The separate confinement which constitutes the peculiar character of prison discipline advocated by the Society and practised in the Eastern Penitentiary of Pennsylvania, has reference to the separation of one convict from another, and of separation of the criminal from that intercourse with people from without that might keep up his relation with criminals and his taste and his resolutions for crime. Day by day the lesson of moral instruction is heard. Day by day the visitors from the city present themselves at his cell, and invite him to reformation; and at any stated period, or in case of special emergency, the inmate of the cell may have the attendance of a clergyman of his own choice, and the consolations of religious instruction such as he may have cherished in better times. His solitude is disturbed by the regular visitation of the officers of the prison, and the silence of his cell broken by the prayers and teaching of his visitors. Nor is it a violation of the plan, that he should repeat and amplify what he has heard, and loudly express what he has been brought to feel. This, with all the privations which imprisonment and conviction for extensive crime necessarily include, is not “solitary confinement.” The justice which, for the sake of society, restrains the freedom of the offender, yields entirely to the mercy that turns to that offender’s temporal and eternal good. This infliction, that separates him from his associates in felony, frees society from apprehension of his crimes. We speak here of the infliction of the Penitentiary. The case of a convict in the County prison has in it much less of severity, and is proportionately therewith of less benefit to him and less advantageous to society. We do not intend to argue upon the advantages of separate confinement and labor, over the associated condition of prisoners. That subject has been often presented in our annual reports, and in essays published by the Society, and ably and satisfactorily handled. We shall present some of what may be regarded as the minor objects and labors of the Society, from which, however, great good has already resulted, and to which we must look for many of the direct, personal, and permanent benefits which are to result from our efforts. It will be seen, in the course of this report, that close observation warrants the conclusion that little hope of improving the moral condition of the prisoner can be indulged until he is placed within the reach of separate instruction, and beyond the evils of companionship with the vicious. This is the experience in this State; this is the growing opinion in Great Britain and Ireland. ------------------ COUNTY PRISON.