52. _The warden question._ It was supposed and reported that the warden would be removed; then we learned that the political muddle prevented, some contending for a straight, out-and-out Democrat, others, for a Labor Reformer, the party with whom they had bargained and thus gained the power. Then there was another element which seemed largely to prevail, and which some thought acted more powerfully than all others,--the fear as to how the prison accounts would stand at the end of the year. They had found out the condition of things in the prison, and learned something of how they had been run the previous year, and had every reason to suppose that they could not possibly make so large a show of gains as was then made. A highly important matter to them, for, should they run behind, their opponents would, of course, use it to their party disadvantage in future political campaigns. What could they do in the matter? Of course, the most feasible way was to keep the same warden, with the hope, by his manipulating, of a less falling off; or the fact of their having made no change here, would blunt the force of the falling-short argument materially. Hence, party interests would prompt them, on the one hand, to remove the chaplain for a partisan; and on the other to retain the warden for his aid to them politically. Thus, it seemed that party considerations ruled the whole matter, and that the rulers, instead of rising to the true dignity of their position, and inquiring about the real interests of the prison, the best man for the place, bowed obsequiously to the shrine of party. True, late in the fall, or in early winter, they moved in the matter by appointing a gentleman of Concord to the wardenship, but under such circumstances, that he could not, for a moment, think of accepting, though doubtless he would have improved matters had he done so.