suspicion, took some refreshments which he offered her at the play, became oblivious within half an hour after partaking of the spiced wine which the young villain had drugged, and before morning found herself covered with shame in a strange house in a strange part of the city. Utterly cast down, she avoided both aunt and parents. She was soon cast away by her wicked cousin, and on the night of her arrest was wandering alone, without shelter or hope. She was compelled to bow to her fate, whilst the law, at that time, could not touch the author of her degradation, who further wronged her by foulest slander, to palliate his own wickedness. Justice was not then so kindly disposed towards the erring and unfortunate as now. There was no Magdalen refuge for her, and the magistrate, with almost brutal roughness, reproached her, and sent her to "the Island" for six months as a vagrant. The gentleman who witnessed this scene became possessed of her subsequent history.

Associated with the vile, her degradation was complete, while her innate virtue struggled for existence. She was an outcast at the age of seventeen. Parental affection, yielding to the stern demands of social ethics, sought not to rescue or reform the child. She had "disgraced her family," and that offence was sufficient to win for her an eternal exile. When the law was satisfied, she went forth with virtuous resolves, and sought a livelihood through menial service. Twice she was pointed at as a Magdalen and convict, and sought refuge from recognition in other places. At length a gleam of hope beamed upon her. She was wooed by a man who seemed honest and true, who had been charmed by her beauty. They were married. She was again allied with human sympathy, and was happy. Years passed by. A cloud appeared. She suspected her husband to be in league with burglars and counterfeiters. She accused him inquiringly, and he confessed his guilt. She pleaded with him most tenderly, for the sake of herself and their three babes, to abandon his course of life. Her words were ineffectual. His vile associates became bold. His house became the receptacle of burglars' plunder, and the head-quarters of counterfeiting. To her the world was shut. She had sympathy only with her husband and children. She had

* Blackwell's Island, in the East River, which will be noticed hereafter.

not courage to leave the loathed atmosphere of crime that filled her dwelling, and encounter again the blasts of a selfish world. She became a passive participator in guilt. Detection soon followed transgression. She was arraigned as an accomplice of her husband and his associates in counterfeiting. The proof was clear, and conviction followed. Three years before my visit she had been sent to the state prison for five years, and her husband for ten years. They have never met since hearing their sentence. Their babes were taken to the almshouse, and that crushed woman sat desolate within the prison walls. Meekly she performed her daily duties. There was a sweet sadness in her pale face. She was not a criminal in the eye of Divine justice; she was a victim to be pitiedthe wreck of an innocent and beautiful girl. Surely there must be something radically wrong in the constitution of our society, that permits tender flowers to be thus blasted and thus neglected, and become like worthless weeds, to be trampled upon and forgotten.

In the prison for men, and in the workshops, everything is carried on with the most perfect order; every kind of labour, the meals, the religious exercises in the chapel, are all conducted according to the most rigid rules. The discipline is consequently quite perfect. Reformation, not merely punishment, is the great aim, and the history of the prison attests. the success of the effort. Severe punishments are becoming more and more rare, and the terrible Shower Bath, which has been so justly condemned by the humane, is now seldom used, and then in the presence of the prison physician. Only when all other means for forcing obedience have failed, is this horrid punishment inflicted. It is admitted, I believe, that the Mount Pleasant or Sing Sing prison is one of the best conducted penitentiaries in the world.

On returning to the village across the fields northward of Mount Pleasant, I obtained a full view of Teller's or Croton Point, which divides Tappan from Haverstraw Bay. It is almost two miles in length, and was called Se-nas-qua by the Indians, and by the English, Sarah's Point, in honour of Sarah, wife of William Teller, who purchased it of the Indians for a barrel of rum and twelve blankets. It was called Teller's Point until within a few years, when the name of Croton was given to it. Near its extremity, within a pleasant, embowered lawn, stood the Italian villa

of R. T. Underhill, M.D., who was sixth in descent from the famous Captain Underhill, a leader in the Indian wars of New England. The Point was owned by himself and brother, both of whom had extensive vineyards and luxuriant orchards. They had about eighty acres covered with the Isabella and Catawba grape vine, sixty of which belonged to the doctor. They also raised fine apples and melons in great abundance. From our point of view, near Sing Sing landing, the village of Haverstraw is seen in the vista between Croton Point and the High Torn Mountain on the left.

It was now the first day of March, and very warm; the surface of the river was unruffled by a breeze. Knowing how boisterous and blustering this first spring month generally is, I took advantage of the fine weather, and crossed Tappan Bay to Rockland Lake village (formerly Slaughter's Landing), opposite Sing Sing, the most extensive ice-station on the river. After considerable delay, I procured a boat and oarsman-the former very leaky, and the latter very accommodating. The bay is here between two and three miles wide. We passed a few masses of floating ice and some

sailing vessels, and at little past noon landed at Rockland, where the Knickerbocker Ice Company had a wharf and barges, and a large inclinedplane railway, down which ice, brought from the adjacent lake, was sent to the vessels in the river.

It was a weary way up the steep shore to the village and the lake, on the borders of a high and well-cultivated valley, half a mile from the river. This is the famous Rockland Lake, whose congealed waters have been so

RR

long familiar to the thirsty dwellers in the metropolis. It is a lovely sheet of water, one hundred and fifty feet above the river. On its southeastern borders, excepting where the village and ice-houses skirt it, are steep, rugged shores. Westward, a fertile country stretches away many a mile to rough hills and blue mountains. The lake is an irregular ellipse in form, half a mile in length, and three-fourths of a mile at its greatest width, and covers about five hundred acres. It is supplied by springs in its own bosom, and clear mountain brooks, and forms the head waters of the Hackensack river, which flows through New Jersey, and reaches the

salt water in Newark Bay. Near its outlet, upon a grassy peninsula, is the residence of Moses G. Leonard, Esq., seen in the picture; and in the distance, from our point of view, is seen the peak of the great Torn Mountain, back of Haverstraw. Along the eastern margin of the lake were extensive buildings for the storeage of ice in winter, at which time a thousand men were sometimes employed. The crop averaged nearly two hundred thousand tons a-year; and during the warm season, one hundred men were employed in conveying it to the river, and fifteen