RECOLLECTIONS
OF
WINDSOR PRISON;

CONTAINING
Sketches of its History and Discipline;

WITH
APPROPRIATE STRICTURES,

AND
MORAL AND RELIGIOUS REFLECTIONS.

BY JOHN REYNOLDS.

Third Edition.

BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY A. WRIGHT.
1839.

Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834,
BY ANDREW WRIGHT,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of Massachusetts.

PREFACE.

"Lest men suspect your tale untrue,
Keep probability in view."

In following this suggestion of the poet, I have been compelled to "extenuate," and I have had no temptation to "set down aught in malice." The world of gloomy horrors through which my memory has been roving for the materials of this volume, cannot receive a deepening shade from either reality or fiction; and my conscientious and prudential object has been, to take the brightest truths which my subjects have required, and let the darker ones remain untold. For the correctness of the facts which I have recorded, as to all essential points, I hold myself responsible; and as to my strictures and reasonings, I am willing they should pass for just what they are worth.

In sending these Recollections abroad, I am governed by principles which are equally remote from the considerations of either hope or fear. All my hopes, from my fellow men, are gone out in the cold and gloomy damps of despair; and having long endured their deepest scorn, I have nothing more to fear from them. My sole object is to plead the cause of suffering humanity, and drag iniquity from her dark retreats out into the view of mankind. I have also aimed to rend the mask from spiritual wickedness; and rouse the energies of benevolence in favor of the wretched. My cause is a good one—would to God it could find an abler advocate!

In noticing the opinions of others, I have been unrestrained, but candid; and in touching the conduct of some, I have endeavored to render to each his due—praise, to whom praise, and censure, to whom censure—and I am willing to step into the same scale myself.

I am well aware that this book will create me enemies, and put the tongue of slander in motion; but none of these things move me. The bird that is wounded will flutter. On the other hand, I expect to obtain some friends by this work; but this has been no inducement with me to publish it. Finally, I can assure both friends and foes, that, if any good should result from this volume to the cause of benevolence in any way, I may take my pen again. At any rate, I shall have the satisfaction of having done my duty, and performed my vow; and this satisfaction is of more value to me than any other reward which may result from my labors.

THE AUTHOR.

Boston, April, 1834.

GEHENNA IN MINIATURE.
ORIGIN OF PRISONS.

Egypt is said to have been the cradle of letters; and happy had it been for her history, if she had never cradled any thing worse. There are the first and oldest pyramids, the sphynxes, and the labyrinths; and there was erected the first prison of which history has taken notice. A cruel and heartless people, they deserve the infamy of corrupting the principles of penal justice, and of transforming their prisons into theatres of the most fiend-like barbarity, and unhallowed revenge.

With the same spirit which led the scholar to pry into the hieroglyphic mysteries of this land of wonders, has the genius of her prison discipline been copied by the nations of the earth, till the whole world is filled with these terrestrial hells. But as this sketch leads me rather to the contemplation of Penitentiaries than prisons in general, I shall turn my thoughts to them in particular.

ORIGIN AND DESIGN OF PENITENTIARIES, WITH A VIEW OF THEIR IMPERFECTIONS.

These lurid and doleful mansions, owe their existence to the sinfulness and depravity of man; and they are designed, by a mild and salutary process, to reform the sons of guilt and crime. Long experience had demonstrated, that sanguinary measures produced no good effect on the sufferers, but rather made them worse. Humanity, too, recoiled from the cruelty of such inflictions as the lash, and the brand; and as the effect of such severity was no argument for its continuance, humane legislators devised the Penitentiary system, by which criminals are confined to labor, and should be allowed full opportunities of reflecting on their conduct, and of reforming their lives. And as the design is to have them treated with kindness, and allowed all the means of moral and religious instruction and improvement, that man can furnish, the benevolent hope of the community is, that their sufferings, thus tempered with mercy and humanity, will be salutary and reforming in its effects. Mercy and benevolence were the inspiring angels of this system, and could it ever be brought practically to bear on offending man, it would produce a salutary reform in his heart and life.

But the great difficulty with which this system has to contend, is, the absolute impossibility of finding proper persons to carry it into effect. The life and soul of it is unmingled mercy, and men, qualified by gentleness of temper and benevolence of heart, to administer its laws, are not to be found on earth. Man, in his ruined and fallen nature, is a savage, and the milk of human tenderness was never drawn from the breast of a tiger. To give a full practical demonstration of the tendency and effects of the Penitentiary discipline, as it exists in the speculations of the philanthropist, God must become the director, and angels the ministering spirits of its administration. Such a system, in the faultlessness of perfection, is now in practical operation on the entire community of fallen and impenitent spirits; and the success of the past demonstrates the rationality of the expectation of universal success. On this the mind rests with perfect pleasure, and is relieved by it from the painfulness of witnessing the inefficiency of human means, to reform the votaries of guilt.

There can be no moral truth more fully demonstrated than this, that nothing but goodness can beget goodness. Material substances communicate their own properties to each other, and moral qualities impregnate, with their own nature, the objects on which they exert an influence.—Hence the baleful influence of tyranny on the human mind. Hence the contagion of vice. And hence the reason of the truth, that "we love God because he first loved us."

Where, in all history, can an instance be found of a single reformation from guilt, by any other than gentle and clement means? The blaze of retributive vengeance may awe the propensities to crime into inaction; but it cannot uproot them. The terrors of the Lord may make men afraid, but it is the goodness of God that leads to reformation. This is the secret of the Lord, which is with them that fear him. This is the golden key which opens the cause of that success, which has, visibly, in so many cases, marked the progress of the gospel of the grace of God; and which is, in all others, attaining the same happy result, by a process so silent and slow, as to evade the careless observation of the unreflecting multitude. This is the philosophy of the divine administration, and it is one of those simple sciences which the pride of man is reluctant to learn; but which the humility of Christ will dispose him to receive, and by which his nature is to be renewed and adorned.

A ray of this science darkened by the dusky medium through which it passed, shot from the throne of blended goodness and intelligence, and crossed the mind of that philanthropist who conceived the ideal theory of an effective Penitentiary discipline, in the hands of man. A gleam of sacred light seemed to spread over the anticipated results of the embryo experiment, as he resolved it in his enthusiastic mind; but it was like the gleam of the north, which shoots on the eye, and is immediately lost in its vivid expansion. It is a vain and idle theory; splendid, indeed, but impracticable; lovely, but visionary; and can never go into perfect operation till the occasion for it shall have ceased. In all but intelligent and sympathizing hands, this system of benevolence must necessarily be perverted; and as "man's inhumanity to man makes countless thousands mourn," the same uncomely traits of character will continue, till the Spirit of God shall have humanized mankind, and obviated the necessity of corrective discipline.

Another obstacle, not only to the exhibition of a perfect Penitentiary, but to so good a one as might exist, even in the present state of human depravity, is, the well known fact, that merciful men cannot be obtained to enforce its discipline; none but the true sons of an uncompromising and iron-hearted severity, will consent to perform for any considerable time, the unenviable task of inflicting pain on a fellow creature. Hence this duty is too frequently assigned, from necessity, to those who find in it the highest enjoyment of which their dreadful natures are capable. There are numbers of very bright exceptions to this remark, and I shall notice them with pleasure when I come to treat of the character of the keepers. Could such men as may be found on earth—those brighter fragments of ruined humanity, which are frequently to be met with,—be placed at the head and in the offices of our Penitentiaries, and could they be removed at that very hour when the too frequent perception of suffering begins to corrupt and deaden their moral feelings, many of the evils which now grow out of the perversion of those means of good, might be obviated, even if no salutary results could be produced. And this I am confident is an improvement in those places for which the demand is impressive and thrilling.

Another reason why prisons do not effect more good, or prevent more evil, is, the design of them is lost sight of. Instead of an altar to God, the keepers erect one to Mammon; and among the sacrifices at this altar are found the health, peace, and life of the convicts. Here, surely, reform is called for in a voice as sacred as it is loud and awful. Remove that altar; subsidize no longer the blood of souls in the interdicted worship of an idol; but allow the subjects of penal bondage time and opportunity for reflection; for reading the Holy Bible; for prayer; for public and social worship;—and furnish them with all the means and facilities of moral and religious improvement which intelligent piety can suggest.

ORIGIN, CONSTRUCTION, GOVERNMENT,
AND
GENERAL HISTORY OF WINDSOR PRISON.

The foundation of this prison was laid in 1809. It is built of stone throughout, has three stories, and thirty-five rooms or cells, with strong and massy iron doors. The cells on the ground are small, with small apertures or windows; those in the second story are generally larger, but with similar apertures; and those in the upper story are all larger, and have grated windows, much larger than those in the other stories. In this story are two rooms which are used as hospitals. The furniture of the rooms are straw beds, with convenient and comfortable clothing, small seats and a few books. The ground story is for the prisoners when they first enter the prison. After some time, if they conduct in a satisfactory manner, they are moved to the second story; from which, in due time, if they merit the favor, they are permitted to ascend to the third. If any of the prisoners, in the second and third stories, transgress the laws, they are put down one story as a part of their punishment.

Some of the small cells in the first and second stories are used as solitary cells for the punishment of offenders. The apertures of these are closed, so that they are as dark as midnight. While the offender is in these, he has only one blanket to sleep on, in the coldest weather in the winter, and in the summer, nothing but the stone floor. His only sustenance is a piece of bread once a day, weighing from four to six ounces. Some prisoners have been confined in these places more than thirty days, though the usual time varies from six to twelve. Many have frozen their feet there, and in many a constitution, the seeds of decay and death have there been planted.

The furniture of the hospitals is of a piece with that of the other parts of the prison, and only one degree more comfortable. The beds are straw; the clothes are clean; the food various, according to the complaints of the sick, but never rises to the claims of humanity. In the winter, the patients are blessed with a stove, and are kept comfortably warm. This is the dying place, but some are denied the comfort of even this, and die before they can get admittance. According to the laws of the prison, however, this is the only place in which medicine must be given, and the appointed department for all that are sick. But laws are only ropes of sand. The laws of the prison are merciful, but neither the rains of spring, the dews of morning, nor the sunbeams of heaven, can either soften or fertilize a rock.

It was the original design that the whole prison should be kept warm, and large stoves were provided for this purpose; but it was found impossible to do this by the means used, and after a few years, the coldest part of the winter found not a spark of fire in any of the halls. Much is suffered on account of the cold; but it is a place of punishment, and this is the kind and feeling argument with which the keepers meet the entreaties of the shivering prisoners. Many a time have I made large balls by scraping the frost with my hand from the stone sides of my cell; and thousands of times have my hands been so chilled, that I had to tax my ingenuity to turn over the pages of my bible.

Adjoining the prison is a large brick house, for the use of the keepers and guard. At some distance in the rear, is a large brick shop, in which the prisoners are employed during the day, at their labor, which was at first making nails and other smith work, but has since been changed to manufacturing cotton cloth, ginghams, plaids, &c. This shop is kept warm and clean.

Another brick building between the shop and prison was erected for store rooms, lumber rooms, &c., and for a chapel. This part of it was very convenient, and spoke much for the pious feelings of the individuals who erected it. It was used, however, only a few years for the worship of God, when "a new king arose who knew not Joseph," and the voice of the preacher and the utterance of prayer departed from this temple, and the buyers and sellers, and money changers occupied the place of the priest, and polluted the sacred altar. It was painful to tread on these sacred ruins, and to hear the clack of looms where the soul had hung with transport on the sacred sounds of instruction, and been melted with the holy ardors of devotional feeling. "By what spirit," I often asked, "was this ruin made? Was it the spirit of piety?"—No! The genius of this change came not from Jordan's waves, nor from Zion's holy hill; the hand that smote this altar of religion and extinguished the last cheering light of the contrite soul was nerved by the same spirit that led the guilty rabble to smite the condemned Redeemer, and place on his innocent head a crown of thorns.

Another brick building east of this, used as an office for the master weaver, and a carpenter's shop, &c. is all that had been erected previously to the building of the new prison for solitary confinement, in 1830. Around all these is a wall about sixteen feet high, and three feet thick at the base, which completes the Establishment.

The government of the prison was, at first, vested in a Board of Visiters, who appointed the subordinate officers, made the By-Laws of the Institution, and made report of their doings to the Legislature every year. The officers of their appointment were the head keeper and three or more assistant keepers—five guard—a master weaver—a physician—a chaplain—and a contractor. One of the Visiters attended at the prison one day in every week to give directions about the work, and to see that the By-Laws were obeyed and enforced.

After some years this form of the government was changed, and the duty of the Board of Visiters committed to one man, denominated the Superintendent. Another change soon after gave the appointment of a Warden to the Legislature, and the appointment of the inferior officers to him, leaving the Superintendent to act only as contractor. After eight years the office of Warden was destroyed by the Legislature, and all authority recommitted to the Superintendent.

These changes in the government did not effect, in any degree, the spirit by which the prison was governed; and while each form had its peculiarities and excellencies, they all had their defects. The principal defects were the investing of the Visiters and Wardens, and Superintendents with the power to appoint physicians and chaplains. These are high and important offices, and ought not to be answerable to any power but supreme. The physician, depending on the pleasure of a petty officer for his appointment, is too often the mere tool of that officer, to the injury of his moral principles, and at the expense of the health and life of too many of the prisoners. Whereas if the physician held his office from the Legislature, he would have power to open and shut, which he has not now; and both health and life, which are now lost, might be preserved.

The Chaplain, also, should hold his office from the highest source in the state. In such a place, his is the most important office, and he ought to have authority to do all things pertaining to it, without any reference to the pleasure of a man who, perhaps, despises both him and his office, and believes in no God higher than himself. The gospel ought to be fully taught and explained, and exemplified by the Chaplain; and he ought to be elevated, in his authority, above the control of those who can now say to him—"Come at such a moment, or not at all."

Another reason why the Legislature ought to appoint the Chaplain is, that then, sectarian policy would not have so much influence. The Legislature is composed of members of all churches, and they would, as they do their own chaplain, appoint without any reference to sect; and then one man living in Windsor, could not consult the finances of his own party, in appointing a clergyman for the prison.

The By-Laws of the prison have never been very materially altered, since they were first composed. A copy of them is laid before the Legislature every year, and being sanctioned by that body, they become, virtually, the laws of the state for that Institution. They are wisely adapted to the circumstances of the prison, and are as merciful as they are wise; but they are disregarded, and never adverted to but when they direct the infliction of punishment on the prisoners. They are trampled under foot by every keeper and guard, from the highest to the lowest. They are read once in every month to the prisoners, but those parts which relate to the conduct of the officers, are wisely omitted in reading, lest the prisoners should know when they err, and be able to convict them from the law. I do not say this from conjecture, I know it; for the hand that is writing this word, copied them every year, and I also read to the prisoners the parts directed to be read; and I have often heard the keeper say, that the prisoners ought not to know what laws relate to the officers. I shall have occasion, in the course of these sketches, to quote largely from these By-Laws, and what has been written here will suffice for my present purpose.

The prisoners go to their work at sunrise, and retire at sunset. They have a task, and for what they do over it, they receive a compensation. Their food is coarse, but good and wholesome. They wear party-colored clothes, half green and half scarlet, and are kept clean. They are not allowed to converse together while at work, nor can they leave their employment and go into the yard, or any part of the shop without permission of the keeper. When they are out of the shops they are under the care of the guard on the wall, and they are not suffered to ramble, but must do their errand and return into the shop.

They can see their friends, when they call, in the presence of a keeper, and write and receive letters, if they contain nothing objected to by the Warden or head officer. They have such books as they purchase for themselves, and once they had a social library, which would have been more useful, if many very improper books had not been in it. Why these were admitted, the guardians of the morals of the place must answer. No newspapers were allowed to be introduced, not even religious ones; but tracts and religious pamphlets were not objected to.

There is always a keeper in every shop while the prisoners are at work, and he is armed with a sword. A guard is placed on the wall during the day, armed with a gun, loaded with a ball and buck shot; and at night there is one in the entrance of the prison to prevent escapes.

Such is the general history of the prison up to 1830, when a new prison, on the plan of solitary confinement, was erected. This contains about one hundred and seventy small cells, in which the prisoners are confined separately during the night. No radical alteration, I apprehend, has been made in the government of the place, in any other respect. The design of this change was, to prevent the prisoners from corrupting each other's minds by social intercourse. The principle laid down by the votaries of this plan, is, that vice is contagious, and wicked men become worse by association. The more abandoned, it is said, will draw down others to their own degree of guilt, if permitted to associate together, and thus baffle all the efforts of piety and virtue for their reformation. Hence the presumptive necessity for a prison on a new construction, and hence the prison for solitary confinement in Windsor. I hope it will be so managed as to prove a less curse to humanity than the old one, though it is like hoping against hope. In respect to its reforming effect, I shall say more in another article; but I will remark here, that reformation is a moral work, and depends not on the shape of the person's room. It is a work of mercy, and nothing but mercy can effect it. Man is a social being, and the laws of his nature are violated by dooming him to solitude. The genius of crime dwells in the dark places of retirement, and always communes with its followers alone. Social life, on the contrary, is the garden of every virtue, in which nothing but flowers are permitted to flourish, and nothing but good fruit permitted to ripen when properly cultivated.

SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.

I ought to touch this subject with a delicate hand. Many giants of speculation have been this way, and they have laid down principles from which I am compelled to dissent. I am well aware of the charm of greatness, and of the danger of appearing singular with those on whom the mantle of popular veneration has been seen to fall; and I feel that in the strictures which I am commencing, I shall gain no applause from those who are kindly delivered from labor of thinking for themselves. This weighs, however, but little with me. A being who has visited the moon knows more about it than astronomers have ever taught. A man who has burned his finger knows more of the effect of fire on flesh, than the most eloquent lecturer who has had no experience. Confident, then, that my own experience may be safely trusted, I shall follow it cheerfully, whether it lead me in the path which speculation has trodden, or across it. Bacon lays it down as a principle in philosophy, that man is ignorant of every thing antecedent to observation, and that experience is at the bottom of all our knowledge. To this principle I bow in submission, and take it for granted that what I have experienced I know.

Sustained then by my own personal experience and observation, I say fearlessly, that the solitary confinement plan, is an unwise, unfeeling, and ruinous innovation upon the Penitentiary discipline. Every body knows that it adds to the terror of such places; evinces a cruel recklessness of the feelings and personal comfort of the prisoner; and has the effect to convince him that the government is not his friend. This destroys his confidence in its mercy, and creates in him a disposition for revenge, which will eternally baffle all efforts for his reformation. He may, indeed, be awed with the gloomy horrors of the law, but cannot, by such means, be regenerated into a love of virtue. No; before you can do any thing towards reforming a sinner, you must convince him of your real friendship for him, which can be done only by being friendly; and it is not being friendly to inflict pain without a benevolent motive. The construction of ordinary prisons is full cruel enough to fill the soul with terror; no friend would build even such a place as Windsor prison was, for one he loved, and no human being could suppose that love and friendship for the human race, had any thing to do in forming its plan. Should an angel from some happy world, in his flight near our earth, pause and contemplate the old prison at Windsor, he would hasten back and inform his companions that he had seen a hell. That place was designed or ignorantly constructed, as a fit house in which Revenge might feed in luxury on the tears of distress, and dance to the groans of despair. Every prisoner could read the spirit of the place in the massy walls—the iron grates and doors—and the noonday twilight of the cells; and the impression on every mind was, that the spirits of the infernal world had been erecting a very appropriate Temple for their chief. This is neither fiction, fancy, nor poetry, but solemn literal truth. The deathly chill which it threw on my spirits when I entered it, makes me shudder to this hour. But the new prison caps the climax of relentless invention, and sets description at defiance. Now, I say, that no prisoner can suppose by any reach of rational candor, that the builders of this new prison, were his friends; and hence all efforts, purporting to spring from a tender regard for his good, will be appreciated accordingly.

But it may be said, that the contagious nature of vice rendered it necessary to separate the prisoners into small solitary cells, to prevent their social intercourse, and its supposed consequence, their reciprocal progression in vice. To this I reply, and I will appeal to the facts in the case in support of my position, that the practical effect of such a separation goes to prove, that it is only a refinement of cruelty. The more completely you put one man into the power of another, the more perfectly do you create a tyrant, and prostrate a sufferer. Solitary cells and flogging, go hand in hand. Thus, the more certainly is the sufferer convinced that the authority is his enemy, and the more certainly is his reformation rendered impossible. The evils of solitary cells are far greater than the evils they were designed to remedy. I appeal to the experiment. I have only one more observation to make on this head, and I make it with a design to have it remembered. It is this—Benevolence will appear benevolence, and nothing but apparent benevolence will turn a sinner from the error of his ways, and lead him to purify his heart.

GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE OFFICERS.

The unanimous opinion of all ages and countries has been, that prison keepers are tyrants. Regarding the prisons of earth and the prison of gehenna, in the same light, the directors and servants of both have been considered as drinking at the same fountain, and as possessing the same traits of moral character. This opinion, however, like many others which have obtained in the world, is not universally true, for there are prison keepers who possess every moral excellence, and who are more like angels of mercy, than fiends of darkness. But it is to be lamented that these exceptions are rare, and that it is too generally true, for the honor of humanity, that the term gaoler is synonymous with despot.

From this general truth, a very humbling inference necessarily follows. We cannot resist the conclusion to which it leads the reflecting mind, that cruelty is a radical element in the moral nature of fallen man, and never fails to develop itself when circumstances permit. Human nature is, in its fallen and unregenerate condition, only a cluster of shapeless and uncomely fragments, and presents every where the same bold and darkened outlines of depravity; and to adventitious circumstances is to be principally attributed the small complexional difference in the filling up of the picture. Like the mouldering, moss-grown ruins of some temple, which was once the wonder of the world, man is only the wreck of what he was when his heart was the throne of Deity, and his soul the image of his glorious Creator. Then, holiness was his element, but now sin. Then, angels sought, but now they shun his society. Then, like a field warmed by the sun, moistened by the rain, and fully prepared by the tiller's hand, he brought forth fruit unto God; but now he exhibits the sterility of a desert, in respect to what is good, but the fruitfulness of a garden in respect to evil. Then, mercy and gentleness were the seraph principles of his conduct, but now he is the cruel and savage playmate of the tiger.

This, I am aware, is a very repulsive truth, and one to which the pride of man will not readily subscribe. It is, notwithstanding, a truth, stereotyped on every page of his moral history; and it applies equally to the little Satan of a family and to the tyrant of a world. The seeds are in every breast, and they never fail to germinate under auspicious circumstances. Invest man with authority, and you commission a despot; and nothing but the restraining principles of the gospel, will prevent him from becoming a curse to those who are in his hands. The history of Hazael fully confirms the truth of this remark. He was sent to Elisha the prophet to inquire whether Benhadad the king of Syria would recover from a disease with which he was afflicted. As soon as he came into the presence of the prophet, Elisha fastened his eyes steadfastly on his countenance and wept. The astonished Syrian inquired the cause of his weeping. "I weep," said the man of God, "because I know the evil that thou wilt do unto the children of Israel; their strong holds wilt thou set on fire, and their young men wilt thou slay with the sword; and wilt dash their children, and rip up their women with child." Indignant at the imputation of such monstrous cruelty to him, Hazael replied, "Is thy servant a dog that he should do this great thing!" "But," said the prophet, "the Lord hath shewed me that thou shall be king over Syria." While he was only an inferior officer, Hazael's soul shuddered at the bare mention of those cruelties which in a more elevated rank he was going to commit; but when informed that he was to become the king of Syria, the unhallowed principles of his nature began to quicken into exercise. The first act of his life after this was the murder of his master, and the language of the prophet is the history of his future life.

This is by no means a solitary exemplification of the truth which I have asserted. Nero, when he ascended the throne, is said to have been a merciful man; and when he was called upon to sign a death warrant, he is said to have expressed his regret that he had learned to write. Such was Nero once, but what was his character afterwards? His history is written in the blood of his murdered mother, and of Seneca his tutor; and in the tears, and cries, and broiling flesh of a thousand martyrs. Here is a fair specimen of the effect of unbridled authority on the nature of man; and while it holds up a hydra monster to the execration of all mankind, it says to all of us, in language of the most thrilling import, "Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."

Having made these general observations on the nature of man, and the influence of circumstances upon him, I shall enter upon the subject of this sketch.

Perhaps no prison on earth ever had better keepers than the one in Windsor. Though many of these have been as bad as humanity under such circumstances could possibly become, and though much of their conduct cannot be contemplated without the deepest horror of soul, the number of such monsters has been comparatively small. The frequent changes which take place in the officers, and the shortness of their residence there, are very fortunate circumstances, not at all favorable to the production of perfect tyrants. The longer a keeper stays there, the more cruel and heartless he becomes. This is a truth which experience has taught to every observing prisoner. Hence it is equally true that prisons grow worse as they grow older. They all had their origin in a merciful design, but by the authority with which the officers are clothed, they become little empires, and gradually sink down into the gloom of unalleviated despotism.

There are but few of the keepers who continue there over one or two years, some not so long, and but now and then one who stays five or six years. These are invariably the most hardened, and having the most power, they give tone to the conduct of the others and gradually induce them towards their own degree of severity. Influenced by them, many a young keeper and guard have been led to stain their souls with deeds of cruelty, which they could not think of afterwards without horror. The truth of the case is this—there are a few of the officers who have fully reached that dark eminence of perfect inhumanity, which is ascribed to a fallen spirit; and from this unenviable distinction there is a gradual softening down to the common level of human character.

These, according to their authority and moral temperament, exert a malignant influence on the administration of the prison, and on the peace and comfort of the prisoners. Generally taken from the very humblest employments, illiterate, and destitute of a proper acquaintance with mankind, and invested with an authority little less than absolute, extending virtually to the life or death of their subjects, they are intoxicated with their power, and seek every possible occasion to display it. To speak civilly to a prisoner is considered beneath their dignity; and their cup of joy is full only when they can say—"I have sent the rascal to the solitary cell." Armed with a sword, and placed over one of the shops, they ape the monarch and claim the homage of a god.

The same spirit accompanies the stripling when he ascends the wall to act the soldier in his turn. Though serving for a stipend of eight dollars a month, and doomed by a decree which he is unable to violate, to the lowest walks in society, he fancies now that he is somebody, and makes all who are under his shadow feel the full weight of his self-importance. Over one entire quarter of an acre of this world, strongly walled in, he holds divided empire with his brother on the other side; he imagines that his bench is a throne, his gun a sceptre, and the limit of his dominions the everlasting hills. It is not easy to treat this subject with seriousness, and yet it is too solemn to be trifled with. See him pacing his post like a private in the army. Be careful how you smile, for he has the instrument of death in his hand, and he it was who took the life of Fane.[1]

But these servants of the prison are not only inhuman and vain, there is no meanness to which they will not stoop; and they delight in all those little vexations with which they can perplex the prisoners. They are employed in making little rules and regulations for the prisoners, when they are in the yard, and these are so numerous, that no one can remember them, and so contradictory, that to obey one, at least half a dozen must be violated. Their common language to their subjects is—"Go here!—go there!—do this!—do that!—shut your head!—mind your business!—what are you doing!—out of the vault!—you shall go to the solitary for that!"

Nor is such mean and cruel conduct peculiar to the subordinate powers, they often are found in, and are copied from, the highest. I have seen those who occupied the chief seats in the synagogue, try every expedient to vex the prisoners into a war of words, and having accomplished their object, punish them for those very words which they provoked them to utter. I have heard them insult the prostrate objects of their power with words which I should blush to write. I have know them authorize vexatious regulations which the heart of Verres could not have enforced. I have seen one of these gather a number of prisoners around him, and though he had a wife and daughters, lead and give spirit to a conversation, which would have imprinted a blush on the cheek of impurity itself.

This conduct is the more conspicuous from the fact, that the laws of the prison require every officer, and the head one especially, to have an especial reference, in all things, to the good and moral reformation of the prisoners. This also renders their conduct the more criminal; and to this as one of the principal causes must be referred the hardening effect of state-prison discipline upon its subjects.—They know the laws by which the keepers are bound; they know that the community and the government of the state require them to be merciful, and to treat the convicts as if they considered them human beings; and when they see these officers so outrageously sinful against the most solemn obligations, and the most sacred and obligatory laws, and yet as cruel to them for trifling and shadowy offences, as if they themselves were immaculate, they cannot help despising them in their hearts, and kindling with a flame which sets reformation at defiance. And it is not too much to say, that many a prisoner has been hardened in crime by the example of those very men who were commissioned to reform him. If I had the power, and desired to have the angel Gabriel become a devil, I would send him to Windsor prison for three years.

But I should do violence to my own feelings, and injustice to this part of my subject, were I not to give a very different character to some who have held offices in this Institution. As there are a few who have reached the climax of depravity, so there are some who have exhibited characters which do honor to human nature. Like stars in the dark, they were the angel spirits of that "house of wo and pain." They were warmed with the pure glow of benevolent and christian feeling; and if all the keepers had manifested the same temper and sympathy for the suffering, many a mountain of grief would have been rolled from their bleeding breasts—many a refractory spirit would have been charmed into obedience—many a hard heart would have been softened into tenderness—many a guilty soul would have been washed into purity—many a mother's heart would have been gladdened with the return of a prodigal child—and many a wife would have been blessed with a husband reclaimed. To these, I owed much of my comfort while I was a prisoner. I remember them with gratitude, and I am sure that they will have the blessing of the merciful.

From the account already given, it would readily be inferred, that the officers of the prison are not professors of religion. This inference would not be true unless a few exceptions should be made. I recollect only four, however, among the inferior officers, to whom the inference would not fully apply. In respect to these it is right to say, that they exhibited as much of the spirit of their profession, as could be intelligently expected from any in their situation. The same remark is true of the head ones, many of whom had been baptized. Christians, as well as others, are influenced by circumstances, and authority is the worst circumstance in which any christian can be placed. A small historic sketch will fully illustrate the influence of power, even on sanctified humanity. One of the prisoners was a restorationist. A friend of his, a very respectable clergyman of that faith, sent him a book in defence of the doctrine of future retribution, against the writings of Rev. W. Balfour. He had received many similar books from the same source, but this was objected to, and kept from him full six weeks, but not returned to the sender, nor any information given either way. At length a keeper informed him that there was a letter for him in the house, from Rev. S. C. Loveland, and a book entitled "Hudson's Reply," which the officer at the head of affairs refused to let him have. This keeper was a man of too noble a soul to be cramped by the unfeeling regulations of a religious exclusive, and he gave the prisoner an opportunity to read them and then return them to him. After this he found means of obtaining them on the express condition, that he would not lend them to any of his fellow prisoners. This same man, at another time, refused to let a prisoner have a book on the subject of religion, which was written and sent to him by his father.

This officer must have had a very conscientious regard for the moral and religious good of the prisoners; but how he could exclude religious books from them, and yet permit them to purchase and read the lowest, dirtiest and most infamous books that ever corrupted either sex, or disgraced the literature of any age or country, he can tell as truly as I can conjecture. This is not a solitary instance of religious inconsistency in the officers; I could mention more, but my limits will not permit. It shews what mankind are—a selfish, exclusive, unfeeling, and despotic community. Every view which we can take of man, as he comes into contact with circumstances, goes to confirm the maxim, that if he has power he will use it. From the same volume we learn the impolicy of creating spiritual superiors. Christians are brethren. Among them is no allowable pre-eminence. They are to call no man on earth either master, or father. This is the command of Christ himself, and from the authority with which it is clothed, is obvious the greatness of the crime of disobeying it. Hence the fact that a spiritual despotism is the worst that can exist. Look to Rome; look to England; look into the cells of the Inquisition. May the Lord never, in his anger, curse these United States with a church establishment. Political tyranny is horrid enough, but from spiritual tyranny, good God deliver us!

There was once an important officer in the prison who was a Deist. He despised all religion, and even insulted and abused the Chaplain. Frequently did he keep some of the prisoners employed in chopping wood on the Sabbath; and when spoken to about this profanation of the Christian's sacred day, his reply was—"Monday is a good day, Tuesday is a good day, Sunday is a good day, I see no difference in them." There was not a single good thing in this man's official conduct. He despised almost every thing that is called good. The prisoners he regarded as an inferior race of animals, and rebuked the Chaplain for calling them "brethren." He was too bad even for that office, and as he purchased an ox for the prisoners to eat, which had died of disease in the heat of summer, the Superintendent gave him a very sudden and peremptory discharge. "I give you," said he, "till to-morrow morning to clear out, and take away your things." This was good tidings of great joy to all, and the prison rung with Jubilee.

I knew another high officer in the prison, who was also a Deist; but he was a most excellent man, and by a kind and fatherly administration, he endeared himself to every prisoner. His conduct would have done honor to the highest professions of Christianity. He adorned many of the doctrines of the gospel. He was not only an honest man, he was also a benevolent one. In all things he was influenced by principle, and did as he would be done by; and he did more to bless the prisoners with the preaching of the gospel, than many who prided themselves on their Christianity.

Among many of the inferior officers of the prison, who made no profession of religion, there was but one sentiment in respect to those prisoners who professed to be Christians, and this was, that they were all hypocrites.—They dealt out to them a very superior share of their contempt, and always ridiculed their professions. If one of them was particular in reading the Scriptures, that was made the subject of light remark; and if in prayer one of them spoke so as to be heard, he was impudently ordered to stop. And once, in particular, a keeper told one of the serious convicts, that he would act a more wise part, if he would say nothing about his religion, but leave off praying and be like the other prisoners. Another prisoner was put in the solitary cell for reading his bible in the shop, where many a one had been allowed to read books, undisturbed, with which no virtuous female would pollute her fingers. The common vulgar cant, with which the keepers used to assail the piety of the prisoners, was as follows,—"They want to get out I guess—they are coming the religious lock—they are going to pray themselves out—they are mighty pious just now, pity they had not thought of this before." Such remarks as these were as frequent as the mention of the prisoner's piety, or the sight of one who was known to read his bible and pray; and not only the servants, but their masters often joined in such unmanly and inhuman sarcasms. "The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel."

GENERAL CHARACTER AND HABITS OF THE PRISONERS.

This view presents human nature in its most degraded state, and in its darkest complexion. Here is man doubly fallen; here are the fragments of moral ruin in their most hideous array. A field, once green with inspiring promise, but now withering under a second blight. A splendid and glorious creation in baleful ruin. An ocean, once pure as a dew drop and smooth as a sea of glass, but now torn by conflicting waves, and casting up mire and dirt. The view is too painful! My heart sickens within me!

But it affords some relief to the mind, in dwelling on this gloomy prospect, to find here and there a ruin less ruined than others—a lonely column not fallen; a prostrate pillar not covered with moss nor buried in the earth. The soul of man is not susceptible of utter ruin. Immortal, it cannot die; the inspiration of the Almighty, and glorious once in his own image, it may grow dim, but not utterly dark; it may sink, but will rise again; it may wander, but will not be finally lost. My remarks on this subject, therefore, will be designed to shew, that there are, in this mass of dark, polluted, and fallen mind, some redeeming traits remaining unruined; something to admire and commend—something to imitate and love. In doing this, I shall relate some of the many historic incidents, which will prove the existence, and illustrate the nature of those moral and intellectual principles, which have hitherto survived that annihilating process to which they have been exposed.

The first incidents which I shall relate, will show that the prisoners have sympathy for, and take pleasure in relieving the distressed.

A female who had a husband in the prison, came with her two children, three hundred miles to see him. By the time she arrived, she had spent all her money, and had suffered on the road. As soon as this was known, the prisoners made up a purse of fourteen dollars, and gave it to her, besides giving her cloth to dress both of her children.

Another time a father and mother came there to see their son, and being destitute, a purse of eight dollars was made up for them.

Another occasion for the charity of the prisoners was as follows:—The sentences of two of the prisoners had expired, but not having the money to pay the cost of their prosecution, they were not permitted by the keeper to leave the prison. When this was known, the sum required was immediately made up and given to them, and they were discharged.

By another train of incidents, it will appear, that they are pleased with religious worship, and love to hear the preaching of the gospel.

They always attend when there is preaching, and listen with a degree of interest and earnestness, which no preacher has failed to notice.

When, after years of earnest application, they obtained leave to form a choir of singers for religious purposes, they furnished their own books and instruments, not being able to get them of the keepers.

On another occasion, a company of them bought a lot of tracts for gratuitous distribution in the prison.

As an expression of their sense of the importance of preaching, and of the faithfulness of their Chaplain, they gave him money to purchase him a coat.

At another time, they contributed about twenty dollars to a society which had been formed to send the gospel to prisons.

A cluster of promiscuous incidents which I am now going to group together, will demonstrate the existence of other excellent qualities.

Husbands and children are particularly careful to keep their earnings, and at convenient times, send them to their parents and families. Others are diligent at work, that they may have the means of making a decent appearance when they get their liberty. Some apply themselves to books, and a few have made astonishing progress in the sciences. I knew one who made himself master of Euclid's Elements, Ferguson's Astronomy, Stuart's Intellectual and Paley's Moral Philosophy. Another made himself acquainted with most of the branches in a liberal education. And many others became very good common scholars. Not a few of them are chaste and moral in their conversation, and civil and exemplary in all their conduct. And that they are not so lost to the virtues of our nature, as some who are in different circumstances, is evident from the fact, that they are proverbially, an industrious community.

I dwell with pleasure on these virtues, which still smile and diffuse their fragrance in the midst of surrounding desolation; and some of them are found in every breast of that unhappy multitude. The fact is, there are a great many principles of moral excellence, which go to the formation of a perfect character; and it is never that all of these can be found destroyed, or uprooted, in any one individual. That monster over whose breast has been hung the pall of every virtue, never was and never can be found. Some seed, some root, some germ, remains to repair the desolation, and to smile in perfect growth and endless beauty, where ruin has been the deepest. Hence the hope of reformation. Hence the strongest argument to attempt it, both in ourselves and others. The pulse of spiritual or moral health is still beating in all those guilty souls, and proper attention would soon restore them to its blissful enjoyment.

On the other hand, they exhibit many of the very worst passions and principles of fallen nature, in their worst and most appalling light. Against this charge nothing can be said in their vindication. My only object in introducing this sketch, is, to show, that though many of the virtues of the upright heart have been destroyed from theirs, all of them have not. There are some good and excellent qualities remaining in every one of them; and I wish to turn the thoughts and efforts of our Benevolent Societies to their improvement. This is an inviting field for them to labor in, and they could not labor here in vain. Christ came from heaven to save prisoners, and the servants of Christ ought to be willing to follow his example and visit prisons too. He might have kept better company in heaven, or gone on an embassy to less guilty worlds, but he came to us, to sinners, to prisoners, to save us from sin, and free us from chains.

CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS.

In a state prison, almost every action of the prisoners, not particularly mentioned in the By-Laws, is either a crime or not, according to the whim that happens to be in the breast of the keeper at the time it is done. Hence there are many actions punished, and sometimes very severely, which were not known to have been improper at the time they were committed, but which, by a very common post facto process, became crimes afterwards. Any thing which a prisoner does or neglects to do, is, if the guard or keeper who notices it, has any spite to gratify, dressed up in a criminal suit and made a pretext for punishment. To smile or look sober, to speak or keep silence, to walk or sit still, is alike criminal when convenience requires.

It is, also, a rule of conduct with the keepers, to punish all for the crime of one. Instances of this are very common. I will mention some of them.

There was a little upstart dandy among the prisoners, who on one occasion, had his hair cut by order of his keeper a little shorter than his vanity desired. Displeased with this, he immediately had all his hair cut down to one quarter of an inch; and on account of this criminal vanity and resentment in him, every head in the prison was scissored down to a quarter of an inch for more than two years.

To make his displeasure fall with full force on one of the prisoners, the Warden once took every book out of the work shops and ordered that no prisoner should rest from his work two minutes at a time, from morning till night.

Because some of the prisoners have pretended that they were sick when they were not, every sick man is neglected.

Another fact in relation to crimes is, that some of the keepers have given their countenance and aid to the prisoners in the commission of them, and shared with them the profits of their wickedness. It is well known that some of the keepers have assisted the prisoners to get materials into the cells for weaving suspenders; and when woven, they have sold them and divided the money. Fine keepers! Fit men to reform the guilty! Assist the prisoners to steal, and divide the plunder!

But when we come to those crimes which are specified in the By-Laws, the most frequent grow out of the following sources:—

1. Defects in the work. For the smallest defect here, the prisoner is often made to feel severely. What is so small that none but a malignant eye would notice it, some variation in the shade, something that could not have been avoided, is too often carried on to the books as a great crime, for which only ten days in the solitary cell can atone.

2. Not keeping a proper distance in walking. The laws require the prisoners to keep six feet apart in going to and returning from their cells and meals. This requires no small share of practical trigonometry, and if a prisoner should not be pretty good to learn, before he can possibly keep in the right spot, the guard will have an opportunity to give him a number of solitary lectures. Many a man, who thought he was exactly right, not knowing so well as the more learned guard, has been sent into punishment, and made to feel how sad a thing it is, not to understand the six feet trigonometry.

3. Insolence is another crime. This is committed very frequently, as an accent or emphasis is sufficient for this purpose. The keepers and guard are very tenacious of their dignity, and what the governor of the state would consider respectful language, if addressed to him, they consider insolence. If one should turn over the pages of the black book, he would find this crime written to the sorrow of many a prisoner.

4. Not performing the task. This crime is generally found against learners, who have not had time to become masters of their work. This, however, is no excuse, the task is fixed and must be done. Nor is it of any avail that the materials have been poor, the complaint is,—the work is not done, and nothing but the grave can hide from, or avert the penalty.

5. Speaking together without liberty. Many are punished for this crime, and very justly in many instances no doubt, but not in all. If a prisoner is seen to move his lips this crime is written against him, and suffer he must.

6. The other crimes might be ranged under the heads of "wasting the materials"—"attempting to escape"—"resisting the authority," &c., all of which are frequently found in the books against the prisoners; and I know not that any criminal of these stamps has had much reason to complain, that his sufferings have been too severe.

This is the proper place to state the absolute authority of the keepers and guard over the destinies of the convicts. If one is reported, he must be punished, and that too without a hearing, and often without knowing the crime alleged against him. If he should ask the officer what his crime is, the answer would be, "you know what it is." After he finds out the crime, and desires to be released from punishment, the one who reported him must be consulted; and after he is willing, the sufferer must avow that he is guilty, and promise to reform, before he can get out. Innocent or guilty, it makes no difference, he must say—"I am guilty," or he will plead in vain to be released; and many a one has lied by compulsion, in order to get rid of further suffering. This was his only alternative, he must spot his soul with falsehood, or die a martyr to truth.

The punishments are of different kinds; the most common is that of confinement in the solitary cell. This is cruel and dreadful. The want of food reduces the strength and takes away the flesh, so that when the sufferer comes out, his face is often pale as death, his frame only a skeleton, and he unable to walk without reeling. He has only a small piece of bread once in twenty-four hours, with a pail of water; and no bed but the rock. In the winter he has a blanket, but such is the degree of cold to which he is exposed, that he has to keep walking and stamping night and day, to keep from freezing to death. And having no proper nourishment to sustain him, he becomes, under the joint influence of cold, fatigue, and hunger, a miracle of suffering, over which Satan himself might weep. Day after day, and night after night, he drags along his heavy and burdensome existence, friendless and unpitied, the sport of his unfeeling keepers, and the victim of an eternity of torment. I know what this suffering is, for I have experienced it. Seven days and seven nights, in the dead of winter, I hung on the frozen mountain of this misery, and died a thousand deaths. Every day was an eternity, and every night forever and ever; and all this I endured because I incautiously smiled once in my life, when I happened to feel less gloomy than usual. But my suffering was nothing compared with others. Some spend twelve, some twenty, and some over thirty days there. My heart chills at the thought! If God is not more merciful than man, what will become of us?

Another kind of punishment is the block and chain. This is a log of wood, weighing from thirty to sixty pounds, to which a long chain is fastened, the other end of which is fastened around the sufferer's ancle. This he carries with him wherever he goes, and performs, with it, his daily task. This is not much used, it being less severe than the solitary cell. Some have carried these for several weeks, and even months.

The iron jacket is another form of punishment, inflicted only once in a great while. This is a frame of iron which confines the arms down, and back, and prevents the person from lying down with any comfort. This is generally accompanied with one of the other kinds of punishment, as it is not considered much inconvenience alone.

Connected with these several kinds of punishment is the putting the convict down from one of the upper stories if he is up there. The whole administration of the prison is clothed with terror, and there is no end to its vengeance. The first form of suffering is only the first lash, and each additional form comes in regular succession. This is the second lash. The third is this—the number of times that the prisoner has been in punishment, is always brought up when an application is made for a pardon. The Reporter of characters takes a full share of gratification in adverting to these, when a certificate of the conduct is given. I cannot mention this man's conduct without indignation. I hope he will find room for repentance, and obtain pardon from his God for his many vexatious acts in relation to the prisoners. I know of no man in whose breast so little humanity prevails. Every prisoner will carry to judgment a charge against him. One drop of human sympathy never flowed in his veins. A mountain of ice has frozen around his heart. His acts of inhumanity would fill volumes, and it would require years to record them. I pity him from my soul, and though I have felt more than once, the weight of his mercy, I freely pardon him. If he should ever look on this page, I hope he will remember how unjustly he abused me, because he had the power, and I could not help myself. I wish also that he would think of Plumley, and the three times convicted sufferer of Woodstock Green.

Besides those already mentioned, it may not be out of place to touch on a few of what may be called extra judicial inflictions, or those which are felt by the prisoners without the usual process of a "report in writing." These are—not sending their letters, nor admitting those sent to them—adding a yard to the task of a man, who did not feel like doing more than was required of him, and making him use the finest and most difficult materials—imposing the worst work, and allowing only the poorest tools. These, and many other vexatious practices, are as common as the return of day and night; so that the prison at Windsor is one of those gloomy and dreadful places, which image to the mind that house of woe and pain, where are weeping and wailing, and gnashing of teeth; where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched; and into which the wicked will be turned, and all the nations that forget God.

That the reader may have a full view of this subject, I shall give in the next chapter a multitude of cases, which will fully illustrate this very important and affecting part of my sketches.

SAMUEL E. GODFREY.

The case of Samuel E. Godfrey is one of deep and thrilling interest to every feeling heart. It is one of those numerous cases which stain the records of humanity, in which the guilt of a criminal is extenuated by the circumstances of its existence, and lost in the intensity of his sufferings. The fertile regions of Fancy cannot produce a theme more fruitful in incidents, and more painful in its melancholy details. It presents to our minds two principal sufferers, one pure and stainless as the mountain snow—a forlorn and destitute female; religion warming her crimeless heart, and virtue sparkling in her tearful eyes, she deserted not, in the hour of his afflictions, the companion of her better days, but hung, like an angel of mercy, on the bosom of his grief, and shared in every pang of his soul. The other claims not our sympathies as for an innocent sufferer, for crime had been on his hands, and guilt had made its stains on his heart. I do him no injustice by this statement; but I should stain my own conscience were I not to add, that he was a criminal by aggravation, and that had others acted more in accordance with the dictates of either religion or moral honesty, he would not have reddened his hands with the blood of his fellow-man, nor ended his days on a gallows.

In rescuing the history of this unfortunate sufferer from the grave of oblivion, I have but one motive, and this is, to do good. It contains volumes of instruction, and much of this is needed at the present day. Societies are formed and forming, with a view to improve the condition of suffering criminals by such a change in the discipline of prisons, as may conduce to their reformation; and these societies have a right to such information, as may enable them to act intelligently and efficiently. I also desire by this piece of history, to hold up the yet unpunished authors of the most unearthly sufferings, to the indignant scorn and righteous reprobation of all mankind. It is too often the case that the crimes of men in authority are sanctified by the duties of their office, and they screened from the arm of the law and the force of public contempt, by the necessity of the case. But the time has come to vindicate the sacred purity of public stations from this charge, by taking the robe from every unworthy incumbent, and inculcating the sentiment, both by precept and by practice, that there is no sanctuary for crime, and no justification for guilt.

With the history of Godfrey previous to the unhappy event which conducted him to the scaffold, I have nothing to do. At this time he was confined in the prison on a sentence of three years for a petty crime committed in Burlington near the close of the war. He had served about half of this term, and his conduct had been such as to justify an expectation of pardon, an application for which was pending before the executive, when the gloomy event transpired which sealed his dreadful doom. His wife, one of the most amiable of women, had gone to lay his petition before the Governor and Council, and plead the cause of her husband. Hope was beginning to play around the darkness of his cell, and the anticipations of liberty were beginning to inspire his breast. His arms were almost thrown out to embrace the companion of his bosom and the friends of his heart. In the ear of fancy he heard the voice of his keeper saying—"Godfrey, you are free!" At this moment, by a sudden turn in the scale of his destiny, all the future was darkened, and the taper of life began to grow dim with despair. Driven to desperation by the unjust and cruel treatment of a petty officer of the prison, he committed the fatal deed, which gave rise to that train of sufferings, and developed those traits of unfeeling cruelty in his persecutors, which I am going to describe; and which terminated his mortal existence on the gallows.

His employment was weaving; a given number of yards each day was his task. At the time under consideration, he took what he had woven and handed it over to his keeper, and as usual, he was found to have done his task, and performed as much labor as was required of any of the prisoners, and to have done his work well. While he was conversing with the keeper on the subject of his labor he remarked that he had done more than he meant to.—This gave offence, and he immediately corrected the expression, and gave, as what he designed to say, that he had wove more than he thought he had. But this did not give satisfaction; and the master weaver coming up at the time, a consultation was held with him by the keeper, which resulted in a complaint against Godfrey to the Warden, for "insolence." This complaint was made by the advice of the master weaver, who wrote it with his own hand, as he acknowledges in his testimony before the court. "I advised Mr. Rodgers to report him, and wrote the report." These are his own words, and as a reason for his conduct, he further says; "I had understood that there was a combination among the prisoners not to weave over a certain quantity."

Such was the crime alleged in the complaint, which I desire to have noticed very particularly. It was not that he had not performed his full task. It was not that his work was not well done. But it was that he said—"I have done more than I meant to," which he immediately softened by saying—"I mean I have done more than I thought I had." And when I shall have informed you what the consequence of such a complaint was, what the punishment it procured, you will be able to appreciate the character of those who entered the complaint, and the greatness of the provocation it gave to the unhappy victim to commit the assault which followed.

The laws of the prison were very severe. When any one was reported to the Warden for any crime, he was, without any hearing, committed to a solitary cell, as dark as a tomb, and confined there on bread and water for a number of days, seldom less than a week, at the pleasure of the keepers. The cell is stone; the prisoner is allowed no bed or blanket, and only four ounces of bread a day; and before he can be released from this grave of the living, he must humble himself, plead guilty, whether he is or not, acknowledge the justice of his sufferings, and promise to do better for the time to come. To such suffering and ignominy was Godfrey doomed for that shadow of a crime, and who can wonder at the rashness and desperation to which he was driven.

Soon after the complaint was sent to the Warden the prisoners were called to dinner, and Godfrey with the rest. After the tables were dismissed, as Godfrey was going out of the dining room, the Warden, who was present, ordered him to stop. Knowing by this that he was reported, and the thought of the punishment to which he had been so unjustly and unfeelingly devoted, crossing his mind, he became enraged, and resolved to be avenged on his persecutor before he submitted to the authority of the Warden.

Fired with this rash determination, he entered the shop, took a leg of one of the loom seats, which he cut away with a knife that he had taken for this purpose from a shoe-bench; and with the knife and club, he went into an affray with Rodgers the keeper, who had complained of him. He struck at him a few times, but without effect, his club catching in some yarn which was hung overhead. Seeing the affray, Mr. Hewlet, the Warden, went to the assistance of Rodgers, which brought Godfrey between them. Armed with sharp and heavy swords, they began to play upon their victim, and soon the floor began to drink the blood which, with those instruments of death, they had drawn from his mangled head. So unmercifully did they cut and bruise him that one of the prisoners laid hold of Mr. Hewlet, and begged of him for God's sake not to commit murder. It was during this struggle that Mr. Hewlet received a stab in his side, but from what hand no one could say positively, though no one doubts it was done by Godfrey. That it was done, however, without malice, and that he had no recollection of the act afterwards, ought not to be questioned after his dying testimony. The first that was seen of the knife was when it was lying on the floor in the blood. Faint with the blows he had endured, and from the loss of blood, Godfrey sunk down from the unequal conflict on the sill of a loom. Mr. Hewlet putting his hand up to his side, said he was wounded, and was led into the house, and the affray ended.

Mr. Hewlet had been afflicted with the consumption for years, and no one who knew him thought he would live long; and he was evidently sensible himself that his end was nigh. He would frequently complain of pains in his breast, on which he would often lay his hand and say, "I am all gone." In this state of health, the wound he received in his side inflaming, he lingered about six weeks and expired. From a post mortem examination, it was found that the knife had entered in the direction, and near the left lobe of the liver; and as that was entirely consumed, it was the opinion of the surgeons, that the knife had entered it, and produced an inflammation which was the cause of his death. It was the unanimous opinion of the surgeons that Mr. Hewlet's death was caused by the wound.

Godfrey was taken from the scene of the affray, and lodged in the place of punishment, and no attention of any kind was paid to the wounds in his head. No doubt many would have rejoiced if he had died, and nothing but the utmost care on his part prevented his wounds inflaming, and leading to a fatal result. He used to keep his head bound up with a piece of cotton cloth, and constantly wet with urine, the only medicine he could obtain; and by this means he preserved his life to endure more indignity and suffering, and die under the hand of the executioner.

As soon as Mr. Hewlet died, complaint was entered to the Grand Jury against Godfrey and an indictment for murder found against him. Immediately after this was done, the keepers and guard began to torment him with the most unfeeling allusions to his anticipated death. They insulted his sufferings—told him that they should soon see him on the gallows—and exulted above measure when they could kindle his worst feelings, and draw from him an angry expression. This was the theme of their cruel tongues continually, and I here affirm, without fear of contradiction, that greater outrage was never practiced on the feelings of a criminal by a mean and unprincipled mob, than Godfrey endured from those who had been placed over him as guards, and who were under a solemn oath to treat all the prisoners with kindness and humanity.

Nor was this feeling and disposition to torment a degraded sufferer, confined to the petty servants of the prison; it marked the conduct of all, and even the highest officers of the Institution seemed to take an infernal satisfaction in creating terrors to harass his mind. At one time they would dwell on the certainty that he would be hung, and at another inform him that his gallows should be erected over the large gate of the prison-yard, and so high that all the prisoners and all the village might see him. Surrounded by such fiends incarnate, he groaned away his dreadful hours till the time arrived for his trial.

There were many individuals who felt an interest in the issue of this trial, and who had serious doubts as to his being guilty of murder. Among these were Messrs. Hutchinson and Marsh, who volunteered their services as his counsel. They defended him with a zeal and eloquence which did them honor. But the die was cast against him, and he was condemned to suffer as a murderer. It was the opinion of some that he would be found guilty of only manslaughter, and then his sentence would be imprisonment for a great number of years or for life. This was mentioned to him, as a source of comfort, by his friends, but he always spoke of returning to the prison with the utmost horror. "No," said he, "not the prison, but the gallows,—if I cannot have liberty, give me death,—I would rather die than go back to prison for six months."

It is said that adversity is woman's hour—that female loveliness shines brightest in the dark. I have no doubt that this is always the case; in the present instance I know it was. Godfrey had a wife, and the best man on earth never deserved a better one. With a fortitude that affliction could not for a moment weaken, she hung around his sorrows, and flew with angel swiftness to relieve his burdened soul. She went to the governor and obtained a short reprieve for her condemned husband; and his counsel interposed and obtained for him another trial.

He was now remanded to the prison to wait a year before the court was to meet and give him a re-hearing. I have no doubt that he would have chosen death rather than this, had not the seraph tenderness of his wife thrown a charm around his being.

During this year he experienced the same vexations that had attended him before his trial. And the tiger hearts of his keepers even improved on their former cruelty, and created in his mind the spectre which haunted his midnight hours, and painted before his terrified imagination his lifeless body quivering under the dissecting knife.—They also most basely and falsely threw out to him insinuations against the purity of his wife. And as if impatient for his blood, they contrived to shed some of it before hand, as a kind of first fruits to their unholy thirst for vengeance. This was done by provoking him into a rage, and then falling upon him with a sharp sword and forcing the edge of it by repeated blows against his hand, with which he aimed to defend himself, and of which he then lost the use.

At length the year rolled away, and he was placed again at the bar of his country, to answer to a charge which involved his life. The same noble spirits continued his counsel; but the verdict was given against him, and sentence of death was again pronounced. Unwilling to abandon him yet, his counsel obtained for him another hearing, at another court which was to sit in one year from that time, and till then he was obliged to return to the bosom of his tormentors.

During this year he found one friend in Mr. Adams, his keeper. This man had the milk of human kindness in his breast, and he treated his prisoner in such a manner as to obtain his warmest gratitude, and deserve the respect of all mankind. During this year, few incidents transpired worthy of notice. Godfrey had a good room, and was allowed a few tools with which he manufactured some toys, the sale of which gave him the means of supplying himself with such little articles of comfort as his situation required. This was the last year of his life. At the session of the court he was again convicted, and the sentence of death was soon after executed upon him.

Previous to his execution he dictated a brief history of his life, and his dying speech, which were printed and read with great avidity. In his dying speech, he makes a solemn and earnest request, that his remains may be permitted to rest in peace, and not be disturbed by those "human vultures," who were anxious to do to his body what they could not do to his soul. He had no fear of death, but he shuddered at the thought of being dissected by the doctors. But those who had no feelings of compassion for him while he was living, disregarded his dying request, and his bones were afterwards found bleaching in the storms of heaven, on a lonely spot where they had been thrown to avoid detection.

His wife was with him during his last hours. He evinced no dread in view of death, but with a composure almost super-human, he watched the approach of the dreadful hour which was to release him from earth, and as he firmly believed, introduce him to the joys of heaven. He was treated very kindly by his humane keeper, of whom he speaks in the highest terms in his last words. He received the different clergymen with respect and affection, as they called to see him, and was fully prepared, in his own mind, to leave the world. The morning of the fatal day witnessed his parting with his wife, till they shall meet in heaven. She entered his room—closely folded in each other's arms, they seated themselves on the side of his bed, their tears mingling as they fell, and neither of them able to speak a word. Their eyes were rivetted on each other, and the expression of their looks might have pierced a heart of marble. Lost in the dreadful reality of his doom, they were insensible of the passing minutes, till the rattling of the keys awoke them from their awful reverie, and signified that the last moment had come, and that they must part. She tore away from his clasping embrace—sighs were her only sounds, and her tears fell on the cold stone floor of his prison as she with slow—reluctant—and hesitating step, passed away from the object of her tenderest love. His eyes followed her till she was far out of the room and out of his sight. Then wiping his eyes, he said to his companions—"It is all over—you will see no more tears from me. This is what I have long dreaded; it is now past, and I shall die like a man."

He attended to the religious services with much propriety. After he arrived on the gallows, he informed the concourse of people around him that he had prepared his Farewell Speech which was in print, and that they might obtain and read it. When the chaplain made the last prayer, he knelt on the scaffold. After this, taking leave of his attendants, and casting a calm look on the throng by which he was surrounded, then on the near and more distant hills, and lastly on the clear blue heavens, he told the officer that he was ready.—The cap was then drawn—the scaffold was dropped—and his sufferings were ended.

In view of this melancholy history, the mind will naturally inquire, what good reason had Rodgers and F*** for entering that complaint which led to such direful results? what had Godfrey done? Is it a crime deserving of punishment for a man to say, "I have done more than I meant to," when he had done his full task, and done it well? especially after he explained by saying, "I have wove more than I thought I had"? Is this a crime? Was it right to treat a prisoner, who had always behaved well, in such a manner as this? What excuse is there for those who reported him? Let me, in concluding this sketch, hold up to the notice of all men,—saints and sinners, bond and free, the man who, in his testimony on the trial, said,—"I advised Mr. Rodgers to report him, and wrote the report. I had understood that there was a combination among the prisoners, not to weave over a certain quantity."

ROWLEY.

This was an old man of near eighty. He had been worth a great fortune, and was then in possession of property to the amount of about twenty thousand dollars. In the prison he found no indulgence for age, no compassion for the sick, no pity for the suffering, and he was scarcely in it before he was put in punishment. There was at that time a guard named French, who had been a soldier at Burlington, and who said that he had been employed by Rowley, when he was not on army duty, to cut corn stalks, and that he had cheated him out of his pay. This he reported to the prisoners and keepers; and now he thought he should have a good opportunity to be revenged. Accordingly he kept him in the solitary cell, and wearing a block and chain, most of the time. The old man could not look, speak, or walk, but French would report him; and so well was it understood that he was suffering for this old grudge, that when any one saw him going to the cell, the remark was immediately made—"Rowley is paying French for the stalks."

The punishment thus begun, was carried on during the five years of his sentence. He was the common mark for every little stripling, who wished to get into the graces of his superiors, by doing some deed of cruelty; and I presume he was in punishment three years out of the five to which he was sentenced. No allowance was made for his years—his want of sight—or his infirmities; he was in the power of man, an unsocial crabbed old creature it is true, but still a human being, and entitled to the common mercy of a state prison. But the "stalks" were always green on the memory of his keepers, and they could not endure to see him out of the cell. He lived, however, in spite of them, to see the end of his sentence and to return to his family, where he soon after died.

Much as French and others are to be blamed for their conduct towards this man, the burden of condemnation rests on those, who were bound by the oath of their office, to protect the prisoners from "cruelty and inhumanity" in the guard. Ought such personal feelings to be indulged towards a prostrate victim? Can that man be worthy of any office, who can stoop to such criminal meanness? I am told that French has since become a christian, and I sincerely hope he has; for I am well persuaded that it will require many years time, and many a bitter tear, to purify his conscience from the iniquity of the "corn stalks."

COLLIER.

This man entered the prison under the influence of a cold which he had taken in gaol. He was in the bloom of youth, and as bright as young men in general. Not feeling well, he did not always do so much work as was required of him, and consequently soon began to feel that he was in a prison. The iron storm of punishment began to beat upon him, and he was so affected by it, that he lost the use of his limbs in a great measure, of his speech for some time, and finally of his reason. The treatment he received would make the records of the inquisition blush. Starvation, chains, and the cold cell were the only mercies he experienced. At a certain time when he was unable to speak, as he was sitting in the cook-room, the Warden entered, and declared that he would make him speak or kill him. To effect this, he took him by the hair of his head, and dragged him round the room, pulling and jerking him with all his might, and crying all the time, "speak or I'll kill you!"—Reader, have you ever read Howard's Prisons of Europe? It was in Europe that he found so much misery and cruelty; but this is in America. Yet here, see that Warden of a prison, dragging a prisoner by the hair of his head, and declaring his intention to kill him if he did not speak. Inhuman man! where is your heart, if you have any? Will God suffer you to go unpunished for thus trampling on His authority, and abusing your fellow man?

After exhausting all his strength, the Warden gave up, without either making him speak, or killing him. Every prisoner's heart burned within him, when he saw what this poor unfortunate man was suffering, and what might become his own doom. I wonder that every one of them did not spring forward, and rescue the sufferer from the wicked hands of that heartless tyrant. I wonder that the earth which bore up the lion-hearted despot, did not open and destroy him. But this is not the end of Collier's sufferings from the same man.

Reduced by disease, and unable to be in the yard, the doctor ordered him to be put into the hospital, and properly attended to. While he was there, the Warden went up to see him. Unkind visit! for he took with him a horsewhip, and before he left him, he used it with lusty arm about his naked back, until he was quite exhausted, and till demons might have trembled at the superior depravity and heartlessness of man. This visit was repeated once, and perhaps twice, and the same medicine administered.

Such was the conduct of the Warden, of whom the laws of the prison say, that "with the powers entrusted to him it cannot be necessary for him to strike his prisoners; much less can it answer any good purpose for him to give his command in a threatening tone, or accompanied with oaths; but he shall give his commands with kindness and dignity, and enforce them with promptitude and firmness."—"He shall never strike a prisoner except in self-defence, or in defence of those assisting him in the discharge of his duty." With this part of the laws of the prison before us, no comment on the acts of the Warden, in the cases cited above, is necessary.

After wading through seas of affliction—after losing his reason—after he had outlived the ability of his destroyers to torment him further, he went home to his mother, a fair specimen of the Warden's mercy.—His ruined form is before me—I see his vacant look—I hear his unmeaning words—my soul sickens—my nerve trembles—I can neither think nor write.

PERRY.

This man had led a very wicked life, and as the fruit of his sins, a very unpleasant disease kept frequently reminding him that the pleasures of sin are a lasting bitter.—With this complaint he was often confined to his room. At length it was conjectured that he was not so sick as he pretended, and a resolution was formed that he should go into the shop and do his work like the other prisoners. To this, however, he objected, declaring that he was sick, and not able to be in the shop. But when the king commands, he must be obeyed; and so a course of preparations was made to make Perry well and get him out to work.

In the first place, a long board was provided, with straps to fasten it on his back, by lashing the sides around his arms, and neck, and body. This being properly adjusted, a rope was fastened round under his arms, and he was drawn up by it as if under a gallows, so as to just permit his toes to touch the ground. This was done in the yard, before all the prisoners, and keepers, and spectators from without; and it was repeated every day for as much as a week. After he had hung there a suitable time, he was let down, and being unable to stand, he would fall directly to the ground. Then the keepers would throw whole buckets of water on him, drawn cold from the cistern. Often would they dash these directly in his face. After this, they would hang him up again, so that the medicine of the rope, the board, and the bucket, had a fair opportunity to exert their sanative properties. The patient lived through it, and so did St. John live through the boiling oil, but the strength of human nature is no excuse for those who delight in cruelty. The man who maliciously gives me poison is a murderer, though my constitution is proof against it; and the fact that Perry outlived this process, is no evidence that he was not sick.

I have not the least sympathy for this man on account of what he suffered from his disease. I am glad that providence has appended to the impure gratification of sensual desires, some dreadful recoil of suffering; that when the loveliness of virtue cannot charm, the deformity and wretchedness of vice may appeal. But I have copied this sketch from my memorandum, to shew how men in office can descend to what would degrade a savage. If Perry was as bad as sin itself, no one had any right to torture him. I have copied it also as a specimen of what many sick men have had to endure.

ROBBINS.

There was among the keepers a man who cherished some feelings, which accorded very illy with his christian profession. In his very countenance there was a something which indicated the peculiar quality of his soul. Resentment, jealousy, cruelty, and suspicion, like so many infernal spirits, kennelled in his eyes, and growled through his snarling voice. This human shape had,—unfortunately for her—a wife who was a weaver; and he brought some yarn into the prison to have it warped for her. Robbins was at this time the warper, and the unlucky task of warping for this lady, fell to him. He performed the duty assigned him with his usual correctness, and the warp was sent out to Mrs. ——, to be woven.

In beaming it on her loom, she broke and tangled the warp to such a degree, that she could not weave it; and then said that it was spoiled in warping. This was enough for her husband; he had long had a spite against Robbins, and now he had a fine opportunity to glut his pious vengeance. Accordingly he wrote a complaint to the Warden, covering the whole warp which his wife had spoiled, and many other crimes, which were not of any consequence alone, but which added to the great one of the warp, made it look quite black. This report, drawing an appendix of consequential et ceteras, as long as the pen with which they were written, was sent to the proper officer, and Robbins was doomed to lie fourteen days and nights in a solitary cell, and live on four ounces of bread for each twenty-four hours. What makes this treatment of a helpless prisoner the more abominable is, that Robbins was always known to do his work in the best manner possible. No comment is necessary; and I leave that gentleman's conscience tangled in that warp, till he makes restitution to abused humanity.

P. FANE.

Every line in the sketch that I am now going to transcribe from my original record, ought to be written in letters of blood. It presents a complication of crimes as foul as human wickedness can perpetrate, and a society of criminals whose breath would pollute the atmosphere of Paradise. I shall be very particular in noticing every important circumstance in this case, and in suppressing those feelings of indignation, which at this distance of time and place, kindle in my breast, when the gushing blood and dying image of the victim rise up before my mind.

Fane was an Irish youth of about twenty, and had no relatives, acquaintances, or friends in this country. For some petty crime he was sent to the prison for three years. He was of a sprightly but harmless turn of mind, and he did not at all times keep a prudent check upon his vivacity; which was the cause of his suffering now and then the lashes of that authority, which, always frowning itself, could not endure the sight of a smile. But the greatest difficulty was, he could not perform so much labor as was required of him, and what he did perform was not always so good as was expected by his rulers. Why it should be thought a crime for a man not to learn a trade, so as to do a full day's work at it, in the brief space of three months, I am unable to say; and why any one should expect from a learner the perfection of a master, is equally strange. But none of these considerations entered into the purposes of his superiors, and he was consequently in perpetual punishment, either in the solitary cell, or in carrying round the yard and shop a large block of wood chained to his ancle.

In one or the other of these states of suffering, Fane spent much of the short time of life allotted to him after he entered the prison. About the time of his bloody catastrophe, he was associated with Plumley and two brothers by the name of Higgins, who were quite as much under the frown of authority as himself; and at this time they were all in chains, but compelled to do their daily task on the loom. Spending their nights in the same room, and being equally rash and reckless, they formed a resolution to attempt an escape by forcing their way, by means of some planks and a ladder, over the wall. This was to be done early in the morning, as soon as they were let out of the room. A more foolish plan could not have been laid, for, with the means they used, no one could have made his way over the high walls of the prison. Such, however, was their plan, and each one having his particular part assigned him, they were determined to try to effect their escape.

To this rash act, the injustice and inhumanity of their sufferings, no doubt prompted them; and it is a truth which will one day be made manifest, that most of the enormities committed by prisoners, have sprung from the same source. Should prisoners be treated with proper tenderness, instead of being tortured as they are, thirty reformations would take place where one does not now. I speak this from observation and experience; and I am constrained to add, that many of the keepers are as far from amiable and virtuous principles, and from morality of conduct, as the prisoners. I allude not to the keepers as a body, for I am happy to know that there are some of them, who are, in every sense of the terms, benevolent, upright and gentlemanly. These condemn the conduct of the others as severely as I can, and they ought to be respected as redeeming spirits amidst the fallen and depraved ones with whom they are under the necessity of associating. Their number, however, is comparatively small, and they do not generally stay long.

Before Fane and his party could make their rash attempt, they were under the necessity of delivering themselves from their chains, which was an easy task. While they were doing this in their room, the night before the time fixed upon to escape, they made some noise with their file, which drew some of the keepers to the window of their room to listen. By this means they learned the whole plan—heard them talk it over—knew it was to be the next morning as soon as the doors were opened—knew all the steps in contemplation—knew that they had freed themselves from their chains, and were in perfect readiness for the morning. All this was known to the authority of the prison the night before, as I was often told by several of the keepers, and particularly by the deputy keeper, with whom I conversed freely and fully on the subject.

And here I should like to submit the question, whether, with this knowledge in his possession, the Warden acted right in letting these four men out of their room? Ought he not to have kept them in till the other prisoners had got to their work, and then told them that their plan was known, and that it was too late to make the attempt? Had he done this, he would have been commended, and one of the most unhappy events would have been prevented. If it is a true principle of law, that he, who not only does not prevent, but virtually affords facilities for the commission of a crime, is in some degree guilty of that crime, then I will leave the Warden of the prison to answer for the death of Fane.

In the morning, they were let out, and they went forward like madmen to their fatal project. A lad of about seventeen was on the wall as guard. Prepared for the event, he watched them as they advanced with their plank, and placed it against the wall, but made no attempt to fire. The first that went up were the Higginses and Plumley; Fane was in another part of the yard after a small ladder, which he broke in removing it from its place. Finding that the ladder was broken, and that their other means were insufficient, they retired from the wall, abandoned the attempt, and went behind the chapel. No shot was discharged at either of them; but when Fane, who had not yet been at the wall, ran up that way, before he got within three rods of it, the guard levelled his musket at his head, as deliberately as if he were going to shoot at game, and dropped him lifeless on the ground. The ball passed through his temple, and a buck shot through his cheek; the blood gushed out of his head in a large stream, and ran down on the ground nearly a rod.

It has always appeared strange to me, that the guard did not fire on one of the others, but reserved his death-shot for Fane. He was asked this question once, and also why he fired at all, and his answer was, that Fane was throwing stones at him, one of which, he said, hit him on the cheek. This however, was not true: I saw Fane from the time he came out of his room till he fell dead, and I saw him throw nothing. Indeed he could not have thrown any thing, for as he lay in death, he had firmly clenched in one hand, the chain which he had cut from his leg, and in the other, the knife which he had used as a saw in cutting it. These I saw in his hands the minute he fell, and I know that, with them, he could not have thrown a stone or any thing else.

But if Fane's throwing a stone at him was crime enough to deserve death, why did he not deal out the same punishment to Higgins? He had the same provocation from him that he pretended to have had from Fane, for Higgins threw a club at him, after he had shot his friend, which, if it had hit him, would have killed him; but he sent no shot at him. The fact is, Fane was an Irishman, and there was no friend to look after him, but the others had relatives near; and if it was determined that one of them should be killed to impress a dread on the rest, Fane was the pre-determined victim. I do not say that such was the case, but if it was not, I should like to know why they were let out of the room, when their plot was so well known? and, also, why Fane, who was the least outrageous of the four, should have been shot, and no attempt made on any of the others?

After he had committed this bloody crime, the guard began to be alarmed, and thought of going off. That his conscience thundered, I have no doubt; and that the sentiment of guilt which pierced his soul, should array the gallows before him, was what might have been expected. He was, however, consoled by his superiors, and the coroner's verdict, that Fane came to his death in consequence of the guard's doing his duty, calmed him completely, in respect to his legal apprehensions.

I have no disposition to censure the verdict of the jury of inquest; they no doubt acted conscientiously. Still, I doubt very much whether it was the duty of the guard to kill Patrick Fane. If it was, on what account? Was there any danger of his escaping? No; this was not pretended. Was the guard in any danger of personal violence? No. The story of stones being thrown at him is destitute of all proof but the guard's own assertion, and is confuted by a hundred eye witnesses. What, then, rendered it his duty to kill his prisoner? It was not his duty; neither the law nor the facts in the case made it so; and a justification of that deathly act, can be found in no established principle of jurisprudence, or of moral conduct. If he had fired towards him merely to alarm him, or if he had wounded him slightly in his legs, he might have been excused; but to deal in death at once, and that without any just cause, is a crime for which we shall seek in vain for either excuse or extenuation.

I do not, however, mean to deal too severely with this young and inexperienced guard; he was under authority, and he had orders to obey. But I mean to exhort those who gave him such orders to settle the case with their consciences, that they may die in peace. He has suffered much since that fatal morning, and for many years his countenance denoted that all was not peace within. I pity him, and most sincerely do I hope, that no other promising young man will ever listen to the voice of the aged, and do that which will bring the blood of a fellow being on his soul.

After the alarm was over, Plumley and the Higginses were committed to the solitary cells, and Fane was left weltering in his blood till afternoon, in full view of all the prisoners, and of the hundreds of citizens who came in to see him.

About this time, preparations began to be made to bury him. A principal officer in the place told the carpenter to make a box of rough boards not regarding the shape at all. "Don't," said he, "make a coffin, but a box, and bury him in his clothes, just as he is." The carpenter, however, took it upon himself to make a coffin, and to make a very good one.

During the afternoon, a very remarkable alteration was made in the funeral preparations. Instead of burying him in his clothes, as was directed, he was dragged on the ground like a dead dog, round to the other side of the chapel, and there stripped, laid on a board, and washed all over with brine; his head cleaned, and his hair combed, and then wrapped up in a clean sheet. This was paying his remains a degree of respect which was never paid to a prisoner before, and the inquiry was very naturally made—"What does it mean?" Some thought that the hearts of the keepers began to relent, and that this was a sign of a troubled conscience. Others thought differently, but it remained for time to explain the mystery.

The burying place is in the yard of the prison, and close by the building in which the prisoners sleep. There Fane was buried in the neat and clean style described above. Those who buried him, thought that his body might be taken up and given to the doctors for dissection, and to be certain, they marked the grave in such a way that it could not be disturbed without their knowing it.

The next morning the grave was examined, but no alteration had taken place; but the second morning, the grave was found to have been opened, and the news went through the prison like a flash of lightning. "What! is it not enough to murder him, must his body be disturbed and given to the doctors?" was the indignant and wrathful expression of every tongue. The whole prison was in a blaze, and the united demand of the prisoners for an explanation was not trifled with. At noon the principal officers came into the dining room, when all the prisoners were assembled for dinner, and each of them made a speech, touching the subject of the violated grave; and it is due to them both, to give the reader their speeches unaltered, that he may judge of their guilt or innocence from their own words.

The Warden said, that a suspicion appeared to exist, that Fane's body had been taken away, but he thought without foundation. The grave did not appear to him to have been touched. At any rate, if the body was gone, he knew nothing of it, and he did not think that any of the keepers or guard did. He could not see how it could be dug up, and the prisoners not hear it, as the grave was so near them. But if that could be done, he thought it could have been taken out of the yard but by one of two ways, and if it went through either of these, the noise of the great gates must have been heard. His opinion was, that his body was still in the grave; but if it had been taken away, he knew nothing about it, and he did not think that any of the rest of the keepers did.

This was the poorest speech I ever heard that man make, and his appearance told too plainly to be misunderstood, that from some cause or other, his mind was troubled. I do not mean to say that he removed the body himself, but when you hear the other speech, you will know that the prisoners had reason to suspect something.

The Superintendent said: "I clear nobody. That grave has been disturbed, and the body has evidently been removed. I did not once dream of such a thing; if I had had the least suspicion of it, I would have placed a guard there. It was his sacred bed till the morning of the resurrection, and no one had any right to disturb him. I don't know what to think, but I know that there is guilt somewhere, and, as the Superintendent of the prison, I will spend five hundred dollars but that I will find something about it."

This satisfied the prisoners of the innocence of the Superintendent, but not of the Warden. They retired to work fully convinced that the Warden knew about the removal of the body, and that conviction has not been worn off, but confirmed by after reflection. The reasons for supposing that the Warden was knowing to the disinterment of Fane's body, I shall now state, leaving the reader to judge of their force.

1. The Warden had a son at that time studying in the medical college at Hanover, only fourteen miles distant from the prison.

2. He ordered the body to be washed in brine, and laid out in a clean sheet, a mark of respect not granted to other prisoners.

3. The body was taken away, and it could not have been removed without the knowledge of the guard, who was on duty that night; for he passed directly by the grave every hour and a half all night, and sat so near it at all the other times, that he could hear a nut shell fall on it. It was then impossible for the body to be taken away without his knowledge; it could not have been stolen away by any one in the short time of an hour and a half, nor could the grave have been opened and closed without giving alarm.

And it was equally impossible for one of the guard to know this, and be accessary to it, without letting others into the secret, for one was on duty only an hour and a half, when he was relieved by another.

Nor could all the guard have combined in this without the knowledge of the deputy keeper, for the keys were all in his care. Nor would any of the keepers or guard have dared to commit such an act, without the Warden's instructions. Without his knowledge this could not.

4. The Warden's guilty appearance; his effort to make it appear that the grave had not been touched; and if it had been, that he and all the keepers and guard were innocent.

5. The fact that nothing was ever done by him to find the body—no reward offered by him—no stir of any kind—but the business was hushed up, and the prisoners not allowed to speak of it to their friends, or mention it in any of their letters.

6. It became after a few years an undisputed report, that the Warden permitted the body to be removed for the benefit of his son; and the manner of the removal, and the persons engaged in it, were the subjects of frequent conversation.

Such are the reasons for believing that the Warden was the principal agent in the removal of the body. It is not my office to render verdict on the evidence adduced, but I may be permitted to say that if he was guilty, he was not fit for his office. The crime, according to the laws of that state, is severely punished; and aggravated as it was, if he was guilty, imprisonment for life would not have been too great a penalty. He was an officer of high trust, and he could not have been guilty of that crime without connecting it with perjury and burglary. And if to these be added the crime of being accessary to his death I would ask what can be wanting to cap the climax of his iniquity?

I do not say that any of these sins belong to him. He may be innocent, notwithstanding all these appearances and I could wish that he were. There is darkness around the subject, too much for him if he is not guilty, but not enough if he is. One thing is certain, it will be known at some future day; and if he should finally have to plead guilty before his God, his punishment will not linger then, though he may escape it here. He had taken an oath to enforce the laws, and abide by them himself, and in particular to treat his prisoners tenderly and humanely; and if instead of doing so, he broke them, and became the destroyer of life, and the disturber of the repose of the dead, I envy him not his peace of mind in this world, nor his doom in the next.

The Higginses and Plumley were confined in the solitary cells on bread and water for thirty days, a punishment by many degrees more painful than death. This was the second time that Plumley had endured that punishment, and this laid the foundation for that disease which carried him down a neglected and suffering victim to the grave. The Higginses served their time out and were discharged.

Various reports were circulated about the guard who shot Fane. He left that part of the country in a few years, and went to the West, where, it was reported, he gave himself up to drinking, and became deranged. For the truth of these reports I shall not vouch, though I firmly believe them, and I am well assured that he never can think of Patrick Fane without remorse.

It escaped my recollection in the proper place, that one of the prisoners was looking out of his cell window near the grave the night that Fane's body was taken, and saw the deputy Warden so distinctly as to be able to describe his dress and appearance, which he did in his presence, before all the officers and prisoners. The deputy noticed how particular the description was, and said, with a blushing smile—"He has described me exactly." No doubt he felt the force of his conduct, and conscience evidently was accusing him. This is another evidence that the body was taken by permission of the officers, and with their assistance.

A YOUTH.

From some cause unknown to me, the subject of this sketch had been deranged some time before he was sent to prison, and the effect produced on his mind was still visible in his looks and manners. Naturally, he possessed bright and interesting traits of mind, and a very amiable and engaging temper; but when reason abandoned him, he became sullen, and if crossed in his wishes, was furious and untameable.

Not long after his commitment, the frequent vexations he had to meet with, and the unsympathizing temperament of his keepers, drove him to distraction. In this situation he was a fine object for the relentless severity of those, who should have treated him with the most humane and tender regard. None but the most thoroughly hardened, could have tortured a poor friendless and phrensied mortal, as he was tortured by his guard and keepers.

In the first place, he was punished because he did not perform his appointed labor, which, it was evident, was more than he could have accomplished, if he had been in his right mind. This threw him into the most raging phrensy, and inspired the genius of cruelty with new life and energy.

To confine him, an iron jacket was provided, which kept his arms close to his body; and a new invention of iron, heavy and rough, brought his hands together, and confined them across his breast. This needless and inhuman contrivance wore the flesh from his hands and wrists, and kept them constantly bleeding. Thus bound in iron, worse than fancy paints the victims of Satanic sport in the world of wo, he was confined in a small cell, to groan out his misery in doleful cries, or sit in silent meditation on the mercy of man to man.

I cannot think of this ruined lad without growing chill with horror. I hear now his phrensied shrieks! His unearthly murmurings are still falling with deathly emphasis on my soul!—O! my God! of what is the heart of man composed! Days, weeks, and months, he filled that dungeon with vocal misery; and yet no angel mercy drew near him to comfort or to pity; but the tiger looks of heartless man were his only sunshine, and frowns were his only music!

In this work of torture, one of the keepers gave himself an infernal distinction over the rest. Not satisfied with contemplating in this youth, the double ruin of body and mind, with a passion for torture which I hope has returned to the breast of him whom alone it might not disgrace, he used to beat him with his sword and his fist, and allow him only a famishing morsel of food. So unmercifully did he abuse this poor maniac, that he was mistaken by him for the devil—if indeed, it was a mistake—and declared to be the terror of his waking, and the odious spectre of his sleeping hours.

DEAN.

Only fourteen years had rolled over this boy's head, when he became a prisoner in Windsor on a sentence of three years. Rude, but not vicious—lively without design—and less experienced than a man of sixty, he was a promising victim for the irrespective discipline of that dreary place. He soon took up his abode in the solitary cell, and there, young as he was, he spent much of his time, both in summer and winter. Fifteen days at a time has that little boy been in the cell in the dead of winter, with only one blanket, and a piece of bread not larger than his hand once in a day. All night long have I heard him cry, and plead to be let out, that he might not freeze; but no reply could he get from the keeper but—"Stop your noise—shut your head—learn to keep out—I hope you'll freeze."

To say nothing about the impropriety and unmercifulness of such conduct to any prisoner, how does it appear in a man of sufficient years to know better, towards a small boy. Would Lucifer himself have treated even a young christian so? Every one knew that Dean was by no means a bad boy; he was thoughtless and imprudent, but never did he deserve such cruel treatment. Indeed such punishments as are properly called cruel, cannot be constitutionally inflicted on any one, much less on a boy; nor for any offence, much less for a trifle. I here hold up to the view of humanity this tortured youth—his ears frozen, his limbs shivering, his fingers numb and red as blood, pinched with hunger, exhausted by exercise to prevent freezing to death, and dying for want of sleep. I hold him up in this predicament, amid the gloom of the solitary cell for some trifling error, at the dark and silent hour of midnight, in the cold months of winter, pleading for his life, and comforted only by this snarling reply of the guard, "Stop your noise." Yes, I hold him up in such circumstances, where I have often heard his piercing cries, and ask the beholders to read in him the common mercy of that "merciful Institution."

This is a penitentiary. It was erected as such. The laws consider it in this light. It is made the duty of the officers to have an especial eye, in all their conduct, to the moral reformation of the prisoners. How inconsistent, then, must such conduct be? Can such cruelty on any person do him any good? Rather would not such treatment have the effect, even on a saint, to make him a sinner? But look at the punishment of this little boy. What he endured would have crushed a giant. No account made of his age and inexperience—no thought of the kind and degree of correction suited to him—no feelings of compassion; but the steel-hearted man, who ought to have thought of his own children of the same age, met this young unthinking trespasser on some of the minor rules of the limbo, like a hungry bear, and threw him into the infernal machinery of his vengeance.

CHAMBERLAIN.

This man was a harmless lunatic. He never offered the least violence to any one, and was as unfit a subject of punishment as is commonly found. He did not, as might have been expected of any one in his situation, attend very closely to his work, and what he did do, was not very well done. By this he came under the letter of that common law which makes no allowance for bodily or mental imperfections, and was introduced to the solitary cell. He now found a home, and he soon became perfectly acclimated, and seemed not to care whether he was in the cell or out of it. When it was found that he was contented in that place, he was let out, and doomed to wear a block and chain; and between these two modes of suffering, he was kept in constant vibration. There was no feeling in the hearts of his punishers. What though God had set his mark on him in the ruin of his mind, and thus by his own signet commended him to the sympathy and protection of his fellow-men? What though no being on earth could give him a moment's penal suffering without trampling on all the principles of right, and propriety, and law, and insulting the majesty of Heaven in the abuse of its subjects? They had the power, and they gloried in its unfeeling and most outrageous abuse.

As an evidence of the manner in which this poor lunatic was used, I will relate an illustrative circumstance.

He was lying one day on the ground, with his huge block and chain by his side. The keeper went to him and said, "Chamberlain, you must go into the solitary cell." "I must?" said he; "let me see. I have been out—one—two—three days—yes, it is time; I have not been out so long before this great while."

I would not dwell on these gloomy sketches—I could not prevail on myself to torture the public mind by the recital of such abusive, inhuman, and infamous acts, did I not hope, by this means, to do something that may ultimately effect a cure for these evils. This is to be done only by holding up the evils, in all their dimensions and enormity, to the eye of the public; and painful as is the task, I hope God will give me strength to support it, and to go on untiring, till the object is accomplished. These representations of human misery ought to elicit human sympathy, and inspire human effort for their removal. I know the things that I write; I have tasted the wormwood and the gall; and though my heart sickens at the remembrance of these things, still I have put my hand to the plough, and I will not look back.

MRS. BURNHAM.

Among those records of the past which fill the soul of man with the keenest pain, and fix the darkest stain on the pages of human guilt;—on that blood-red sheet that exhibits the mutual rage, persecution, and burning of religious fanatics, I have found an account of a woman who was doomed to the stake in such a situation that in the midst of her sufferings in the flames, she became a mother. The book dropped from my hand as I read this dreadful story, and I regretted my relation to a race of beings, capable of such iron-hearted cruelty and infernal guilt. But this was in England, and it was some consolation to my sickening heart to reflect that I was an American. I felt a sort of national pride, and wrapped myself up in the delusion, in which too many are now slumbering, that such things belong exclusively to the Old World, and will never blacken the history of the New. How foolish are such national prejudices; how absurd and contrary to all experience, to suppose that local circumstances will alter the moral nature of man. The lion loses not his ferocity by treading the soil or breathing the air of Massachusetts; and the founder of Providence can testify, that the pious settlers of New England caught the spirit of persecution as they were flying from its faggots and fire. Man is man, wherever you find him. By nature a tyrant, and ever glorying in the extension and display of his authority, every human being is either a pope or a Nero, and would become as offensive to God, and as dreadful to the human race as they were, if placed in the same circumstances. With the exception of those who are brought under the influence of the spirit of the gospel, this is universally true; and all the improvements of the arts and sciences and of civilization, are but so many refined inventions in the rebellion of earth against heaven. Christianity makes the only grand and radical difference among men. This brings all who heartily embrace it back to the authority of heaven, while all others are forcing themselves on to the perfection of a character as opposed to God and mutual happiness, as Beelzebub is to the Saviour of the world. I am now going to introduce a sketch which will evince the aptness of Americans in imitating the cruelties of Europe. "England is what Athens was," says Phillips, and too soon, I fear will America rival England in those things which she professes to abhor. With how much reason I apprehend this, the following account, among others, will shew.

Mrs. Burnham had committed a crime as foul as sin could inspire, and I am not going to plead her cause. She ought to have been punished, and that severely, but not at the time, nor in the manner she was. She was married, and at the time of her trial and sentence, it was known that in a short time she would need a sort and degree of attention, which prisons were never designed to give; but no regard was paid to her situation, and she was sentenced to be confined in the State Prison, to hard labor for a number of years. What a child unborn had done to be doomed to date its birth in a prison, I leave for those to determine, who have read more law than I have.

The place of her abode was a small room, with one small and strongly grated window. From every hall the noise and tumult of the prisoners was forced directly upon her ears; and in the large space from which her room was partitioned off, was placed a guard during every night. Her food was such as the other prisoners had, and her other treatment of the same kind.

In this place she spent her time till a few days before her confinement; when she was taken into the keeper's house till her babe was a few weeks old, and then sent back with it into her room. How she fared while in the house, I know not, as no prisoner visited that apartment at the time, to my knowledge; but the report is not at all in favor of the family residing in the house at the time. How she fared in the prison I need no one to inform me. One of the men who attended her, is gone to the world of spirits, and I hope he has found mercy of his God. Of another that had the care of her I can say, that if they that show no mercy find none, it is high time for him to agree with his adversary, lest he, in turn, shall find a small room till he shall pay the utmost farthing. The insult which that woman had to suffer—the indignity—the abuse—the oppression, are all recorded in a book that will be opened in the day of Judgment, and if all men shall be judged according to their actions, and receive according to the deeds done in the body, many will regret their conduct towards this afflicted and injured woman.

I might dwell with painful minuteness on this sketch, but from the nature of its details, this is no place for them. The great facts are enough for my purpose, and too much for the happiness or credit of those who are concerned. The deeply infamous truth on which I wish to fix the mind of the reader, is, the situation of the woman when she was sentenced. What the law in such cases may be I know not, but I envy no man a station which compels him to such a deed as must carry horror to every mind that has the least sense of propriety, humanity, or justice. If the law makes no provision in such cases, then have we attained to a degree of refinement that would disgrace a savage. But if the law does provide for such cases, where is that man's fitness for his station who denied this woman all the benefit of that provision, and inflicted on her a lash which made her unborn infant bleed?

Another circumstance to be noticed is, her treatment in the prison. The subject is too delicate to be treated here, with any degree of particularity. Even the most corrupt of the prisoners was often indignant at the low and vulgar insults that were offered to her by those whose only excuse is, that they knew no better.

"Immodest words admit of no defence,
For want of decency is want of sense."

She survived this train of abuse and cruelty, and the Governor and Council to their credit, and to the honor of the state, permitted her to return to her husband and family, as soon as her case could come before them.

I know not with what feelings the public mind will contemplate the fact recorded in this sketch; but I hope, most devoutly, that it will be universally reprobated. I shall carefully observe its effect, and note it down as a sure indication of the tone of American morals and American sentiment. My bosom will expand with national pride, or my cheek redden with national shame, in the same proportion that such conduct is condemned or sanctioned by public opinion. It is no excuse for such conduct that the sufferer had sinned. I well know that she merited the severest punishment; for the soul freezes at the thought of her crime. But to every thing there is a proper season, and it is not the proper season to punish a sinning female when a child unborn is to be put in peril. As well might the Creator send an unborn infant to hell with its sinful mother.

TREATMENT OF THE SICK, AND BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

While a man is in health, he can endure hardship, and support himself under the pressure of almost any calamity; but when his health fails, he sinks down a nerveless victim, and lies exposed to the mercy of those evils he can no longer resist. It is the sick that, of all the sufferers in this world, most need the pity and compassion of their fellow mortals, and whose neglect and sufferings cry the loudest to heaven. To sickness, all are equally exposed, the high and the low, the virtuous and the vicious, the saint and the sinner; and not to compassionate and relieve them, is a crime which speaks the deep depravity of the heart, and which will by no means pass unpunished. But if the want of sympathy and tender feelings for the sick, is such a crime, what must be said of that man, who can sport with their misery, and take an infernal satisfaction in increasing it?

The sick in Windsor prison are considered as criminal in their sickness, and punished rather than comforted. It is not often that a prisoner can get into the place appointed for the sick, until his case is hopeless, and not always then, for many die before they can convince the keepers that they are sick. A very convenient excuse for this neglect is, that many have pretended to be sick, and have been treated as such, when they were perfectly well. This I know is true, and such hypocrites cannot be too severely dealt with; but this is no good reason why one who really needs attention, should be neglected. It is, however, another instance of visiting all for the crime of one.

The By-Laws require that "some fit person shall be appointed as a physician, whose duty shall be to visit the prison as often as once in every week, and oftener, if found necessary, to inquire into the health of the prisoners, to give directions relative to the conduct and regimen of the sick, and admit such patients into the hospital as he may judge necessary." Another regulation in the By-Laws, in respect to the sick, is, that they shall take no medicine in any part of the prison except the hospital, unless they are unable to be removed thither; and the obvious meaning of the Laws is, that no medicine shall be prescribed by any but the physician. It is equally obvious that the physician is to be called upon whenever a serious complaint is made by any of the prisoners. Nor is it less obviously implied, that the sick shall be treated kindly. Such is the Law; let us see the practice.

When complaint of sickness is made by any of the prisoners, the keeper who has the care of the sick is sent for, and if the person is unable to work, he is taken to his room and shut up there to get well. No physician is sent for, except, perhaps, in one case out of fifty; and the patient is allowed no food but a dish of crust coffee and a piece of bread, once in twenty-four hours. This is his diet while he remains sick. When he is first shut up, he has an emetic given him, or a blister applied to his breast. This is almost always done, no matter what the complaint is; and should the physician attend twenty times at the hospital, he can scarcely ever see him. Sometimes the patient is bled, and all this is done by a man who has no right to prescribe, and who is as ignorant of all medicine as he is of the feelings of a kind and generous sympathy; and done too in a place where the Law forbids the use of medicine. But what are laws to tyrants? If the person has a firm constitution he generally outlives such cruelty, and returns to his work; but if his complaint continues, after much time, he is handed over to the physician, and takes his chance for life or death in the hospital.

I do not mean to reflect, generally, on the conduct of the physicians. With but few serious, and a number of minor exceptions, their conduct has been alike honorable to themselves and ornamental to their profession. The great difficulty with them, is, they have no authority to do any thing; the most they can do is to advise, in no instance can they command; and their advice is followed or not, as best suits the convenience or disposition of their master. If any officer in a prison ought to have supreme authority, it is the physician. Life and death are in his hands, and he ought to have all the power necessary to the full discharge of his professional duty. His prescription should be something more than advice, and he should have authority to punish all disobedience to his orders, and all cruelty or inhumanity to the sick. If the physicians of Windsor prison had been invested with this power, such have been their general reputation for skill and humanity, that many an hour and month of keen distress would have been spared to the prisoners, and more than one life been preserved.

It cannot have escaped the notice of any one who has seen the treatment of the sick, that the keepers consider them no better than dogs, and are determined that they shall have no peace, sick or well. The iron-hearted discipline of the place is enough to rive the stoutest soul, and crush a heart as hard as marble; and in not a single instance has a prisoner escaped from it, if he has been there three or four years, without a ruinous impression that will go with him to his grave. But by a refinement of torture, which would be patented in the Court of the Inquisition, this mountain of uncalled-for oppression is rolled over, with double weight, on the sinking frame, and fainting heart, and trembling soul of the sick and dying. And to cover all this unearthly and inhuman conduct with a mantle, starred with mercy, and serene with kindness, the By-Laws are sent up every year to the Legislature, breathing the spirit of heaven, and written with tears of heart-bleeding compassion. Heaven-daring hypocrisy! I appeal to the keepers themselves—to the angels who have hovered over the sick—to the ghosts of Ellis and Burnham, whether there is a single drop of human feeling in the treatment of the sick. Away with the By-Laws as evidence against the declarations I have just made. How often has liberty triumphed in the Statutes of an unhappy country, long after tyranny had fettered every hand and every tongue in the empire. How often has piety remained in the letter of the prayer book and liturgy, years and centuries after the spirit had gone up to heaven, and the snows of human guilt had extinguished the last spark of the altar.

Not only are the sick neglected and unpitied by the officers and servants of the prison, the Ministers, also, neglect them. I have known men lie six months in the hospital, and die, without being visited by a single clergyman, or having even one christian call to pray with them. This speaks but little for the piety of Windsor; but such is the fact. It ought however to be understood, that the clergymen of that town are always willing to attend to any of the duties of their office, as well in the prison as out of it, when they know that they are wanted. I make but one exception to this remark, and that is only a partial one, for Mr. How—d was not always what I am condemning. The great blow, then, must fall ultimately with the greatest weight on the keepers. But still, when the great and the pious men of the village were weeping over the miseries of sin in the far distant Isles of the Pacific, and in the lands of the rising and setting sun, and sending their property in Bibles, Tracts, and Missionaries to "the farthest verge of the green earth;" is it not a little wonderful that they should so have forgotten the "prison house," and the sin-ruined prisoners, famishing for the bread of life, in their own town, and within their own sight, as not to have blessed them with a single visit from their itinerant mercy? Would not a little attention to the wants of the neighborhood have been at least excused?

Neglected, however, as they are by Christians, many of the suffering tenants of that gloomy abode, have an arm to lean upon which bears them up, and a sun to shine around them, whose beams create their day. While the earth is disappearing, and their heart-strings are breaking, they can sing—

How sweet my minutes roll,
A mortal paleness on my cheek,
And glory in my soul!

It would gladden the hearts of christians to reflect on the happy deaths that have been witnessed in that place. There, religion appears in all her loveliness. When there is no kind friend to watch the fading cheek and close the sightless eye—when a mantle of everlasting black is falling on all the beauties of earth, and hiding the sun, moon, and stars for ever—when the blood is stopping, a cold and clammy sweat is gathering on the temples, and the heart is sinking down into the stillness of death; then it is that the value of that principle is appreciated, which charms all fears away, and calms the throbbing heart, and lights up in the soul the brightness of eternity. Then, in that immortal ecstacy that nothing but God can inspire, it enables the happy possessor to join with the millions who have gone before him, in this triumphant farewell to this vale of tears:—

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie,

O the transporting rapt'rous scene,
That rises to my sight;
Sweet fields array'd in living green,
And rivers of delight.

No chilling winds, nor pois'nous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and fear'd no more.

Fill'd with delight, my raptur'd soul
Can here no longer stay;
Tho' Jordan's waves around me roll,
Fearless I launch away.

After a prisoner dies, his friends can have his body if they wish it. If they do not call for it immediately, it is buried in the prison-yard; but if they should call for it any time afterwards, it would be disinterred and given to them.

The ceremony at the funeral is usually appropriate and solemn. Laid in a decent black coffin, the body is placed where all the prisoners can see the face, as they pass in Indian file by it. A clergyman always attends, makes some remarks, and then prays; after which the corpse is laid in the grave, and his memory is soon lost.

The house of the dead is no place to make a reflection, and the grave of the individual may be thought by many to be the place in which all that pertains to him should be buried. In general, perhaps, this is true, but not always; and I shall, before I leave the buried remains of the prisoners, record some facts which ought not be forgotten.

After their death, very sympathetic letters are written by order of the keeper, or by the keeper himself, to the friends of the deceased, stating how kindly he was treated, and how peacefully he died. I was called upon to write one of these letters, and I have not forgotten what directions were given me by the very man whom the dying prisoner considered his murderer.

During the prisoner's sickness, he frequently writes to his friends; but as his letters are examined by the keeper, and not sent unless approved, he cannot state his real condition and treatment, but must, in order to have his letter sent, at least imply that he is treated kindly. Hence many a friend is led to feel grateful to the officers, when perhaps their cruelty has caused the very death they deplore.

The circumstance I am now going to relate, involves the clergyman who attended the funeral of an old prisoner, who had given no signs of repentance, it is true, nor had he been the greatest sinner on earth. The remarks made on the occasion were as follows, verbatim et literatem, for I recorded them in stenography at the time.—"As I was coming down here," said he, "I was thinking of an old slave of a southern planter. Returning home one day, he was told that his master had gone a long journey, from which he would never return. He asked where he had gone, and was told that he had gone to heaven. 'No, no,' said the slave, 'Massa no gone to heaven. When Massa go a journey he talk about it a great while before hand, and make great preparation, but me never hear him say any thing about going to heaven.' I know nothing," said the preacher, "about the man who is going to the grave, but these thoughts came into my mind as I was coming from my house, and they struck me as appropriate to this occasion. Let us pray."

No comment is necessary on such insulting language over the ashes of a fellow mortal. Such a polluted stream denotes the quality of the fountain from which it flowed.

The next chapter will contain a diversity of cases to illustrate the remarks in this.

ELLIS.

This man was afflicted with the consumption. At the time with which this account commences, he was wasted to almost a shadow; the paleness of death was on his countenance—and his voice was feeble and trembling. Though under the care of the physician, and taking medicine every day, he was yet unable to get into the hospital, but was obliged to spend his days either in his cell, where he could obtain but little nourishment, or at his work in the shop. The scene now before me, was in the cook room, a place partly under ground, to which he had retired to rest himself, and find some relief from the pain which was continually shooting through his breast. In this room I saw him, and heard the following conversation between him and the Warden.

Ellis was lying on the brick hearth, with a block of wood for his pillow, when the Warden came in, and his voice was the only indication of life that he manifested. He intreated in the most moving language to be removed to the hospital, and made comfortable what little time he had to live.

Warden. If I thought you were sick, I would take care of you; but nothing ails you. If there does, you have brought it on yourself to get rid of work. I have been imposed on too often by those who pretend to be sick, and I am not to be deceived any more. You are as well as I am, and you shall not be treated as a sick man, till I have evidence that you are sick.

Ellis. I submit, sir; though whether you believe me sick or not now, time will soon convince you, that I do not counterfeit this appearance. I am sick—I cannot live long, and all I desire is, that I may receive proper attention, and be permitted to die in peace.

Warden. You are not sick; when you are, you shall have all necessary attention. I am not to be imposed on any more by those who are too lazy to work, and therefore pretend that they are sick.

Here the conversation ended; the Warden retired, and Ellis continued to enjoy his repose on the brick hearth, and his pillow of wood. Too weak to labour, and denied a place in the hospital, he continued in this condition a few days longer, when forced by the unequivocal indications of approaching dissolution, he was transported to the proper place for the sick, and laid on a bed just in time to breathe his last.

The death of a prisoner causes no tender feelings in the breasts of some of the keepers, and when this death was announced, the eyes of many were expressive of satisfaction; and Mr. F*** said, with an air of malignant joy, "bad as he thought the place to be, he was not willing to die; he struggled for breath, looked anxiously round, and wanted to live longer."

Soon after his death was known in the yard, the Warden came into the cook-room where I was, but I am unable to paint his confused appearance. He well recollected what had passed in that room only a few days before, when the dying man plead for an easy bed to die on, but was denied. His head hung down, he turned every way to avoid looking those in the face who had heard his savage insults to the poor wretch who plead for mercy; at length he threw himself down on a seat by one of the tables, and said, in a manner which I hope will never be imitated—"Well, Ellis is dead." No one made any reply, and he added; "he has fulfilled his word; he said he would never be any benefit to us, and he never has."

The next day his remains were committed to the grave, where "the prisoners rest together, and hear not the voice of the oppressors." Dr. Torrey, the physician of the prison at this time, was highly displeased at the cruel neglect and unmerciful treatment of Ellis; and when prescribing, a few days after, for another prisoner, he said with emotions that did him honor—"This case must be attended to; it must not be neglected as the other was. Shameful! DISGRACEFUL!"

Shameful and disgraceful it certainly was to treat a dying man in this way. What man of ordinary feelings would have treated his dog, as the Warden treated Ellis? Is that man fit for any office in a humane Institution who could thus forget his kindred nature, and plant with thorns the death-bed of a brother? And ought there not to be a place for such monsters in human form, where they must drink of the cup which they have filled for others, and experience the pains they have inflicted? There is just such a place.—There the rich man lifted up his eyes being in torments. And if those will be doomed to this place, of whom the Judge will say—"I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me not," what must be the fate of this man, who locked up his living prisoners in the cell of despair, and threw the dying into a bed of embers?

A—— W——.

This young man was of a very feeble constitution, and was frequently a proper subject of medical treatment.—When a prisoner complained of being sick, he was very often permitted very kindly to take his choice of three things; 1, to take an emetic; 2, to go and do his usual task; or 3, to go into the cell and live on bread and water, and sleep on a stone floor. A. W. was taken sick and this choice was given to him; he took the emetic, remarking that he "might as well die one way as another." He was now left in his room, and for three days received no further attention. After this the physician visited him, and immediately ordered him to be moved into the hospital, where he suffered a severe course of fever.

Mr. Woodruff was the keeper who gave him the emetic, and he was much displeased when the physician rescued him from his hands. After the fever left him, and he went to his work, he was so weak that he applied to the physician for relief, and some bark and wine were ordered for him; but Mr. Woodruff thought fit to refuse the wine, and gave him only a small quantity of bark, and that of the poorest kind.

At another time when he was sick, and unable to do his task, I got some bark for him at my own expense, and wove as much over my task as he fell short of his, and caused it to be placed to his credit, to keep him out of punishment. This was done with the master weaver's knowledge, and was the only arrangement I could make to save him. It was nothing in his favor that he was sick; his task was required, and it must be done by himself or some one else.

The cruel man who allowed this youth no peace in his sickness, was very soon after doomed, in his turn, to a sickness which admitted of no comfort for him. His conduct in this instance is only a specimen of what it generally was. And when he became the prey to disease, he became sullen, unsocial, and desponding; evidently the victim of his own self-condemning reflections, and of that retributive justice which never suffers the wicked to go unpunished. Let the other tyrants of that little world of cruelty, think of this, and remember that the cry of the oppressed is always heard in heaven.

M—— C——.

The influence of a punishment, almost too great for human nature to bear, had destroyed this man's health, and thrown him into a decline from which his friends had little hope of his recovery. His labor was at shoe-making, an employment very weakening to the breast, where his complaint was seated. Not being able to perform his task, his only alternative was to stay in his room, and live on gruel or bread and crust coffee, which he did whenever his complaint rendered it necessary. This was by no means pleasing to his keepers, and every effort was made to confine him to his shoe bench. The most conspicuous agent in this conspiracy against the peace of a sick man was the Warden. Availing himself of his authority, he called at C's room and desired him to walk out, which he did; then conducting him to the door of one of the solitary cells, he said—"C. you are not sick, and I am going to give you a choice of two things,—take that handkerchief from your head, and go to your work, and live like the other prisoners, or go into this cell and die."

In the spirit of a christian, he obeyed the command of his unfeeling tormentor, and repaired to his work. His case created him friends who procured him medicine, and changed his employment, so that he was enabled to comply with all demands, and thus he outlived the tyrant's rage. He is now, if living, in the bosom of his friends, enjoying the sweets of liberty, and possessing the confidence of the church as a faithful minister of the gospel.

BENTON.

This is another victim of neglect and cruelty. He began to decline soon after he entered the prison, but he applied in vain for help. Work was the order of the day, and sick or well it must be done. Every eye that saw this youth, the blasted hope of a widowed mother, observed the sure signs of a fixed consumption. His dry hacking cough, his sallow skin, his husky hair, his hollow cheeks, could not be unobserved, nor their cause mistaken. Still he could get no help. Day after day of anxious suffering rolled heavily over his head, but no sympathy awoke for him in the breasts of his keepers. And it was not until all his strength was gone, and he was coughing up blood every day, that he could make them believe he was sick, and get a place in the hospital.

Removed to that place of death, the doctor called to see him—that doctor on whom he had called in vain for help when help was possible. As soon as he entered, his patient said—"Doctor you have come too late; I threw myself into your hands when you might have saved me, but you would not, and now I must die!" The appeal fell on his conscience, and he acknowledged his fault, but it was too late. He did, it is true, all he could after this to save him, but to no effect, and he died in a few weeks, calm, reconciled and prepared.

After he was confined, his mother came to wait upon him, and watch his closing eyes.—There is no limit to the affections of a mother. Holy nature prompts her to the place where her child is suffering. The iron doors, the massy walls, the dungeon's gloom, are no terrors to her imagination, if her son is there. Danger cannot intimidate; the world's scorn cannot deter; the crime and ingratitude of the child are forgotten. It is her child, and this omnipotent argument makes her forget herself to minister to the wants of her offspring. I could fill a volume with what my eyes have seen of a mother's fond, undying affection; and I cannot close this account of human suffering better, than by entreating all who have the power over young persons, to treat them in such a manner that their mothers may not be under the necessity of imputing the death of their children to their unfeeling neglect, and reckless severity.

SANDFORD.

I introduce this case to shew how sick men are often treated, after their keeper consents to give them medicine. He complained of not being very well, and was taken to his room, and ordered to take an emetic. This is a prescription for every thing, and is designed as a punishment rather than a remedy. The room was cold, and he was left alone to undergo the medicine. The emetics are generally given in great and unusual quantities, that the effect may be the more painful, and how many have been killed by such prescriptions, the day of Judgment will publish. Sandford took his dose, and soon the effect convulsed him, and took away his senses. How long he had lain in this state no one knows. When the keeper entered his room he found him on the cold stone floor, and to all appearance dead. He was taken immediately to the hospital, and no one can imagine the acuteness of his sufferings, after he became sensible. He bled most profusely at the mouth, and it was evident that the convulsions into which he was thrown had ruptured some blood vessel in the region of the lungs, and for two years he was not able to leave the hospital, and never did he do another hour's work in the prison. How long he lived after he was released from the prison, I know not, but it is certain that he suffered more than to have died a thousand deaths, and it is not probable he ever enjoyed a well day after he took the fatal emetic.

Here is a proof how little regard is paid to justice or mercy in giving medicine to the sick. No man who has the feelings of his nature about him, would treat a dog half so cruelly as some of the sick are treated in this prison. Here was a man in the perfection of his strength, and in the morning of his days, ruined for life, by the ignorant and reckless prescriptions of a man who knew no more about medicine than a dunce. An excuse may be borrowed for him, because he was allowed to do so; but where is the excuse for the one who gave an ignorant and careless blockhead that authority?

A BLACKSMITH.

To say that this man was murdered, would be saying too much; but it will not be too much to say, that his death was caused by a spirit of cruelty that would disgrace a Turk. He entered the prison, a picture of health, at the age of about twenty-seven. Being a blacksmith, he was put to that business; but falling sick, he was soon unable to work at it, and tried to be placed at some employment better suited to his feeble health. In this he failed. He then applied to the doctor, and was ordered into the hospital. It was evident to all, that a consumption was hovering over his lungs, and he soon began to exhibit the symptoms of that disease fully settled. He coughed very violently, and raised blood very often, and in large quantities; his flesh wasted away; his spirits sunk; and his strength departed. In this condition he was driven out to his shop and compelled to work, and not permitted to sleep in the hospital, but in a cell much less suited to his convenience. The excuse for this was, that he was fully able to do his work, and besides he was an ingenious smith, and might make tools to break out, if permitted to stay in the hospital during the night. The tyrant's plea is necessity. It is very convenient to have this, when no better can be found; but where is the necessity to torture a man because he is sick, and ingenious? This was the only plea, and on this he was driven out by a mean and unprincipled keeper, till a few days before he died; and when he went from his work the last time, he sunk down on the bed as soon as he reached the hospital, and never rose from it again.

The cry that he was able to work, and was counterfeiting his appearance, had been rung so long, that it triumphed over all the science and practice of the doctor, and led him to neglect him under the impression that he was a hypocrite. At last, his suffering, and dying, and persecuted patient said,—"Doctor, I wish you would do something for me."—"I will do something for you," was the significant and fatal reply; and he immediately ordered him large and frequent doses of calomel, which every novice in the medical art knew was a very fatal medicine to that complaint in its present confirmed stage. It was not long in doing its work, and the victim was laid in the earth. When the doctor was afterwards asked why he gave the calomel, he replied; "I knew its nature and effects, and I thought I would make short work of it."—I do not suppose that the physician intended to kill the man, but I suppose he meant to try an experiment. His opinion was, that the effect would soon be apparent, and be fatal if the disease were firmly seated; and I blame him for listening to those who had an interest in deceiving him, and not acting from his own examination, as he would in other cases.

The keeper who drove this dying man from the place provided for such sufferers, and made him labor when he ought to have been at rest, I knew well, and I have always considered him to be one of the most unfeeling, as well as ignorant, and unprincipled of the human race. This is not the only case in which I shall present him to the contempt of the reader, for many are the dark records against him, and through many years was he an infernal spirit in the prison, a Satan to the sick, and a curse to the well.

A friend of mine watched with this man the night he died. Soon after he went into his room, he made an effort to rise. There was a remarkable expression in his countenance, and he was asked if the bell should be rung to call the keeper? He shook his head. His eyes opened very wide, and looked wishful and anxious. They then rolled back in his head and he lay a few minutes and then recovered. He said—"I thought I was going; if I have another such turn, send for the keeper." This was his last utterance. He lay for some time very still, and when the nurse went to him again he was dead.

In the bloom and strength of manhood, this unhappy man was hurried out of time, by those who should have been his friends and treated him kindly. No inscription is on his tomb. He sleeps in silent peace near the room in which he died; and his spirit is where the prisoners hear not the voice of oppressors.

LEVITT.

This young man had been under the influence of mental derangement a few years before he became a prisoner, and he had not yet so far recovered but that his mind was often very much depressed, and his ideas confused; and this induced an unhealthy and debilitated state of body. During one of these frequent seasons of disease, a phial of nitric acid was given him by the doctor, of which he was directed to take a few drops in half a tumbler of water twice a day. This prescription he followed a few days; and then one morning, in a fit of delirium, he took all that remained in an equal quantity of water at once. The effect was immediate; he was senseless, and stiffened with convulsions, and in this condition was conveyed to the hospital, where he endured for several weeks as much bodily pain as human nature can suffer.

For three or four weeks he was perfectly senseless to all appearance; he breathed, but almost imperceptibly; he could neither see nor hear; and the only indications of life were his feeble pulse and his feebler breath. While he lay in this condition, he was so shamefully neglected, that certain living creatures began to inhabit his eyes! His clothes were not changed, his face was not washed, and all that was done for him was to administer the medicine prescribed and pour a little gruel into his mouth. No one supposed it possible for him to live, and he was left, in utter neglect, to die. His rash act was the theme of unfeeling and inhuman sport; and it was said that, as he wanted to die, it was a pity that he should not have his wish.

After a few weeks, however, contrary to all expectations, he began to give evidence of returning life. His head began to move, and it became apparent that he could hear; but he could not speak louder than the lowest whisper, and he could see nothing distinctly. At this time his iron-hearted keeper, in the luxury of his unearthly feelings, would move the candle before his eyes in order to draw his attention, and when he seemed not to notice it, he would thrust it close up to his face until he burned off all his eye brows.

By slow degrees he so far regained his health as to be able to walk about and perform some labor, though his voice was nothing but an audible whisper, and his eye-sight would not, with the best glass, enable him to read.

When he returned to his work, I had an opportunity of conversing with him, and I learned from his own lips the cause of his attempt at suicide, and his bodily feelings under the effect of the medicine he so rashly took. He said that life had lost all its charms to him; he had lost the confidence and respect of mankind, and nothing awaited him but ignominy, and the keen rebuke of a guilty conscience, which he was unable to bear. He dreaded to die, but he dreaded more to live. He had thought on the crime of suicide; he had thought also on the crimes of which he had already been guilty; and his conclusion was that the door of mercy was closed against him. "A guilty conscience! despair of the mercy of heaven! these," said he, "kept me in awful dread of the pains of eternal death; and convinced that this dread of hell was worse than the suffering dreaded, I resolved to know the worst, and hang no longer on the rack of anticipated destruction."

After taking the acid, he said that he had no distinct recollection of any thing till he began to recover. Then it seemed as if he was awaking from a long and dreadful sleep, and the only impression that he brought up with him, in respect to his sufferings, was, that his breast had been a sea of fire, rolling to and fro, as if vexed by a tremendous tempest. Under this sea of fire, he was fixed in motionless agony, and it was not until the last flaming billow had rolled over him, that he could move or know whether he was living or dead.

The last time I had an opportunity of conversing with him, he told me that his views in respect to the mercy of God, were changed. "I now believe," said he, "that my Maker will have mercy on me, sinful as I am, and I mean to love him, and serve him, and 'wait all the days of my appointed time till my change come.'" And I was delighted to hear him speak, in the simplicity of his soul, of that great goodness of which he was the living and speaking monument; and to observe how scrupulously conscientious he was in all his words and actions. What his future life has been I know not, but I well remember his pleasing change of mind, and I could not help believing that it was the goodness of God that led him to repentance.

How awfully certain is it that "the way of the transgressor is hard!" This poor sufferer found it so; and as no iniquity can go unpunished, there must be a dreadful retribution for the man, who, not only shut up his bowels of compassion from him, in the day of his afflictions, but sported, like a demon, with his dreadful condition. This prostrate sufferer had never injured his keeper, but was entitled to his kindness, and there is no excuse for that neglect and cruel torture, which he received at his hand. The laws of God and man, the laws of humanity, and even the laws of the prison, which demand for every prisoner, kindness, and for the sick, the best and most affectionate attention, were wantonly outraged by such conduct, which must in the estimation of every feeling heart, fix a lasting stain, not only on the guilty author of it, but on his superiors who suffered such iniquity to pass in silent approbation.

BURNHAM.

The crime for which this man was sentenced to imprisonment was so base, and so revolting to all the feelings of humanity, that I almost dread to describe his sufferings, lest the sympathies of the reader should lead him to forget the greatness of the crime, in contemplating the miseries of the criminal. But it is possible for the worst man on earth to be abused, and murder would be murder still, though the victim were deserving of death. My design, then, in publishing this sketch, is, not to whiten the scarlet of crime with the tears of pity, but to hold up to public execration, a series of oppressions which could not be justified, nor their authors shielded from the just contempt of all good men, even if Satan himself had been the one oppressed.

The crime of Burnham ought never to be named; it is of too dreadful a character to be thought upon by any unperverted soul, without the utmost pain. Let it suffice to say, that a conspiracy was the means of effecting his infernal purpose; that this conspiracy had two females joined with him, to the everlasting infamy of their names; and that another female, young, innocent, and amiable was the victim. For this crime, he was justly doomed to a long confinement in the State Prison, and a similar doom was soon awarded to one of his female conspirators.

Every heart was glad that such a righteous retribution fell on this man's guilty head. I presume no tears were shed for him by any, except his wife and two children; and he has none to blame but himself, if this universal indignation bore hard upon him. His crime was outrageous; and the outraged morals of the land, and the insulted dignity of the laws, are sure to measure out their indignation according to the nature of the outrage. This is natural, and it is right; and if this reaction of a man's sins upon his own pate, should be marked by something extravagant and cruel, he who gave occasion for this extravagance and cruelty, should be the last one to complain. But when the expressions of public execration trample on all the rights of humanity, and violate the laws of nature, of the land, and of God—when the sufferings of a criminal are magnified beyond the laws, and rendered intense to a degree surpassing endurance—when, in fact, crime is punished at the expense of every principle of justice, humanity and religion, it is time to speak out, and inquire to what extent public indignation at crime may innocently go.

Every man is entitled to the protection of the laws as long as he obeys them; and every transgressor may be legally punished according to the law he has violated; and if the law is a reasonable one, no fault can be found with any one for duly and fully executing it. But no punishment ought ever to be inflicted on any person, until he has been found guilty of a crime by the proper court; and then it must not exceed the sentence provided in the law. The sentence ought to be strictly legal, and then it is perfectly right that the criminal, in ordinary cases, should suffer it; but to go beyond the obvious meaning and spirit of the legal sentence in inflicting suffering for any crime, is alike unjust and cruel. If these views are correct, we can readily apply them in the case under consideration.

The sentence against Burnham was just, and it was the duty of his keepers to inflict it up to the letter. This sentence required him to be confined in the prison at hard labor, and treated according to the laws of the place. These laws require the prisoners to be kept constantly employed by the keeper, due regard being paid to their age, strength and circumstances. When any one is sick, it is the duty of the keeper to call the physician, and if the patient requires medicine, it must be administered to him in the hospital, if he is able to be moved there, as no prescription is to be made in any other apartment, unless the patient is unable to be conveyed to that. No fault can be found with the laws and regulations, authorized by the Legislature, for the government of the prison; and those which provide for the sick are such as mercy herself would approve. The only fault, then, which any one can find with them, is, that they are not complied with by the keepers, and the prisoner is not allowed the care and attention which they provide for him.

Burnham was soon taken sick. Bad as he was, he had some feelings; and shame, regret and disappointment, filled his soul with such distress, that his body began to feel the effect of his mental agony, and his strength, flesh, and spirits, began to vanish together. He applied to the physician, but was told that nothing ailed him. He was driven out from his room and compelled to work, when he had scarcely strength to stand. His knees trembled under the weight of his body, and the floor shook when he attempted to walk over it. Still, he was not sick! He was cunning, it was said, and was feigning his appearance, to avoid work, and get his liberty; and as the doctor said this, though every one who saw him knew better, the keepers had some pretext for neglecting him, and treating him with severity, in which they took a most infernal satisfaction.

One morning he was driven out to the shop, and as he was inquiring of the keeper where he should go to work, that mean and despicable upstart gave him a sudden and violent blow with his hand, which threw him headlong on the brick floor of the shop. It was in vain that he attempted to rise; he had not strength enough to turn over when lying on his back; and the keeper indulged his inhuman feelings by striking him on his legs with his sword, and ordering him to get up. After some time, he obtained help and made out to get on his feet, and go to the place appointed for his labor.

In this way he passed through a few doleful weeks, suffering the greatest pain of body and of mind without sharing in the pity of any human being, but was made the sport of those who should have treated him with tenderness and humanity. As he moved through the yard, he appeared like a walking skeleton, a living death; and yet he could not get the smallest degree of the attention due to a sick man, for the voice of the doctor was against him. But the cup of his calamity was beginning to run over; nature was sinking under the mighty load of his afflictions; and aware of his approaching dissolution, he prepared to meet it, and left directions with some of his fellow prisoners to be sent to his son, where he wished to be buried. Thus composed, he waited but a few days, and death released him from earthly suffering.

It was on Sunday evening that he died. He went out to the cook-room, with the other prisoners, to supper, trembling and reeling through the yard like a drunken shadow; and when he returned into the prison after supper, scarcely had the last door been bolted when the cry was heard from his cell—"Burnham is dead!" At this moment the doctor was passing the prison, and hearing the cry, he came in. As he entered the hall, Burnham was brought out of his cell, and laid on the floor before him.—"Is he dead?" said this unworthy son of Galen, "I said yesterday that he was not sick, but it is evident he was." Yes, it is evident he was sick, but doctor, this is not the last of it. The man is dead, and the guilt of his death lies on your soul, and if you do not repent of this great wickedness, you will, in your turn, call for mercy, and find despair.

He was laid out in the hospital, where he was kept two days, till his friends came and took his body, and conveyed it to Woodstock for interment. During this time, the blood was almost continually running out of his mouth and nostrils, and a more dreadful picture of death was never seen.

On this case I have but few remarks to make, and in these, perhaps, I have been anticipated by the feeling reader.

One fact is obvious to every one who has read this account with attention—and this is, that Burnham was hastened to the grave, by the injustice and cruelty of the doctor and keepers. Had he been treated according to the spirit and letter of the laws, he might have been living now.

The laws of humanity should lead us to forget the crimes of a sick man in tender and sympathetic care and solicitude for his recovery; and he who can calmly hand over a fellow-being to the tormentors, when he knows that he needs that relief which it is his professed and sworn duty to impart, cannot be far from finished depravity. The truth of this remark is obvious, and while I have such a sense of Burnham's guilt, that I have scarcely a heart to pity him, I cannot help condemning, in the bitterest terms, that infernal process by which he was deliberately hastened to the grave.

[This is the man about whom the anti-masons of Vermont made such a stir. They caused a story to be reported that Burnham was a mason; that he had bribed his keepers, who were also masons; and was still living in the city of New-York. Strange as it may seem, this story was believed, and persons were found who declared that they had seen him, and learned from his own lips the fact of the bribery, and how the deathly farce was acted for him to get out of prison. He said, according to report, that he gave a thousand dollars, and that at the time he was supposed to have died, according to a previous plan which was mutually agreed upon, he pretended to die, and was carried into the hall in a blanket, when a corpse about his size was brought to take his place. The doors being open, this corpse was thrown into the blanket, and he was permitted to walk off. Such was the story, and thousands believed it; and into such a ferment was the public mind thrown, that the Legislature took up the business, and sent one of the Council to New-York to ascertain the fact. He was faithful to his commission, and the story soon died. During the excitement, however, Burnham's body was dug up twice and examined.]

PLUMLEY.

"Man's inhumanity to man, makes countless thousands mourn." This poetic sentiment cannot find a more appropriate application, than in the case which I am going to relate. Plumley was one of that class of human beings, on whom nature had not been profusely lavish of her endowments, and he was, consequently, a fit tool for the master spirits of iniquity to practice upon. Only tell Plumley to do any thing, good or bad, right or wrong, it made no difference, and he would promptly obey, entirely reckless of the consequence; and hence it came to pass, that he had very often to suffer for the guilt of others.

These sufferings which were always severe, and sometimes extremely cruel, began finally to undermine his iron constitution, and open the way for disease. The last complaint he made was of pain and swelling of the left breast, accompanied with inflammation. He applied very frequently to the keeper and to the physician for medicine, and particularly, for a change or suspension of his employment, but to no purpose. Some medicinal drops were given him from time to time, but he could obtain no mercy in respect to his daily task. It was to no effect that he exhibited the occular demonstration of his infirmity; his swollen and inflamed breast and side were considered no evidence of inability, and he was informed that he must either do his task or be punished.

Thus doomed to unpitied suffering, he made a virtue of necessity, and bore up under his calamity as well as he could, toiling all day, and writhing in keen distress all night, till death, more merciful than his keepers, kindly removed him from the power of their anger. Up to the last moment of his life, the full amount of labor was demanded of him; and he had been from his own work but a few hours, when the pulse of life stopped, and put an end to his misery.

After death his body was dissected and the most unequivocal indications of disease were discovered, both internally and externally,—but no remorse was discovered in his oppressors. His life was considered of no more account than that of a dog, and his memory was thrown into the grave with his mangled body. No tear of pity was dropped at his funeral—no "heart warmed with the glow of humanity"—but the "dust went to the dust as it was," without the least kindred sympathy in a single bosom, "and the soul to the God who gave it," to meet its tormentors in the great and terrible day of the Lord.

L. NOBLE.

This man could say from his own experience, that the way of the transgressor is hard, his whole life having been an alternation of crime and punishment. When out of prison he was ever in the act of, or in the preparation for, some violation of the law, but when in prison, he was orderly and submissive, and therefore deserved well of his keepers.

As sin had ruined his moral nature, so had intemperance his physical, and when his last sickness came upon him, his pain was as severe as humanity can suffer. His groans and shrieks echoed through the prison like the wailings of a lost spirit, but in vain was it that he begged for medicine; nor could he obtain a place in the hospital till a few hours before he died. The night before his death he mentioned a remedy which he had used in time past with effect, and desired to have it obtained for him, but could not prevail. After much importunity, however, the Warden promised him that he should have it on Monday. "But," said the dying man, "I cannot live till then, unless I obtain relief." This was on Saturday night, I think, and, on the evening after he was a corpse.

After his death, the chaplain was instructed that the death was sudden and unexpected; and he accordingly preached a sermon the following Sabbath, grounded on that information, and wove into his remarks a great deal of mercy which he said the dead man had experienced, in his last hours. I reflect not on the Chaplain, for he was so informed; but may God have mercy on that unfeeling tyrant, who denied medicine to a dying man; and pardon that hypocrisy which led him to cover his cruelty with the disguise of compassion. I wish him no greater suffering, than the recollection of Noble will one day give to his soul.

QUARKENBUSH.

The case of this unhappy man will illustrate the danger and sin of permitting ignorant men, who never read a page on the science of medicine, to prescribe for the sick. Quarkenbush was taken very suddenly with a complaint in the region of the stomach and bowels, attended with inflammation and the most excruciating pains. He applied to the keeper who had charge of the sick, and he gave him the very worst medicine he could find for his case, which not only increased its violence, but prevented the proper medicine from taking effect when the physician was called. He lingered through about thirty hours of as much misery as human nature can bear, and died one of the most dreadful deaths recorded in history. Such was the intensity of the inflammation, that his surface was black with mortification before he died, and with the last strength remaining in his system, he threw up the putrid contents of his stomach, black and offensive as imagination can conceive, with a violence and copiousness of which the records of disease can scarcely furnish a parallel. He was opened by a trio of doctors, who paid richly for the information they obtained from such a mass of putrefaction, and immediately buried.

The proper remedy for his disease was physic, which should have been given frequently, till a cure was effected; but the only medicine given him, was opium, the effect of which is directly against what the case required. This was given in large quantities till the physician came, when the proper remedy was administered, but as on many other occasions, the doctor came "a day too late," and the death of the patient was, in the estimation of the keepers, the unimportant consequence.