[1] Rev. William Rogers, D. D. This was literally preaching at the cannon’s mouth. The service was attended, however, with entire decorum throughout, many of the prisoners giving respectful attention, and all of them behaving with unexpected propriety. This was as late as 1786-7. Who of our readers has ever attended the religious service on the Lord’s day at the Eastern State Penitentiary, without being impressed with the propriety--we might almost say, the solemnity of the occasion. Each prisoner, separated from his fellows, is able to give undiverted attention to the word spoken, and in the seclusion of his own apartment, with the written Scriptures in his hand, may “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the truth that is able to make him wise unto salvation. He joins in the supplication that ascends to the throne of the heavenly grace, and in the hymns of praise and thanksgiving for the many mercies that are mingled in his cup of suffering; and who will say that this is not a marvellous spectacle to the eye of one who witnessed the delivery of Dr. Rogers’ first sermon in the prison yard! But another scene opens. Groups of men are laboring in the streets of the city, cleaning and repairing them. Their heads are shaven, and they wear parti-colored clothing, and of course attract the gaze of passers-by. These are prisoners! Goaded to desperation by the taunts and jibes of idle and vicious boys, they have sometimes attempted to revenge their injuries, and to prevent this, they are loaded with iron collars on their necks, and cannon balls or bomb shells “are fastened to their feet by chains to be dragged after them, while they pursue their degrading labor under the eye of keepers armed with swords, blunderbusses, and other weapons of destruction.” It was such a revolting sight as this that prompted our Prison Society to call for a radical reformation--not only for the withdrawal of these wretched men from the public gaze, injurious alike to the public and to themselves, but _for their withdrawal from each other’s presence too_, intimating very clearly their conviction that “MORE PRIVATE OR EVEN SOLITARY OR SECLUDED LABOR WOULD MORE SUCCESSFULLY TEND TO RECLAIM THE UNHAPPY OBJECTS, AS IT MIGHT BE CONDUCTED MORE STEADILY AND UNIFORMLY, AND THE KIND AND PORTION OF LABOR BETTER ADAPTED TO THE DIFFERENT ABILITIES OF THE CRIMINALS.” We have put this memorable language in conspicuous letters, as we find in it the germ of all philosophical and truly philanthropic schemes for improvement of prison discipline, which have been devised in the sixty years’ interval.