Page:Black Jacob, a monument of grace.djvu/30

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jacob hodges.

the State's prison, for the term of twenty one years. Another of the convicts had his sentence changed to imprisonment for life. The remaining two were executed according to the sentence of the court, on the 16th day of April, 1819.

Leaving the scaffold of these miserable felons, and this ruined and imprisoned woman, who had been instrumental in bringing misery and guilt upon a poor, ignorant African, we must follow him to his dreary cell in the penitentiary on Manhattan Island. These gloomy walls he now enters, a wretched outcast, a condemned murderer.

At this time but little attention was paid to the habits, education, or moral improvement of the inmates of our prisons generally. They were regarded more as places of punishment and means of restraint upon the lawless and desperately wicked, than as designed for instruction and moral influence. The idea of making them nurseries of education, means of moral reform, and sanctuaries for moral and