It being plain, therefore, that upon religious and moral influences chiefly we must rely for the reformation of criminals, the question next arises, What should be the nature of those influences? Should they be in accordance with the conscience of the criminal or not? Should the clergyman who is to minister to his spiritual wants, possess his confidence, and lead him to good, be a clergyman of his own church, or of a church from which the prisoner was, is, and will be throughout life, fundamentally separated, in thought and feeling? Should the books which are placed in his hands, with a view to his moral improvement, be such as will attract, because written in accordance with the principles of his church, and recommended by its teachers, or such as will raise suspicion, if they do not actually repel, because coming from a doubtful source, and full, perhaps, of expressions and statements at variance with his religious sentiments? The proper answer to these questions is, we think, self-evident. No man who has to build a house on a foundation already laid begins by attempting to weaken that foundation. Last year, in the city of New York, 46,476 were committed to prison. Of this number, 28,667, nearly two thirds, were of foreign birth. A statistical view of all the prisoners of the United States, page 149, shows that twenty-seven per cent of the inmates belong to the same class. A large share of these are undoubtedly Catholics. So, likewise, are many who are put down as of native birth. Now, we ask, how much is done to bring to bear on these unfortunates the salutary influences of their own religion? How many prisons in the United States have Catholic chaplains? In how many is a priest invited to minister at stated times to the spiritual wants of this great number of inmates? In how many cases, not so much in this as in other parts of the country, is the priest not only not invited, but with difficulty allowed, if allowed at all, to say mass and administer the sacraments of penance and the eucharist to the prisoners who are of his own faith? We read in this report, with much pleasure, that libraries have been established in our chief prisons; that "the aggregate number of volumes is 15,250;" that "in some States, a fixed annual sum is appropriated of the increase of the prison libraries; in others, additions are made by special grants. New York appropriates for her three prisons, $950; Pennsylvania, for her two, $450; Michigan, $300; Massachusetts, $200; Connecticut, $200." Of this large and annually increasing supply of books, intended as an aid in the moral reformation of criminals, of whom probably one third are Catholics, what portion is written by Catholics? What portion is Catholic, either in its tone or in its teaching? How many of these books are not more or less _anti-Catholic_, and hence repulsive to the religious feelings of those for whose benefit they are intended?