There were but three female convicts. One was undergoing a sentence for arson, and the other two had been convicted of murder. One of these latter occupied a cell immediately under one in which her husband was suffering imprisonment, as an accomplice of his wife in the crime for which she was sentenced. She had murdered her father, to get his money. The husband of the other woman had died, in prison, but a few weeks previous to our visit. He, too, had been convicted as an accomplice of his wife; the victim of their crime being a niece of the wife, who had excited her jealousy. Each prisoner occupies his own separate cell at night and during meal-times. Among the prisoners was a boy of seventeen, who had been sent there for want of any better place for him: his offence was stabbing. In consequence of his youth, he was not subjected to the same strictness of discipline as the other convicts, and was allowed many privileges, occasionally even being allowed to sleep in the same cell with another convict. His opportunities of intercourse with the others must have been frequent, and the association will, in all probability, prove most disastrous in its consequences. His return to the Penitentiary, in the course of a few years at most, can be calculated on with reasonable certainty. Whatever disposition he may show, or whatever efforts he may make, upon his release, to lead a proper life,—all will be neutralized, almost inevitably, by the knowledge of the fact that he has been a convict in the penitentiary; and some of those who have been his fellow-convicts, of a more hardened experience in crime, will be constantly on the watch to lead him astray, and with an influence of great power. The grades of punishment for refractory convicts are: 1st. Confinement in the dark cell. 2d. Confinement on bread and water. 3d. Confinement, and deprivation of tobacco. 4th. Irons, with or without confinement. 5th. Standing in the stocks. Flogging is also permitted, but only by special order of the Directors, to whom the Superintendent reports any case he may think deserving of that punishment, and the Directors decide on the expediency of the infliction. It cannot, however, in any case, exceed one hundred lashes, and is administered with a leather strap.