12. _B. and E.'s request, and the connected abuse._ These men, before spoken of, had become much interested in the moral and religious instruction given by those lady friends, Mrs. E. and D., to whom they had been introduced in the manner already pointed out. Request was extended to the warden that they might have the privilege of corresponding, but he peremptorily refused; why, none could conceive, though some would contend that the reason must be found in the vindictive, for the correspondence was to go through the usual channel and be open to his own inspection, that, had anything objectionable appeared, he could have suppressed it, or stopped the whole correspondence. Those ladies were capable of writing excellent letters, letters by which any right-minded man would be benefited, the warden himself being judge. I have no doubt that should he meet some of their productions, unaware of their authorship, he would pronounce them of a superior character, and say that "the more of such writings the prisoners can have to read, the better." The men did not ask for a personal interview with those ladies, but simply their words; words which would stimulate them to higher aims, and enable them the better to endure the trials of prison life. The warden possessed the right, if he chose to exercise it, to interdict this correspondence wholly. But I protest that he had no right to defame those ladies, villify their character, and speak of them to those men, and to prison visitors from whatever part of the country, as "those mean women," "those base women," "those low women." As before stated, they were ladies with the best of characters,--earnest Christian workers, invited to the interviews by the mother and warden, and always having them in the presence of the latter. These visits were for a most praiseworthy purpose. If it is ever right for a high-minded, upright, Christian lady to call on the fallen for the purpose of helping them rise from their degraded state, those ladies are to be commended for the efforts they made in behalf of those prisoners.