I have introduced the name of this amiable and lamented young man, to illustrate some other parts of that deformed and dreadful character in which so many of the keepers glory. Having experienced the hardening effect of that awful place on their moral feelings, they take an infamous delight in accelerating the same effect on all who enter into the service of the prison. To accomplish this, they give them to understand that the prisoners are a malicious, bloodthirsty, and hellish pack, whom they must treat with perfect hatred and the most jealous and wakeful suspicion. They are taught to keep their swords always sharp as a scythe, and fastened to their wrists by a strong leather strap. It is impressed on their minds that they are as insecure when with the prisoners, as if they were among a clan of Arabs or a gang of pirates. To make these instructions the more efficacious, the keepers try all schemes which they can think of, to find their pupils off their guard, and to make them believe that the prisoners are on the eve of some dreadful plot. Under such masters, and such a course of education, the new servants enter upon their duty; and who can wonder to find them becoming in a short time as hateful as their teachers.

Mr. Stricklin was engaged as a guard. As soon as he entered on his duty, his ears were made to tingle with the lectures of his new associates. He was a young man of amiable disposition, and having but little acquaintance with mankind, he presumed that what the keepers told him was true. His conduct under such impressions was such as might have been expected. One day as he was in a shop to relieve the keeper, he gave some indications of the study in which he had been engaged, and also of the effect which his lessons had produced on his mind. As he was walking through the shop, he stopped suddenly, and demanded attention. When all was silent, and every ear open to what he might say, he observed that he had been employed as guard, and might stay longer or not so long, just as he might feel disposed; but while he did stay, he said, if the prisoners would treat him well, he would be kind to them. There was some singularity in this, as also in his manner, which no one failed to notice.

At night he went on guard, and his duty was to see that no prisoner made his escape. This required that he should be attentive to every noise, and be furnished with means of defence. The place for the guard at night is a small apartment in which he is locked up, and must stay till released. This room is in the prison, and adjoining the cells of the prisoners. The means of defence are a gun and a sword. With these arms, and in this place, Mr. Stricklin was posted when the events of which I am now going to write, occurred.

Scarcely had he entered on his post, before some of the keepers placed themselves at a grated window, exactly over his head, and began to make a noise on the grates like the sound of a file. Their object was to make him think that the prisoners were breaking out. He heard the noise, and began to call on the prisoners to be still, supposing they were filing the grates. The noise was kept up, and some chips and an old shoe were thrown down at him, by the keepers at the window. For nearly an hour they continued their cruel and unmanly sport, until he became frantic, and began to exhibit unequivocal evidences of a terrified and shattered intellect. He had before this time ascertained that the keepers were the authors of the noise he had attributed to the prisoners, and the effect of such mean and hypocritical conduct on him was most painfully developed. He became as furious as a hungry lion. He ascended and descended the stairs with a rapidity of step never equalled, and with shrieks that pierced the very heavens. He stamped on the stairs as if a mountain had fallen, and the sound made the iron doors tremble on their hinges. He kept every guard and keeper at bay till his time expired; and at the very minute for him to be relieved, he screamed like a panther that his time was out, and was let out of his room. He went immediately to bed, and by morning became rational. After breakfast the Warden told him he had no more for him to do, and kicked him out headlong on the brick pavement before the door. At least, the undisputed report says so; I did not see it myself. This threw him back again into the most wild and frantic ravings, and he returned home and died in a few weeks. His mind was a perfect ruin, and he left the world a poor distracted youth.

Now, my dear reader, pause and contemplate this melancholy sketch. Who were the criminal cause of this young man's death? I know some of the men who stood at that grated window, and frightened him to madness; and I say to them, if they should ever read this page, that the blood of a promising youth, of good character and amiable connexions, has stained their doings, and it is high time for them to repent. The voice of Mr. Stricklin's death cries to heaven against them, and the voice of such a death, can never cry in vain.

But if it be true, as is reported, that the Warden treated him with such cruel and shameful indignity, what shall be said of him? He had sons of the same age, but none more likely or promising; and how did he know that it was not through the means of some of them, that this youth was ruined? Every body knows that Wardens of prisons are tyrants, and few will question the perfect right of this one, to a very liberal share of this character. Certainly, if he abused that ruined young man as it is said he did, he richly merits the title of Nero the Second. At any rate, I know enough of him never to call him a merciful man, and I would ask all men, all angels, and all creatures, to look at his conduct just as it is, and decide on his fitness or unfitness for the office of Warden of a penitentiary. He never found any fault with those who drove the victim of his anger to distraction; I know not but he applauded them. I know, however, that Mr. Stricklin came to the prison in health; that he was frighted to distraction one night while on duty, by some of the keepers and guard; that he was turned away in the morning; and that he died in a few weeks perfectly deranged.

It is reported that he plead with the Warden to stay, remarking that it would injure his character to be turned out so. He was well reported of by all men, was an officer in the militia, and the pride of his family. No one can reflect on his untimely and unhappy death without the most painful emotions of soul. And in concluding this article I feel it to be a duty which I owe to the young men of our country, to exhort them never to become prison keepers, but to shun those places which have a tendency to blunt the finer feelings of the heart, and stupify their moral sensibilities.

And I would be equally friendly to such as are already engaged in prisons. Let them try to act like merciful beings, and forget not that cruelty is no part of their office. Let them redeem the character of gaolers, and shew by their conduct that humanity and justice can dwell in their hearts. It is important that they should heed this counsel, for it will be a sad vicissitude after having been keepers on earth, to become prisoners in eternity.