spectors, which is composed of gentlemen of the first
character in the city of Baltimore

. The institution
is also much indebted to the judicious care and good
conduct of the present keeper, who is an active and
intelligent man. I requested him to send me a direct
account of the expenditures, &c. of the prison for the
last year, which I have received from him, forward-
ed me by one of the Inspectors a few days ago; and
believing that this document may be interesting to
your Society, I have had it copied, and now inclose it.

There is one remark respecting the penitentiary
system, which I beg leave to mention. No benefit, as
it regards reformation, ever has been, nor ever will be
produced, unless our prisons are calculated to have
separate rooms, six feet by eight feet, so as that every
man can be lodged by himself. If, as is common,
twelve to twenty are lodged at night in one room,
they surely will corrupt each other, and leave the
prison far more depraved than when they entered it.
I think there is good reason to believe that our legis-
lature will direct the state prison in this city to be
sold next year, and order a new one to be built, to
be divided in rooms of six by eight feet each. I
would further observe, that during the day, when the
prisoners are employed at their work, they are, of
course, constantly under the immediate eye of a
keeper, and no improper intercourse or conversation
can take place. At Pittsburg

, (Pennsylvania,) a pri-
son, on the plan of separate rooms for each convict,
is now building, and I am told they intend erecting
a similar one in Philadelphia. Several years ago, I
mentioned to my friend, P. Colquhoun, of London,
that no reformation could possibly be expected from
the operation of the penitentiary system, unless the
prisons were built on a plan for the convicts to be
separately lodged at night, and I think he stated that
some in England were on that construction, but in
his late letters to me he is silent on the subject of pri-
sons. I am told that there is a prison in the environs