PREFACE.

IN one of my frequent visits to Dr. Hosack

, for the
purpose of obtaiing from him various kinds of
information, to aid me in completing a work I was
then engaged in editing-the proper acknowledg-
ments for his learned and valuable assistance, I have
made in another place-he suggested to me that he
had some time since gathered materials for writing
the life of a distinguished philanthropist, the late
THOMAS EDDY; but that numerous circumstances
had prevented him from carrying his intentions into
effect, and that he could not, at this time, sit down
to the work. After some farther conversation, he
placed the papers in my hand, and I found them very
interesting, much more so than I could have antici-
pated, from the quiet life of a modest citizen. Among
them I discovered a correspondence with some of the
first men in Europe and the United States, upon the
great objects of reform in prisons, hospitals, penal
codes, schools, and almost every other topic, which
the best minds of the civilized world are now dis-