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