Of these 13 have died; 6 were discharged for new trial and not reconvicted; 4 were pardoned; 2 have escaped; and 4 have been commuted from solitary confinement to imprisonment for life.

Of those commuted, 1 has died; 1 has been pardoned; 1 escaped; and 1 now in prison; leaving as solitary confinement convicts now in prison, 29. In 1849 an act was passed giving the board of inspectors discretionary power to release convicts from solitary confinement, and work them with other convicts, till such time as proper cells were prepared for that class of criminals.

In 1857 the solitary prison was completed, and that class of convicts was confined therein till the spring of 1861, when the law was again modified so that the board of inspectors might release them from solitary confinement and work them with other convicts.

Of the 29 life solitary convicts now in prison, but five are in solitary confinement, three of whom are insane, the others having been released, from time to time, by the board of inspectors.

The longest time any sane convict has been in solitary confinement is about five years; this is the case of Bivins, convicted of a three-fold murder in 1865.

DEATH PENALTY AND SOLITARY CONFINEMENT

Immediately after the solitary prison was completed in 1857 they were all confined therein for about three years; with these exceptions, no one that was sane has been confined in the solitary prison longer than from one to two years, and not generally that length of time.

Of the insane solitary convicts, one was convicted in 1848, and with one or two intervals, has been in solitary confinement since his committal; was partially insane when he came, and has continued in about the same condition. One was convicted in 1854, was partially insane when committed, and for the last ten years has been hopelessly and totally insane. And the third one

was convicted in 1866; seemed to be partially insane when committed, and his insanity has continued to grow upon him since his arrival here.

The question is often asked "Does solitary confinement tend to produce insanity?" and we can only answer by saying that no case has occurred in this prison where a convict has become insane while in solitary confinement. Solitary confinement, or long confinement as an ordinary convict evidently has a depressing effect upon the intellect.

Since 1847, the year in which the death penalty was abolished, there have been 27 convicts sentenced to this prison for life, besides the solitary convicts, and these were convicted of murder-second degree, rape, arson, robbery, etc., of whom 19 are now in prison.

Inquiries are frequently made if crime has increased since the abolishment of the death penalty. That there has been an increase in the convictions for crime is evident, but this is only an incident common to all new States. As society becomes established, and the laws respected and enforced, there will necessarily be more convictions of crime than while in an unsettled and primitive condition, so that there is no evidence in the increased convictions that there is an increase of crime beyond the ratio of increase of population.

Michigan is composed of two peninsulas, and the progress of settlement has been constantly from the south to the north in the lower peninsula, and from the lakes towards the interior in both peninsulas. Counting the breadth of the lower peninsula, and the distances on both sides of the lower part of Lake Michigan, and on Lakes Huron and Superior, there has constantly been a line of border population for over one thousand miles. It may be added that the lumbering interests of a State producing two thousand million feet of lumber per annum, and the mining interests of a State producing more copper and iron ores than any other, will to some extent account for the mingling of those incongruous elements which are productive of crime.

Convicts in the solitary prison are visited every day by an officer of the prison, by the physician as often as it may be necessary, and by the chaplain at his discretion. They have each a Bible, and good books are furnished them from the library, which are changed by the chaplain when desired; but no work is done by them in their cells. They are not permitted to communicate with, or be seen by, their friends, the following rules having been adopted by the board of inspectors:

"No convict sentenced to solitary confinement shall be allowed to receive or send any information or communication in writing, or otherwise, to or from any person not an officer in the prison."

"No convict confined in the solitary prison, and sentenced for life, shall be allowed to see or be seen by any person not an officer in the prison (the Governor excepted), without permission of the agent, and not then except in relation to their work or some repairs on their cells."

The solitary cells are 15 feet long, 8 feet wide, and 10 feet high, with a small window set high in the wall, making the cell sufficiently light for reading.

The prison for solitary convicts, in its construction, is a failure; and experience has taught us its defects in its insecurity, want of ventilation, sewerage, and light; and although solitary confinement at hard labor for life has been substituted for the death penalty, still, so far as the hard labor part of the sentence is concerned, it has been found impossible to carry the law into effect on account of the unsafety of the cells.

H. H. BINGHAM, Agent.

REMARKABLE INSTANCE OF CAPITAL CRIME

ACCOUNT OF THE LAST CASE OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT IN MICHIGAN, FROM COLTON'S [COTTON'S] "TOUR OF THE LAKES," IN 1830

Detroit originally and for ages a post for trade, and a garrison for its protection, having enjoyed and suffered alternately peace and war with the aborigines and between rival civilized powers for such a long series of years, has now become the beautiful and flouirshing metropolis of a wide and interesting territory; a territory destined soon to make at least two of the most important states in the American union. The city looks proudly across one of the noblest rivers of the continent, upon the territory of a great and rival power, and seems to say, though in such vicinity, in reference to her former exposure and painful vicissitudes: "Henceforth I will sit in peace, and grow and flouish under the wing of this confederate republic." And this place, but a little while ago so distant, is now brought within five days of the city of New York, the track pursued being seven hundred and fifty miles. Here at Detroit some of the finest steamers in North America come and go every day, connecting it with the east, and have begun already to search out the distant west and north.

On the 26th of July, 1830, during our stay in Detroit, S. G. Simmons received the sentence of death, from the proper tribunal, for the murder of his wife, under circumstances, aggravated by brutality and savageness, too painful for recital; and in the contemplation of which humanity shudders. The wretched man's own children were the principal witnesses on whose testimony he had been convicted. In telling the story of their mother's dreadful end, they brought their father to the gallows. In the progress of the trial a history of savage violence was disclosed such, we would fain believe, as rarely passes upon the records of crime. What demon of hell can be more fatal to human happiness, and to the souls of men, than ardent spirits? The children, a son and two daughters, of adult years, testified abundantly to the natural amiableness and affectionate kindness in the conjugal and parental relations, not only of the mother, but also of their father in his sober moments. But when intoxicated he seemed possessed of the furies of a more abandoned world.

As the murderer entered the place of judgment, and was conducted to the bar to receive the sentence of the law, I observed in him a noble human form, erect, manly, and dignified; of large but well proportioned stature; bearing a face and head not less expressive than the most perfect beau ideal of the Roman; with a countenance divinely fitted for the play of virtue, of every

parental and conjugal affection, and an eye beaming out a soul which might well be imagined to have been once susceptible of the love and worship of the eternal One-all, all marred and spoiled by the demon of intemperance; and now, alas, allied to murder of the most diabolical cast. Rarely is seen among the sons of men a more commanding human form, or a countenance more fitly set to intelligence and virtue; made, all would say, to love and be honored. But now what a change, by the debasements of brutal appetite, and the unprovoked indulgence and instigation of a fatal passion. By what a fearful career of vice and crime, had he come to this.

"What a piece of work is man; how noble in reason; how infinite in faculties; in form and moving, how express and admirable; in action, how like an angel; in apprehension how like a god; the beauty of the world, the paragon of animals." But when debased and ruined by vice how like a fiend, in shape so unbefitting such a spirit. And yet, who could see the fiendish stamp upon this poor and wretched man? For he wept-he sobbed. His inmost soul heaved with anguish; he bore the marks of contrition. As a man, and such a man-if we could forget his crime-he was to be respected; as a being in a condition of suffering he was to be pitied; and as seeming the image of repentance Heaven might forgive what man could not.

It was an awful hour when he approached the bar even of this earthly tribunal, anticipating well his doom. For a jury of his country, as he knew, had set their seal upon it. As he entered this now awful chamber of justice he cast his eye around upon the expecting throng, whose presence and gaze could only be a mockery of his condition; and with the greatest possible effort for self-possession, braced his muscular energy to support his manly frame, while trembling under the tempest of passion which agitated his soul. But the moment he was seated, all his firmness dissolved into the weakness of a child; and he wept-he sobbed aloud. A silence reigned through the crowd, and a thrill of sympathy seemed to penetrate every heart.

The court, unaccustomed in that land to such an office, felt themselves in a new and awful condition; with a fellow-being arraigned at their bar charged and convicted of a most atrocious, and in its circumstance, an unparalled crime, and his doom suspended at that moment on their lips. Their emotions were too evident to be mistaken, and in the highest degree honorable to their hearts. "S. G. Simmons"-the name in full being pronounced by the court, broke the awful silence of the place-"have you anything to say why the judgment of the court shoud not now be pronounced?" The prisoner rose convulsed, and with faltering voice, and in broken accents, replied: "Nothing, if it please the court, except what I have already communicated," and resumed his seat. Upon which a very appropriate, eloquent, and impressive address was made by the court to the prisoner, setting forth the fact and nature of the crime of which he stood convicted; appealing to his own knowledge for the fairness of his trial, and to his own consciousness of the justice of his doom; commending him to heaven for that clemency which he could no longer ask of men; and then the awful sentence was pronounced. "And may God almighty," said the judge with that subdued emphasis and touching pathos which became the responsibility of his office and the nature of the occasion. "may God almighty have mercy on your soul."

The prisoner, by all the testimony, was in his nature kind. He loved his wife excessively, and loved her, strange as it may seem, unto the last. And for that very love he was the more cruel and the greater monster. He was

jealous of her fidelity without cause. Jealousy ""Tis a monster begot upon itself-born on itself." "That's he that was Othello." And only when intoxicated with strong drink did this terrible passion gain its dominion over him. In the moments of his sobriety he loved and confided, and could say in company of his wife,

"My soul hath her content so absolute,

That not another comfort like to thee
Succeeds in unknown fate."

But it would seem that hell itself were scarcely more furious or more terrible than he when the demon of ardent spirits assumed control of his passion. If demoniacs were nowadays about, the name of that man, in such predicament and mood, were worthy to be written as prince of the host. But in prison, and before the tribunal of justice, this wretched being, once kind in nature, and made a fiend of by the abuse of his nature, stood dispossessed, the guilty and conscious murderer of her whom he espoused in her youth and loveliness, and who was ever worthy of his love, and whom he took to his bosom and promised, by the light and love of heaven, to be her husband and protector. He was executed on the 24th of September, 1830.

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