derived for the support of the prison. Over the laundry is the prison kitchen and bakery, where the work is all done by prisoners under supervision. The chapel is a large hall in the third story on the front. Near it is the library, which as yet is not well supplied. Besides the Sunday services, the women assemble in the chapel every morning and evening for short devotional exercises. The chaplain, who is a woman, like all the officers, does not pretend to the office of a clergyman, but is simply a religious instructor, capable of interesting these simple minds by practical exhortation, and of leading the devotions in a reverent and interesting manner. She devotes all her time to personal effort among the prisoners, and her instructions are received with pleasure and profit. There are about twenty solitary workrooms for special cases, and in the basement are the strong cells, where turbulent prisoners are confined for punishment. The matrons occupy comfortable rooms, which command a view of the corridors between the cells or rooms. A pleasant dining-room for their use and an adjacent kitchen in the basement are well supplied with conveniences and comforts. They have also a large parlor on the second floor. The matrons are carefully selected for especial fitness from a great number of applicants. Thirty matrons and assistants are now employed. The superintendent may be either a man or woman, at the pleasure of the governor, who appoints; so also the steward and treasurer. All the other officers and subordinates within the prison must be women. There is among these a deputy superintendent, a chaplain, a physician, a school-mistress and a clerk. Governor Rice carried out the wishes of those persons who first sought the establishment of this prison, by appointing a woman superintendent; the steward and treasurer, very appropriately is a man, experienced in the duties of his office-Colonel Whitton, formerly in charge of the House of Industry on Deer Island. His duties are wholly outside the prison, and are those of purchasing supplies and keeping money accounts. In the selection of the chief officers Governor Rice has shown great care and discrimination. The superintendent, physician and chaplain are all highly educated, and refined women of Christian character, who have undertaken their arduous labors for the sake of doing a good work. Not one was an applicant for the office, but all were induced to accept the situation, in consideration of the importance of the work itself. Mrs. Edna C. Atkinson, the superintendent, was for many years a resident of Boston, where she is well known and appreciated. She possesses rare powers of organization and of control; and has the good physical health and serene temperament, so necessary to carry out her design. It would be so distasteful to those ladies, to attempt here to describe their qualities in any way, that it is improper to say anything very personal, but only to mention that Dr. Eliza Mosher, the physician to the prison, has received a thorough medical education in Boston, and has the friendship and counsel of some eminent physicians there. She has had a good general practice since, which must have been more agreeable than her present hard and repulsive work. She has had excellent success in the prison with the babies, as well as with the women, and has already encountered some very serious cases. It is almost impossible not to dwell upon the pleasing appearance of the matrons generally; the quiet goodness and refinement of manners so plainly evident among them. Great care has been taken, not only to choose them, but to guide and instruct them in their duties. The superintendent lives in a house separate from yet adjacent to the prison, where also the steward and his family live. This house is very pleasant and home-like. The prison is adorned and beautified with plants in many rooms, and though rigidly plain has an air of cheerfulness and womanly care everywhere. The question naturally will be asked whether it is well to make a prison too at tractive and comfortable: crime should be punished. These women are usually grave offenders against the peace and order of society; why should they be gratified by pleasant sights and bright, clean quarters? singing the "Gospel Hymns," so popular In the first place the loss of liberty is a ter- everywhere. rible privation, especially when the term of confinement is long. Most persons will bear any hardship rather than be confined, even in a pleasant place. Then, too, the depraved women of our prisons are indifferent at first to the things which please a higher taste. The dark and filthy slums of Boston are far more charming to them than the clean and sunny prison. The work is hateful to their idle habits; and being unpaid, it has no motive to incite them to performance. The silent, separate rooms, the quiet work-room, try them inexpressibly. There is no danger that the prison will be too tempting. They long for the intoxicating drinks, the low carousals of their usual life, and when discharged from an ordinary prison, with no reformatory influence, eagerly rush into the old haunts, and begin anew the foul life. Most of these women never knew a decent home. Here for the first time they learn cleanliness and order. And here under the long sentence now allowed to "vagrants," under which term most unchaste women are sentenced, there is time to acquire new habits, and to lose in a great measure the passion for strong drink. It has been found in the experience of the Asylum at Dedham and other similar institutions, that very degraded women can usually be reclaimed, if they will consent to stay long enough under the influence of the institution. Gradually they learn that there is something better than their old life. They acquire skill in manual labor, and then take an interest in it. But above all they find in the good news of the Gospel the solution of all life's mysterious sorrows. The unselfish nature of the care and aid which they receive from others deeply impresses them. Wonderful has been the change and restoration in many apparently hopless cases. The trouble has been usually in cases of failure, that at first the restraint was too Soon after the opening of the prison a irksome, the desire for old indulgence too woman was transferred there from a neighstrong. Already in the prison a change for boring jail, with great indignation on her the better has begun among a large num- part. She came threatening all sorts of reber. It is a most interesting sight to see venge, and the officers who brought her said the large assembly in the chapel at evening, that "no prison was strong enough to hold orderly, meek, joining with pleasure in her." The women's prison is not strong. It was a matter of serious doubt before the opening of the prison, whether such desperate characters as some female prisoners are could be governed by officers of the weaker sex. Persons unfamiliar with convicts have very little idea of the violence and turbulence common among women of dissipated habits. A refractory female prisoner pouring forth a volley of profanity and obscenity, resisting all attempts at control, is a terrible sight. Fearful struggles sometimes take place in prisons with such women, who are beyond measure irritating; and male officers are occasionally rough and brutal in dealing with them. It was foreseen and foretold that the ladies in charge of the new prison would meet with terrible difficulties in their enforcement of discipline, of order and diligent industry. Legislators and experienced prison officers shook their heads doubtfully or scornfully, and a Hampden senator strongly asserted in debate against the proposed prison that " no woman could govern a ferocious woman!"— a phrase received with uproarious laughter, but too truly appropriate. No one better knew that than the women who were most anxious to secure the prison under female government. Ferocious indeed are they, when long habits of intoxication joined to ignorance and strong passions, are subjected to the restraints of a prison. But the " periment" had already been tried successfully in England, where at the great prison for women at Wodling, women alone had been for several years in charge of eight hundred convicts, and had maintained far better discipline than male officers had previously been able to preserve. At the " Tombs' prison in New York, also, Flora Foster, for thirty years matron, has exercised a power of control over refractory women far beyond that of any man. ex Its strength is partly on the principle of the Lush intermediate prison in Ireland, that "the strongest wall is no wall," and is rather a moral than a physical repression. This woman began at once to create disturbance, and had she not met with wise management, might have caused such an insurrection as we shudder to imagine. It became necessary to call in the assistance of three strong men from the yard to take her to the punishment cell. This was done, however, under the personal direction of the superintendent, and no violence or abuse could occur on the part of the men, however irritated they were. For a time she was wholly unsubdued; but at the end of ten days she returned to her work in a peaceful, orderly and obedient manner. She told one of the ladies of the prison commission that "Mrs. Atkinson's patience and kindness had conquered her." Other outbreaks have taken place. Three young girls were seen by the writer, each with her window entirely closed by boarding, as a punishment for smashing every light of glass. "I shall never do so again," said one, after spending several days in this gloomy apartment. All returned to obedience soon. The firmness of discipline; the inevitable punishment for breach of rules; the reward for good conduct equally sure, have the same effect that we see in a family, where firm, kind, strict rule prevails, and the good of all is sought. The superintendent has shown great womanly sense in clothing the prisoners. Each division has a dress of blue check of a different pattern, and one sees directly to which grade a woman belongs. Neat white aprons are worn on Sundays by the upper grades. Night-dresses and pocket handkerchiefs are provided for all, to teach cleanly habits; and the expense thus incurred is very small. Feeble prisoners have warm flannels when ordered by the doctor. Every woman looks perfectly neat; the hair always smooth, feet well clad, but everything plain and coarse. The babies look so comfortable, their clothing is so suitable, it gladdens a motherly heart to see them. The ladies of the Advisory Board of the Prison Commission constantly visit the prison, and assist the commissioners in making rules and regula tions for its government. They also, with the aid of the managers of the Temporary Asylum at Dedham, make provision for the employment of discharged prisoners. As we previously stated, the great obstacle to the successful working of the prison is its overcrowding, which interferes with classification and separation. At present, June 1, 1878, there are in the prison four hundred and thirty-nine women and fifty-one children under eighteen months old, that being the limit of age which is fixed by law for prisoners to retain their children with them. One hundred and thirty-three women with four infants have been discharged. Ten infants and five adults have died in prison; twenty-two infants have been born there. This is the record for six months. The constant and rapid increase by sentencing makes it difficult to know how so many prisoners may be accommodated. Various kinds of labor are being performed — among others knitting both by hand and machine; also corset making by hand and sewing-machine, all by contract; also a good deal of dress-making and sewing. The law is most strictly enforced which forbids officers to receive "perquisites or emoluments" other than the regular salary. The superintendent requires that the slightest service rendered by a prisoner to an officer be paid for to its full value to the Commonwealth. A similar strictness in other state and county institutions would be a great reform: the amount of perquis ites received by officers through sewing and other labors taken from inmates and prisoners, is very great, and a large leak in the public treasury. There are yet many difficulties to overcome, many knots untied in the development of the Women's Prison. The Board of Commissioners who have it in charge have a grave responsibility, and laborious duties to perform. They receive no payment for their services, which have been undertaken in a missionary spirit and with a desire to create a new and more enlightened and Christian system in dealing with convicts. But during the years when the establishment of this prison was so earn estly sought, amid so many discouragements, not had the strength to witness the realizaagainst so strong a tide of opposition, there tion of her cherished wishes. The latter is was ever visible the strong guiding and sus- Miss Hannah B. Chickering of Dedham, the taining hand of that Providence who cares founder of the Dedham Asylum for disfor the outcast and the fallen. Thus far all charged female prisoners, for thirty years has gone on steadily progressing. If God's devoted to labors in prison Sunday School servants are faithful He will aid them in teaching, and the person who first sought this and in every other good work. the establishment of the Women's Prison and organized all the efforts made for it. The former is our honored ex-governor, judge, law professor, and benevolent citizen, foremost always in good works, Emory Washburn of Cambridge. This was one of his last labors on earth, entered into with all the zeal and enthusiasm of his earlier years. Clara T. Leonard. It is not well that names should be published of any of those men and women who have striven to do their part for this or any similar object. But two names we must introduce that of a good man gone to his rest, and a good woman who is approaching the close of her earthly labors, and who probably will not long be with us; who has THE BADNESS OF HYMNS. HYMNS ought to be very good. But they are not always; nor often, if we may credit Mr. Matthew Arnold, who says we may disobey the law of our being by using them. 'God is displeased and disserved when men sing a hymn like My Jesus to know, and feel his blood flow, or indeed like nine-tenths of our hymns." (Litérature and Dogma, pp. 62, 314.) He "regrets their prevalence and popularity among us," as "mischievous and deteriorating;" and hopes for the time when they--at least such as we have got now-"will disappear from our religious service." -can no further go than this last; unless it be in that deservedly famous effusion, "Zion's Bank;" which may be found in several collections, and has attained the honor of publication all by itself in book form -indeed the smallest of books, and in an "Improved (?) Edition," so lately as 1862, and at the American Athens. This Bank has been so often and largely drawn upon (even the Nation gave it an extended notice once) that I will refresh the reader's memory with but two passages. Here is the lofty moral: Since then my Banker is so rich, I have no cause to borrow: The conclusion goes beyond pleasantry: Hang by the Banker's side; He cried, "Dear Lord remember me," These sundry citations recall the memorable sermon of a certain Evangelist, noted for his "apostolic simplicity," about Marthy and Mame, and Laz, at whose house the disciples with their Master so often took tea; and how Laz, after he was raised, took his father's arm-chair and the old family Bible, and had prayer-meetin'. The uncouth naïveté of these productions would appear to suggest remoteness from the district school-house and the peripatetic pedagogue. It may indeed be claimed that they are the monstrous excrescences of hymnody, representing nothing but their abnormal selves. Unfortunately for this view, they can be too nearly paralleled from the works of reputable hymnists. Here was a favorite style with good John Berridge: Ye maidens who want what follows would not read nicely of a Sunday afternoon-nor any other day, in this year of grace. But he has no end of such. Our great-grandfathers were fond of Solomon's Song versified, after this fashion: Though once he bowed his feeble knees, His legs like marble pillars stand. That is Dr. Watts-none else. And so is this, and it is not so very long since it was to be found in books largely used: My heart, how dreadful hard it is! Heavy and cold within my breast, Imagine what Mr. Arnold would say of this, which is also Watts: My thoughts on awful subjects roll, Nor can the rival prince of English sacred song escape. The verse which frightened Shirley (if I remember right) as howled forth in some rural conventicle, For ev-e-ry fight Is dreadful and loud! The warrior's delight Is slaughter and blood, His foes overturning, Till all shall expire,But this is with burning, And fuel of fire is Charles Wesley's. So is that which provoked the special wrath of Mr. Arnold, as above. And so is one worse than either: Lord, and am I yet alive, Not in torments, not in hell? It is time to stop this oppressive flood of ill-judging piety, or at least to inquire how we may escape its continued devastations. What makes a hymn bad? The presence of bad qualities, or the absence of good ones? It may be dull and lifeless; mere prose tagged with rhyme; unhymnic and unlyrical; "utterly destitute of the ethereal spirit of true poetry, wanting alike in light, life, power and pathos," as the late Dr. Campbell absurdly accused Mr. Lynch's "Rivulet" of being. It may be flat, stale, and unprofitable in the last degree, like the dreadful stuff so many excellent men used to turn out by the cord a hundred years since-not to hurt anybody's feelings let us say Heginbotham or Hoskins; they are dead long ago, and have probably left no near relatives or warm admirers. Or like some of those highly civilized but slightly dreary long meters in Hymns Ancient and Modern-but hold, the makers of that eminent collection are still living, and it is used by several thousand congregations; so it becomes us to proceed with bated breath and whispering humbleness. We were about to say, Right Rever |