ence of this system upon the health, we refer the reader to doctor Franklin Bache's letter to Mr. Vaux, contained in No. 8 of the Journal of Law (Philadelphia, October, 1830), which concludes with the words "We may assert that the entire seclusion of criminals from all association with their fellow criminals, is altogether compatible with their profitable employment at useful trades, and with the preservation of their health." And in his letter to bishop White and others, Mr. Vaux adduces facts to confirm this statement. Not one case of the Asiatic cholera appeared in the Eastern prison of Pennsylvania, whilst the disease swept away numbers in the city of Philadelphia and its environs; and the prison stands close by the city. The report mentioned above will be, we understand, entirely satisfactory on the point of the health of the prisoners. The expense of the Pennsylvania system has always been considered a great objection to it. It is true that the Eastern prison has cost much; but another prison could be built much more cheaply; and, probably, experience will show the possibility of further reductions, though this system may always be more expensive than the other. Yet the advantages are so great; the final saving of the government, by preventing all the prisoners from leaving the prison worse than they were at the time of entering it, and by dismissing many who will return to duty and usefulness, is so decided; and the necessity of the system, if any of the desirable objects are to be obtained, so imperious, that we believe the greater expense ought not to be considered an objection wherever means exist to meet it. We shall quote Mr. Vaux also respecting this point. It is certain that the prisoners do not leave the Pennsylvania penitentiary worse than they entered it, are not irritated and embittered against mankind, and, if they have truly resolved to become better, are not exposed to be driven by associates in the prison to the commission of new crimes, which has hitherto been so common an occurrence, as every one knows who has paid attention to the history of convicts. Men confined in common prisons, or even in those conducted on the Auburn system, find it extremely difficult, after their release, to disentangle themselves from the net of vice, though they may earnestly wish to do so. But the Pennsylvania system does not even allow the convict to know the names of his fellow prisoners. The wish to return to a *See note, p. 527, post, respecting the report of Messrs. Beaumont and Toqueville to the French gov.

life of honest industry is not so rare in released convicts as most persons suppose, provided the prisoner has not been kept in a state of constant contamination. A vicious life is not comfortable; generally the causes which make a wicked person prefer the path of crime to an honorable life, are twofold-idleness, reluctance to regular labor, and the love of excitement. If you can overcome these two disposi tions; if you can instil into the convict a love of labor, and make it a habit with him; and if you can cure him of the craving for excitement, you will, in most cases, have laid the firmest foundation for a thorough reformation. Now, labor appears to the prisoner in solitary confinement as the sweetest comfort. He asks, he begs for it; and no punishment could be harder than denying him the comfort of labor in his lonely cell They all will tell you so. And as regards the second point, what more effectual means can be found of curing a man of a vitiated love of excitement (such as is found in robbers, pirates, burglars, &c.) than uninterrupted confinement in solitude for years? It is a severe infliction, indeed; but it is effectual, and not more severe than is necessary. Another objection to perpetual solitude is, that the convicts cannot worship together; but in the Eastern prison of Pennsylvania, they have preaching addressed to them. A curtain is drawn along the corridor, the sound-hole of each cell is opened (see the description of the building in the article Prison Discipline), and the preacher stands at one end of the corridor, from which he may be heard by all the prisoners in that corridor, though no convict can see into the opposite cell, being prevented by the curtain.-In our opinion. the Pennsylvania penitentiary system is the creation of a spirit of enlightened humanity, which reflects the greatest bonor on the disciples of Penn, and has solved one of the most difficult probleros presented to the lover of mankind. If widely adopted, as it probably will be, it bids fair to accomplish all that can be attained in the way of prison discipline. We would direct our reader's attention to an interesting letter on the subject of solitary confinement, written by a convict, and appended to Mr. Vaux's letter, quoted above, and will conclude our remarks with a summary taken from Mr. Vaux's letter to Mr. Roscoe :-" By seperate confinement, it is intended to punish those who will not control their wicked passions and propensities, and, moreover, to effect this punishment without ter

minating the life of the culprit in the midst of his wickedness, or making a mockery of justice by forming such into communities of hardened and corrupting transgressors, who enjoy each other's society, and contemn the very power which thus vainly seeks their restoration, and idly calculates to afford security to the state, from their outrages in future. In separate confinement, every prisoner is placed beyond the possibility of being made more corrupt by his imprisonment. In separate confinement, the prisoners will not know who are undergoing punishment at the same time with themselves, and thus will be afforded one of the greatest protections to such as may happily be enabled to form resolutions to behave well when they are discharged. In separate confinement, it is especially intended to furnish the criminal with every opportunity which Christian duty enjoins, for promoting his restoration to the path of virtue; because seclusion is believed to be an essential ingredient in moral treatment, and, with religious instruction and advice superadded, is calculated to achieve more than has ever yet been done for the miserable tenants of our penitentiaries. In separate confinement, a specific graduation of punishment can be obtained, as surely, and with as much facility, as by any other system. Some prisoners may laborsome may be kept without labor-some may have the privilege of books-others may be deprived of it-some may experience total seclusion-others may enjoy such intercourse as shall comport with an entire separation of prisoners. In separate confinement, the same variety of discipline, for offences committed after convicts are introduced into prison, which any other mode affords, can be obtained (though irregularities must necessarily be less frequent), by denying the refractory individual the benefit of his yard, by taking from him his books or labor, and lastly, in extreme cases, by diminishing his diet to the lowest rate. By the last means, the most fierce, hardened and desperate offender can be subdued. From separate confinement other advantages of an economical nature will result: among these may be mentioned a great reduction of the terms of imprisonment; for, instead of from three to twenty years, and sometimes longer, as many months, excepting for very atrocious crimes, will answer all the ends of retributive justice, and penitential experience, which, on the actual plan, the greatest detention in prison alto

gether fails to accomplish. Besides this abatement of expense in maintaining prisoners, very few keepers will be required on the new system; and the females should be intrusted wholly to the custody of suitable individuals of their own sex, whose services can, of course, be secured for less compensation than those of men. Such of the prisoners as may be employed, will necessarily labor alone; and, the kinds of business in which they will be engaged not being as rough and exposing as those now adopted, the expenditure for clothing must be much diminished. On the score of cost, therefore,-if that indeed be an object in a work of this magnitude, the solitary plan recommends itself to the regard of the public economist. But the problem of expense, in my opinion, can only be truly solved by showing the cheapest method of keeping prisoners to be, that which is most likely to reform them, to deter others, by the imposing character of the punishment, from preying upon the honest and unoffending members of society, afterwards involving heavy judicial costs to establish their guilt, and becoming, at last, a charge to the country as convicted felons."

PÉRIER, Casimir, died at Paris, May 16, 1832.

PETS. (See Funfkirchen.)
PHANARIOTS. (See Fanariots.)

PHANSYGURS, or THUGS; a remarkable race of professional murderers in some parts of Hindoostan. Having been compelled, in a great measure, to abandon their sanguinary trade in the original territories of the British government, they have, of late years, pursued their operations principally in the newly-acquired provinces of North-western and Central India, where, from the scantier population, and comparatively backward state of the country, they run less hazard of interruption. A thug is a Hindoo of a low caste, or a Mussulman, who, at the conclusion of his agricultural labors, about the commencement of the hot season, in March and April, quits his village, and goes forth to make a little money by strangling—an art in which he sometimes becomes a great proficient, always, if dexterous, performing it with a pockethandkerchief, in preference to a noose, to avoid suspicion. The hot season is chosen for this excursion, because then people travel by night, and thus afford better opportunities for attack. When the rainy season begins, in July or August, the thug returns, with his share of

the booty which the gang have accumulated, to his usual residence, and takes to ploughing the field, like a peaceable husbandman. In this alternation of agricultural and homicidal pursuits, the thug lives on, often undetected, till age obliges him to remain at home, and send out his son in his stead. "I am a thug of the royal records (meaning one of sufficient notoriety to have been recorded as such), and my forefathers before me, for seven generations, have followed this profession," was the boast of one of these wretches, who attach some pride to the number of generations through which they can trace the adherence of their family to this pursuit. In the wild and unsettled parts of the country, their associations assume a more distinct and separate character; and in such places the leaders are to be found, around whom, at the beginning of the season, the mere operative thugs assemble. The abodes of the latter, however, are often mingled with those of the inhabitants of the most civilized stations and villages, where their conduct is usually quiet and inoffensive. On assembling at the beginning of the season, the line of road which they are to pursue is settled, and then they separate into small parties, under all sorts of disguises, sometimes travelling as sepoys returning home on a furlough; sometimes appearing, one as a merchant and another as his attendant; sometimes personifying pilgrims. In these characters they insinuate themselves into acquaintance with travellers, and, if they find them to be rich, take an opportunity of despatching them, either by means of some stupefying drug, which they use in the tobacco of their hookahs, and the dagger, or else by throttling them with a pocket-handkerchief, when they have persuaded them to halt, at some convenient spot, under pretence of being fatigued, or wishing to take rest. The bodies of the victims are then buried, or thrown into a well or neighboring cavern. In this manner, a single gang, consisting of twenty-five thugs, has been proved, on trial, to have, in an excursion of six weeks, despatched thirty victims.

PHIGALIA MARBLES; a series of sculptures, in alto relievo, in the British museum, so called because they were discovered in the year 1812, near Paulizza, supposed to be the ancient town of Phigalia, in Arcadia. They are from the temple of Apollo Epicurius; and the subjects represented are the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithæ, and the contest between

the Greeks and Amazons. There is great ability displayed in the execution of these marbles, although some heaviness and disproportion are observable in the fig ures. The conception of the whole, and the composition of the various groups, are, however, remarkably fine, and compensate, in a great measure, for the defects above mentioned. The circumstance which renders these marbles particularly interesting is the knowledge of the time at which they were executed; for Pausanias (Arcad., c. 14) says that the temple of Apollo Epicurius was built by Ictinus, the architect who superintended the construction of the Parthenon at Athens; and, though the Phigalian marbles want the purity of design and execution which distinguish the Athenian works, the high qualities they do possess give them an elevated place among the remains of ancient art.

PHRYGIAN CAP. (See Mitre.)
PIE. (See Magpie.)
PINE-SNAKE. (See Serpent.)
PITHECUS. (See Ape.)
PITHYUSE. (See Baleares.)
PLEA, PLEADINGS. (See Issue.)
PLINLIMMON. (See Snowdon.)
PLUVIOMETER. (See Rain-Gauge.
POLECAT. (See Skunk.)
POLIZIANO. (See Politianus.)
PONT DU GARD. (See Gard.)
PRAIRIE DOG. (See Marmot.)
PRESUMPTIVE HEIRS. (See Apparent.)
PRIMER SEISIN. (See Tenures.)
PTARMIGAN; a species of grouse. (See
Grouse.)

PTISAN. (See Tisan.)
PYCNITE. (See Topaz.)
PYRENEITE. (See Garnet.)
PYROPE. (See Garnet.)
PYROTARTARIC ACID. (See Tartaric

Acid.)

PYTHON. This enormous genus of serpents, which is very often confounded with the boas of the new continent, is found only in some of the hot regions of the eastern continent. The pythons have the ventral plates narrow, like the boss, but differ from the latter in having double plates under the tail. Their head has plates on the end of the muzzle; and there are fossets to their lips. Some species of this genus approach, and even equal, the boas in size; and the ancients appear to have had some acquaintance with several of them. Aristotle speaks of African serpents as long as vessels, by which a galley with three oars might be overturned. Pliny talks of Indian serpents capable of swallowing deer.

riving, the separation of the boards or spars necessarily followed the direction of the grain; and hence the strength of the material was secured at its maximum ratio, the disruption of fibre being much less easily effected in split than in sawn timber. It is equally certain that wood cut in this primitive manner must often be crooked and irregular. This, however, in many respects, may be no disadvantage, but, for some purposes, a desideratum, as in ship-building; besides, the straightening of it would not always be impracticable. It is to the invention of the saw, however, that we owe the ease, economy and regularity, with which the largest trees are separated into useful portions by modern industry. That the saws of the Grecian carpenters were pretty similar in form to those at present in use, is satisfactorily inferred from a painting found at Herculaneum, in which two genii are represented at the end of a bench, consisting of a long table, each end of which rests upon two four-footed stools. The instrument in this representation resembles our frame saw it consists of a square frame, having in the middle a blade or web, the teeth of which stand perpendicular to the plane of the frame. The arms, too, in which the blade is fastened, have the same form as that which is at present given to them. The piece of wood which is to be sawn extends beyond the end of the bench; and one of the workmen appears standing and the other sitting on the ground. This is probably the most ancient authentic voucher extant, for the early existence of an instrument resembling our common saw. Montfaucon has given figures of two ancient saws, though too imperfectly delineated to allow their peculiar formation to be distinguished. Palladius describes saws fastened to a handle; and Cicero, in his oration for Cluentius, incidentally mentions one with which an ingenious thief sawed out the bottom of a chest. Since the fourth century, if not earlier, the working of large saws, with a reciprocating motion, by means of water power, has been more or less common in various parts of Europe, especially in Germany, Norway, and, at a later period, in England. A succinct account of these early saw-mills will not be out of place here. According to Beckmann, there were saw-mills at Augsburg as early as 1322. When settlers were first sent out to the island of Madeira, which was discovered in 1420, not only were the various kinds of European fruits carried thither, but saw-mills were erectfor the purpose of cutting into deals the

many species of excellent timber with which the island abounded, and which were afterwards transported to Portugal. About the year 1427, the city of Breslau had a saw-mill which produced the yearly rent of three merks; and, in 1490, the magistrates of Erfurt purchased a forest, in which they caused a saw-mill to be erected; and they rented another mill in the neighborhood besides. In Norway, which is covered with forests, the first saw-mill was erected about the year 1530. This mode of manufacturing timber was called the "new art;" and, because the exportation of deals was by means thereof much increased, this circumstance gave occasion to the deal tithe imposed by Christian III, in the year 1545. In 1555, the bishop of Ely, ambassador from Mary, queen of England, to the court of Rome, having seen a saw-mill in the neighborhood of Lyons, the writer of his travels thought it worthy of a particular description, from which it appears that the motion of the blade was perpendicular: for, says the account, the wheel "being turned with the force of the water, hoist ed up and down the saw." Peter the Great introduced the saw into Russia. For this purpose policy was necessary. The czar, during his residence in England, and while employed as a carpenter in one of the dock-yards, had, in all prob ability, both seen the advantages of the saw, and used it with his own hands. On his return to St. Petersburg, the capital of his dominions, among other things that attracted his attention as requiring reform, was the practice of riving timber. Peter saw the necessity of introducing a more rational mode. Instead, however, of interdicting the old method, he imposed a duty upon all the split timber that was floated down the Neva, while sawn deals were exempted from the impost. By this course, the rude practice of riving was soon superseded by the more effective operation of the saw wrought by mechinery. In the sixteenth century, milis became general, in which, by working several saws parallel to each other, s plank was at once cut into several deals. The Dutch have claimed the invention of this improvement; and a great number of saw-mills of this kind might formerly be seen at Saardam, in Holland. first mill, however, of this description, is believed to have been erected in Sweden, in the year 1653; and one of the wonders of that kingdom was a mill having the water-wheel twelve feet broad, and giving motion to seventy-two saws. common hand-saw, similar to that so

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