Alleviators' Anniversary

The keeper of Philadelphia's Walnut Street Jail was scandalized, sullenly consented to a religious service for his charges only because the sheriff commanded him to in writing. When Bishop William White and Dr. William Rogers arrived at the jail, they found a number of convicts huddled before an improvised pulpit, beside which stood a formidable cannon whose gunner had lighted a taper, ready to fire at the slightest sign of trouble.

That was in 1787, when Philadelphia convicts were commonly chained to barrows, forced to work in the streets. The Episcopal Church of Bishop White, the Lutheran Ministerium of Dr. Rogers and the Society of Friends joined in founding the Philadelphia Society for Alleviating the Miseries of Public Prisons, dedicated to the then radical proposal that "such degrees and modes of punishment may be discovered and suggested as may, instead of continuing habits of vice, become the means of restoring our fellow citizens to virtue and happiness." Once admitted to work in prisons, the Society flourished, changed its name in its 100th year to the Pennsylvania Prison Society. Today trained case workers instead of ministers do its alleviating; the Society's agents are the only persons allowed to enter any Pennsylvania prison at any time to interview any prisoner.

Claiming to be the oldest prison reform group in the world, the oldest organized charity in the U. S., the Prison Society last week celebrated its 150th birthday with vesper services at Old Christ Church, with Bishop Francis Marion Taitt representing the Episcopal Church, President Ernst Philip Piatteicher the Lutheran Ministerium, Secretary William B. Harvey the Orthodox Friends.

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