Nor is such mean and cruel conduct peculiar to the _subordinate_ powers, they often are found _in_, and are copied _from_, the _highest_. I have seen those who occupied the chief seats in the synagogue, try every expedient to vex the prisoners into a war of words, and having accomplished their object, punish them for those very words which they provoked them to utter. I have heard them insult the prostrate objects of their power with words which I should blush to write. I have know them authorize vexatious regulations which the heart of Verres could not have enforced. I have seen one of these gather a number of prisoners around him, and though he had a _wife_ and _daughters_, lead and give spirit to a conversation, which would have imprinted a blush on the cheek of impurity itself. This conduct is the more conspicuous from the fact, that the laws of the prison require every officer, and the head one especially, to have an especial reference, in all things, to the _good_ and _moral_ reformation of the prisoners. This also renders their conduct the more _criminal_; and to this as one of the principal causes must be referred the hardening effect of state-prison discipline upon its subjects.--_They_ know the laws by which the keepers are bound; _they_ know that the community and the government of the state require them to be merciful, and to treat the convicts as if they considered them human beings; and when they see these officers so outrageously sinful against the most solemn obligations, and the most sacred and obligatory laws, and yet as cruel to _them_ for trifling and shadowy offences, as if they themselves were immaculate, they cannot help despising them in their hearts, and kindling with a flame which sets reformation at defiance. And it is not too much to say, that many a prisoner has been hardened in crime by the example of those very men who were commissioned to reform him. If I had the power, and desired to have the angel Gabriel become a devil, I would send him to Windsor prison for three years.