22. _The Warden admits presents to prisoners from friends outside._ He would permit friends outside to send soothing dainties to the sick, or packages of fruit or home comforts to the well; or florists of the city to send bouquets to stand upon the speaker's desk on the Sabbath, for the prisoners to admire, and each received a flower or sprig to carry to his cell as a memento of innocence and purity, and a stimulus to love the Author of such beauty. It was really gratifying to see what cheer to the fallen these remembrances from the outside world would bring. All packages thus sent to prisoners were most carefully examined by officers, that nothing wrong should pass. 23. _Warden decides to resign._ He had not found his place a bed of roses. Certainly it possessed its thorns, and these, at times, largely predominated. His efforts for bringing the prison, in all its departments, to what it was, had cost him a great struggle, many anxious hours of planning, and at times perplexities in executing. But his greatest vexation came because of opposition, from certain ones without, to what he felt assured was for the best good of the institution, and from the misrepresentations of those opposed to all prison reform and improvement, who think it an outrage to the State to treat a prisoner better than a brute. He says one complained of him thus: "You give the prisoners too good fare, and make things too comfortable for them, on account of which they will wish to return. Whereas, the prison is a place for punishment, requiring you to keep the inmates on poorer food, and food so prepared that it shall be a punishment to eat it, and make everything around them a source of discomfort, that, after leaving, they may thereby be deterred from crime through dread of being returned." From all considerations, the warden resolved to resign at the close of the year, yet, while remaining, to continue the usual prison rations and efforts at reform. His wife also heartily joined in his efforts, having from the first done much towards the excellent fare of the prisoners, and seeing that the sick were properly cared for. Hence, on one occasion, finding a man gradually wasting away with consumption, the skin wearing from his emaciated limbs by the hard prison couch, she sent in her own feather bed, that he might pass the remainder of his days in what comfort he could. But what shall we think of the assertion that "the food should be so prepared that it shall be a punishment to the men to eat it?" Can it be possible, that one in New Hampshire, at this late day, uttered a sentiment like that? So the warden most positively asserts. To say nothing of its inhumanity, common worldly policy would repudiate such an idea. Of food thus prepared one at first would eat as little as possible to live, his powers for labor therefore depart, his appetite gradually fails, and he goes down to death.