ed but never practised.

Now, how is it? What is the regimen of this jail-prison and how is it
provided? We will say nothing of that arduous duty which the jailer
performs for his small sum; nor the report that the sheriff's office
is worth fourteen thousand dollars a year: these things are too well
established. But the law provides thirty cents a day for the prisoner's
maintenance, which shall be received by the sheriff, who is to procure
one pound of good bread, and one pound of good beef per day for each
man. Now this provision is capable of a very elastic construction. The
poor criminal is given a loaf of bad bread, costing about three cents,
and a pound of meat, the most unwholesome and sickly in its appearance,
costing five cents. Allowing a margin, however, and we may say the
incumbent has a very nice profit of from eighteen to twenty cents
per day on each prisoner. But, as no provision is made against the
possibility of the criminal eating his meat raw, he is very delicately
forced to an alternative which has another profitable issue for the
sheriff; that of taking a pint of diluted water, very improperly called
soup. Thus is carried out that ancient law of England which even she
is now ashamed to own. Our feelings are naturally roused against the
perpetration of such abuses upon suffering humanity. We struggle between
a wish to speak well of her whose power it is to practise them, and an
imperative duty that commands us to speak for those who cannot speak for
themselves.

These things could not exist if the public mind was properly
enlightened. It is unnecessary to spend many words in exposing
such palpable abuses, or to trace the cause of their existence and
continuance. One cause of this is the wilful blindness and silly
gasconade of some of those who lead and form public opinion. With South
Carolinians, nothing is done in South Carolina that is not greater than
ever was done in the United States-no battles were ever fought that
South Carolina did not win-no statesman was ever equal to Mr. Calhoun-no
confederacy would be equal to the Southern, with South Carolina at its
head-no political doctrines contain so much vital element as secession,
and no society in the Union is equal to South Carolina for caste and
elegance-not excepting the worthy and learned aristocracy of Boston.

A will to do as it pleases and act as it pleases, without national
restraint, is the great drawback under which South Carolina sends