In this department of the prison is found the best illustration of the vast difference of the influences upon the minds and character of the prisoners wrought by the separate and the social system of incarceration. It is true that all convicts are or ought to be separately confined; but a very large proportion of the female prisoners here are awaiting trial, or held for some offence below felony, in such numbers as to render it quite impossible, even with all the discharges granted by the Inspectors and procured by the Agent, to limit the number of that class of prisoners to less than from two to four in many of the cells. Here, then, side by side, or in close vicinity, is found an example of the social and the separate systems, and to some extent a judgment is easily formed of the effect of the two modes. In the cell where are more than one female, (we speak of females, because, accidentally, our means of information, as it regards the condition of that sex, in prison, are more ample than they are concerning the males, though the circumstances being the same, the effect of similar treatment would be different only in proportion to the constitutional difference of the sexes—the female being much more social, and much more ductile and impressible, and thus more easily influenced by her associates,)—in these cells monitions and advice are offered by the visitors, and for a moment there seems, beneath the respectful attention of one or two, a kind of resolve to try to do better,—books and tracts are accepted, and perhaps read, and there is a promise, which to the unexperienced visitor seems well founded, that the miserable object of his or her care will seek to amend a course that leads so directly to disgrace and misery. But scarcely does the visitor leave the door of the cell, when the deluge of ridicule poured out by the companions of the “promising” offender, obliterates all sense of compunction, and all resolve of amendment, if any were formed, and virtue and decency are coarsely ridiculed, and their humble advocate laughed at as an easy dupe. But the visitor to the cell of the convict, or the prisoner separately confined, has easy access to the feelings of the inmate, and the lesson given is allowed time to have some favorable effect. The resolution for good which the unhappy woman forms upon the evidence of unwonted interest in her fate, may not be permanent,—the feelings may have acted rather than the judgment,—but the repetition of the visit and of the lesson scarcely fail to beget that sense of wrong doing which is the parent of repentance; and especially, if the visitor makes evident a deep feeling of affection, and gentle sympathy in the character and condition of the prisoner as a human being, may there be hope that good will follow. There must be heat applied, before the iron can be wrought into useful shape.