never better shown than in
this Report. It attempts something which, unless done thoroughly, was
not worth doing; since, on a subject which appeals so strongly to the
feelings, mere generalities and gossip do more harm than good. It is the
work of a special Commission of Inquiry, composed of three physicians,
(Drs. Mott, Delafield, and Wallace,) two lawyers, (Messrs. Wilkins and
Hare,)and one clergyman (Mr. Walden). This commission has performed a
great amount of labor, and has digested its result into a form so
systematic as to be logically irresistible. The facts on which the
statement rests are a large body of evidence, taken under oath, from
prisoners of both armies, and confirmed by the admissions, carefully
collated, of the Rebel press. The conclusion is, that, in the Southern
prisons, "tens of thousands of helpless men have been, and are now
being, disabled and destroyed by a process as certain as poison, and as
cruel as the torture or burning at the stake, because nearly as
agonizing and more prolonged."

The next step is to fix the responsibility for all these horrors. All
theories of apology--as that the sufferings were accidental or
exceptional, or that, badly as our soldiers may have fared, the Rebel
soldiers fared little better--are taken up and conclusively refuted, the
last-named with especial thoroughness. The inevitable inference drawn by
the Commission is, that these inhumanities were "designedly inflicted on
the part of the Rebel Government," and were _not_ "due to causes which
such authorities could not control."

The immediate preparation of this able report is understood to be due to
the Rev. Treadwell Walden, an Episcopal clergyman of Philadelphia, not
unknown to the readers of the "Atlantic." His present work will be the
permanent authority for the facts which it records, and will justify to
future generations the suggestion with which it ends, that these
cruelties are the legitimate working of a form of government which takes
human slavery for its basis. The record of such a government is fitly
written in these pages: it is as appropriate as is, for a king of
Dahomey, his funeral pyramid of skulls.

_Freedom of Mind in Willing_; or, Every Being that Wills a
Creative First Cause. By ROWLAND G. HAZARD. New York: D.
Appleton & Co. 12mo. pp. 455.

The State of Rhode Island is the most metaphysically inclined of all the
sisterhood, not excepting South Carolina. A superficial obs