GENERAL JAIL DELIVERY.

"I hits 'em first and reasons with 'em afterward." Officer Moore, of Chester County.

"GE

ENTLEMEN: I am here languishing. Yet, I wish to inform your honours respecting my present situation and the cruelty I have received from the Sheriff. If you do not see proper to cum personley to assist me, I beg you will send Some one as my Scul is fractured from a blow that the Sheriff gave me with a Bar of Iron; without cause or provocation he has committed this violence on me."

This old letter, dated May 3, 1821, signed by Thomas Vanderslice and addressed "to Judge Ross and Sociats," led me to investigate the condition of prisoners in Chester County from 1821 until 1840, when the new jail held its first "reception."

In 1792, and for several years followingas I have shown-the Sheriff offered his pris

oners every facility of escape compatible with a decent regard for public opinion and the retention of his office. Had thirty years developed a different type of Sheriff, with a disposition to repress their love of freedom and abridge their prescriptive rights? Let us see.

Six months after the date of Vanderslice's letter, the prisoners state, through the medium of a Grand Jury, that they are supplied with good bread and otherwise treated with that humane attention due to their several situations. A year or so later an evident inclination to narrow their opportunities of escaping appears by a recommendation that repairs be made "to the bars of the window at the northwest room upstairs."

No criticism, however, ought to attach to the Sheriff, for he seems not to have been insistent upon speedy reparation. At the August term of 1823 the Grand Jury expressly states that: "No improvements nor alterations are recommended by the Sheriff more than was reported by a former Grand Jury, which it is expected will be shortly accomplished."

November of that year found the prisoners "warm, clean, and healthy," but apparently

Jury gives us some idea of the ratio between the prisoners who were retaken and those who were not.

"It is true," so runs the report, “that no less than six of the prisoners, some of whom were imprisoned on charges of high crime, have recently escaped from the prison and but one has yet been retaken; but after a careful investigation and inquiry on the Subject the Grand Jury are free to say that no blame can justly attach to the Sheriff or his officers. Escapes have taken place under the administration of every Sheriff for many years past as we have been informed and each succeeding breach weakens the security of the prison."

Alas for the prisoners! the new jail is now "in a state of forwardness toward completion." In February, 1839, Thomas Walters, architect, is on hand prepared to explain its general construction "for safety, ventilation, and all the purposes for which it is designed," and in May of 1840 the Grand Jury that views it declares: "There is nothing wanting to insure the comfort and health of the prisoners, while the character of the workmanship is such as fully to secure the primary object of its erection -their safekeeping."

JUDGE DARLINGTON

"We turn round chairs to the fire."

Chuckle o'er increase of salary,
Taste the good fruits of our leisure,
Talk about pencil and lyre,

And the National Portrait Gallery."

BROWNING, A Likeness.

NE day, shortly after West Chester's

ONE

Centennial, while looking at the clearcut features of Judge Atlee, and reflecting on the flight of time, a visitor interrupted my meditations with the question:

"Pardon me, but which of these judges (pointing to their portraits) did I read about in my Souvenir ?”

"Really," I replied, "not having received one I am unable to say, unless you can relate the incident."

"It was a story of 'Ye Anciente Pounde' said he, "to which the burgess one evening committed a brindle bull. When morning dawned the gates of the pound were still locked but the bull was missing.

"The constable and burgess were angry because the law had been evaded and they had lost their fines and fees. So they went up to the old White Hall to talk it over, and one of these judges who was there said: 'May be the gates might have been lifted off their hinges.'

"When he was through, the burgess, a man by the name of Ehrenzeller, looked at him a moment and said: 'Yes, and you're the very man who suggested it.'

"Now which of these judges was it?"

"Frankly," I replied, "I cannot answer your question, but you can probably find out by consulting your Souvenir."

I sat down to read Longfellow's Keramos. In a half-hour he returned with the name of Darlington on his lips. I pointed him out. "Not that dignified gentlemen yonder!" said he in amazement.

"That is Judge Darlington," I said. "You have read Longfellow's Keramos, have you not?" I inquired; "If so, you know:

"All that inhabit this great earth,
Whatever be their rank or worth,
Are kindred and allied by birth
And made of the same clay.'"

Isaac Darlington was admitted to the Bar of Chester County at the early age of twenty.