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them. The verge of the frigid can never make a comfortable home for the denizen of the torrid zone. Why not give up to the whole race a state for themselves, at the south, and leave them to erect a standard of freedom there, and bless the bounty of the United States? Then might America raise her strain without discord

"Hail, Columbia, happy land,

For all thy sons are free!"

Then would the might of her influence be doubled on earth, and then could she lift up a light and glad heart to heaven.

This prejudice against complexion would begin to fade as soon as the necessity of living mingled together was removed, and all affairs of trade, commerce, and policy could proceed naturally, as they do with other countries. At present there are per

plexities and anomalies of various sorts occurring, which oblige governments to wink hard, and endure what they disapprove, or to turn corners with anything but the dignified movement of free states.

How unfit is it that England, for peace' sake, should allow her black sailors to be locked up the hour they enter the ports of some American slave states! What an injustice to the honest, industrious tar, to deal with him as with a criminal! Yet this is one result of the slave-ridden condition of some of the southern seaports; they dare not admit free blacks to company with slaves.

On the 26th of July 1847, the Constitution of

Liberia was published, and her independence pro claimed. She has thus been a free republic, exercising all the rights of free government, for nearly five years. Her claim, then, to be reckoned among the nations ought not, and cannot with justice, be denied. She holds friendly relations with the United States, and must, like other nations, have her chargéd'affaires at Washington. But all her people are dark. A white man cannot sit, or eat, or commune with such, on equal terms. What, then, must be done? Must Liberia remain unrepresented before the state that has fostered her into what she isthe state that hopes to see her grow in greatness? or must Liberia borrow a white man to stand her sponsor? Or, will America, with a magnanimity so becoming a great and a free nation, swallow down her prejudice, receive a true Liberian envoy, and shew him all honour for the sake of liberty, and of his origin?

CHAPTER XX.

PRISONS.

OUR early knowledge of prisons is commonly derived from history, and consequently, they, with too much reason, are associated in the mind with deeds of injustice, oppression, and cruelty. Dungeons where brave warriors are sighing out their existence, deep, deep, below the sympathy and the hearing of man -towers where infant princes pay the forfeit of life to the fell usurper-inquisitions where, for daring to think or inquire, the intelligent, liberal, and devout are tortured under the remorseless gripe of Papal tyranny;-such are the images called up by the word "Prison" in the mind of the inexperienced.

After-years teach that prisoners are not necessarily oppressed, and prisons are not all scenes of injustice and cruelty. Yet it requires long habit before the steep, cold, stone steps of a common jail can be ascended without a trembling heart, and the hardened and careless inmates faced without strong repulsion mingled with pity. It requires a consi

deration of the untaught, the impoverished, and the tempted case of many a poor criminal; and also a consideration of what is in our own hearts, before we can say, as did the well-taught man, when he saw a convict passing to Tyburn, "But for the grace of God, there goes John Bradford."

scenes.

As the homes of America are cleaner, brighter, and of purer air than ours, so are their prisons. My means of observation were limited. It is not easy for a female to penetrate such places alone, nor easy, amid the busy and obliging multitude, to meet with gentlemen who do less than marvel at your taste in sight-seeing, if you hint a wish to visit such Such observations as have come within reach, however, shew me that the mistakes and experiences of old Europe have not been lost on young America. There will never there, one is led to trust, be found such dens of darkness and woe as our Howard permeated-and, even from their foundation, they have profited by such works as our Buxton's on Prison Discipline, and such operations as those of our Mrs Fry in prison classification.

It is not for me to discuss the much debated points, between the systems of solitude in one prison, or silence in society in another. For the officials the former must be much the more easy. As to the latter, the enforcing of it—at least the enforcing of non-intercourse-seems impracticable. The temptation to break rules, and thus become an offender, is very strong, because converse with our fellows is

natural. It is a pity to add to occasions of offence, where there are necessarily so many; besides, Solomon said long ago, that " a naughty person winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he teacheth with his fingers." He has ways of insinuating his ideas though his tongue be silenced; and that it is so, seems calculated to make his feelings the more bitter. It would seem easier, more cheerful, and therefore more healthful, to work alone all day, if your workshop be well aired and lighted, than to work continually under restraint in the midst of society, where the very ingenuity and cleverness exercised in outwitting the overseer must add constantly to the temptation to do so.

It depends much on constitutional temperament how solitude will affect the spirit. We have all read with dismay the account of that brave general who, under Austrian despotism, was imprisoned seventeen years—at first with a companion. The first year they discussed political affairs, and conjectured as to the cause of their arrest. The second they related adventures and stated opinions on abstract subjects. The third they became silent; and when at the end of the fifth year his companion was removed, he felt it rather a relief to see no more through the gloom that dim immovable counteOnce during the remainder of the time the door was opened, and a voice, sounding to his unaccustomed ears like thunder, said "he had it in command from his Imperial Majesty to inform him

nance.

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