From hence we proceeded to the female department, where about eighty were assembled, some of whom seemed much affected by an address from my friend, Lewis Tappan.  He told them he saw at least one present who had been a scholar in his colored Sabbath School at New York.  The white women were placed in the front seats, and the colored behind them.  We next went to the Sabbath School for the male prisoners, held in the chapel, where the attendance is general, though perfectly voluntary.  Twenty-five of the best educated and most orderly prisoners are allowed to teach classes:  the other teachers were officers of the prison, and other persons attracted hither by benevolent motives; and I was told the teachers selected among the convicts had not once been detected in the abuse of this privilege, by entering into conversation on other topics.  On the breaking up of the school, Lewis Tappan addressed them, and I added a few words.  We were kindly invited to dine with the matron.  She mentioned one instance of complete reformation in a female, which was to be attributed she believed, under the Divine blessing, to the ministry of Joseph J. Gurney, who visited Sing Sing, in the course of his religious labors in the United States.

After dinner we were permitted to visit the male prisoners at their cells, list shoes being provided for us that we might walk along the galleries without noise.  Those who wished to do so, were suffered to speak to us through their grated doors, in a low voice.  A number embraced this opportunity; of the sincere repentance and reformation of some of whom, I could scarcely doubt.  One prisoner, a man of color, appeared to enjoy a state of perfect happiness, under a sense of being at peace with his Maker.  Another manifested such a feeling of his spiritual blessings, and especially of that change of heart he had been favored to experience, as scarcely to have a desire for his liberation, though his health was visibly sinking under the confinement, and there appeared little other prospect but that of his dying in the prison, as he had been condemned for ten years, of which three yet remained.  Several were Englishmen, who were mostly under feigned names, keeping their real names secret, from a natural unwillingness to disgrace their families.  Some of these were men of education, and communicated to me in confidence their family names.  One referred to gentlemen standing deservedly high in the estimation of the British public, as well knowing him.  Two or three of this class wept much, when speaking of their situation, and of the offences that had brought them there.

I gathered from the prisoners themselves that a great change had been introduced, both in the affairs and in the management of the prison, within the last eighteen months, by the present excellent superintendent and chaplain and their coadjutors, and with the happiest effects.  The former system was one of brutal severity; now, without any relaxation of discipline, needless severity is discarded, and the floggings have been reduced nine-tenths, the great object being the reformation of the prisoners.  One of these, speaking of the superintendent and chaplain, said:  “there was not a prisoner in the jail, but rejoiced to hear the sound of their feet.”