It is not intended to assert that all the vice and errors of children are referable to parental example: that would be a gross injustice to those sorrowing ones who see the stray one from their domestic circle, disgracing in his vicious career the lessons and examples of piety in which he was reared, and forming a marked exception to the character and condition of his relatives. But we have a right to speak plainly where the evidences of neglect and even of bad example in the parents are manifest in the error of the child. We have a right; nay, in the position which this association is now occupying, we have a duty to society, to urge attention to the evils which our community is made to suffer from a neglect of domestic discipline, which crowds the cells of our prison with guilty parents, and fills the House of Refuge with their erring children. We repeat it, that we distinguish between those cases of parental sorrow which flow from some exceptional cause, and those domestic miseries which are consequent upon vice or criminal neglect; but care must be taken not to weaken a sense of parental responsibility by referring to misfortune, too much that may be referable to vicious error. In this matter, as in others of a different character, perhaps the language of the poet may be painfully applicable: “Look into those you call unfortunate, And, closer viewed, you’ll find they are unwise.” STATISTIC. While on the subject of the County Prison, it may not be amiss to present a few statistics regarding the number of those who have been its inmates during the year 1863. The whole number of commitments was 17,219. The philanthropist who looks at the effect of vice or misfortune on individuals, will be startled at such a statement, when he considers how much private misery and domestic grief there were involved in all these incarcerations; not only in the separation of so many persons from their social and domestic associations, but more than that, often the long career of annoyance to family and friend, from the regular advance in crime and vice which led to the incarceration. One other fact is noticeable, the increase in imprisonment in 1863 over those in 1862 was 2,573. That, it is evident to those who visit the prison and examine into the cause of such painful effects, is, in part, one of the bitter fruits of the present war. And the mortifying fact, that 794 of the increase of committed were females, is evidently referable to the same cause. In 1861 and a part of 1862, the number of commitments of males was greatly decreased, as the army was absorbing with better elements, many of those who were almost monthly successful candidates for the prison, while at the same time, the number of females increased, owing to the absence of those to whom they were responsible, and to the periodical reception of money in larger amounts than they had been accustomed to receive.