said, are nine apartments, and the average number confined in them is about twentythree. In the same building, it will be remembered, and in the story below them, the men in the House of Correction are confined; and, on the ground floor, criminals who have been sentenced to imprisonment here, and those who are committed for trial. How far the debtors communicate with the prisoners below them, I know not. But, that they may easily communicate with them by letter, is unquestionable. There is, indeed, a terrace immediately beneath the windows of the debtors' apartments. But letters, which are secured by a string, may without difficulty be thrown over it, and drawn into the windows of either of the prisons beneath. I am not aware that any evil has resulted from this connexion between these prisons. Yet no one, I think, can doubt, whether it may be an occasion for great moral evil, or whether the possibility of this communication should be permitted.

There is, however, another view of this jail for debtors, which I think is deserving of serious attention. Suppose the possibility of intercourse between the debtors, and the other prisoners, to be entirely cut off. Still, they are confined under the same roof with the greatest criminals; and they have no outward advantages over these criminals, except in the fact, that they are raised higher from the ground, and have thus a more extended prospect from their windows, and more of the clear air of heaven. They have not, however, even the benefits of the free air and exercise, which they have, who are in the House of Correction. Here are men, who, for a debt of five, or ten dollars, are shut up with two, three, or four companions, for one, or two months, breathing no other air than that

of their apartment; and having no other use of their limbs, than that of which they can avail themselves with. in these narrow walls. Is it asked, how do they spend their time? I answer, some amuse themselves with books, some with such games as they can play, and others in any way in which they can most effectually escape from thinking Now I do not say, that a man should not be impritoned for a debt of five dollars. I have not the leisure which is required for a discussion of the great questions, which grow out of our debtor laws. But I do say, that a man who is confined simply as a debtor, ought not to be made the tenant of a prison, in which criminals are confined; and, equally abridged of his liberty, even as a murderer. I do say, that simple debt ought not to be treated as a crime; and the debtor, legally innocent in other respects, made to feel himself as guilty in the eye of the law, as an adulterer, or a murderer. But I leave this subject, because I wish not to provoke a disputation, which I have not time to prosecute; and would ask a few moments' attention to the Jail, which is appropriated for criminals.

Here men are sent, who have been sentenced to imprisonment for assaults of all grades, from that with an intention to kill, to one of mere momentary passion; for riots, for adultery, for thefts, for burglary, for counterfeiting, for forgery, and for murder; and here, too, are those who are committed for trial for all these offences, whom yet the law recognises as innocent, and who are therefore to be treated as if they were innocent, as far as is consistent with their safe-keeping, till they have been proved to be guilty. Nay, here I have visited a man, who was in confinement seven weeks, merely be

cause he either could not, or would not, pay the fine of a dollar and the costs of court, in a prosecution for intemperance, and for undue severity in the chastisement of one of his children. Of the communications of these prisoners with each other, which are as easily carried on as in the story above them, I have had opportunities to obtain abundant knowledge. Once, for nearly forty successive days, I regularly passed an hour every day in a room in this prison; and at other times, I have made many visits to men who have been confined there. And not only do I know that they are, during a large part of their time, conversing with each other from room to room; but that, by means of the tin vessels in which their food is passed to them, through the small apertures at the bottom of the doors, they are not unfrequently making interchanges of some sort with each other. By the aid of a long twine, these tin vessels are conveyed to the rooms for which they are destined, with unerring certainty, and with admirable expedition. We have no need of any aid from the imagination, to conceive of the moral turpitude to which such a prison must necessarily be conducing. Let a young convict be sent here, and in a single month he will have learned more of the arts of iniquity, than he would probably have ever learned in his ordinary intercourse with the world. Here, then, are most fruitful nurseries for the other prisons of our country. I have indeed no doubt, whether it would be at once for the safety of the community, as well as for the future character of a young transgressor, after his conviction, rather to admonish him and to set him at liberty, than even to doom him for a single month to a confinement in this jail.

And if the evil be so great with respect to convicts, what must it be in regard to those who are committed for trial? Let it be, that no one is confined here for trial, except in the case of murder, if he be able to give, or to persuade his friends to give, bonds for his appearance for trial. And let it also be, that any one who may be supposed to be innocent of the crime with which he is charged, will find it not impracticable to induce others to be bound for him. Still there have been those who have been so imprisoned, and who have been acquitted. And is it not the merest mockery, to talk of the presumed innocence of him, who has not been proved to be guilty, and yet to treat the accused and untried, as if he had already committed the greatest of crimes? And is he not so treated, when he is incarcerated with convicts; and does, and from the circumstances of the case can, receive no more lenient treatment, than is extended to these convicts? Should a young man, or a man of any age, who is strong in passion and weak in principle, be committed for trial to our common jail, however innocent either may have been, at the time of his commital, of the offence of which he may have been accused, it will be wonderful indeed if he do not receive his discharge with a mind inclined, as it never before was, to a life of crime and recklessness.

Much has been written upon the discipline of prisons. But I think that we are yet far from correct conceptions on the doctrine of punishment, and of the proper treatment of prisoners. It is but too common a feeling, that he who is convicted of a crime, is therefore capable of any crime; that he is irreclaimable; and that he is hereafter to be considered, and treated, as one whose hand

will be against every man, and of whom every one therefore is to be as watchful, as of a personal enemy. It is forgotten, or disregarded, that the convict is a fellow being; that in many cases he is far less guilty, than are many who are unmolested in their liberty; and that, far gone as he may be in sin, he ought not to be viewed by his fellow men as utterly lost, since he has not been forsaken by the common Father. We have yet to learn, that the reformation of the violator of law is an object, which claims at least equal attention, as the security of society against his depredations, or violence; that men are not to be reclaimed, merely by being shut up in solitary cells at night, and kept at hard labor through the day, even though they may be called to attend daily prayers, and may have the daily advice of a christian pastor; that evil passions and interests may be nurtured, and matured, even in the darkness of a solitary cell; and that the mind, instead of being subdued, and tamed, by the neglect of all that are without, or by their contempt, or by their harshness, may thus be goaded to desperation. We have yet to learn, that there is a moral, a christian interest, as yet almost unfelt among us, which is due to prisoners by those who are without the walls of a prison; and that, if a bad man is to be made good, he must be brought into intercourse with, and receive the sympathy, of the good. Treat men as if they were totally depraved, and you will do much to make them so. And have you then no share in their accountableness for their guilt? I have no doubt whether great improvements have been made in the discipline, and well ordering of prisons.* But the subjects has obtained but little attention, compared with its claims

* See the Reports of the Prison Discipline Society.