We visited the workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat twice a day; their drink is water, except when the doctor orders it otherwise. There are chaplains, called here Moral Instructors, who visit them and perform the service in the chapel, and evening schools are provided, at which the chaplains attend to teach reading, writing, and arithmetic. A library of books of general information is provided for the prisoner's use, and to each a Bible is given, and they are allowed to buy sound and useful books. They have each a gas lamp in their cell, which enables them to read there when their work is done, and they are allowed to see their friends in the presence of an officer. Sixty of the prisoners were Negroes, which is a large proportion when compared with the total numbers of the white and black population, especially as the blacks are often let off, owing to the leniency of the committing magistrates who have compassion on their inferior intelligence; and it is owing, it is said, to a like leniency that there are so few females, though certainly not for the same reason. There are a large number of Irish in the prison. Our next visit, still under Mr. Dennison's escort, was to the Capitol or State House, a very fine building of white limestone. The facade is more than 300 feet long, and the height nearly 160 feet to the top of the dome. This however has not yet been completed. The architecture is Grecian. Here, as at Washington, are Halls for the Senate and House of Representatives, in equally good taste and somewhat similarly arranged. Mr. Dennison, who had once been a member of the Senate, was repudiating the accounts so commonly given of the behaviour of the senators, when Mr. Niel came in, and over-hearing what he was saying, begged to remark that when they "went to work" they usually divested themselves of their coats without substituting any senatorial garment in its place; and putting his legs on the desk before the chair, he declared that such was the usual posture in which they listened to the oratory of the place.[8]