And yet it is to be remembered that not a one-fourth part of these women are guilty of, or convicted of, any real crime, simply offenses--drunkenness and unseemly appearance upon the streets; and yet these poor hopeless, misguided, rum-wrecked women and night-walking girls are sentenced to the same servitude, subjected to the same code of discipline, and go out with the same brand of shame upon the brow, nay, far deeper than the clear-headed, cool, intelligent, calculating men of Concord, where every inmate is convicted of a crime. The sad conviction settles down upon me every day that the soul, brains of the crime of the Commonwealth are in Concord; the wrecks they have made are in Sherborn; and in my dealing with these women, I cannot lose sight of this fact. They are more weak than wicked, often more sinned against than sinning. This, to my mind, invites a parental, maternal system of government, and to this they are all amenable; even the most obstinate yields to a rule of kindness, firmly and steadily administered. The records of this period are necessarily meager. Yet there have come to the author unsought testimonials of the great work which Clara Barton accomplished while there. While she never criticized her predecessors, but gave them generous praise, she stood not at all on any precedent established by them. She changed the atmosphere of the place from an institution of punishment to one of instruction and character-building. One who visited the prison while she was there has told the author of Clara Barton’s power over the incorrigible; how women that were violent and untamable by the ordinary methods became docile under her direction. As for the younger women who were not hardened, and were often more sinned against than sinning, they idolized her. She established two letter-boxes in the halls, one to receive letters addressed to herself. Any one of the three hundred inmates was at liberty to write to Miss Barton. A number of the letters which she received were preserved by her and have been read by her biographer. They were a pathetic group, some of them absurd in their requests, and others tragic in their appeal for help. The gratitude of others was quite beyond the poor power of expression possessed by these girls. In many instances these letters were followed by personal conferences very fruitful of good. The other box was for letters of complaint addressed to the Board of Managers. Any inmate was at liberty to write a letter and place it there, assured that it would go direct, and that neither Miss Barton nor any of her assistants would read it. The first box was in constant use, the second scarcely ever contained a letter.