In consequence of these regulations, great advantages have arisen both to the criminals, and to the state.  The state has experienced a diminution of crimes to the amount of one half since the change of the penal system, and the criminals have been restored, in a great proportion, from the gaol to the community, as reformed persons.  For few have been known to stay the whole term of their confinement.  But no person could have had any of his time remitted him, except he had been considered both by the inspectors and the executive government as deserving it.  This circumstance of permission to leave the prison before the time expressed in the sentence, is of great importance to the prisoners.  For it operates as a certificate for them of their amendment to the world at large.  Hence no stigma is attached to them for having been the inhabitants of a prison.  It may be observed also, that some of the most orderly and industrious, and such as have worked at the most profitable trades, have had sums of money to take on their discharge, by which they have been able to maintain themselves honestly, till they could get into employ.

Such is the state, and such the manner of the execution of the penal laws of Pennsylvania, as founded upon Quaker-principles, so happy have the effects of this new system already been, that it is supposed it will be adopted by the other American States.

May the example be universally followed!  May it be universally received as a truth, that true policy is inseparable from virtue; that in proportion as principles become lovely on account of their morality, they will become beneficial, when acted upon, both to individual and to States; or that legislators cannot raise a constitution upon so fair and firm a foundation, as upon the gospel of Jesus Christ!

CHAP.  II.

Monthly court or meeting—­constitution of this meeting—­each county is usually divided into parts—­in each of these parts or divisions are several meeting-houses, which have their several congregations attached to them—­one meeting-house in each division is fixed upon for transacting the business of all the congregations in that division—­deputies appointed from every particular meeting or congregation in each division to the place fixed upon for transacting the business within it—­nature of the business to be transacted—­women become deputies, and transact business, equally with the men.

I come, after this long digression, to the courts of the Quakers.  And here I shall immediately premise, that I profess to do little more than to give a general outline of these.  I do not intend to explain the proceedings, preparatory to the meetings there, or to state all the exceptions from general rules, or to trouble the memory of the reader with more circumstances than will be sufficient to enable him to have a general idea of this part of the discipline of the Quakers.