front presents one uniform extent of brick wall upon the same line for the whole distance, unbroken by any recesses or openings except the large, but plain, arched gateway in the centre and the rows of windows; and unrelieved by a single projection or attempt at ornamental or architectural display. The only thing to relieve the monotonous uniformity of the front is the additional story upon the centre building. The bricks of which all the Penitentiary buildings are built are made in the neighborhood, and are coarse and of a dingy red color. At the main entrance, the large, solid, double leafed door, which mostly stands wide open in the day time, is stationed a guard, armed with a six-shooter in his belt, and a double-barreled shot-gun, loaded with buck-shot and ready capped, in his hands. An admission fee of twenty-five cents is charged for each visitor, and the amount received goes into the general accounts of the prison, and very nearly defrays the expense of the extra guard who is kept for the express purpose of waiting on visitors through the establishment. Any one, however, who has a higher motive than mere curiosity, and desires to examine the condition and management of the Penitentiary through an interest in the subject of prisons and prison discipline, and will make himself known to the Superintendent, will always be courteously received and every facility afforded for his inquiries and observations without charge. Passing through the archway, the visitor is admitted by the guard through the large grated iron gate which closes its inner end, into the yard of the prison. In the middle of the yard is a two story log-house, used now as the shoemaker’s shop, but built originally as a place of confinement for the convicts who were employed in the erection of the Penitentiary. The entire space enclosed within the limits of the prison walls is about three hundred feet square: the enclosure upon the northern side is formed by the front or main building; the southern side of the enclosure and the portions of the eastern and western sides adjacent thereto, are shut in by substantial brick walls; while the rest of the eastern and western sides is formed by ranges of buildings connected with the main edifice. Just within the prison wall upon the southern side of the yard is the factory, a substantial building of brick, two stories high and two hundred and seventy feet long by fifty deep. Both cotton and woolen goods, chiefly of the coarser kind in demand for plantation wear, are manufactured. The establishment of the factory was authorized by the Legislature at the session of 1853 and 1854, and an appropriation made for the erection of the building, and the purchase of the necessary machinery. Carding and spinning were commenced in June, 1856, and the first loom started late in July of the same year. Steam power is used to drive the machinery, and the factory has been kept steadily in operation from the time of its commencement,