The vote of which I have spoken will cause, I do not fear to say, a painful surprise to almost all those in Europe who are devoted to the Prison question. They will interpret it as a solemn determination taken by the Society to make itself the champion of the Auburn System, and the systematic adversary of the Separate System. Instead of a judge, it will seem to become a party. I need not inform you, that, at the present day, in Europe, discussion and experience have, on the contrary, led almost all persons of intelligence to adopt the Separate System, and to reject the Auburn System. Most of the governments of the Old World have declared themselves more or less in this way, not hastily, but after serious inquiry and long debates. I will speak only of the two great free nations of Europe,--those which I know the best, and which are the most worthy of being regarded as an authority, wherever questions are decided only after discussion before the country, and obedience is rendered to public opinion alone,--France and England. Among these two nations, I can assure you, the Auburn System is almost universally rejected. The greater part of those who had previously inclined towards this system have completely abandoned it, when they came to discuss it, or to see it in operation, and have adopted, wholly or in part, the system of Separate Imprisonment. The two governments have followed the same tendencies. You know that the French government brought forward, a few years since, a law, of which separate imprisonment formed the basis. This law after a discussion of five weeks, the longest and most thorough which has ever taken place in our parliament on any question, was voted by an _immense majority_. If this same law has not yet been discussed in the Chamber of Peers, the reason is to be found in circumstances entirely foreign to the Penitentiary Question. The Chamber of Peers will take it into consideration at the opening of the approaching session; and among the most considerable men in this Chamber, the greater part have already pronounced openly in favor of its principle. As to the press, almost all the journals sustain the system of Separate Imprisonment. The journal which had most skilfully and earnestly combated the system has recently declared itself convinced of its excellence. This change has been produced, in part, by the experience had for many years in a large number of our prisons. Indeed, it may be doubted, whether, when the law shall be reported to the Chamber of Peers, there will be found a single person to combat its _principle_.