These, according to their authority and moral temperament, exert a malignant influence on the administration of the prison, and on the peace and comfort of the prisoners. Generally taken from the very humblest employments, illiterate, and destitute of a proper acquaintance with mankind, and invested with an authority little less than absolute, extending virtually to the life or death of their subjects, they are intoxicated with their power, and seek every possible occasion to display it. To speak civilly to a prisoner is considered beneath their dignity; and their cup of joy is full only when they can say--"I have sent the rascal to the solitary cell." Armed with a sword, and placed over one of the shops, they ape the monarch and claim the homage of a god. The same spirit accompanies the stripling when he ascends the wall to act the _soldier_ in his turn. Though serving for a stipend of eight dollars a month, and doomed by a decree which he is unable to violate, to the lowest walks in society, he fancies now that he is somebody, and makes all who are under his shadow feel the full weight of his self-importance. Over one entire quarter of an acre of this world, strongly walled in, he holds divided empire with his brother on the other side; he imagines that his bench is a throne, his gun a sceptre, and the limit of his dominions the everlasting hills. It is not easy to treat this subject with seriousness, and yet it is too solemn to be trifled with. See him pacing his post like a private in the army. Be careful how you smile, for he has the instrument of _death_ in his hand, and he it was who took the life of _Fane_.[1] [Footnote 1: A prisoner that was shot.] But these servants of the prison are not only inhuman and vain, there is no _meanness_ to which they will not stoop; and they delight in all those little vexations with which they can perplex the prisoners. They are employed in making little rules and regulations for the prisoners, when they are in the yard, and these are so numerous, that no one can remember them, and so contradictory, that to obey _one_, at least _half a dozen_ must be violated. Their common language to their subjects is--"Go here!--go there!--do this!--do that!--shut your head!--mind your business!--what are you doing!--out of the vault!--you shall go to the solitary for that!"