ps says, "The writers were so informed about the chaplain."
Could that be any extenuation of their wrong? If such insinuations had
been made to them, why did they not first give some intimation of it to
him, thus giving him the opportunity of showing their falsity? Why did
they not have the parties face to face, and thus learn the truth? But,
instead of this, they published what they did, and that to the injury of
an innocent man, so far as their influence could go.

But what could have impelled the assertors to such a course? The author
does not pretend to know, but it looks as though the object was in this
way to push the chaplain to resign, and they thus be rid of those reform
efforts. Hence p. 13,--"The prison is a penal institution, and is
intended for punishment, not primarily as a reformative one, as some
people think." Here is, undoubtedly, the key to this raid on the
chaplain. But what is its full import? These reformers fully believe
that the sentence of the court must be strictly carried out, and that,
too, as an element of reform. The above sentence must mean that the
prisoner is put there to be punished as the State directs by its laws
and courts, and, in addition, for the managers to "use him so that he
will not wish to come back," or to punish him as they may choose. If the
sentence means anything, it must mean that. This being the true way, let
us have it so understood, and, next summer, let the legislature
recognize the idea by a specific act, and then let the judge change his
sentence accordingly, putting it, "Your sentence is, that you be
confined at hard labor in the State Prison at Concord for ---- years,
and that you there be further punished at the discretion of the prison
officers acting for the time being." Let this be announced to all
evildoers; and, further, let the warden, agent and all, give a true
account of the severity of their several punishments, to be published
yearly, that the prison may thus appear as deterring to crime as
possible. Away with this covering up and pretending to the best living
and best usage generally, thus making the institution appear so
attractive. A lady visited a friend there and returned, having been
made, by the warden's palaver, perfectly reconciled to the friend's
condition, remarking, "They are kept so well there, and used so kindly,
that one can not feel bad at all about a friend in the prison, except
from the fact that he can not have his liberty to go out