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