The unhappy creature heard this story, but made no reply. The physician of the Asylum ordered his chains to be removed. He was admitted to the ward, like other patients, and had not given them the least trouble! It seems that prisoners, paupers and pay-patients are intermingled in some Asylums. And we are credibly informed, that since the present year came in, not less than _thirty-six_ insane convicts were at one time in the State Asylum at Utica. They are removed from the prison and received at the Asylum as insane, and this is often the end of the sentence. An elopement from the Asylum may perhaps answer all the purposes of a pardon, without the responsibility of it. In one instance, where a convict escaped from the Utica Asylum, notice was given to the authorities of the prison from whence he was received, but no effort was made to re-arrest him, and the fellow was found soon after, following a respectable business in New York city, at $22 a month and board, and was doing well! The Empire State itself could not probably have done better for him. Our readers have not probably forgotten the fate of four out of five prisoners in a cell, not a cannon’s shot distance from the City Hall in New York. That such an event could occur in any prison which is located, constructed and superintended with ordinary regard to the laws of humanity, is scarcely credible. In view of such statements, we must admit that the work of prison reform is indeed not yet accomplished. Great ignorance still prevails on the subject. Strong prejudices exist (nurtured, if not engendered by local, personal or professional pride,) against some of the essential features of any true and effective system. Much effort is required to diffuse right opinions, and correct popular errors. Among these last, none is more prevalent or mischievous than that the difference of a few thousand dollars, in the first cost of the structure, should turn the scale in favor of a system which is not, on other accounts, most approved. The true principle which should rule in all questions of this nature, is very obvious. No reasonable expense or pains should be spared in the employment of means to convert a single idler into a worker, or a single rogue into an honest citizen. The mischief which a contemner of laws may do, single-handed, to society, is so indefinite, and, we may almost say, boundless, that we can scarcely conceive of a greater public benefit than his reformation, unless, indeed, it be such a training of his children or his neighbor’s children, or both, as shall prevent their following his example. To confine a convict three or five or seven years with a chafed and irritated temper during all that interval, and then dismiss him, a settled and irreconcileable enemy to himself and all about him, is the worst policy a State can pursue. We do not advocate any course that shall mitigate, in the slightest degree, the legitimate severity of punishment. But we urge