to suitable regulations, for
persons convicted of grand larceny, and crimes of a
higher grade. I am, with great respect and esteem,
Your assured friend, THOMAS EDDY. New York, lst month, 7th, 1825.