re much smaller
than either at Philadelphia or at Kingston; but the prisoners only
inhabit these cells at night, the solitary system not being adopted or
approved of here.

The silent system, however, is practised here as at Kingston, and the
prisoners are employed in large workshops, chiefly in making
agricultural instruments, hoops for casks, saddles, carpenters' tools,
and even rocking horses and toys, which must be rather heart-breaking
work for those who have children. The men have certain tasks allotted
them, and when the day's work is done, may devote the rest of their time
to working on their own account, which most of them do; the chief warden
told us that he had lately paid a man, on his leaving the prison, a
hundred and twenty-five dollars for extra work done in this way. The
warden told us that the men, when discharged, were always strongly urged
to return to their own homes instead of seeking to retrieve their
characters elsewhere, and that their doing so was generally attended
with a better result than when they went to a new place and had no check
on their proceedings. This does away with the chief argument of our
quaker friend at Philadelphia, in favour of the solitary system, which
was, that the prisoner's return to his friends became more easy, when
none of them knew that he had been in prison, of which they could not
well be ignorant if he had mixed with other prisoners in a public jail.
It must be borne in mind, however, that the great demand in this country
for work renders it much more easy for a person so circumstanced to
obtain employment, even with a damaged character, than in England, where
our ticket-of-leave men find this almost impossible. There is also, we
are told, a kinder feeling towards prisoners here on their leaving the
jail than in England, and this saves them from the want and consequent
temptation to which our English ticket-of-leave men are exposed; the
result is that a much less proportion of those released in America are
re-committed for new offences.

We visited the workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see
the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we
afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner
it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat
twice a day; their drink is water, except when the doctor orders it
otherwise. There are chaplains, called here Moral Instructors, who visit
them