t liars in the State about to leave
prison in course. But they have no opportunity, while there, for mutual
conversation and planning a particular story to tell on leaving; nor do
they even know of having an opportunity, outside, to talk with me or any
particular one. They severally leave their confinement, each giving
account of his experience, which I put down. On looking these carefully
over, a line of substantial agreement is found running through the
whole. We cut off whatever, in any, seems essentially deviating. But
every judge in the land will admit that that general line contains the
truth.

This illustrates my course of procedure, and my grounds for believing
prisoners. Then, again, where one voluntarily, without my alluding to
the matter, gave me an account of a subject, part of which I knew to be
correct, I had every reason to believe the remainder was correct, also.

12. _B. and E.'s request, and the connected abuse._ These men, before
spoken of, had become much interested in the moral and religious
instruction given by those lady friends, Mrs. E. and D., to whom they
had been introduced in the manner already pointed out. Request was
extended to the warden that they might have the privilege of
corresponding, but he peremptorily refused; why, none could conceive,
though some would contend that the reason must be found in the
vindictive, for the correspondence was to go through the usual channel
and be open to his own inspection, that, had anything objectionable
appeared, he could have suppressed it, or stopped the whole
correspondence. Those ladies were capable of writing excellent letters,
letters by which any right-minded man would be benefited, the warden
himself being judge. I have no doubt that should he meet some of their
productions, unaware of their authorship, he would pronounce them of a
superior character, and say that "the more of such writings the
prisoners can have to read, the better." The men did not ask for a
personal interview with those ladies, but simply their words; words
which would stimulate them to higher aims, and enable them the better to
endure the trials of prison life. The warden possessed the right, if he
chose to exercise it, to interdict this correspondence wholly. But I
protest that he had no right to defame those ladies, villify their
character, and speak of them to those men, and to prison visitors from
whatever part of the country, as "those mean women," "those base