Rev. J. Kingsmill, for four years chaplain at Pentonville, describes the case of one very determined and skilful offender, who had been engaged in all species of successful robberies, and was called by the officers "the Jack Sheppard of Pentonville," and who was reformed by the discipline at that place.

"He paid great attention to religious instruction, and submitted his mind completely to the counsels we gave him, and he actually tried to reform the next prisoner in the adjoining cell by his communications; that was a proof of his improved character, and the attempt was to be tolerated under his great feeling."

Mr. Kingsmill thought the Pentonville system should not be tried

I

"beyond 12 or 15 months, and not for that period with some. should not like to see 6 months' separation tried upon a certain condition of men ; but that would be a very small exception."

"I cannot say what part is affected; but I have seen some persons with very weak minds indeed in some cases almost immediately disturbed, and so uneasy and restless, and not giving attention to books, or religion, or trade, or any thing else, that I should certainly dispose of them at once; they are not fit for Pentonville. If the mind does not engage in some object with us, I consider that there is danger; or if it is a very active mind, and has not food for its activity."

Rev. John Clay, chaplain of Preston prison, says that the system of separation was adopted there two and a half years ago, and his testimony in favor of the system is perhaps stronger than that of any person who was examined. But his evidence shows that the system was greatly modified. For instance,

"We have working in the open air, and have always had it with respect to a certain portion. We are taking down buildings, and 20 or 30 men are working in the open air, entirely separated from the possibility of communication with each other, and under the surveillance of the officers."

"If I or the governor see the slightest symptoms of depression of spirits, which we seldom do, we take the man out, and put him to a little gentle labor; to clearing the corridor, for instance, or the outside of the place; he does not know the motive for it."

Capt. W. J. Williams, who had been a prison inspector for twelve years, testified that he had examined the prison at

Preston, of which Mr. Clay is chaplain, and that there was "a separation of the convicts there to a certain extent, but not to the same extent as at Pentonville.' When asked if the prisoners at Preston worked without any communication with each other, he said, "A portion of the prisoners do, and a portion do not."

"At Wakefield, the separate system has nearer approached its model at Pentonville than at Preston; but it was obliged to be dropped on account of the health of the boys suffering from it. The boys were put in close separate confinement at first, and afterwards, on their suffering from debility and contraction of the joints, it was obliged to be relaxed, and the boys were permitted to play at leapfrog, and enjoy similar recreations; since which, the authorities have not returned to the former system, and the boys therefore have their play-hours every day."

When asked if the separate confinement affected the minds of the boys at Wakefield, making them sluggish or feebleminded, he replied:

“That I cannot say, because it was not persevered in. Directly these premonitory symptoms, as I may call them, showed themselves, the system was modified; but that there was danger to the mind under those circumstances, there can be no doubt."

The following is an extract from the evidence of Sir Peter Lawrie, who has long presided in one of the criminal courts in London, and has had "very considerable experience of the silent system, as a visiting magistrate." In regard to the separate system, he said:

"I have very carefully examined all the Reports upon the subject, but I have not personally inspected any prisons in which that system was adopted, because I considered that the opinions of the inspectors of the prison were less liable to mistake than the opinions of a person making a cursory examination."

When asked if he thought that the silent system had an injurious effect on the health of the prisoners, he replied :

"I do not think it produces any prejudicial effect. I think it works remarkably well. I think the silent system the best system of imprisonment we can possibly have, provided separation is effected at night."

"In the prisons that you have inspected, you have the means of separating the prisoners at night?

"Not so fully as could be wished, but to a very considerable

extent. I think every prisoner ought to have a separate sleeping room."

66

Though you have had no personal experience, what is your opinion upon the separate system? Do you think it hurtful to the mind? 99

"Judging from the Reports, I should say that the evidence shows that it is exceedingly dangerous to mental health; and I think it is a failure, as regards the reformation of prisoners." "Do you think the silent system has an advantage, looking to the reformatory effect?"

"I do, because there is the effect of example."

But we have given testimony enough to prove, that the experience of England, as far as it goes, is as fatal as that of America to the continuance of the separate system; and even that public opinion in the former country is rapidly coming round to a conviction of its pernicious and inhuman consequences. In the United States, the question is virtually settled by the appearance of Mr. Gray's pamphlet ; for we cannot believe that even Pennsylvania will any longer allow the prison at Philadelphia, with its annual train of horrors, to cast an opprobrium on the justice and humanity of the State.

ART. VI.A Report on the Trees and Shrubs growing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts. [By GEORGE B. EMERSON.] Published agreeably to an Order of the Legislature, by the Commissioners on the Zoological and Botanical Survey of the State. Boston. 1846. 8vo. pp. 547.

IT would be difficult to find a more provident and thrifty people than those who have rather oddly come to be distinguished, some would say stigmatized, among their fellowrepublicans by the title of Yankees. The union of shrewdness, industry, invention, and economy, which forms the Yankee character, is the more remarkable as it is not the offspring of necessity. That pinching poverty, whose stern laws of frugality hardly suffice to keep starvation at bay, is here unknown and almost inconceivable. If sometimes dis

covered by the visits of the benevolent, and proclaimed to exist in the suburbs of our cities, it is regarded by the community as a merely transient evil, which must cease, in the natural order of things, when the immigration from less favored countries shall be properly provided for and regulated. Yankee economy goes hand in hand with plenty. The habit of self-denial is not the bitter fruit of woful experience. If it be always distasteful in some measure, it is the less so from being voluntary, and from bringing with it, like every other sacrifice of an indulgence to a duty, a pleasurable feeling of self-respect. In all our prosperous towns, there are many who look from the comfortable but not too luxurious present, to a better condition in the future, sure to be attained by patient industry and habitual good management. The Yankee farmer or mechanic, even the shopkeeper or merchant, notable exceptions proving the rule, lives within his means. He is well acquainted with the value of every article he buys, sells, or consumes, and is therefore proverbially shrewd at a bargain. He is not ashamed to attend to trivial matters of profit and loss, and to the minutiae of household and family expenditure, such thrifty considerations being too universal among his neighbours to be at all conspicuous in him. Though his mind may seem to have but a narrow scope, being cramped by petty calculations and anxieties, he never reaches that point of penny-wise aud pound-foolish prudence which hoards savings in a strong-box, leaving profitable enterprises and investments for the exclusive benefit of great capitalists. He is no miser; his children are well educated, respectably clad, and live in a comfortable and cheerful home. When he is past labor, they will gratefully cherish the parent who has given to each a little fortune in the industrious and economical habits in which they have been educated.

That the same traits which govern the Yankee in private life regulate his conduct also as a citizen may be seen, in Massachusetts at least, by her freedom from the infamy of repudiation, slavery, and the spirit of war and conquest; by her admirable system of schools, her liberal encouragement of industrial enterprise and foreign commerce, and generally by her affluent command of all the sources of physical and social well-being. We might have begun the enumeration with the somewhat tardy economy which has ordered a sur

vey of the agricultural wealth of the State, with a view to the more careful husbanding of it for posterity.

One would suppose a long-headed Yankee land-owner would not fell a single oak, which has been brought to perfection by the slow lapse of fifty or a hundred years, without at the same time planting an acorn. Such merciless havoc as has been made among time-honored heads, hardy, straight trunks, and graceful limbs, such wholesale extermination of the primitive occupants of the soil, reminds one of the vanished tribes of the red men, who once followed the deer through the woods, where now stands a forest of chimneys and steeples. Were it not for spontaneous growth, Nature being ever kindly officious in repairing waste, and embellishing with intrusive bounty the frontiers of the ploughman's domain, timber-trees would by this time be nearly as rare as Indians, and be looked upon with the same poetic interest, falling and dying out as civilization advances. Even now, though Nature and a taste for ornamental gardening have created in favored spots some refreshing shade for our sunbeaten heads, people gaze at the few stately old trees, which by some lucky chance have escaped proscription, with a sort of wondering respect and admiration, as they seem the ancient nobility of the forest, left towering in lonely grandeur among modern upstarts.

It is difficult to account for the thoughtless destruction of rich resources of this kind, in a land where so universal and laudable an economy prevails in the use of all things that are worth money. Our ancestors, in their struggle for a livelihood, waged war with fire and steel upon every thing which obstructed the plough and spade; all trees were ruthlessly doomed to be burned or sawn in sunder, as usurpers of the soil. The oldest farms are mostly broad fields without shade, except where chuckle-headed apple-trees are set in rows, or where too neat a husbandry has not forbidden the stone-walls and hedges to mantle themselves with a clustering and luxuriant growth of trees and shrubs. The eye of the traveller rests upon these with a lingering gaze, but is seldom attracted by groups of lofty oaks left to crown the swelling slope, or by clusters of elms in the meadow, or willows fringing a stream. The rivulets and pools, and even ponds of such size as to have a name and a fame for skating and fishing, have gradually dwindled and dried up under the unin