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vainglorious, the trifling, or the bombastic. And if the good taste of the American people shall continue to preserve this beautiful cemetery in the same state of purity, by causing all their future additions to be in subordination to the natural grandeur of the place, and make the "beauty of simplicity" their general aim, it will long continue to enjoy its present superiority, and be as instructive and profitable to the minds of those who may hereafter visit it in a becoming spirit of reflection and meditation, as it is at present agreeable to those who frequent it as a mere place of innocent and pleasurable recreation.

There is one defect, however, which candour obliges me to mention, but happily it is one which may be easily remedied. I allude to the Egyptian gateway at the entrance. The great and distinguishing characteristics of Egyptian architecture are, first, colossal size, and, next, massiveness and durability of material. In the present instance, three small gateways, connected by a slender wall, and the whole sustained by an iron railing (a thing never seen in Egyptian buildings), crowd the place of entrance; while the very loftiest of the gates is only twenty-five feet in height, a scale which everywhere in Egypt would be thought most diminutive. The effect of the whole is to produce a strange combination of heaviness and littleness quite unworthy the place, and to leave a most unfavourable impression on the visiter. It is to be hoped that it will speedily be removed, to be replaced by a Grecian or Roman entrance, after the manner of a triumphal gateway, with a fine open colonnade of the Ionic order, extending such length as may be thought necessary, and making a light and graceful open front, instead of the cumbrous and inappropriate gates and railings which now form the entrance.

Among the tombs within the grounds there are some of beautiful design, and many are executed from the finest Italian marble, having indeed been made in Italy, and sent out and erected here. Others have been executed in Boston, and with great taste and skill, though this is a branch of art but recently cultivated in the city. The tomb of the first person interred within the grounds is that of Hannah Adams, a lady of Boston, who was authoress of a History of the Jews and a Review of the Christian Sects. She died at the age of seventy-six, within three months after the public celebration in Consecration Dell, September, 1831; and her interment being the first within the consecrated ground, a monument was erected to her memory by her female friends.

In the following year, October, 1832, the celebrated John Gaspar Spurzheim was added to the literary tenants of Mount Auburn. This distinguished teacher of phrenology had visited the United States from England, and had delivered a course of lectures on his favourite science in the Athenæum of Boston during the month of September, 1832. These were so enthusiastically received that

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he was induced to repeat them; and from over-exertion in their delivery to very crowded audiences, and some want of care in protecting himself from the sudden changes of temperature occasioned by the transition from heated rooms to the sharp and penetrating atmosphere of an American evening in autumn, he caught a severe cold, which brought on a fever, and, after an illness of a few days only, this terminated in his death.

His loss was very generally felt and deplored; his interment at Mount Auburn was largely attended; and a beautiful marble tomb, after the fashion of a Roman sarcophagus, with the single word SPURZHEIM engraved on it, was erected within the Cemetery, over his grave, by his friends and admirers in Boston.*

Visit to the Massachusetts State Prison.-System of Management.-Statistics of this Prison.-Chief Causes of Crime.-Memorial of the Convicts against Dramshops.Food and general Health of the Prisoners.-Dress.-Discipline and Punishments.Efforts for their Moral and Religious Improvement.-Comparison with the Prison System of Pennsylvania.

ONE of the last of the public establishments that we visited in the neighbourhood of Boston was the Massachusetts State-prison, where the warden accompanied us over every part of the building, and answered all our inquiries with the greatest readiness and attention.

This prison is situated at Charlestown, and is almost surrounded * An Ode sung at the funeral of Spurzheim will be found in the Appendix, No. VIII.

MASSACHUSETTS STATE-PRISON.

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by the ordinary dwellings of the inhabitants in that suburb of Boston, so that in this respect it is not so advantageously placed as either Auburn or Singsing, the State-prisons of New-York, or the Penitentiary of Philadelphia. The whole area covered by the prison is about 500 feet long by 240 feet wide. This is enclosed by a strong wall, built of granite, five feet thick at the base, and from fifteen to eighteen feet in height, surmounted by a wooden palisade, and the ramparts are guarded by a vigilant watch day and night. On two of its sides, the north and west, the prison walls are washed by the tide-water; and in the neighbourhood of the prison is a large wharf for shipping off the work executed within it, and for landing the materials and supplies it receives, with a canal and lock to admit boats to come within the prison enclosure, under an arch that is perfectly secure.

The interior arrangement of the prison consists of an open court or yard, around which are various workshops, especially a large shed for stonecutters, another for cabinet-makers, shops for smiths, carpenters, brushmakers, shoemakers, and tailors, in which the convicts are employed during the day; and in another part of the yard is the large and lofty building containing the solitary cells, to which the prisoners are marched every evening, and where they pass the night. Added to this is a chapel for public worship, storehouse, a kitchen, and other offices of various descriptions. The first cost of the prison, before the separate cells were built, was 170,000 dollars. The subsequent addition of these cells, of which there are 300 in number, cost 86,000 dollars; so that the whole cost upward of a quarter of a million of dollars, or more than 50,000l. sterling; but it is as commodious, perhaps, as it is ever desirable that a place of punishment should be, and appears to be everywhere perfectly

secure.

The system on which the Massachusetts State-prison is governed is the same as that which is in use at Auburn and Singsing, in the State of New-York, and is called "the Silent System," in contradistinction to the system in use at Philadelphia, which is called "the Solitary System." The routine of occupation is the following: The convicts all sleep in separate cells, which are about nine feet long by three feet six inches broad; in each of these is a flat cot bottom, which turns up against the wall by a hinge, and lets down flat when needed to sleep on, with a small shelf, a stool, and a Bible: this is the only furniture of each cell. The prisoners are all summoned to work at daylight throughout the year, so that in summer they are up before four o'clock, and in winter not till nearly eight o'clock. They are first assembled in the chapel to morning prayer, and then marched in single file to their respective workshops, where, with the intervals for meals only, they are kept at work till sunset throughout the year, their summer's day, therefore, being at least fifteen hours long, and their winter's day not more VOL. II.-3 C

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than nine. The convicts entering the prison who know any art or trade, are put to work in the department most nearly resembling it; but they who are not acquainted with any are usually employed as stonecutters, this being more easily learned than any other.

In each workshop there is a superintendent acquainted with the nature of the work done in it, who inspects, corrects, and instructs the convicts employed; and, in addition to this, there is one or more inspectors, whose sole business it is to watch the convicts narrowly, to mark any who are guilty of any misconduct, and report them to the warden. The rule of the prison is, that no convict is to speak to another on any pretence whatever; and if, in the course of their labour, it may be necessary for one of the workmen to communicate with the person working with him, it can only be done through the inspector. The person wishing to speak, therefore, holds up his hand, and the inspector comes to him, when, ascertaining what is required to be done, he gives the order himself; but even this kind of intercourse must be as seldom as possible, and, if unnecessarily brought on, it is punished as if the convicts conversed together. It is freely admitted, however, by the officers themselves, that communications between the prisoners cannot be entirely prevented; and by looks, signs, and whispers, audible enough for two or three near each other to hear distinctly, they can hold intercourse in a way that baffles all detection.

It was formerly the case that each convict, or a party working together, had a certain task allotted them, and all the produce of their labour beyond this was put into a savings' bank to each man's account; but, in the opinion of the wardens, this was thought to be productive of evil, and has been discontinued. At present no emolument is received by any of the convicts, and the profits of their labour forms the revenue out of which the expenses of the prison are defrayed. In the stone-shed the men were at work on some large granite blocks intended for a public building at Mobile, in the Gulf of Mexico. In the cabinet department the men were working under contract for upholsterers of Boston, who engage the labour of the men at 40 cents a day, and find them tools and materials, while in the town the ordinary wages of workmen exceeds a dollar a day, or more than double the prison-rate, a competition of which the honest workmen very naturally complain.

Up to the period of the late commercial embarrassment, the prison not only maintained itself, but produced a surplus revenue. Within the last two years, however, there has been a deficiency, the double cause of decreased demand for their labour and increased cost of provisions having operated most unfavourably: this deficiency the funds of the state will of course have to supply.

The statistics of the Massachusetts State-prison, as drawn from the latest report laid before the State Legislature, is as follows:

The principal classes of offences for which the prisoners are confined are, out of the 302, for

The ages of the prisoners vary from 15 to 65, and their term of sentence from one year to 20 years, and some for life. One instance is that of an Irish boy of 14, who was convicted of having deliberately set fire to an almshouse and burned several persons in it: he was sentenced to be hanged; but, from his extreme youth, this was commuted to confinement in the State Prison for life. His sentence appeared to have made little impression on him, and he had shown no symptoms of remorse or regret.

Of the whole number in prison, namely, 302, there are 17 negroes and 7 mulattoes; the rest are all whites; and the proportion of coloured people to whites fluctuates between 6 and 8 per cent.

There are no females at present confined in the State-prison, as it was found, by experience, disadvantageous to both sexes that they should be kept in sight of each other, and they have since been separated, the females being now confined in the House of Correction. But it is not many weeks since four young females were convicted of robbery on the highway, and sentenced to a long imprisonment; they were natives of Ireland, and were urged most probably by intemperance to the act.

On the subject of the chief causes of crime, the experience furnished by the State-prison of Massachusetts corresponds with that of all other similar establishments in this and in every other country yet examined. Ignorance, idleness, and intemperance are the three prominent and most productive causes that bring the unhappy convicts there in the first instance; and these, after their first confinement, often bring them again back a second, and sometimes even a third time. On this subject the report has the following striking and instructive observations, grounded on the experience of years:

"We know how very difficult it must be, and is, for a convict to take and maintain a decent rank in society when he quits a prison. The mere fact that he has been confined in it will generally render it very difficult for him to obtain honest employment, and idleness will be followed by bad company. Among the first persons seen by a discharged