I have shown in my account of Society in America that, after visiting several prisons in the United States, I was convinced that the system of solitary confinement at Philadelphia is the best that has yet been adopted. [10] So much has been heard in England of the Auburn prison, its details look so complete and satisfactory on paper, and it is so much a better system than the English have been accustomed to see followed at home, that it has a high reputation among us. But I think a careful survey of the institution on the spot must lessen the admiration entertained for this mode of punishment.

The convicts are, almost without exception, pale and haggard. As their work is done either in the open air or in well-ventilated shops, and their diet is good, their unhealthy appearance is no doubt owing chiefly to the bad construction of their night-cells. These cells are small and ill-ventilated, and do not even answer the purpose of placing the prisoners in solitude during the night. The convicts converse with nearly as much ease, through the air-pipes or otherwise, at night, as they do by speaking behind their teeth, without moving the lips, while at work in the day. In both cases they feel that they are transgressing the laws of the prison by doing an otherwise innocent and almost necessary act; a knowledge and feeling most unfavourable to reformation, and destructive of any conscientiousness which retribution may be generating in them. Their anxious and haggard looks may be easily accounted for. They are denied the forgetfulness of themselves and their miseries which they might enjoy in free conversation; and also the repose and the shelter from shame which are the privileges of solitary confinement. Every movement reminds them that they are in disgrace; a multitude of eyes (the eyes of the wicked, too) is ever upon them; they can live neither to themselves nor to society, and self-respect is rendered next to impossible. A man must be either hardened, or restless and wretched under such circumstances; and the faces at Auburn are no mystery.

The finishing of the day's work and the housing for the night are sights barely endurable. The governor saw my disgust, and explained that he utterly disapproved of strangers being allowed to be present at all this; but that the free Americans would not be debarred from beholding the operation of anything which they have decreed. This is right enough; the evil is in there being any such spectacle to behold. The prisoners are ranged in companies for the march from their workshops into the prison. Each fills his pail and carries it, and takes up the can with his supper as he passes the kitchen; and, when I was there, this was done in the presence of staring and amused strangers, who looked down smiling from the portico. Some of the prisoners turned their heads every possible way to avoid meeting our eyes, and were in an agony of shame; while the blacks, who, from their social degradation, have little idea of shame, and who are remarkable for exaggeration in all they do, figured away ridiculously in the march, stamping and gesticulating as if they were engaged in a game at romps. I do not know which extreme was the most painful to behold. It is clear that no occasion should be afforded for either; that men should not be ignominiously paraded because they are guilty.

The arrangements for the women were extremely bad at that time; but the governor needed no convincing of this, and hoped for a speedy rectification. The women were all in one large room, sewing. The attempt to enforce silence was soon given up as hopeless; and the gabble of tongues among the few who were there was enough to paralyze any matron. Some rather hopeful-looking girls were side by side with old offenders of their own colour, and with some most brutish-looking black women. There was an engine in sight which made me doubt the evidence of my own eyes; stocks of a terrible construction; a chair, with a fastening for the head and for all the limbs. Any lunatic asylum ought to be ashamed of such an instrument. The governor liked it no better than we; but he pleaded that it was his only means of keeping his refractory female prisoners quiet while he was allowed only one room to put them all into. I hope these stocks have been used for firewood before this.

The first principle in the management of the guilty seems to me to be to treat them as men and women; which they were before they were guilty, and will be when they are no longer so; and which they are in the midst of it all. Their humanity is the principal thing about them; their guilt is a temporary state. The insane are first men, and secondarily diseased men; and in a due consideration of this order of things lies the main secret of the successful treatment of such. The drunkard is first a man, and secondarily a man with a peculiar weakness. The convict is, in like manner, first a man, and then a sinner. Now, there is something in the isolation of the convict which tends to keep this order of considerations right in the mind of his guardians. The warden and his prisoner converse like two men when they are face to face; but when the keeper watches a hundred men herded together in virtue of the one common characteristic of their being criminals, the guilt becomes the prominent circumstance, and there is an end of the brotherly faith in each, to which each must mainly owe his cure. This, in our human weakness, is the great evil attendant upon the good of collecting together sufferers under any particular physical or moral evil. Visiters are shy of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and insane, when they see them all together, while they would feel little or nothing of this shyness if they met each sufferer in the bosom of his own family. In the one case, the infirmity, defying sympathy, is the prominent circumstance; in the other, not. It follows from this, that such an association of prisoners as that at Auburn must be more difficult to reform, more difficult to do the state's duty by, than any number or kind of criminals who are classed by some other characteristic, or not classed at all.

The wonderfully successful friend of criminals, Captain Pillsbury, of the Weathersfield prison, has worked on this principle, and owes his success to it. His moral power over the guilty is so remarkable, that prison-breakers who can be confined nowhere else are sent to him to be charmed into staying their term out. I was told of his treatment of two such. One was a gigantic personage, the terror of the country, who had plunged deeper and deeper in crime for seventeen years. Captain Pillsbury told him when he came that he hoped he would not repeat the attempts to escape which he had made elsewhere. "It will be best," said he, "that you and I should treat each other as well as we can. I will make you as comfortable as I possibly can, and shall be anxious to be your friend; and I hope you will not get me into any difficulty on your account. There is a cell intended for solitary confinement, but we have never used it, and I should be sorry ever to have to turn the key upon anybody in it. You may range the place as freely as I do if you will trust me as I shall trust you." The man was sulky, and for weeks showed only very gradual symptoms of softening under the operation of Captain Pillsbury's cheerful confidence. At length information was given to the captain of this man's intention to break prison. The captain called him, and taxed him with it; the man preserved a gloomy silence. He was told that it was now necessary for him to be locked in the solitary cell, and desired to follow the captain, who went first, carrying a lamp in one hand and the key in the other. In the narrowest part of the passage the captain (who is a small, slight man) turned round and looked in the face of the stout criminal. "Now," said he, "I ask you whether you have treated me as I deserve? I have done everything I could think of to make you comfortable; I have trusted you, and you have never given me the least confidence in return, and have even planned to get me into difficulty. Is this kind? And yet I cannot bear to lock you up. If I had the least sign that you cared for me...." The man burst into tears. "Sir," said he, "I have been a very devil these seventeen years; but you treat me like a man." "Come, let us go back," said the captain. The convict had the free range of the prison as before. From this hour he began to open his heart to the captain, and cheerfully fulfilled his whole term of imprisonment, confiding to his friend, as they arose, all impulses to violate his trust, and all facilities for doing so which he imagined he saw.

The other case was of a criminal of the same character, who went so far as to make the actual attempt to escape. He fell, and hurt his ankle very much. The captain had him brought in and laid on his bed, and the ankle attended to, every one being forbidden to speak a word of reproach to the sufferer. The man was sullen, and would not say whether the bandaging of his ankle gave him pain or not. This was in the night, and every one returned to bed when this was done. But the captain could not sleep. He was distressed at the attempt, and thought he could not have fully done his duty by any man who would make it. He was afraid the man was in great pain. He rose, threw on his gown, and went with a lamp to the cell. The prisoner's face was turned to the wall, and his eyes were closed, but the traces of suffering were not to be mistaken. The captain loosened and replaced the bandage, and went for his own pillow to rest the limb upon, the man neither speaking nor moving all the time. Just when he was shutting the door the prisoner started up and called him back. "Stop, sir. Was it all to see after my ankle that you have got up?"

"Yes, it was. I could not sleep for thinking of you."

"And you have never said a word of the way I have used you!"

"I do feel hurt with you, but I don't want to call you unkind while you are suffering as you are now."

The man was in an agony of shame and grief. All he asked was to be trusted again when he should have recovered. He was freely trusted, and gave his generous friend no more anxiety on his behalf.

Captain Pillsbury is the gentleman who, on being told that a desperate prisoner had sworn to murder him speedily, sent for him to shave him, allowing no one to be present. He eyed the man, pointed to the razor, and desired him to shave him. The prisoner's hand trembled, but he went through it very well. When he had done the captain said, "I have been told you meant to murder me, but I thought I might trust you." "God bless you, sir! you may," replied the regenerated man. Such is the power of faith in man!

The greatest advantage of solitary confinement is that it presents the best part of a prisoner's mind to be acted upon by his guardians; and the next is, that the prisoner is preserved from the evil influences of vicious companionship, of shame within the prison walls, and of degradation when he comes out. I am persuaded that no system of secondary punishment has yet been devised that can be compared with this. I need not, at this time of day, explain that I mean solitary imprisonment with labour, and with frequent visits from the guardians of the prisoner. Without labour, the punishment is too horrible and unjust to be thought of. The reflective man would go mad, and the clown would sleep away his term, and none of the purposes of human existence could be answered. Work is, in prison as out of it, the grand equaliser, stimulus, composer, and rectifier; the prime obligation and the prime privilege. It is delightful to see how soon its character is recognised there. In the Philadelphia penitentiary work is forbidden to the criminal for two days subsequent to his entrance; he petitions for it before the two days are out, however doggedly he may have declared that he will never work. Small incidents show what a resource it is. A convict shoemaker mentioned to a visiter a very early hour of the winter day as that at which he began to work. "But how can you see at that time of a winter's morning? it must be nearly dark." "I hammer my leather. That requires very little light. I get up and hammer my leather."

On his entrance the convict is taken to the bathroom, where he is well cleansed, and his state of health examined into and recorded by the physician and warden. A hood is then put over his head, and he is led to his apartment. I never met with one who could in the least tell what the form of the central part of the prison was, or which of the radii his cell was placed in, though they make very accurate observations of the times at which the sun shines in. At the end of two days, during which the convict has neither book nor work, the warden visits him, and has a conversation with him about the mode of life in the institution. If he asks for work, he is offered a choice of three or four kinds, of which weaving and shoemaking are the chief. He is told that if he does a certain amount of work, he will have the full diet provided for hard labourers; if less, he will have what is sufficient for a moderate worker; if more, the price of it will be laid by to accumulate, and paid over to him on his leaving the prison. He is furnished with a Bible; and other books, provided by the friends to the institution, circulate among the convicts. Some who have books at home are allowed to have them brought. A convict gentleman whom I visited had a fine library at home, and was plentifully supplied from thence. It was difficult to find occupation for this unhappy man, who had never been used to labour. He was filling bobbins when I saw him, and he wrote a great deal in various languages. His story was a dreadful one, too horrible to be related. His crime was murder, but committed under such intense provocation, real or imaginary, that he had the compassion of every one who knew his history. He had been justice of the peace for twenty years; and his interest was so strong that he had little doubt of being able to obtain a pardon, and for some years was daily racked with expectation. He told me that it was opposed by political enemies only; and this belief did not, of course, tend to calm his mind. Pardon came at last, when nine years of the twelve for which he was sentenced had expired. He was released a year and a half after I saw him.

In his case there were peculiar disturbing influences, and his seclusion was doubtless more painful and less profitable than that of most prisoners. His case was public; his station and the singularity of the circumstances made it necessarily so; and the knowledge of this publicity is a great drawback upon reformation and upon repose of mind. The most hopeful cases I met with were those of men who came from a distance, who were tried under a feigned name, or whose old connexions were, from other circumstances, unaware of their present condition. Of course I cannot publicly relate facts concerning any of these. They disclosed their stories to me in confidence. I can give nothing but general impressions, except in a few cases which are already notorious, or where death has removed the obligation to secrecy, by rendering it impossible for the penitent to be injured, while his reputation may be benefited by its being known what were the feelings of his latter days.

After a general survey of the establishment, which furnished me with all that the managers had to bring forward, I entered, by the kind permission of the board, upon the yet more interesting inquiry of what the convicts had to say for themselves. I supposed that, from their long seclusion from all society but that of their guardians, they would be ready to communicate very freely; and also, judging from my own feelings, that they could not do this in the presence of any third person. I therefore requested, and was allowed to go entirely alone, the turnkey coming at the end of a specified time to let me out. No one of them, except the gentleman above mentioned, had any notice whatever of my coming. Their door was unlocked at an unusual hour, and I stepped in. My reception was in every case the same. Every man of them looked up, transfixed with amazement, one with his shuttle, another with his awl suspended. I said that if my visit was not agreeable, I would call the turnkey before he was out of hearing, and go away. If the contrary, perhaps I might be favoured with a seat. In an instant the workman sprang up, wiped his stool with his apron for me, and sat down himself on his workbench. In a few cases I had to make a further explanation that I did not come for prayer and religious discourse. The conversation invariably took that turn before I left, as it naturally does with the anxious and suffering; but two or three rushed at once into such shocking cant, that I lost no time in telling them the real object of my visit; to learn what were the causes of crime in the United States. I also told them all that I could not give them news from the city, because this was against the rules of the prison. They were glad to converse with me on my own conditions, and I am confident that they presented me faithfully with their state of mind as it appeared to themselves. I have never received confidence more full and simple than theirs, and much of it was very extraordinary. All, except two or three, voluntarily acknowledged their guilt; the last point, of course, on which I should have chosen to press them. It seemed a relief to them to dwell on the minutest particulars relating to their temptation to their crime, and the time and mode of its commission. One man began protesting his innocence early in our conversation; following the practice common among felons, of declaring himself a guilty fellow enough, but innocent of this particular crime. I stopped him, saying that I asked him no questions, and had no business with his innocence or guilt, and that I did not like such protestations as he was making: we would talk of something else. He looked abashed, and within half an hour he had communicated his first act of dishonesty in life; the festering wound which I have reason to believe he never before laid open to human eye.

Several incidents of this nature which occurred persuade me that almost anything may be done with these sufferers by occasional intercourse and free sympathy. Each time that I went I was amazed at the effect of words that had passed, lightly enough, days or weeks before. I found them all expecting a pardon; and the most painful part of my duty to them was undeceiving them about this. It was dreadful to see the emotion of some; but I knew they would have no repose of mind, so necessary in their case, while racked with this hope; I therefore took pains to explain what punishment was for, and how rarely pardon could be justified. On my subsequent visits it was cheering to see how completely they had understood me, and how they had followed out the subject to their own entire conviction.

"Well, J.," said I to a young man who had been rather languid about his work, making only three shoes a week while expecting a pardon, "how have you been since I saw you?"

"Very fairly indeed, madam. I make seven shoes a week now."

"Ah! then you have left off fretting yourself about a pardon. You have made up your mind to your term, like a man."

"Yes, I have been thinking about that, and something more. I have been thinking that perhaps it is well that I am here now; for, madam, I got that that I took so easily, that I believe, if I had not been caught, I should have gone back to the same place and taken more, and so have come in for ten years instead of five."

Twenty months afterward I heard of this man from the warden. He was in health, cheerful, and industrious. I have no doubt of his doing well when he comes out.

A negro, in for a very serious offence, which he acknowledged, told me of another committed long before, which, since his imprisonment, had weighed much more heavily on his mind, perhaps because no one knew it or suspected him; it was a theft of sixteen dollars, committed with some treachery. This subject had been entirely dismissed, and had even gone out of my mind when we talked over the expiration of his term and his prospects in life. "Where do you mean to go first?" said I. "Stay in Philadelphia till I have worked for those sixteen dollars, and paid them," said he. This was without the slightest leading on my part.

Several told me more about their mothers than about anything else in their former lives; and those who were tried under false names seemed more afraid of their mothers knowing where they were than of any other consequence. In every case some heartsore was at the bottom of the guilt. Many were as ignorant as Americans ever are, and had sought to get rid of their griefs, as ignorant people do, by physical excitement. First passion, then drink, then crime: this is the descent. Most declared that the privation of tobacco was the first tremendous suffering within the prison; then the solitude; then the vain hope of pardon. The middle part of their term is the easiest. Near the end they grow restless and nervous. Every one that I asked could promptly tell me the day of the month.

"May I ask," said I to one for whom I had much regard, "may I ask what all these black marks on your wall are for?" I was not without a conjecture, remembering that he was to go out on the 17th of the next August, this being the 1st of December.

He looked down, and said he had no secret in the matter, only that I should think him very silly. I told him that I did not think any amusement silly to one who had so few.

"Well, madam, I have been trying to find out what day of the week the 17th of next August will be; but I can't quite make it out, because I don't know whether the next is leap year."

The holding out my hand to them at parting brought every one of them to tears; yet there was nothing unmanly in their bearing; there was no lack of health, no feebleness of spirits, though a quietness of manner such as might be anticipated in men under punishment and subject to remorse. There was a degree of contentment (when the expectation of pardon was removed) which I did not look for. They spoke (such as were qualified) of other prisons with horror, and with approbation approaching to thankfulness of the treatment they met with in this, where they were not degraded as if they had done nothing but crime, as if they were not still men. I was much moved by the temper of one, and much humbled (as I often was) at thinking for how little guilt some are heavily visited, when there is not one of us, perhaps, who may not justly feel that, however safe and honoured he may appear, he has done worse, and deserved a more fearful retribution.

A friend of mine, who knew that I was visiting the penitentiary, asked me to see two brothers who were in for forging and coining. The case was notorious, the elder brother being an old offender. I agreed to inquire for them; and upon this my friend somewhat imprudently told the mother of the convicts and the wife of the younger one what I had promised, and sent them to see me. I soon perceived that the wife was telling me a number of family particulars in the hope that I should communicate them to her husband. I felt myself obliged to put a stop to this, as I was upon honour, and could not think of violating any of the rules of the prison, one of which was that the convicts should receive no intelligence from without. The wife's reply was heart-wringing. She said she did not wish to show disrespect to any rules; there was but one thing that she implored me to convey to her husband. He had expected a pardon in three months from his conviction; five months had now passed, and he would be wondering. She only wanted him to know that it was through no want of exertion on her part that he was still in prison. I was compelled to refuse to communicate anything, and even to let the young man know that I had seen any of his family. But in my own mind I resolved not to see the convict till the warden, who was absent, should return to Philadelphia, and to tell him the whole, that he might communicate what he thought proper. By these means I believe the prisoner heard some comfortable tidings after I saw him, and I am sure he had never a hard thought of his good wife. I promised her a most minute account of her husband's situation, to which there could be no objection. She had done nothing wrong, and was not to be punished, though it appeared that some of the ladies of Philadelphia thought otherwise, as they took from her the needlework she had undertaken for the support of herself and her children during her husband's imprisonment. These virtuous ladies could not think of countenancing anybody connected with forgers and coiners.

I found the young man weaving. After some talk about the work, during which I saw that his mind was full of something else, I obviated all danger of his putting questions which I could not answer by asking him whether he had relations in the city. This put an end to all reserve. He mentioned his father, and the brother who had led him into crime, with a forbearance and delicacy of forgiveness which were extremely touching. He was not aware that I knew how different a tone might have been excused, might have been almost justified. But he spoke most of his wife. He told me that he had always been weak, too easily persuaded, from being afraid of some people about him; and that his wife, who had a nobler mind, always kept him up, yet managing to do it when they were alone so as never to expose his weakness. He had unfortunately come to Philadelphia two days before her, and in that interval he had been threatened and persuaded into endeavouring to pass two counterfeit five-franc pieces. This was all. But he himself did not extenuate his offence or appear to think it a trifle. He observed, indeed, that at that time he was not aware what sins against property were; he used to think, that if some people had so much more than they wanted, there was no great harm in those who have too little taking some from them. He had had much time for thought since, and now saw so plainly how necessary it was that men should be protected while living in society, that he believed no compulsion could now make him break the laws in any such way. But the mischief was done. He had made his wife wretched, and all was over. I convinced him that it was not. His term was five years; and when it was fulfilled he would still be a young man, and might cherish his wife for a good many years. It was well that we thought so at the time, for the hope gave him substantial comfort. He lifted up his head from his loom, where it had sunk down in his bitter weeping, and began to talk upon the subject I dreaded, pardon. I saw what kind of mind I had to deal with, reasoning and reflective. I led him to consider, as he had found out the purposes of law, the purposes of punishment; and, at length, put the question to him whether he thought he ought to be pardoned. Trembling from head to foot, and white as the wall, he bravely answered "No." I asked him whether it would not be better to settle his mind to his lot than to be trembling for four years at every footstep that came near his cell, expecting deliverance, and expecting it in vain. He did not answer. I told him that when he was heartsick with expecting in vain, perhaps some hard thought of his wife—that she had not done all she could—might rise up to trouble him. "Oh no, no, never!" he cried. I had now obtained what I wanted for her.

I told him I should endeavour to see his wife. He desired me to tell her that he was in health, and had brought himself to own to me what he had done, and that he should be pretty comfortable but for thinking how he had used her; but he would try to make up for it one day. He was quite cheerful when I left him.

The wife called on me the next day. She said she could not stay long, as she was about to set off, with her children, for a remote part of the country. It was a dreadful thing to her to leave her husband's neighbourhood; but she had been deprived of the means of support by her work being taken from her, and no resource remained but going to her father's house. She was surprised, and seemed almost sorry (no doubt from a jealousy for his reputation), that her husband had acknowledged his offence. She said he had not acknowledged it when he went in. I told her every particular about his cell and employments, as well as his looks and conversation, till, when I had done, she started up, saying that she was forgetting her children, and her journey, and everything. When we had parted she came back again from the door to ask "one thing more;" whether I thought there would ever be anything in the world that she could do for me. I thought it very possible in a world of change like this, and promised to rely upon her if she could ever serve me or mine.

She settled herself at her father's, and after a while drooped in spirits, and was sure something would happen. When bad news came she cried, "There! I knew it!" As the turnkey passed her husband's cell one day he heard some noise and looked in. The young man was just falling from his loom in a fit of apoplexy. There was no delay in doing all that can be done in such cases; but in a few hours he died. There is no reason to suppose that his imprisonment had anything to do with the attack. It was probably a constitutional tendency, aggravated by anxiety of mind.

The prison must be tried some years longer before a complete comparison of it with others can be made; but it appears at present, that if there be some few diseases which may possibly be aggravated by the silence and thoughtfulness attendant on solitary confinement (which I do not know to be the case), there are many more which disappear under the regularity of temperature and of hours, and the good diet of the establishment. There was certainly less sallowness and anxiety in the faces of the inmates than struck me in the other prisons. One man amazed me by calling the four years he had passed here the most comfortable he had ever known; but when he told me the wretchedness of his previous life, I fully believed him.

I found, on visiting the elder of the brothers, how complete is the secrecy preserved in the prison. I had been repeatedly told that these brothers came in together, and, therefore, had no hesitation in mentioning the one to the other. I was thunderstruck with the vehemence with which the elder turned upon me with the question, "Is my brother in this prison?" "I was told you came in together," replied I. "Then they put him in just after me," cried he. "What did they find him guilty of? What part of the prison is he in? What work does he do?" and a number of other questions; none of which, of course, I would answer. I was not very sorry that he was accidentally made acquainted with what he had led his young brother into. I fear he could bear it only too well. When I told the warden the mistake I had made, I found that the younger brother came in three weeks after the elder.

The cases I became acquainted with were not all hopeful. Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon, more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (always in connexion with their cant) so certain that they should never sin more, that I have every expectation that they will find themselves in prison again some day. One fellow, a sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than probably any man in the United States, was quite confident that he should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never touch anything stronger than tea, or lift his hand against money or life. I told him I thought he could not be sure of all this till he was within sight of money and the smell of strong liquors; and that he was more confident than I should like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all about it, as he had been the worst of men, and Christ had had mercy on his poor soul. When I had got him away from his cant, and upon subjects on which he could talk with some simplicity, I found that even this man preferred this prison to others that he had been in. It so happened that no conviction for murder had ever been procurable against him; his imprisonments were all for theft. His account of the old Walnut-street prison was dreadful. He there daily heard stories of crimes, from four in the winter afternoons till daylight. "Poor boasting! for the crimes they bragged of were never done." I asked him how he got into that prison. "For a couple o' larcenies, a grand and a little," said he, with the most business-like nonchalance. He was waylaid by two old burglars on his coming out, and on the spot agreed upon an enterprise for the next night. His mother died in his arms; he went and committed the burglary, was caught, and before midnight was in prison again. His accounts of his deeds were too scientific for my understanding; but I made out enough to be ready when he asked my advice what to do when he came out. I answered as if he were in earnest, advising him to leave Philadelphia and all towns, and settle in the woods, out of the way of grogshops, bad company, and other people's property. But his keepers expect that he will end his days with them, and this is the hope of that part of society which fears his ferocity.

As the system of solitary imprisonment gains ground, I trust that the practice of prison-visiting will gain ground too. It is most desirable that it should not be left wholly in the hands of proselyting religionists, but be shared by those who better understand human nature and command a greater variety of influences. For the sake of religion itself this is desirable, to rescue it from becoming a mere prison solace; an excitement seized when no other can be had, and to be laid aside when old pursuits offer themselves for resumption. Kind-hearted persons will have an opportunity of doing extensive and unquestionable good by keeping up the social affections of the prisoners, giving them new ideas, making them cheerful, and investing with pleasant associations whatever things are honest, pure, lovely, and of good report.

In other prisons much might thus be done, though not, I think, with such extraordinary effect as under the system of solitary confinement. I was struck with something I saw at the Charlestown prison (Massachusetts). Several convicts, black and white, who had behaved well, were practising singing, which is allowed as an indulgence. It seemed strange to hear "The heavens are telling" from such lips; but I listened to it with more pleasure than in some far finer places. Any kind person who can introduce a new innocent pursuit into a prison as a solace to its inmates cannot fail to be doing an important good.

This reminds me that a service may be rendered, not so much to the convicts as to society, by any persons who can supply the prisons where stonecutting is going on with a good set of epitaphs. At Auburn they are wanted, and much more at Nashville (Tennessee), where the stonecutting department is superintended by an honest Englishman, whose stock of epitaphs is small and of miserable quality. We half undertook to prepare and collect some for him, but found it a less easy task than we had supposed. We got out our pencils at three o'clock one summer morning, when our stage had broken down on a bad Tennessee road; but one of our party observing that this was the first time he had ever heard of making epitaphs for amusement, there was an end of the attempt; and the Nashville prison remains unsupplied, unless somebody else has done better than we.

I suspect the fault lies in the supposition that epitaphs of general application cannot be made at all. An epitaph should be the breathing of emotion arising out of a particular case; and none made for stonecutters' use can have much life or truth. Still, they may have grammar and general propriety, so as to be an advantageous substitute for some at present in use, if only persons can be found to compose them on such considerations.

I saw at the Charlestown prison a sight more impressive to me than all else that the walls contained; a man of might, but whose power has taken a wrong direction; his hand being against every man, and every man's against him. He is a prison-breaker so formidable as to be regarded and treated as if he were of Satanic race, and not as made up of flesh and blood, and emotions that may be roused, and affections subject to the touch. He seems, indeed, to have become somewhat of the Satanic kind, for he is now piqued to do all the harm he can. His pride is in for it; his reputation stands upon it. I was shown an enormous block of stone which he had displaced by the aid of a "gentleman" outside, who, for fear of the prison-breaker's blabbing, committed suicide on his recapture. The strong man was heavily fettered, confined in a different cell every night, and conducted to it by a procession of turnkeys. As we stood aside in the echoing passage to let the array go by, there was something really grand in the air of the man who had virtually said to himself, "Evil, be thou my good!" He stepped slowly, clanking his chains, and looking us full in the face as he passed. He cannot but have a calm sense of power when he nightly sees the irons, the bars and locks, and the six fellow-men, all in requisition to keep him from working his will. As we saw him slowly turn into his cell, and heard lock after lock shot behind him, I could not help thinking that there was much true monarchical feeling within those four narrow walls.