ciety, or the welfare of the
prisoner, can require the infliction of so much suffering. Criminals are
sometimes condemned for very long periods, or for life; and in these
cases, I was informed, occasionally manifested great recklessness and
carelessness of their existence. I am also not quite convinced that the
reformation of prisoners is effected to the extent sometimes inferred
from the small number of recommittals. A statistical conclusion cannot
be drawn from this datum, unsupported by other proofs.

On the 2d of the 6th Month, (June,) I proceeded to Wilmington, Delaware,
with my friend John G. Whittier. Here we met a company of warm-hearted
and intelligent abolitionists, with whom we discussed the prospects of
the cause. It was calculated that if compensation were conceded, to
which many would on principle object, a tax of less than one dollar per
acre would buy up all the slaves in the State for emancipation. It was
admitted by all, that the abolition of slavery would advance the price
of land in a far greater ratio; probably ten or twenty dollars per acre.

We went forward the same evening to Baltimore, accompanied by one of our
Wilmington acquaintance, and in the railway carriage was a member of the
Society of Friends from North Carolina, who, though a colonizationist,
appeared to be a man of candor. He gave it as his opinion that the
majority of the free people of that State are in favor of the abolition
of slavery. We also had the company, a part of the way, of Samuel E.
Sewall, Counsellor at Law, in Boston, an early and tried abolitionist,
and a faithful friend and legal adviser of the free people of color.

The next morning, we left Baltimore for Washington, two hours' ride by
railway. The railroads of this country being often extremely narrow, the
trains frequently pass almost close to the piers of the bridges and
viaducts, a circumstance which explains the following printed notice in
the carriages: "Passengers are cautioned not to put their arms, head, or
legs out of the window."

In passing from a free to a slave State, the most casual observer is
struck with the contrast. The signs of industry and prosperity on the
broad face of the country are universally in favor of the former, and
that to a degree which none but an eye witness can conceive. This fact
has been often noticed, and has been affirmed by slaveholders
themselves, in the most emphatic terms. In cities the difference is not
less remarkable,