It might be said that the voices of civilized nations, by a rare harmony, concurred in sanctioning the Separate system, if the Boston Prison Discipline Society had not raised a persistent note of discord, which has gone on with a most unmusical _crescendo_. As the solitary champion of an imperfect system which the world is renouncing, it has contended with earnestness, which has often become prejudice, and with insensibility to accumulating facts, which was injustice. With frankness, as with sorrow, we allude to the sinister influence it has exercised over this question, particularly throughout the Northern States. But the truth which has been proclaimed abroad need not be delicately minced at home. We do not join with the recent English writer, who, among many harsher suggestions, speaks of the "misrepresentation," the "trickery," the "imposture"[124] of the Society or its agent,--nor with Moreau-Christophe, who says, "_La Société des Prisons à Boston a juré haine à mort au système de Philadelphie_";[125] for we know well the honesty and sincere interest in the welfare of prisoners which animate its Secretary, and we feel persuaded that he will gladly abandon the deadly war which he wages against the Separate system, when he sees it as it is now regarded by the science and humanity of the civilized world. But we feel that his exertions, which in some departments of Prison Discipline have been productive of incalculable good, for which his memory will be blessed, on this important question have done harm. In his Reports he has never failed to present all the evil of the Separate system, particularly as administered in Philadelphia, sometimes even drawing upon his imagination for facts, while he has carefully withheld the testimony in its favor. This beneficent system and its meritorious supporters are held up to obloquy, and the wide circle that confided implicitly in his Reports are consigned to darkness with regard to its true character and its general reception abroad. [124] Adshead, pp. 127, 129. [125] Revue Pénitentiaire, Tom. II. p. 589.