The occupants of the County Prison cells are of the following kind:—
_The First Class._—Those committed for vagrancy, breach of the peace, drunkenness, and disorderly conduct.
_Second Class._—Persons charged with violation of the laws, whose cases are to be decided by the Criminal Court.
_Third Class._—Persons sentenced to short imprisonment, and the payment of fines and costs.
_Fourth Class._—Those convicted of crimes of a high character, and sentenced to confinement and labor. And we may add a
_Fifth Class._—Formed of those already mentioned, who, having been sentenced to death by the Court, are yet detained in prison by the withholding of the death-warrant for their Execution, or of the pardon which would ensure their release.
With all these the Society has relations by means of the Committee on the County Prison, and to prevent interference in labors, and to secure attendance at all the cells, the Committee is divided into classes, to each of which is assigned a particular division of the prison, though a member of the Committee is permitted to visit the inmates of any of the cells, in addition to those specially assigned him. But it can scarcely be doubted that where one visitor is punctual and faithful in his labors, the interference of others may rather tend to disturb the mind of prisoners than to aid them in the new path of duty upon which they have hesitatingly entered. Such matters are, of course, left to the judgment of visitors, who can easily discern when the ground is fully occupied by a successful laborer. Too much culture is said to be almost as fatal to vegetation as entire neglect. Frequency of interference by persons of varied habits and different modes of approaching the prisoner, can scarcely be productive of good, although each one separately operating, might, with God’s blessing, work out an incalculable amount of improvement.
The laborers at the County Prison are not so numerous as at the Penitentiary, in proportion to the number and character of the inmates. The County Prison is a less desirable field of labor. At the Penitentiary the inmates have a fixed and protracted residence, and may be approached by the same teacher so long as hopes are entertained that “the continual dropping” of moral truths “will wear the stone” of his heart. And his separation from those whose language or presence might encourage his resoluteness in wrong intention, leaves him almost entirely within the influence of those whose duty and pleasure it is to make his banishment from bad society the means of his reformation.