Gazette Of The United States

Philadelphia,
SATURDAY EVENING, May 28, 1796.

Extract of a letter from a gentleman in London, to his friend in this city.

"How comes on the Philadelphia penitentiary house? I see the success of the plan highly spoken of in the governor's address to the Legislature, which gives me sincere and lively pleasure -- I rejoice to find that the attention of Congress has been drawn to the subject, that there is a prospect of their penal code being ameliorated and of the same respect being paid in the laws of the union, to the preservation of life, and the prevention of crimes, as in the laws of individual states. What a reflection is it on the humanity, nay, indeed on the wisdom and policy of the rulers of states and nations that so little attention should have been given, and such faint exertions made, to reform rather than to extirpate, to reclaim rather than punish. I most ardently hope, that we may both live to see the day (and that at no remote period) when by the diffusion of knowledge, the increasing influence of the most liberal philanthropy, but more especially -- by a true understanding and practice of genuine unadulterated christianity, man may learn to love and do good to his fellowman, and the punishment of death be forever abolished.

"Convinced as I am, that society has no right to take away -- the life of any citizen, I am also convinced, that the period is rapidly approaching, when governments will think it as impolitic as it is wrong to exercise this assumed power."