In attempting to present the report under various heads, it was found difficult to avoid a repetition of argument and explanation, or rather, having made the repetition, it was found difficult to correct the text without impairing the fulness of that part of the subject. Indeed, when it is considered that with the exception of enlightening the public mind, to procure co-operation, and soliciting legislative enactments to enable the Society to act more beneficially upon prisons, and through them on the prisoner, the great work of alleviating the miseries of public prisons, is to be upon the minds of individuals, we shall comprehend how all the divisions of the actions of the Society centre upon the single prisoner. Not for sympathy alone, but for amendment, must we “take a single captive,” and so, in reporting upon the action of the Agent; upon the doings of the various Committees; in setting forth the success, or want of success, at the Penitentiary or the County Prison; in referring to the movements on behalf of males or females; in the plans for future action, as on the records of the past, it is the incarcerated individual, it is the single mind whose experience we are to record, or whose susceptibilities we are to note. Hence it has seemed almost natural, at least it is hoped that it will be regarded as excusable, that what is the great means of all our hopes of alleviating the miseries of prisons, viz., separate confinement, and consequently individual dealing, should pervade every division of the report of our proceedings. ------------------ SEPARATE CONFINEMENT.