SUBJECTS OF INQUIRY CONCERNING PRISONS.

1. Situation. Is it near a town, river, or other buildings? What is the height, length, &c. of the wall? What is the expense, design, number of the prison buildings; and when they were erected?

2. Interior of the yard. Is it dry, paved, watered, and drained? Are the walls white-washed? privies and drains cleansed?

3. Day Rooms. What is the size, number, mode of airing, lighting, warming, cleansing, furnishing, fastening?

4. Night Cells. What is the size, number, mode of airing, lighting, warming, cleansing, furnishing, fastening?

5. Hospital. What is the salary and duty of the physician, and how is he supplied with medicine? What is the character and compensation of the nurse? What is the number of deaths; and of what diseases?

6. Officers. Inspectors-their number, duty, mode of appointment, and compensation? Keeper-his name, residence, former occupation, character, duties, compensation, time of holding his office? Turn-keys-their number, duty, salary?

7. Prisoners. Their number, age, color, sex, nativity, crime, sentence, frequency of conviction?

8. Admission of Prisoners. As to cleanliness, clothing, fees and garnish? 9. Admission of Prisoners' Friends. Who are admitted, at what hours, and under what circumstances?

10. Admission of Visiters. On what conditions, and by whom attended? 11. Moral Treatment. Classification, instruction and employment?

12. Punishments. By solitary confinement, chains, stripes, or all of them? 13. Religious Instruction. Of the chapel-its size and regulations? Of the chaplain - his character, residence, duties and compensation? Of the Bible-number, mode of distribution; effects, whether good or bad; perused or neglected; preserved or destroyed?

14. Exercise. When, where, and under what circumstances?
15. Food. Its quantity, quality, mode and time of distribution?

16. Clothing. How much, by whom supplied, how often changed and cleansed?

17. Cleanliness. Is it daily? Are soap and towels furnished? Can the prison dress be washed? How often do they shave and cut their hair? Is there a bath, and how often is it used?

18. Discharge of the Prisoners. At what time in the day? With what means of providing for themselves? With clothing or money?

19. Vices of Prisoners. What are they? Any drunkenness, gambling, profane swearing, fighting, combinations against society, insurrections, false keys, weapons of death? Any rum, cards, instruments of mischief, newspapers, plates to make counterfeit bills, or dies and presses to alter them? Any counterfeit coin and moulds? Any good or bad money? Any cases of punishment for unnatural crime? How are these things done without disy? Hola covery? How are prohibited articles obtained? Where are they concealed? is thort ar What is the effect of the system on character?

PUBLISHED AT THE SOCIETY'S ROOMS,
51 Court Street.

STEREOTYPED AT THE

BOSTON TYPE AND STEREOTYPE FOUNDERY.

OF THE

Prison Discipline Society.

ARTICLE 1. This Society shall be called the PRISON DISCIPLINE SOCIETY. ART. 2. It shall be the object of this Society to promote the improvement of Public Prisons.

ART. 3. It shall be the duty of this Society to take measures for effecting the formation of one or more Prison Discipline Societies in each of the United States, and to cooperate with all such Societies in accomplishing the object specified in the second article of this Constitution.

ART. 4. Any Society, having the same object in view, which shall become auxiliary to this, and shall contribute to its funds, shall thereby secure for the Prisons, in the State where such Society is located, special attention from this Society.

ART. 5. Each subscriber of two dollars, annually, shall be a Member.

ART. 6. Each subscriber of thirty dollars, at one time, shall be a Member for Life.

ART. 7. Each subscriber of ten dollars, annually, shall be a Director.

ART. 8. Each subscriber of one hundred dollars, or who shall, by one additional payment, increase his original subscription to one hundred dollars, shall be a Director for Life.

ART. 9. The officers of this Society shall be a President, as many Vice-Presidents as shall be deemed expedient, a Treasurer, and a Secretary, to be chosen annually, and a Board of Managers, whose duty it shall be to conduct the business of the Society. This Board shall consist of six clergymen and six laymen, of whom six shall reside in the city of Boston, and five shall constitute a quorum. Every Minister of the Gospel, who is a Member of this Society, shall be entitled to meet and deliberate with the Board of Managers.

The Managers shall call special meetings of the Society, and fill such vacancies as may occur by death or otherwise in their own Board.

ART. 10. The President, Vice-Presidents, Treasurer, and Secretary, shall be, ex officio, Members of the Board of Managers.

ART. 11. Directors shall be entitled to meet and vote at all meetings of the Board of Managers.

ART. 12. The annual meetings of this Society shall be held in Boston, on the week of the General Election, when, besides choosing the officers as specified in the ninth article, the accounts of the Treasurer shall be presented, and the proceedings of the foregoing year reported.

ART. 13. The Managers shall meet at such time and place, in the city of Boston, as they shall appoint.

ART. 14. At the meetings of the Society, and of the Managers, the President, or, in his absence, the Vice-President first on the list then present, and, in the absence of the President and of all the Vice-Presidents, such Member as shall be appointed for that purpose, shall preside.

ART. 15. The Secretary, in concurrence with two of the Managers, or, in the absence of the Secretary, any three of the Managers, may call special meetings of the Board.

ART. 16. The minutes of every meeting shall be signed by the Chairman or Secretary.

ART. 17. The Managers shall have the power of appointing such persons as have rendered essential services to the Society either Members for Life or Directors for Life.

ART. 18. No alteration shall be made in this Constitution except by the Society, at an annual meeting, on the recommendation of the Board of Managers.

THE Seventeenth Annual Meeting of the Prison Discipline Society having been notified, according to law, at least seven days before, was held in Park Street Vestry on Monday, May 23, 1842, at 3 o'clock. The Rev. Dr. JENKS, being the oldest Vice-President then present, took the chair, and, a quorum being present, opened the meeting with prayer. The Secretary read the minutes of the corresponding meeting of the last year. The Treasurer read his Report, and the certificate of the Auditors, HENRY HILL, Esq., and JAMES MEANS, Esq., which Report was accepted. Mr. DANIEL SAFFORD was appointed a committee to distribute, collect, and sort the votes for the officers of the coming year. All the officers of the previous year were reëlected, except Rev. RUFUS ANDERSON, D. D., and Rev. Wм. M. ROGERS, who declined reelection on the ground that numerous other avocations had prevented them from attending the meetings of the Board. In their places the Rev. SAMUEL K. LOTHROP and Rev. GORHAM D. ABBOTT were elected as members of the Board of Managers. The following gentlemen were elected Directors, in consideration of important services rendered: - Hon. JOHN R. ADAN, GEORGE B. EMERSON, Esq., and Rev. JACOB ABBOTT.

A vote of thanks was passed to the Rev. CHARLES CLEVELAND for his faithful and gratuitous services as Treasurer another year.

It was then voted to adjourn, after prayer, to meet in the Park Street Church on Tuesday morning, May 24, at 11 o'clock, to hear the Report and addresses. The meeting was closed with prayer by the Rev. GORHAM D. ABBOTT.

The Public Meeting was held, according to adjournment, in Park Street Church, on Tuesday morning, May 24, 1842, at 11 o'clock, A. M. The President of the Society, the Hon. SAMUEL T. ARMSTRONG, took the chair, and, at his request, the Rev. SILAS AIKEN opened the meeting by reading the 35th chapter of Isaiah, and by prayer. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose." The Rev. CHARLES CLEVELAND read the Treasurer's Report. The Secretary read an abstract of the Seventeenth Annual Report.

The Rev. GEORGE ALLEN, chaplain of the State Hospital at Worcester, offered the resolution for the acceptance of the Report. Dr. WALTER ChanNING seconded the resolution, and Rev. ANSEL D. EDDY, of New Jersey, still further sustained it. These gentlemen all addressed the meeting in a most encouraging manner.

The Rev. GORHAM D. ABBOTT offered the second resolution, which was seconded by the Rev. Mr. KIRK:—

Resolved, That this institution, whose object it emphatically is, to bring relief and consolation to suffering humanity; to instruct the ignorant; to reclaim the vicious; to bring the guilty to repentance, and all the blessings of mercy and peace to the condemned and lost, — has a peculiar claim upon every professed disciple of the Savior of the world.

These gentlemen, also, both addressed the meeting in such a manner that, on the whole, it was considered one of the most encouraging anniversary meetings which the Society had ever held.