e is left with a debt of hundreds of
dollars. The multitude assembles on Thursday and remains over Sunday.
There is preaching every day, but there is something besides. Whatever
may be the devotion of a part of the assembly, the four days are,
in general, days of license, of carousing, of drinking, and of other
excesses, which our informant said he would not particularize; we
could understand what they were by reading St. Paul's rebuke of the
Corinthians for similar offenses. The evil has become so great and
burdensome that the celebration of this sacred rite will have to be
reformed altogether.

Such a Sabbath quiet pervaded the street of Baddeck, that the fast
driving of the Gaels in their rattling, one-horse wagons, crowded
full of men, women, and children,--released from their long sanctuary
privileges, and going home,--was a sort of profanation of the day; and
we gladly turned aside to visit the rural jail of the town.

Upon the principal street or road of Baddeck stands the dreadful
prison-house. It is a story and a quarter edifice, built of stone and
substantially whitewashed; retired a little from the road, with a square
of green turf in front of it, I should have taken it for the residence
of the Dairyman's Daughter, but for the iron gratings at the lower
windows. A more inviting place to spend the summer in, a vicious person
could not have. The Scotch keeper of it is an old, garrulous, obliging
man, and keeps codfish tackle to loan. I think that if he had a prisoner
who was fond of fishing, he would take him with him on the bay in
pursuit of the mackerel and the cod. If the prisoner were to take
advantage of his freedom and attempt to escape, the jailer's feelings
would be hurt, and public opinion would hardly approve the prisoner's
conduct.

The jail door was hospitably open, and the keeper invited us to enter.
Having seen the inside of a good many prisons in our own country
(officially), we were interested in inspecting this. It was a favorable
time for doing so, for there happened to be a man confined there,
a circumstance which seemed to increase the keeper's feeling of
responsibility in his office. The edifice had four rooms on the
ground-floor, and an attic sleeping-room above. Three of these rooms,
which were perhaps twelve feet by fifteen feet, were cells; the third
was occupied by the jailer's family. The family were now also occupying
the front cell,--a cheerful room commanding a view of the villa