size of those below. Here the colored women are confined, and those of the whites who cannot be profitably employed in sewing, and who are occupied either in washing, or in picking wool. The average number of colored women is about fifteen. Three of these are generally confined in a room, and each of the other rooms generally contains two white women.

We proceed to the upper story, and here we find nine rooms, and a cell. One of these rooms is used as a store room, and one or two, as the necessity of the case may be, for hospitals. These rooms measure fourteen feet nine inches, by ten feet, six inches; except that which is called the cell, which measures about ten feet by five. Here, four, five, and six females are confined in a room.

Having taken this cursory glance of the prison for females in the House of Correction, let us pass to that for the men. This, it will be recollected, is in the middle story of the building, the upper and lower stories of which are our Common Jail.

Here are nine rooms, one of which is used for a hospital. A stranger, in visiting this prison, finds in it only a few invalids, with perhaps a single healthy prisoner who has the charge of them. The rooms measure fourteen feet nine inches, by ten feet six inches; are eight feet ten inches high, and have windows which are three feet ten inches high, and three feet wide. The clean, white walls, both of the arch, and of the rooms, indicate the care which is taken for the health of the prisoners; and, it ought to be added, that the females, as well as the men, have the medical services of a physician, who visits them daily, and in whose skill and humanity they may well repose the most entire confidence. Here, we are told,

that the average number who are confined in these rooms, is from five to seven; though seven of these rooms have contained each eight men, and one, ten men at a time. A recurrence, for a moment, to the offences for which these men have been sentenced to this place, and to the characters which they have brought here, will enable any one to form a correct, though it be a very general idea, of the kind of intercourse which they will hold with each other; and of the effects, of which such an intercourse must almost necessarily be productive.

From the House of Correction, let us turn our attention for a moment to the Common Jail.

Immediately above the prison for the men in the House of Correction, is the debtor's jail; and, immediately below it, are the apartments for the criminals who are committed for trial; or, from inability to pay the costs of court, and the fine to which they have been sentenced; or, for any, and all the offences, for which men are condemned to imprisonment in the common jail, either by the United States, the Supreme, the Municipal, or the Police Court. Here are, or have been, and at any time may be, those committed for murder, for assaults, for robbery, for theft, for impurity; and those of every grade in crime, from him who has taken the life of his fellow-man, and glories in the act, to him who, it may be, is soon to be acquitted as innocent; or, who would be set at liberty, if he had the means of paying a fine of four or five dollars. The rooms are in number, and size, corresponding with those of the men in the House of Correction above them; and here are the same facilities, which are there, for the freest intercourse. We learn that the average number in the debtors' apartments is about twentythree; and this, too,

is about the average number in the criminal's jail. Now let any one, I ask, who would understand the actual character of these prisons, and their moral influences, for it is alone these influences which have induced me to bring this subject before the public, allow himself the brief space which is required, deliberately to reflect upon them, in the single aspect in which they are here brought before him. Is this a jail, in the very sufferance of which among us we can feel ourselves to be justifiable? Or, is the prison, which we call the House of Correction, in any degree deserving of the name which we have given to it?

Were I not to go beyond this general description of our Common Jail, and our House of Correction, I should be completely vindicated to my own mind, and, I believe, to the minds of all thinking men, in all which I have to say against these prisons. Let any one but walk through them, alive to the consideration that here are not less than two hundred individuals, males and females, committed for almost every diversity of legal offence, and comprehending all ages from sixteen or seventeen, to seventy years, and let him observe the opportunities and means which these prisoners have for the freest communications with each other, and no doubt will be left upon his mind, whether they must be, what they in truth are, seminaries of iniquity. Aware, however, as I am, that general descriptions can at best give but general, and vague conceptions, I have obtained from the master of the House of Correction as accurate statements as can be made, of the number, and causes of commitment to this prison, from its commencement, to the 31st of the last July. These will be seen in the following tables.

TABLE I.

COMMITMENTS TO THE HOUSE OF CORRECTION FROM THE 6TH OF JUNE, 1823 TO THE 31ST OF JULY, 1829.

A discrepance will be noticed in the totals of these tables. In that which shows the number of annual commitments, the total is 3311; and in that which shows the numbers for the several offences, the total is 3262. The difference between them is 49. The Master of the House of Correction, to whose kindness I am indebted for these tables, accounts for this discrepance by the circumstance, which he thinks will satisfactorily account for it, that, in making out the second table, a few among the first named offenders were sentenced at once for drunkenness and lasciviousness; or, as lascivious and pilferers; or, as drunkards and vagabonds; and that, in attempting to specify the number of commitments for each offence, he has, to the extent of 49, overcharged the numbers set against these offenders. The error, however, is not important, in view of the purposes for which I have obtained these tables. Let a deduction of these 49 be taken alone from the number of drunkards, and, in six years, there have been 1435 commitments to the House of Correction for intemperance. Or, let the deduction be made from the number of the wanton and lascivious, and there have been 800 commitments of this class within the same term. Having therefore accounted for the difference in the two preceding tables, I subjoin two others, which I have endeavoured to make as perfect as possible, by a personal examination of the records of the House.

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