ratifies it with her sanction. Where severity of language has been employed, reformation, not exasperation, was the object; the good of man, not private animosity, was the motive."

We should have been not a little gratified had Mr. Wakefield followed up his design by leaving a regular, authenticated, statement on this most important subject, for want of which we are obliged to pass over many alledged instances of defective regulation, of which his recollection would, doubtless, have furnished him with the proper proofs and illustrations.

His walks being confined, for two years, within the walls of a prison, he had opportunities of witnessing scenes of misery, of which the world at large never think, and with which, probably, even justices themselves seldom, if ever, become personally acquainted, especially where, as in this place, their visits are usually at stated periods, well known to the officers of the prison.

Mr. Wakefield complains that "magistrates never confer with the prisoners themselves, make no enquiries of them under an assurance that their situation shall not be rendered worse for their sincerity and openness. All accounts. are taken from the gaoler, on trust; and a man may be set down in his books as disor

derly, locked up for days, at the will of the gaoler, and shut up in a stone cell without fire, and any human intercourse; because he he has found fault, perhaps, with his provision."

Of this latter grievance he further remarks, "When I reflect upon my own feelings, in gloomy weather, during my confinement, with a temper naturally cheerful, and abundant food of meditation from books, connections and past transactions of an eventful life, I wonder that men can endure solitary imprisonment without distraction, melancholy, and despair.

"So horrible an evil, so repugnant to the nature of man, and the plan of Providence, could never be prescribed by any man, but one alike ignorant of the human character, and the divine economy."

This solitary confinement, through a considerable portion of their time, he describes as inflicted by the regulations of the place, on the prisoners in general, even when there is no charge of disorderly behaviour against them.

"During four winter months, as their time of confinement in their cells is dated from the decline of day, their solitude in darkness. varies from fifteen to sixteen hours. Surely such an annihilation from active life is highly

criminal, and an offence against the dispensation of our Creator, who has appointed our sojournment here as a period of preparation for futurity."

He was not, however, by any means, insensible to the serious evils of association among prisoners, without regular instruction and employment, on which he has these remarks:-" A crying sin, in these gaols, is the habit of idleness, which they confirm, or produce. During the period of from one to eight months, before trial at least, they have no employment, beyond occasional labours at the water-engine; but saunter about, lie down asleep, or waste their hours in such unedifying conversation as men grossly ignorant may be supposed to entertain with each other. Such is the case also with the debtors, almost without exception. The minds of these prisoners are, in general, deeply imprinted with the plough of adversity and sorrow, but there is no seasonable husbandman to scatter on the furrows the seeds of virtue."

"Kind usage to mollify the heart, and good instruction to illuminate the understanding, are the wise, and only rational, means of reformation; severe treatment, without any attempt at removing gross ignorance, (the almost universal œconomy of these gaols) hardens

their inhabitants, and prepare them for additional outrage to society."

From a deep conviction of the truth of these principles, he often lamented that he had not permission to communicate instruction to his fellow-prisoners, from time to time, suited to their various capacities, at a season when entire seclusion from the world, and its temptations, might well be expected

To leave them leisure to be good."

Under the same impressions he observes, "I attended the Church-Service, occasionally, at Dorchester Gaol, though I never attend it elsewhere: being not only willing to countenance the ignorant in the seriousness of devotion, but fond of encouraging the poor and wretched by an equality of association with them. I can truly say that I felt a pleasure and pride in making myself equal to these despised men of the earth, beyond what such an association with their superiors could have excited in my bosom.

My sensations of compassion and amazement are not to be described at the sight of forty or fifty men, and eight or ten women, here collected together. Great God! said I, to see a wretched and forsaken portion of my fellow-creatures thus excluded from society,

and all those endearing connections which "cheer and soften life," many of them for crimes of comparative insignificance! When there is little or no provision made by the legislature for the education and morals of the poor in this country-to see these miserable beings, often for petty thefts, (to which they were impelled by distress and hunger, to satisfy their own cravings, or the irresistible demands of wife and children,) thrown into prison by those who enjoy all the comforts and affluences of life, there further punished by solitary confinement, cold and gloomy cells, seclusion from the world, separation from those connections which alone could solace their days, even in the enjoyment of their liberty; poor and scanty fare, (the punishment not of crimes, but of poverty, as a prisoner in these gaols may be supplied with any money by his friends;) such conduct sinks a nation, however renowned for arts and institutions, to a level with societies the most rude and barbarous."

'

The objects which continually presented themselves in his walks about the prison drew from him the following humane observations on severities, which custom has, perhaps too generally, sanctioned in the opinion of those, whose more pleasant lot it has been, to see