and mental improvement, with the privation and pain which constitute the penal element of the institution, is not a work for uninformed or narrow-minded men. How often has a shrewd business man taken in charge the financial and economical interests of some of our prisons that have, year after year, made a fair report, and shown well to superficial observers, and exposed to public rebuke gross negligencies, if not outrageous frauds which the Inspectors--“good easy men,” had neither eyes to see nor ears to hear, nor capacity to understand? If we desire our prisons to answer the true ends of their organization, we must put them under the supervision of active, intelligent men, who have an opinion and responsibility of their own. III. Prison Inspectors should be _humane_ men. Though the direct care and management of the convicts must of necessity be entrusted to the resident officers, the Inspectors, and not the resident officers, are the true representatives of the government in the administration of the discipline. In the character of those who are appointed to the immediate charge of the convicts, there should be a general guaranty that every office of humanity, that does not relax or neutralize the rigor of punishment, will be observed. It is not difficult for an officer of severe or violent temper to abuse a convict shamefully, and conceal the act from the ordinary observation of Inspectors. And hence no man of such temperament should be entrusted with the custody of prisoners. On the other hand, a weak and effeminate officer may become the tool or plaything of a convict, and lose all influence and authority over him. It is, moreover, possible that an officer--even the chief officer--of a prison may, by indolence and carelessness, inflict a negative wrong on prisoners, which is quite as intolerable and inexcusable as positive inhumanity. A neglected prescription of the medical officer--a delay to attend to a reasonable request--a harsh repartee or an undeserved denial of confidence may be more cruel than the _douche_ or the cat-o’-nine-tail--and yet how easily every thing of this character would escape the superficial observation of Inspectors, in their weekly circuit. Their humanity must not only be evinced in the discharge of their own duties, but it must prompt them to interpose every needful barrier to the positive and negative inhumanity of others. The power being all on one side, the utmost care will not always prevent its abuse.