God, and avoided evil companions and prac-| fellow-worm than the Almighty Judge to whom tices."

instead of sailing with her fellow convicts she had been brought to the Lancaster penitentiary to receive spiritual instruction and to die a penitent, and in that quiet room.”

In the same ward was an unwedded mother, who had on the preceding day brought her first-born, a guiltless child of sin and shame, into the world. It was an uncommonly lovely babe, and the other females appeared to derive much pleasure from this attractive addition to their mournful society. It was an affecting thing to see at the same moment the beginning and the end of human life under circumstances so painful to contemplate, and striking was the contrast between the unconscious innocence of the new-born infant, and the fearful agitation and passionate remorse of the dying convict.

I talked a little with the mother of the babe, but her intellect, naturally of the lowest grade, had never been cultivated. She seemed scarcely accessible to any good impression beyond the instinctive tenderness of maternity-depraved indeed must any female heart be in which that feeling finds no place.

In a lower room I saw two other women with older infants. One of these, a beautiful fat fellow of six months old, with a fair face and laughing black eyes, held out his dimpled hands to come to me, and almost flew into my arms, where he displayed great animation-patting my cheeks and playing with my ribbons. This lovely boy, so full of life and intelligence, whom many a childless noble would have gladly given half his estate to call his own, had been born in the prison, the heir of misery and evil repute. His mother, a woman of some ability, but with a decidedly unprepossessing countenance, was a circulator of base coin. She had a shrewd sinister expression in her dark watching eye, and I mourned for the too probable training her innocent babe would receive from her. I could not forbear, when I gave him back to her arms, entreating her to consider her responsibility in the sight of God as a mother, and not to bring up that sweet child to a life of guilt here, and misery hereafter. She turned away and dropped a tear, a token of softness I had not in sooth expected from her. But woman, however fallen, is often to be subdued, if appealed to through the mysterious fountain of tenderness that pervades a mother's heart.

Our next visit was to that part of the prison where juvenile offenders are confined. There were about sixty boys wearing the prison dress congregrated in the court yard. The appearance, I regret to say, of the majority of these, was most discouraging. I however ventured to speak to one who stood aloof from the rest of the degraded company, as if ashamed of his associates. I asked him "of what offence he had been guilty?"

He hung his head, blushed deeply, and replied in a low, but distinct voice, "Dishonest practices."

"Have you been brought up in that sad way of life?" I inquired, "or have you brought shame and sorrow on parents who endeavoured to bring you up in the fear of God?"

He burst into tears, and said, "I was brought up by good parents, who served God, and taught me better things."

The prisoner was about fifteen, tall, handsome, and with gentle manners; his appearance was that of a person who had been used to far different scenes and associations.

I expressed a hope that, seeing the error of his ways, he might become a reformed cha

racter.

"It is only the third time he has been here for his tricks," observed the governor's son drily.

This boy, so young, so ingenuous in appearance, was then an old offender; but was he the less an object of compassion on that account? Nay, but the more so, for the first step in the paths of evil, that decisive step in the journey of life, the only one that costs they say a pang, had been taken at a very tender age; we know not under what circumstances of strong temptation an easy temperament had been deluded into sin. The barrier of duty once broken down is lightly overstepped a second time, and even a third; but while the blush of shame, the tears of self-reproach, the tenderness of youthful feelings yet remain, who shall dare to regard the youthful culprit as a reprobate? Should we not rather strive to improve these impressions for the renovation of a right spirit within a heart that laments its errors? We see the punishment, the degradation, which crime has brought upon its votaries, but we see not the concatenation of circumstances that have led to the offence. "Let not the city boast of its strength which hath never been exposed to a siege."

The governor of Lancaster gaol was anxious that the separation system should be adopted, as affording the best hopes of effecting the reformation of the criminals. The effects, however, even of this salutary method, are too often but of temporary benefit. A strong effort of legislative wisdom and philanthropy is also required, in order to devise some national employment for this unhappy portion of the community; otherwise they go forth after the term of their imprisonment is ended, with strong impressions, it may be, of the hideousness of sin, and a desire of leading a new life"to will is present" with many of them, "but how to perform they find not."

They come forth with the brand of infamy on their characters. Who will give them employment? Shunned by the respectable

portion of society, and in want of bread, they become reckless. The juvenile offenders are assailed by their old tempters, and they fall again and again.

Dead indeed must that heart be to all the holier sympathies of the Christian character, which could contemplate without feelings of the deepest commiseration the blighted hopes, the desolate position of those unhappy ones. Surely some institution might be devised, on industrial principles, to afford employment and probationary encouragement, to enable the reclaimed felon to earn a new character, to become a new creature. Such an institution would be as a city of refuge, to which the chastened and repentant might flee, as a resource against the strong temptations by which the newly released penal prisoner is assailed in his destitution and his despair.

The result of such being flung back, like noxious weeds upon society, is to disseminate far and wide the seeds and atmosphere of moral pestilence, and to consummate the ruin of immortal souls by selfish apathy, instead of becoming partakers in the joy which is felt by angels over one sinner that repenteth and turneth from the evil of his ways.

But to proceed in the progressive unfolding of the dark curtains that shut the interior of the gaol, and its degraded tenants, from the observation of the world. We were next conducted to that quarter of the prison where adult male offenders were confined. About 150 of this class were assembled in the yard. It was my first visit to a gaol, and never before had I seen so many human beings congregated together, whose countenances bore so universally bad an expression.

Dressed in their hideous felon livery, blue and yellow, they looked like one large family of evil-minded brothers-for a similarity tof propensities constantly actuating the brain, will generally produce corresponding lines in the features. Even so did it seem with these men. A brand, more unmistakeable than that which the searing-iron of the old law was wont to impress on the palm and the cheek of the petty larcener, had sealed them all. I thought of the mark of Cain-the outward and visible sign of the inward workings of sin in the soul, marring the human countenance as with a blight, or the traces of loathsome disease. If one might venture to form a judgment from a brief and silent survey of this degraded company, for there was not one to whom I ventured to speak, I should say that the intellectual faculties of the majority of them were of the lowest grade, and had never been cultivated. Very few of them could read, which may partly account for the mistaken course they had pursued in life.

They reminded me of Goldsmith's description of the Vicar of Wakefield's gaol congregation.

| There was the sly leer, the sullen scowl, the air of hardened impudence, the bold stare of defiance, the sardonic curl of lips which with difficulty repressed some ribald joke as we passed, and the cunning, sinister askance of others, who were evidently considering whether it might not be possible to exercise a feat of professional legerdemain on the pockets of some of the visitors. On the whole, so disheartening and revolting a spectacle I never saw before or since.

We proceeded up the massive stone staircase, which was much worn away by the constant footsteps of guilt and misery, and looked into some of the wards, where I saw several of the unhappy men sitting on their beds in a sort of sullen apathy, apparently reckless of everything but the irksomeness of restraint and the absence of excitement.

I was told that the male felons appeared to greater disadvantage on Sundays than on the week-days, when they were occupied at their tasks. Having no inclination for devotional exercises, the sabbath rest was pain and weariness to them, and increased the gloom of the sullen and the ribaldry of the vivacious.

They had all attended morning service in the small chapel attached to the jail, but derived apparently little benefit from what they heard. I did not see one male felon with a Bible. Those who knew how to read could not be induced to read religious books.

The aspect of things in the female penitentiary was incalculably more encouraging.

We were shown specimens of the male prisoners' work, consisting of sacks, mats in great variety, shoes for men, and ladies' morning slippers worked in cross-stitch, in pretty and well-executed patterns, also carriage-boots and snow-stockings, knitted in coloured wools. I was surprised at this sort of employment having been chosen for men, but was told "that the women were constantly occupied in making and mending the prison linen and garments, and that it would be no punishment for them to be employed in fancy-works, in which all females take decided delight; that the men did not like to do it at first, but afterwards it appeared to have rather a beneficial influence, by directing their perceptive powers to objects of a refining and entertaining nature." There appeared to me sound judgment exercised in this arrangement, especially as the men so employed were of the more decent class, and worked apart from the other felons, whose tasks were of a more laborious description.

In passing through some of the lower lobbies we were shown the strong cells used as places of temporary confinement for the refractory, in extreme cases, and formerly, sad to record! for the reception of pauper lunatics. worse they were than dog-kennels-paved with

Far

cold damp stones, exposed to currents of un-execution of the Jacobite gentlemen had taken wholesome air, and exhaling a vapour like that place without the town, on an opposite hill, it of a charnel house. was said. We were shown a darksome dungeon under the gatehouse, in which prisoners of an earlier date had been incarcerated. The roof was ceiled with rough wicker work, plaistered with clay.

Dowager of Lancaster.

These were the pro- | for the advancement of private emolument, when

duction of an unfortunate genius, half artist the object would be to furnish employment to and half poet, in whom the precious quality of prudence had been wanting; at any rate, he had proved unfit to struggle with the cares of life. He had obtained his discharge from the prison a few months before that period, and shortly after, his release from his troublous pilgrimage in this world. They told us he was just dead.

It was impossible to remain long enough in this dreary abode to take more than a cursory view of the general aspect of the place. We felt ourselves as unauthorized intruders on wretchedness which we had no power to alleviate, and retired with heavy hearts from the depressing place. Many of these unfortunate people had perhaps been accessory to their own calamities by profligate or indolent habits, but, under any circumstances, their condition was far more deplorable as regarded food, lodging, beds, and the means of cleanliness, than the most depraved of felons.

Would it not be an act of mercy, worthy of the consideration of Christian philanthropists, to enable small debtors, who frequently belong to the operative classes, to exercise their various crafts for the means of maintenance while in prison? Might they not also be encouraged to work for the benefit of their creditors, for the liquidation or composition of their debts?

those who would be otherwise preying on the community? The objection of the manufacturing classes is unjust, because it opposes selfish interests to the happiness and reformation of thousands and tens of thousands of their fellowcreatures, who have all a right to get an honest living.

It costs the country far more to punish crime than it would to prevent its repetition.

Under the present constitution of things, there is no resource for the penitent offender, who is willing to abandon his evil courses, and do that which is lawful and right. Without work, without food, he becomes hopeless, reckless, and, in nine cases out of ten, the last state of that man is worse than the first.

As we retired from our painful survey of the various scenes of human degradation and affliction within that doleful abode, we observed a young woman, of respectable and interesting appearance, walking in the exercising ground of the debtors' prison with an elderly man. It was a father and daughter. The father, a decayed tradesman, was incarcerated for debt, and she, good faithful daughter! had walked twelve miles that morning to bring him a few little comforts. He was leaning on her arm and weeping, and she, regarding him with an air of anxious solicitude, appeared to be whispering earnest words of consoling tenderness, and possibly of hope. Touching picture! How inexpressibly precious are traits of the virtuous duties, the holy charities of life, in the immediate proximity of the revolting evidences of human depravity! they show like the sweet flowers that wind themselves among the brambles and thorns of some frightful thicket, and plead for cultivation and dissemination through

A sale-room, or bazaar, for the disposal of the produce of their industry, might be established in every gaol, under the auspices of an association of charitable ladies, assisted by the clergy of the district; and thus would hopeful habits of industry be fostered, calculated to give a better colouring to the future prospects of those who are now wasting their lives in soul-destroying atrophy of mind and body. Such an institution, as well as the establish-out the wilderness. ment of government, or county, factories, for the employment of reformed felons, would, I am persuaded, be attended with the most beneficial effects on the moral health of our country. The objection, that such institutions are calculated to injure honest shopkeepers and the owners of private factories, by competing with them in their articles of sale or produce, is both futile and unjust. Futile, because these considerations never deter manufacturers or tradesmen from competing with one another. Who ever heard of any one belonging to those classes consulting the feelings of other persons in the same department, whether he should establish a factory, or open a shop, that was likely to be a profitable speculation to himself? No one can be prevented from doing it, or from offering articles to the public at a cheaper rate, in order to obtain more custom. Why, then, should government be deterred from adopting a course which is open to every one

The music of the full-toned peal of bells, chiming for evening service in Lancaster church, had been, for the last quarter of an hour, echoing through all the courts and buildings round and about the castle, and was now succeeded by the emphatic monotones, called "tolling in." Happy were those who could obey the summons, and pass free and unquestioned through those grim and sternly-guarded portals, to unite-oh, blessed privilege!-with a peaceful and devout congregation, in the duty of public worship in that stately fane, so well adapted, in its quiet and solemn grandeur, to compose the mind to the sacred occupation of prayer and praise. Two hours spent in the gloomy penetralia of sin and sorrow we had just quitted, had prepared us, on entering the church, to say with the holy Psalmist, "O how amiable are thy dwellings, thou Lord of Hosts!" "Blessed is the man whose strength is in Thee, in whose heart are thy ways."