We think the friends of separation could scarcely ask for a more favorable exhibit of its advantages than _Ignotus_ gives. It certainly places that system far in advance of any and all others as the basis of reformation. And while we readily admit that it is but a basis, and that higher and better influences must be relied on to make it efficient as a means of reformation, we cannot agree with the author, that convicts from a separate prison are not likely to leave its walls a whit more reformed than convicts from Newgate or from Blackwell’s Island. To keep bad men apart must always, under all circumstances, be more conducive to their reform, than to suffer their intercommunication. If “the benign and saving influence of our divine religion,” were withdrawn from the city of London or New York, it would become a pandemonium; but no one would say, that if each man, woman and child, were separated from every other man, woman and child by an impassable gulf, the degree of corruption would not be essentially reduced. Close association breeds the plague of cities--comparative separation keeps the country clean and wholesome. The analogies of the moral and natural world are very obvious in this respect. “If it be thought, from what has been written of late years on the subject, that a greater efficacy should be attributed to separate confinement, let it be borne in mind, that cotemporaneously with its adoption in any prison, there has been very much greater care taken than ever used to be in the selection of officers to superintend the discipline, and to convey moral and religious instruction to the prisoners. Wherever Christianity has been brought to bear upon criminals, in its real power and blessedness, good has been accomplished under the most untoward circumstances; sinners have been brought to Christ and salvation; and the mass, if not converted unto God, have been marvellously civilized. This was manifested by the success which followed the self-denying labors of Mrs. Fry, and other pious persons in Newgate; of that eminent man Dr. Browning, in so many convict ships; of Sir Edward Parry, who labored like a missionary amongst his _assigned_ convict servants, at Port Stephen’s; of Colonel Demaresq, also acting in the same spirit, under the same circumstances, at St. Helier’s and St. Aubyn’s; and of Sarah Martin, in the gaol of Yarmouth, of whose unwearied and blessed labors the Government Inspector, Captain Williams, makes such honorable mention in several reports. The superior mind of a person invested with authority, may exercise a most salutary influence upon any class of human beings, but Christian doctrine, and Christian character _consistent enough to stand the scrutiny of the bad_, accomplish greater things; and the lower any are sunken, the more commanding is this influence upon their minds.”