cease being incumbrances and annoyances to the families in which they reside." BE BEFOREHAND WITH THE TEMPTER!--A friend tells us of a case in which a young girl of considerable personal attraction, was rescued from impending danger. Her mother was a widow with very scanty means of support. This girl had a taste for, and some skill in music. Had been at the public schools, and could read and write with facility, and was indeed respectably educated for one in her station. Her mother had determined to take boarders, and to give an air of gentility to her house, she had also made arrangements to hire a piano. The introduction of the class of boarders which the mother expected, would have exposed the child to great danger. A Christian friend saw this, and by timely and judicious efforts succeeded in securing for her a situation where she would be protected and prepared for usefulness, and for gaining a respectable livelihood. How much more hopeful such simple preventive measures are, than those which (though equally well meant) come later, and are at best but remedial in their character. NEW PENITENTIARY IN MASSACHUSETTS.--We notice in the proceedings of the Legislature of Massachusetts that it is proposed to build a new State Prison. It is but a year or two since the Charlestown prison was greatly enlarged, so as to meet what was supposed to be the demand for convict-accommodation. It is earnestly to be hoped, that if a new prison should be erected in that State, the principle of separation will be adopted. If the two systems could be once fairly tried in the actual presence of the people of that ancient and intelligent Commonwealth, we should have strong confidence that the groundless prejudices against convict-separation would disappear, and that her example would be set as effectually for the furtherance of correct views on the important subject of prison discipline, as it has heretofore been cited for the furtherance of misapprehension and error. STATE PRISON AT CHARLESTOWN, MASS.--The earnings of the inmates of the Charlestown State Prison, for the year ending September 30th, 1852, were $6,921.17 over expenses. Of the inmates, 313 are Americans, 170 foreigners, 35 negroes and 12 mulattoes. We have known a succession of annual reports of State prisons to be published, in which the earnings of the convicts, over and above the expenditures were quite "showy," but by and by came a change in the administration, and a balance appears against the concern, sufficient to swallow up all the previously reported excess of earnings. Each report of a favorable year made its impression on the public mind, and hundreds of thousands who were misled by it, will never see a notice of the detection of the error,--to use no harsher term. We do not mean to intimate that there is any reason to distrust the foregoing item, but simply to admonish the reader that such statements are always to be taken with many grains of allowance.