perished. Where is Shadad-ibn-Aad and his host? They have perished. Where are Pharaoh, the accursed, and his host? They have perished. Where are Nimrod, son of Canaan, and his host? Where are the sons and daughters, fathers and mothers of the past idolaters? All perished. Where are your own fathers and mothers, ancient and modern? They also have all perished; and be assured that your end will be the same as theirs.

in

This passage in the manuscript is followed by several pages of fabulous names and dates professing to be historical, and extravagant accounts of animals, the heavenly bodies, etc., which mystical numbers are connected with childish errors and impossible events in great confusion. It would seem as if the author had endeavored to write on different subjects of which he once had read or heard, but, being far from his books, remembered correctly only the religious doctrines, which had made a clearer impression on his mind.

The following are extracts from the translation of a manuscript received from ex-President Roberts. This also is written with great elegance and correctness, the proper names being in red ink, and the points carefully marked. This manuscript occupies sixteen letter sheet pages; the other eighteen.

In the name of God, most merciful and gracious, may God bless our lord Mohammed.

Thanks be to God, who is worthy of all gratitude and praise, • the forgiver of sins, the possessor of the throne of glory, who created all things by himself, who created death and life, and created the earth and the heavens, and made all creatures in heaven and in the earth, who made the race of man from water; then he made the blood, the heart, and the bones, then he spread the flesh upon the bones, then he added the tendons. Then said God, (be he exalted,) who created you from the ground and from water, that we might show and confirm through mercy what we wish to every generation. . . . O ye people, know ye that God is merciful toward you; but that coming day will be terrible to the unbelievers, who live not as though there were a God, nor as if we were going to return to him. . . O ye people, fear God and serve your Lord. Do your good works before the dissolution of death. . . . That day, God has said, nothing will profit you but a pure heart. . . . Beware, yea, beware, lest you hear the truth without repenting, and thus debase yourself. If you are asleep, be roused; if you are ignorant, make inquiry; if you are forgetful, refresh your memory; for here are the learned, ready to instruct you; and, said he, on whom be peace, seek after knowledge. Well then, you may say, for example, give us a description of China, ye men of knowledge.

China. China is a distant country, so that, though you have

The

shoes of iron, they would be worn out before you reach it. name of the Sultan is Aivor. It is said that the journey between Medina and China is one of five years. Some say five hundred years. There are in China ten mountains. One of them has on it two trees, one of which can cover all the people of the country with its shadow; at the same time, if a single man seeks a shelter under it, the shadow covers him and no more. . . In China are found two kettles, in one of which they cook for all the inhabitants of the country, and they all eat their fill, and there is none too much. In the other they do cooking for strangers if they come among them, and they eat and are satisfied, and there is nothing over. There are in China two serpents, etc., etc.

After a few more such remarkable and incredible statements the writer says:

This account of China may possibly be considered a blemish on this book; but such is the character of the country, on the authority of the learned. .

He then commences a long and solemn appeal to the unknown person in whose name he had been requested to send something in writing, and whom he appears to have supposed to be ignorant of the first principles of religion, but for whom he feels an affectionate regard.

O my brother's son, do not join yourself with Satan, for Satan is your enemy, as God, the exalted, has said-for Satan is your enemy; and will you make partnership with your enemy? . . . O, my brother's son, let not the affairs of this life draw away your affections. Follow not the wind; do not deceive yourself, but be prepared, before sickness, or poverty, or old age engross your attention. God, the exalted, says, O man! who has set you against your Lord, who created, shaped, and adjusted you, and put you together in the form that pleased him? God, the exalted, says that the life of this world is of very little profit in the world

to come.

The following are extracts from a letter sent to "Old Paul" by a venerable old slave, long known at Fayetteville, N. C., and there called "Morro," in reply to one addressed to him, in 1836:

In the name of God, the compassionate, etc. I am not able to write my life. I have forgotten much of the language of the Arabs. I read not the grammatical, and but little of the common dialect. I ask thee, O brother, to reproach me not, for my eyes are weak, and my body also. [He was then about seventyone years of age.]

My name is Omar-ben-Sayeed. The place of my birth is Footah

Toro, between the two rivers. [Probably the Senegal and Gambia, or the Senegal and Niger, in their upper parts.] The teachers of Bundu-foota were a sheik, named Mohammed-Sayeed, my brother, and the sheik Soleyman Kimba, and the sheik JebraeelAbdel. I was teacher twenty-five years. There came a great army to my country. They killed many people. They took me to the sea, and sold me in the hands of the Christians, who bound me, and sent me on board of a great ship. And we sailed a month and half a month, when we came to a place called Charleston in the Christian language. Here they sold me to a small, weak, and wicked man named Johnson, a complete infidel, who had no fear of God at all. Now I am a small man, and not able to do hard work. So I fled from the hand of Johnson, and, after a month, came to a place where I saw some houses. On the new moon I went into a large house to pray; a lad saw me, and rode off to the place of his father, and informed him that he had seen a black man in the great house. A man named Handah, (Hunter,) and another man with him, on horseback, came, attended by a troop of dogs. They took me and made me go with them twelve miles, to a place called Faydill, (Fayetteville,) where they put me in a great house, from which I could not go out. I continued in the great house, which in the Christian language they call jail, sixteen days and nights. One Friday the jailer came and opened the door, and I saw a great many men, all of them Christians, some of whom called out, What is your name? I did not understand their Christian language.

A man called Bob Mumford took me and led me out of the jail, and I was very well pleased to go with them to their place. I staid at Mumford's four days and nights, and then a man named Jim Owen, son-in-law of Mumford, who married his daughter Betsy, asked me if I was willing to go to a place called Bladen. I said yes, I was willing. I went with them, and have remained on the place of Jim Owen until now.

O people of North Carolina! O people of South Carolina! O people of America, all of you! you have a righteous man among you named James Owen, and with him John Owen. These are pious men. All that they ate I ate; as they dressed I dressed. James and his brother read to me the Gospel. God our Lord, our creator, our king, the arbiter of our condition, the bountiful, opened to my heart the right way.

The translator remarked as follows on the style of writing in the manuscript:

The narrative is very obscure in language, the writer, as he himself declares, being ignorant of the grammatical forms. ... It is written in a plain and, with few exceptions, very legible Moghrebby, or western Arabic character. . . . It affords an idea of the degree of education among the Moslem blacks, when we see a man like this able to read and write a language so different

from his own native tongue. Where is the youth, or even the adult, among the mass of our people who is able to do the same in Latin or Greek?

By a fortunate incident the writer of one of the first-mentioned manuscripts from Liberia added at the end half a page in some language unknown to the translator, but doubtless some African tongue; thus affording evidence of the interesting fact, so little known in our country, that native languages are written in Arabic characters.

ART. VI. THE PRISON ASSOCIATION OF NEW YORK. THE Society whose name stands at the head of this article has completed the nineteenth year of its existence and labors. During all that period it has pursued a career of quiet and unobtrusive but effective beneficence, and has received the benedictions of thousands who were ready to perish, but have been reclaimed, redeemed, and restored to themselves, to society, and to virtuous and useful industry through its agency. We propose in the present paper, of necessity, in a very summary way, to trace the history of this excellent and worthy organization, and to show both what it proposes and what it has accomplished in the improvement of our penal institutions, and in the reformation and elevation of the degraded, vicious, and fallen portion of humanity.

The Association has published eighteen Annual Reports, and the nineteenth will doubtless be issued in a few days. These embody, besides a connected history of its own labors, numerous letters, speeches, and essays of unsurpassed ability, and of the highest authority, on all the great questions connected with prison discipline, prison reform, and the administration of penal justice. It would be difficult, we think, to find a collection of papers on topics of this nature more philosophical in their cast, more comprehensive in their range of inquiry and discussion, more enlightened and liberal in their doctrines, more humane in their spirit, more vigorous in conception, more classical in style, or better adapted to elevate, improve, and render effective, in the production of the noblest

results, the administration of criminal law and penal justice. It is, as a matter of course, this series of reports which we make the basis of the present article.

The Prison Association owes its origin to the Board of Prison Inspectors of the State of New York, who, in November, 1844, through their president, Hon. John W. Edmonds, issued a card in the public papers, setting forth the occasion and necessity for such an organization. This card was accompanied by a call for a public meeting, signed by many of the most eminent citizens of New York, among whom may be mentioned Benjamin F. Butler, William Kent, John Duer, Ogden Hoffman, Daniel Lord, James Harper, John A. Dix, Robert B. Minturn, and the Rev. Drs. James Milnor, Gardiner Spring, Jonathan W. Wainwright, and Orville Dewey.

The proposed meeting was held on the evening of December 6 ensuing, the Hon. Wm. T. M'Coun, Vice-Chancellor of the State, presiding. As soon as the meeting had been organized Judge Edmonds submitted the following resolution, namely:

Resolved, That it is expedient to form, in the city of New York, a Prison Association, and that a committee be appointed by the Chair to report to this meeting a form of such association, and a nomination of suitable officers therefor.

Judge Edmonds supported his resolution in a lucid and able address. He presented a mass of interesting and instructive facts and statistics, gathered during his service as State Prison Inspector. He showed the almost insuperable difficulties encountered by discharged convicts in obtaining employment; the fearful alternative presented to them by society to starve or steal, and the well-nigh irresistible temptation thence arising to continue in a career of evil doing; the abundant streams of crime issuing from poverty, ignorance, sudden temptation, evil associations, youthful inexperience, insanity, and mental imbecility; the hardening and degrading influence of severity, and the softening, elevating, reformatory effect of kindness in the treatment of prisoners; the necessity and good results of the classification of convicts, and of their instruction as well in secular as religious knowledge; the hopeful nature of the work contemplated by the new organiza