of its having been issued, and there is as little doubt in the mind of the writer of its design and object.

Thanks, under Providence, to the manifeststion of popular indignation against the arbitrary, despotic and tyrannic course of the Administration for preserving the Prisoners of State from becoming lifeless victims of partisan malignity and of the tyranny of arbitrary power. The will to deprive them of life as they had been deprived of liberty, was not wanting; and nothing but the dread of popular retribution deterred the tyrants from consummating their designs.

MY FIRST SUNDAY IN THE OLD CAPITOL-THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO JEFF DAVIS, AND ACCORDING TO ABE LINCOLN.

While I sat musing on my situation, the first Sunday I spent in the Old Capitol, I was startled by the extraordinary exclamation which rang through every room in the Bastile, "All ye who want to hear the Lord God preached according to Jeff Davis, go down in the yard; and all who want to hear the Lord God preached according to Abe Lincoln, go down to No. 16."

"What in the world does that mean?" inquired

one of us.

By the time the inquiry was made, Superintendent Wood made his appearance at the door of our room, repeating the invitation to us which had been given at every room as he came along.

"Suppose," inquired one of us, "that we do not want to hear the Lord God preached according to either Jeff Davis or Abe Lincoln, what then, Mr. Wood ?"

Oh," accommodatingly replied the Superintendent, "you can stay in your room."

Mr. Wood the reader had as well be informed, is an infidel, or pretended to be, and he was no doubt sincere in his professions. So that it was not so much for any respect for Jeff Davis or even for Abe Lincoln that he invited the prisoners to hear the Lord God preached according to either of their standards, but out of pure disbelief in the Gospel itself, and to show his contempt both for the word of God and pity for any one who was so credulous as to believe in it.

The

And yet withal, Mr. Wood had a good heart when his better feelings were not thwarted by his prejudices, and especially by his partisan failings. When the dictates of humanity and the interests of party conflicted with each other, the struggle for mastery was often strong and violent in Mr. Wood. partisan generally had the best of it in the outset, but in due time passion became gratified, reason asserted its influence, and the finer feelings of the heart took possession of the man and influenced his actions.

But to the preaching. Although none of us cared to hear the Lord God blasphemed by a Jeff Davis or Abe Lincoln preacher, we all availed ourselves of the opportunity to take an airing in the yard. The preaching according to Jeff Davis was done by a hard shell Baptist, who delivered a sensible discourse on the causes which produced the existing difficulties. He attributed the war to the fanaticism, zealotry and bigotry of New England. To her temperance lecturers, her tract distributors, her missionary societies. These, he argued, were one of the exciting causes of the war as well as Abolitionism. New England, he said, assumed that all the rest of mankind and especially the people of the Southern States were living in ignorance of the knowledge

of God, and of the words and works of God, and she felt herself called on to be not only the instructress of all the world, but the guardian of the weak and chastiser of the wicked. Hence she sent her lecturers through the country declaiming against the immoralities of the South, when it was a statistical fact that there was more immorality in herself than in any other portion of the Union. She scattered her religious tracts throughout the South, not for the purpose of teaching the reader how to know and love God, but in a latent, insiduous manner, to teach the slaves how to become disobedient and rebellious towards their masters. Such was the conduct of New England, said the preacher according to Jeff Davis, towards the South, and it was such conduct which resulted in provoking the South to resent the injuries sought to be inflicted on her. If there was not much Gospel truth in the sermon, there was a considerable amount of fact in it, and the conclusions drawn by the preacher were such as accorded with the judgment of the audience.

As soon as the preacher was through with his discourse, the Superintendent, who liked neither the religious nor political sentiments of the speaker, called his attention to another text of Scripture, which says, "I did not come to present you with peace but with a sword." The sermon or discourse was founded on the beautiful hymn of the Angels, "Glory to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will," and it was both to show there was a contradiction in the word of God and to confound the preacher, that his attention was called to the other text: but the preacher was not at all disconcerted; on the contrary, he turned the tables upon the unbeliever and instrument of arbitrary power, showing him that the sword Christ referred to, was the word of God, which he was using with effect on just such persons as he and those in whose

employ he was, and who become the instruments of despotism and tyranny. The audience could scarcely refrain from applauding the preacher, for the aptness of his application of the text which, it was expected, would disconcert and confuse him. Thus ended the preaching of the Lord God according to Jeff Davis for that Sunday.

The preaching of the Gospel according to Abe Lincoln was done by an Abolitionist named Spears and his wife. Spears very charitably and disinterestedly (he was looking after a chaplaincy which he soon after secured) volunteered his Sunday services to carry the glad tidings of the gospel according to the fashion of the day, to the inmates of the Old Capitol. He was accompanied by his wife, one of those lank, skinny, cadaverous she-males to which nature in some of her freaks or blunders gave the sex of woman. Mrs. Spears not only spoke through her nose as most of her kind do, but when she did speak, she put a finger to her nose as if to make her nasal twang more perfect in her estimation, and more disagreeable to her hearers. She, of course, spoke first. It was with much difficulty that her audience refrained from a burst of laughter, so ludicrous was her tout ensemble and so impudently presumptuous was her address. She spoke but a few minutes, being satisfied no doubt that her efforts were not appreciated.

It was next the turn of her spouse who was a good match for her in every respect. He was an Abolitionist and a Preacher on the same principle that one is a shoemaker or other tradesman, it paid; and although he was but a very indifferent exponent either of Abolitionism or of the Gospel according to Abe Lincoln, he made up in presumption what he lacked in ability. This sermon, if such a farrago of cant and nonsense as he uttered could be so called, was a mixture of scripture quotations jum

bled together without application, and of suggestions to the prisoners that there was hope even for them in the Kingdom of Christ. The hypocritical knave! just as if the meanest person in the Old Capitol was not an Angel of light compared to him, who volunteered to give spiritual comfort to the inmates of the Bastile, only that attention might be attracted to his disinterested (?) services, and that he might be rewarded with what he was seeking to obtain, a chaplaincy to one of the City Hospitals, which of course, he succeeded in securing.

HOW THE PRISONERS WERE FED.

Prison fare in the Old Capitol-and it appears to have been much the same in Forts Lafayette, Warren and Delaware-consisted of bread, generally good, salt pork, and occasionally, fresh beef. The pork was of poor quality, and was worse by being badly kept and illy cooked. The beef was of such a quality that it was seldom eaten by those who had any means of procuring better, and who had the permission to do so. It was in appearance, when cooked-fried it generally was-like a piece of thick sole leather steeped in grease and subjected to the heat of the fire in an iron utensil. Those that had good teeth could masticate it with an effort, but, even then, they could not swallow it.

Under these circumstances, Prisoners of State and others who could afford it, clubbed together and formed messes in their rooms, and by the aid of Corporal Brown in the Old Capitol, procured such edibles as they could prevail on that functionary to purchase for them. The principal mess of this kind in the Old Capitol among the Prisoners of State was in Room No. 16. It included Judges Duff and