the young ladies, who attended the looms, stood surrounded by their brilliant fabrics, they appeared like so many overgrown Fairies, making enchanted carpets for some young Prince, whose castle, like Aladdin's, was to spring up in a night.

Having glanced our fill at these pretty specimens of human Arachnoida, we were shown the power-loom, invented by Dr. Bigelow for weaving Brussels carpet. How on earth it could enter into the heart of man to conceive such a complicated affair, I cannot imagine. Unluckily it was not at work when I saw it, but the gentleman who accompanied us, explained the principle, which I vainly endeavored to comprehend. To do so, one had need of just such a head as the inventor.

Somewhat wearied with sight-seeing, we left the mills and paid a pleasant visit to the Hospital and surely never was an institution of the kind more delightfully situated. I had been used in visiting such places, to see sick people in wards, but I do not remember to have seen, until now, hospital patients in parlors, some of which looked out to a spacious garden. I received the most polite attention from Dr. Kimball and his amiable and gifted lady, and after spending a pleasant brace of hours, repaired to the 'Stone House,' with which place I have already made my readers acquainted.

Thus end my reminiscences of Lowell-a city which I took a strange liking to when I first entered it a liking which a better acquaintance with it has not diminished. Should I ever visit it again, I shall, I feel assured, reap new harvests of knowledge, and if I do not, I shall not soon forget the kindness of persons in it, who always made my stay there so delightful, that the worst part of the place was the road which led from it.

THE STATE PRISON.

A SHORT time since, at the invitation of a friend, I accompanied him, on a fine summer's afternoon, to that gloomy abode at Charlestown, known as the State Prison; and, within the last day or two, having again inspected the place, I propose to make my visits the subject of some sketchy remarks, which I hope may not be altogether uninteresting.

On my first visit, I had been amongst the woods near Malden for some days previously, enjoying natural sights and rural sounds, and felt any thing but disposed to drive away pleasant recollections by the sight of iron bars, and stone walls, and melancholy prisoners! The very word grated unpleasantly on my ear, after I had been so luxuriating in the blessings of freedom. Prisoners on that bright, sunny day! Could it be that living human beings were shut out from their kind from the streets, the fields, and the highways? For a moment, although I knew that it was so, I mused in vague wonder, and then prepared to go and witness one of the dark pages of the mysterious book of human life!

Through busy streets, over a long wooden bridge, and along a railway track, we proceeded towards a huge building of grey stone. It was of no particular order of architecture. Sepulchres for the dead, and cells for the

living need little of style about them, nor are their inhabitants very particular in this respect. So perhaps it is as well that no outward exhibition or ornament should mock the gloom and desolation within.

After passing through a court yard and ascending a flight of stone steps, we entered a large, low, square apartment, the walls of which were ornamented with guns, some comfortably wrapt up in woollens, and others of such a fierce and warlike appearance, that their state of repose seemed little less than marvellous. There were great brass-mounted horse pistols, too, with their muzzles stuck ferociously into thick leathern holsters; and swords of monstrous sizes dangled from pegs, all giving dusty evidence of piping times of peace.

A hall-keeper, or turnkey, (I know not his exact designation,) sat in this apartment, in a chair, close to a window which overlooked the prison yard, reading a newspaper, from which every now and then he raised his eyes, and gazed through the panes, as if some great and urgent necessity required his attention in that direction. About half a dozen squashes, a stove, a list of officers' turns on duty, indicated by little pegs stuck in a board with holes drilled in it to receive them, and a few chairs and a desk, constituted the furniture of the place, which, from its containing the fragment of an armory alluded to, was called a guard room.'

There was a room adjoining this, on the walls of which were hung some quaint pictures of ships in distress, and other pleasant matters of that kind, and over the fire-place was a view in oil of the prison yard, including a procession of the inmates in their motley-colored dress, which was introduced to enliven the scene. I cannot say much for

the execution of these works of art, which I do not remember to have seen in any catalogue extant.

Having exhibited our passports, the officer, thrusting his head into a recess near the window, did, by means of some complicated machinery, cause a distinct rattling of bars, and the opening of a door outside. Through an inner and then through an outer gate we passed, and found ourselves at the head of some stone steps, down which we went into the yard of the prison.

It was a dismal, damp, sloppy locality. Two or three men, clad in motley-colored dresses and grotesque caps, eyed us askant as we walked along, and then turned sullenly to their occupation of moving some loose stones. There was that afternoon to be an address delivered to the prisoners on Temperance, and of a tall, burly keeper, who stood by with his hands and half of his arms buried in immense pockets, we inquired our way to the chapel. He directed us to a long, low range of buildings opposite to where we stood, and we were soon seated in the Prison sanctuary.

This place of worship had no gothic arches, nor clustered pillars, nor traceried and fretted roof, nor windows affording a dim religious light. There were no pleasantlysituated pews, so curtained off, and so luxuriously cushioned that one could hardly confess oneself a 'miserable sinner' whilst in them. Nor were there magnificent altar pieces, or carved cherubim, or stately monuments emblazoned with graven and gilded lies. No-none of these things. The walls were whitewashed, the roof was plain. The only thing approaching to the similitude of a pillar was the stove pipe, and this faint resemblance was almost destroyed by its zigzag shape. The benches were of plain

timber, the pulpit unornamented, and nothing but excessive cleanliness was very conspicuous. Near the pulpit were one or two raised seats, for the warden and visitors, and to one of them we were shown.

Without being pleasantly chimed to church, the congregation came in. Sexton and beadle were not, but every forty or fifty men who entered were attended by a keeper. Tramp tramp-tramp went their thick shoes, as they proceeded down the aisle to their respective seats. At length the place was filled with men of all ages congregation of crime.

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At the far end of the room a dozen or more of the prisoners sat somewhat apart. They had a violin, a clarinet, and a few flutes. This was the prison choir. The musical instruments looked strangely out of place there, and I almost fancied, as they lay near each other, that if they were left alone they would get up a small lively concert on their own account, in order to dispel the gloom of the place. They had not, however, the opportunity, for their services were soon put in requisition.

A solemn congregation was that, and one which of itself preached a touching sermon from the text, ‘The way of transgressors is hard.' 'Be sure thy sins will find thee out,' was as plainly written on the walls as if a shadowy hand had inscribed it there in luminous characters. Every one of the prisoners was clad in a uniform of grey and dingy red coarse cloth. Their persons were all clean their hair well brushed-and amongst them I observed many whose countenances bespoke no mean powers of mind. There were old grey-headed sinners, over whose faces Time and Crime had gone hand in hand, ploughing deep furrows and young men beside them