A horse-thief or house-breaker, who may serve his time out in a congregate State prison in Missouri, and, by association there, become an adept in his depredating vocation, is as likely to pursue it in Pennsylvania as in Missouri or in Philadelphia as in St. Louis. If he plunders a steamboat passenger on the Mississippi, he will not be very careful to inquire beforehand whether his victim is a citizen of Missouri, where he received his convict-education, or a citizen of Pennsylvania, where his education would have been on a different plan, and we trust with a different result; and hence it is that we make common cause of this penitentiary-question, and insist upon it that of all public questions it is the last that should be sucked into any of the political eddies. We took occasion, in our last number also, to comment freely on the condition of the _New Jersey_ State Prison. We were totally ignorant of all local questions, as well as of the political relations and bearings of the subject. We simply stated that while the statute positively required individual separation and interdicted convict intercourse for any purpose, and under any pretence, except in cases of sickness and by order of the physician, there were, in fact, 232 prisoners occupying 182 cells! We ventured to say that this infraction of the fundamental law of the institution should not be tolerated, but that measures should be taken without needless delay to provide against its continuance. But behold “how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” No sooner did our gentle and peaceful suggestions find their way to _Trenton_, than they were drawn into the furnace of political strife. On one side the faulty state of the prison is ascribed to the desire of the ruling party to keep in popular favor by spending as little money as possible! This insinuation is thrown back by the dominant party with indignation, but at the same time the omission of the Executive to recommend an enlargement of the accommodations, is vindicated on the ground, that “the finances of the State did not warrant any extraordinary expenditure, nor was the exigency of the case so great as to justify the imposition of a State tax.” Now this is matter of opinion. We think that no more urgent exigency of the kind could possibly arise, to demand prompt and efficient action at any sacrifice, than the association of convicts in a prison which is required by law to keep them separate. The minority paper retorts with no little spirit, and raises the general issue, whether the Democrats are a whit more economical than the Whigs, and concludes with the sad confession that the “leading politicians of all parties often sacrifice the public weal unnecessarily upon the popularity-seeking pretext of economy”--and here the subject closes, and the New Jersey convicts are left to pursue their system of mutual instruction, as workers of iniquity!