around in society, exposed to every abuse blind, that more were prepared for this and hardship, at once, than be made drones. class. It is very evident, from the Report, and A singular fact developed in the treatfrom the facts, that this system with the ment of the blind, is, that the purblind, operatives does not work well. The plan that is, those seeing dimly, are always inprofessed is, if the blind laborer does not ferior in the classes and school-learning support himself, to turn him away. But, to the blind, though with vastly more in practice, when once a blind man is liv knowledge of the external world. Dr. ing in the buildings, it is very difficult for Howe, if we are informed correctly, exany kindly-disposed officer to send him

plains this, by supposing the disease which out in the world. The consequence is, injured their sight, has likewise softened that each one is sure of his support, and the brain. Mr. Cooper, more philosophihas no especial stimulus to exertion. The cally, as it seems to us, supposes that they greatest wrong which can be done to a man have just sight enough to weaken the is inflicted-independence is weakened. power of concentration, which so remarkIt is found in this Asylum, that the most ably distinguishes the blind, and not industrious are those who are able to lay enough to give them the usual perceptions, by something from their earnings, and which form the basis of the thoughts of the idle are invariably those who do not

the seeing quite pay for their board. Assured of The system of study in the Institution their support, they have neither the fear includes the higher philosophical studies, of want, nor the hope of gain before them. along with the common English branches. The only remedy, evidently, is to put the Music is especially made much of. The manufacturing branch on the same footing Library, though the variety is small, conwith ordinary establishments of the kind, tains 700 volumes in raised type. to pay the laborer for what he does, and The New-York Institution for the Deaf to make his comforts depend on his exer and Dumb was incorporated by the Letions. This can be done, with every al gislature of the State in April, 1817, and lowance to the defect of the blind, by went into operation during the spring of making the wages a certain fixed 'rate the next year. For eight or nine years, higher than is paid other workmen, and the School of the Institution was kept in by compelling them to seek homes else the Alms House, better known now as where.

the new City Hall, and the pupils lived The same difficulty occurred to the cele with their teachers in different parts of brated philanthropist, Dr. Howe, of Bos the city. In 1828, several lots of ground, ton, as mentioned in his Report of 1850 bounded by the Fourth and Fifth avenues. to the Trustees of the Massachusetts and 48th and 50th streets, were leased of Asylum for the Blind." If we have the city Corporation for a trifling rent by heard correctly, he has since made a the Society, and the edifice which now change similar to the one suggested here. constitutes the main building of the Asy

For the proper training of the blind, it lum, was erected thereon at the cost of is plain that three hours a day of manual $31,000, labor cannot be sufficient. No man can As it stood originally, it was 110 feet be a hard-working man on such slender long and 60 feet deep, and four stories preparation. Labor will always be a bur high. It became necessary, however, in den, and will not be persevered in, except 1824, to add a fifth story, and in 1838 by those of great force of character. The two wings were built on the northern habit of continuous muscular toil is the side of the Asylum, at right angles to it. hardest possible to acquire by people of In 1846 two wings more were added, sedentary habits, and needs great previous each 85 feet long and 35 feet deep. These practice.

were provided with spacious sitting-rooms In the teaching of the blind, it is pro and dormitories, which had long been bable that the oral mode must always be needed. the most generally used. It is a slow The Asylum has now a front of 210 work with the quickest-gaining ideas by feet on 50th-street-the extreme depth of the touch of the fingers. There are so the wings being 90 feet. The arrangemany crude conceptions to remove in the ment within is very convenient: the builddarkened intellect—so much, familiar to ing, also, being thoroughly ventilated and the youngest seeing child, which, with the neatly kept. It is lighted with gas, manblind, must be laid first as a foundation, ufactured on the premises, and is warmed before a step can be taken ; that “word in winter by means of hot-air furnaces. of mouth" must be the great and efficient A handsome lawn surrounds the Asylum, method of reaching their minds. It is in which the pupils take their exercise. much to be desired, however, judging There is a vegetable garden besides, where from the meagre list of books for the the table is supplied.

During the last year, there were 260 avenue; the Female Magdalen Asylum, pupils within the Institution. Most of in Yorkville, between 88th and 89th these are supported by the City and streets, and the House of Industry, in State of New York and the State of New the Five Points, conducted by the Rev. Jersey. The income of the Society for MR. Pease. the same period, was little more than The Home was formed in 1845, by $12,000. Its expenditures were $5,200 private subscription, by the Female Demore than its receipts. In addition to this partment of the Prison Association, as a deficiency, it is in debt about $10,000. place of refuge to the female prisoner,

Five hours a day are devoted to school when her time at Blackwell's Island was exercises. The pupils are taught to read expired. Hitherto the released woman, and write, and the higher branches of whatever her better resolutions might be, history, geography and grammar.

Three was at once, on leaving the prison-boat, or four hours are spent in some mechani dragged away to her old haunts. She cal employment. The males are taught had no hoine, no friends who would shelcabinet-making, book-binding, tailoring, ter the convict, no money, -and, with the shoemaking or gardening. The females harpies always on the watch, the end was dress-making, and the folding or stitch inevitable. ing of books. The school-division is in It was hoped, in this Asylum, to pro13 classes, each having its own school vide for a short time a home, where the ' room and teacher. Religious exercises are woman could be busied in steady labor, carefully observed. In the morning, a and be brought under calm religious inpassage of Scripture, written upon slates, fluences, until a place was found for her is explained in signs by the President or at a distance. one of the Professors; and then prayer There have been, on an average, about is offered in the same language. In the 100 members of this Institution, annually ; evening, they are questioned on the expla- during 1852, 166 were received. The innation of the morning.

mates, at any one time, average about 30. The course of instruction is carried out

The only condition of admission is a soras thoroughly as the means of teaching row for what has been, and a desire to do yet discovered will allow. Most of the better hereafter. From the statements of peculiar excellences of this Institution may the Report, it would appear that about be ascribed, without doubt, to the con fifty per cent. of all inmates received, stant and laborious efforts of its President, have started on a better course of life. the Rev. MR. PEET.

The Magdalen Female Asylum has a The Prison Association of New York similar object with the above Institution. was established December 6th, 1844; and Among its' seventy inmates, during the incorporated May 9th, 1846. Its general last year, it reports six dismissed at their office is at No. 15 Centre-street. The ob own request, and only six expelled. jects of this Society are the melioration Eight have been sent to the hospital, and of the condition of prisoners, the improve all the others, so far as is known, are doment of prison discipline, and the encour ing well. In the labor performed by the agement of released convicts, by supply women, it acknowledges $100, as accruing them with honest work. Since its ing from needle-work alone. organization, it has relieved 977 prisoners, Mr. Pease's Institution, at the Five of whom 225 are reckoned as “doing Points, dates only from 1848 ; but, thus well;" 470 as hopeful ; 126 as doubtful; far, is incomparably the most successful 19 as returned to prison; and 137 as un of any of these. It was opened by his known.

discovering, in mission-labors through The class of Charitable Institutions that district, that preaching and tracts with which we shall close our article, is were of little use to these women, unless one of which little is known by the pub some home, and some chance for honest lic, and yet one which is as generous and work could be given them. He accordpitiful in its purpose, and as solidly suc ingly hired and cleaned a notorious brothcessful in its results, as any other of the el, and received a few women as regular city. We speak of the various Institu inmates, giving them shirt-making as an tions to raise up the fallen and degraded employment.

employment. The Missionary Society, woman; to give her hope and character which had engaged him, considered this again before the world. A difficult task, as unsuitable occupation for a minister of from which the refined shrink, the other the Gospel, and abandoned him. The wise benevolent turn away in skepticism, work done, though in no case ever stolen and which the world in general regard as or designedly injured, was too poorly done a romantic effort of philanthropy. The to be sold. Mr. Pease was not discourAsylums devoted to this object are the aged, but through these and a thousand Home” for female convicts, in Tenth

obstacles

worked patiently and good

HIS

OUR OWN,
WANDERINGS AND PERSONAL ADVENTURES.

Πολλών δ' ανθρώπων δην αστεα και νοον έγνω.
Quae regio in terris NOSTRI non plena laboris !
Full many cities he hath seen and many great men known:
What placo on earth but testifies the labors of OUR OWN!

Continued from page 535.

PROGRESSION E.
Our own unfolds another coll

Or bis portentous tale,
And shows tbe torture and the toil

Or riding on a rail.
I

LEFT East Haddam by the train-a mode of torture worse

Than any Dante conjured up—the case I will rehearse :
I found the car, then, occupied (I got in rather late,
And 'twas hermetically closed) by victims fifty-eight,
Each one of whom looked headachy and parboiledy and pale,
Having less air a-piece, perhaps, than Jonah in his whale ;
They seemed a troop of convict souls let out in search of bail
And, lest they inight a mouthful get of unbedevilled air,
A Stygian sheriff's officer went with them every where,
Whose duty was to see that they no atmosphere should know
Cooler than that which Minos' tail had doomed them to below:
In shape he seemed a kind of stove, but by degrees my head
Was squeezed into an iron cap and screwed tils I was dead
(Or thought I was), and then there came strange lights into my brain,
Ànd 'neath his thin sheet-iron mask the tipstaff imp was plain.
At intervals another fiend-by mortals Brakeman hight-
Would rouse his fellow-torturer into a fierce delight,
Punching his ribs, and feeding him with lumps of anthracite ;
The demon's single eye grew red, and with unholy glee
Exulted as it shrivelled up the very soul in me.
I would have shrieked a maniac shriek, but that I did not dare;
I thought of turning madly round, and seizing by the hair
A soul unblest that sat by me, only somehow

I got
A notion that his treacherous scalp would prove to be red-hot.
I sprang to raise the window, but a female spirit of ill
Who all the space around her soured, sharp-nosed, close-lipped, and still,
(A vinegar-cruet incarnate) said, “No gentleman would place
A lady in a thorough-draught that had a swollen face !"
If you have ever chanced to bite a nice unripe persimmon,
You'll have some notion of her tone, but still a faint and dim one
No patent stove can radiate a chill more like the pole
Than such a lady, whose each act true views of grace control,
In doubt about her bonnet-box, secure about her soul.
Thenceforward all is phantasm dire; I dimly recollect
A something 'twixt a nose and voice that said “ 'most there, I 'xpect,"
Heavens! almost WHERE? a pang, a flash of fire through either eye shoots,
And I looked momently to see the last scene of Der Frieschutz ;
The bland conductor will become that flame-clad individual
Who stamping, Earth will gape, and “ Gentlemen, I bid you all,"
He'll shriek, "to lava tea at six," then crashing through the floor
With a strong smell of brimstone, - but all swam, I saw
Only I vaguely seem to have seen the attendant fiend excite
His principal with further pokes and lumps of anthracite,
While faces featureless as dough, looked on serene and placid,
And nine and fifty pair of lungs evolved carbonic acid.
There was a scream, but whether 'twas the engine, or the last
Wild prayer for mercy of those eight and fifty as they passed
Down to their several torturings in deepest Malebolge,
As I myself am still in doubt, can't certainly be told ye ;
I only know they vanished all, the silent ghastly crew,
But whither, how, why, when, -these things I never fully knew;
I stood with carpet-bag in hand, when the strange spell unbound me.
And five score yelling cabmen danced their frenzied war-dance round me.

no more,

PROGRESSION F.
Our own, howe'er with Byron's verse

He may enchanted be,
Finds that he likes the ocean worse,

When trying it per se.
When I was a beggarly boy,

And lived in a cellar damp,
I had not a friend nor a toy,

But I had Aladdin's lamp;
When I could not sleep for cold,

I had fire enough in my brain,
And built, with a roof of gold,

My beautiful castles in Spain !
Since then I have toiled day and night,

I have money and power good store,
But I'd give all my lamps of silver bright

For the one that is mine no more;
Take, Fortune, whatever you choose,

You gave, and may snatch again ;
I have nothing 'twould pain me to lose,

For I own no more castles in Spain !
So mused-a poet, quite as wise as either you or I,
Coughing with dust. as Crassus' coach rolled smoothly-swinging by ;
And, if I understand his thought, which may be sonething trite,
He was (which for a poet's much) within two-thirds of right;
Fond yonth, bc abstinent, pall nut that Hesperidean fruit,
One bite, and you repent too late, and lame your jaw to boot:
Thank God for the Unattainable, it leaves you still a boy,
The wishing for the wishing-cap is that which makes the joy ;
Privation gives their charm to things, the glory and the grace,
Beckon and flee-ah, fool, that would'st their frozen zones embrace !
In winter, summer seems most fair, and what enchantment glows
In August o'er those mountain-peaks, ermined with rounding snows!
The frozen Samoiede makes his heaven a place of endless fire,
And, when kind fortune heaps the board, to glut the soul's desire,
Apicius Bufo starves and sighs, and wonders what it means.-
Nectar? Ambrosia ?—hum, so-so, but no pig's head and greens ?
And thou, oh hero, who hast climbed to scarce-dreamed fame and power,
Think'st only of a little mound which dusky yews embower,
And, sighing, musest what are all these idle sands to me
Since those blue eyes are closed with dust that should be here to see ?
Ah, happy eyes that shut so soon, ye only have the might
To keep undimmed the olden spell, for ever warm and bright!
Had village Alice lived, poor fool, thou would'st without remorse
Be sighing for a bride of State, and planning a divorce. ·
This train of thought I've fallen on, far out here on the sea,
Coiled up, half-frozen underneath the weather-bulwark's lee.
And (faith that last wave soused me through)—and writing on my knee;
The application of it is, that when you're on the land
The sea is every thing that's bright, and broad, and blue, and grand,
And that you'd change what Wordsworth calls your glorious second berth
(Now that you've tried it) a grave, because 'twould be firm earth;
Perhaps in some October night, when the roused south o'erwhelms,
With surge on surge rolled gathering down the night, the shuddering elms,
You have lain fancying what wild joy there must be in the motion
Of a brave vessel plunging through the broken coils of ocean;
Your mind ran forth and back again, like a fly-watching spider,
Upon that line in Byron of the steed' that knows its rider,
And, in your bath next morning, you splash with double glee,
Humming, dear Barry Cornwall's song—the sea ! the o-pen sea!
I wish that Barry and Byron both were only here with me!
All well enough this sentiment and stuff upon the shore,
But, when the sea is smoothest, 'tis an Erymanthian bore,
And when ʼtis rough, my brace of bards, you'd neither of you sing
Of hands on manes, or blue and fresh, but quite another thing, -