who wore reckless smiles, which were fast changing into looks of perfect hardihood. Some scowled - others leered at their companions- many sat with subdued, saddened countenances and many appeared intelligent, and would, but for the prison dress, have looked even manly. But that garb of disgrace half suppressed the beatings of many a heart, chafed the spirit, and forced its wearer to bear about with him a visible degradation, perhaps terrible idea through LIFE!

It would be foreign to my purpose to give a sketch of the lecture or the lecturer here. After the address had terminated, a prayer was offered up, in which the suppliant entreated that God in his mercy would bless the prisoners, their mothers, wives, and children; and at the mention of these dear familiar names, many an eye grew dim with tears. Then followed a piece of music, loudly and lustily, if not skillfully, sung, and the service was concluded.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, again, as in long files, and separate detachments, the prisoners left the chapel. As they passed through the court yard they drew up in ranks for a minute or two, underwent a slight drill, and then, each one taking with him a small vessel of water, was conducted to his cell- some to ponder over the past, some to contemplate the future, and a few to wish that the dreary life which was and always would be, bounded by the dim cells of a prison, were ended.

I paid a second visit to the prison a day or two since, for the purpose of witnessing the every-day occupations of the persons confined there; and before I pen any description of what I saw, I feel it a duty and a pleasure

to acknowledge the courtesy of the Warden, Mr. Robinson, who accompanied me in my rounds, and pointed out every object deserving of notice.

On entering the great yard of the place, I was forcibly struck with the difference between it and that of any other institution of the kind I had ever witnessed. Here were heaps of furniture in different stages of manufacture; and if the men about had not worn the prison dress, I should have imagined myself to have been in a cabinet maker's wholesale establishment. All around were workhum of labor was every

shops of different trades, and the where heard; but I must defer my tour through the building until my next, when I shall have the pleasure of presenting the reader with some interesting facts which I picked up in my 'loitering,' and with a poem, written by one of the prisoners, which is a remarkable production of its kind, and will, I am sure, be read with no little interest.

A VISIT TO THE STATE PRISON.-A PRISON POET.

[CONCLUDED.]

PASSING through the prison yard in company with the warden, who obligingly afforded me every facility for examining the establishment, I entered an immense shed where a number of men were engaged in shaping huge blocks of granite and mill stones. They were every one clothed in the prison garb of dingy red and grey and as they busily labored, there was an evident difference between them and those who wrought in freedom. Here there was nothing of that cheerfulness which appears on the countenances of those who rise with the lark and go to their daily avocations, which are cheered by the prospect of repose in a happy home. Not a man, or even boy, of them all, whistled a merry tune, or, amid the brief intervals of labor, burst forth into a joyous stave. There was only the dull click of the hammer, or the sharp sound of a chisel. Labor in this place ruled with a rod of iron, and his slaves looked dogged and discontented, for there was not that hope of reward to sweeten the daily toil which urges on the freeman, as he guides the plough, or drives the wheel. As we passed I could observe furtive glances, and ferocious looks, and sullen scowls, and the thought rapidly passed across my mind, 'What is to hinder all these men, whom laws

on,

could not terrify from the commission of crime, from rising, and, armed as they are with those ponderous hammers, attacking the few persons who guard them? It would seem an easy thing enough to have despatched the Warden and myself whilst among them, but a look of his warned them into obedience and subjection, and we passed on harmless.

'There are none convicted of any capital crime in this department,' said the Warden, in reply to a question which I put to him; but in the next workshop there are several murderers.'

We entered a place where a number of prisoners were engaged in making brushes, and other articles. At the upper end of the apartment was a boiler, by which was standing some men, engaged in felting. Pointing to one of them, my companion said, "There is a murderer!'

I looked in the direction he indicated, and saw a colored man of a stature below the middle size, and of a light, active-looking frame. There was nothing ferocious, but something very determined, in his countenance, and I should not have taken him for one who had shed his fellow-man's blood. This was PETER YORK, who, the reader will remember, killed a man at the entrance of a house of bad repute in Boston. He was condemned to be hanged, but his sentence was commuted to imprisonment for life.

'Look at that man a little way behind him,' said the guide; there is another murderer; he killed two men and almost massacred another.'

I did as he directed me, and observed a man who might have numbered some sixty years; he was greyheaded, of an athletic form, not at all bowed by age, and

was engaged making kegs for white lead. Seeing that he was an object of attention, he paused amidst his work, and turning round looked me full in the face, and so repulsive a countenance I have very rarely seen. The grotesque prison cap which he wore, was stuck on the summit of his head, and the point of it standing up over his forehead, and the two side pieces of the rim projecting over his ears, somewhat like horns, made him look not unlike the pictures of Mephistopheles in Restch's Outlines of Faust. His eyes were very large, of a light color, and impudently diabolical in their expression; he had a small nose, a large mouth, and a pointed chin. Altogether he looked the very incarnation of evil.

The name of the murderer of almost three fellow creatures was SETH PERRY. He had been a rum-seller, and in his drunken frenzy had shot down three of his customers, victims to intemperance! Here was a terrible example to those who 'tarry long at the wine,' a fearful specimen of the effects of the trade in that which intoxicates. There stood the murderer unabashed, unconfounded, and apparently as unconcerned as if the blood of his brethren had not gone up to God, with a cry of vengeance. By some means or other he had only been convicted of manslaughter, and so was condemned to imprisonment for a long term of years; after that, perhaps he will, on leaving his prison, resume his trade of death, for unless the majesty of the law shall restrict and abolish the abominable traffic in alcohol, there will be nothing to hinder such men as the murderous rum-seller from killing by poison as well as by bullet.

I turned, with shuddering repugnance, from the wretched man, and when I had gone some distance from