Litchfield enquirer., 1848-01-06
MlSDElILAYY.
From the Lndics .N N0f'onoI .Hdgdzine.
 POOr Johnny.
BY MRS. ANN 5. STEPHENS.

| |" Suffer little children to come unto me for
 such is rhe kingdom nf Heaver!' ABouT half an hours ride from tho thickly settled portions of New York, i: one ofthe most beautiful little islands tha you ever set eyes upon. Just where the banks or the EIst River are the mos, broken and picturesque on the main hoi> tom shore, and the sunny s|opes of Long l>land are the most verdant in their ar cadian beauty, the river opens it's bright waters and Blackwell's Island rises green, verdant, and beautiful from its az ure bt som. Beautiful. even now, is that island-hut it was more SD. years ago, when its hollows were fragrant with wild roses, haunted with bIack>birds and hrushcs-when it's shores were hemmed iN with the snow-white dog WOO! wild cherry and maple trees, joined together with scarlet ivy and thousand clinging vines, that even now hang along it's shores, like torn banners left on battle field. Then, the island must have seem- ct a miles length of Paradise chopped i;,o the watcrs-but now, alas. Black> wells Island has other inhabitants than the singing birds, and the sweet wild h ,ossoms It's eXireneticS are burdencd and crushed down, as 1t were, 10 Inc very waters edge, with an editice of massive stone, while human critRe and human misery are crowded togelher in masses appalling to reflect upon.
 ca one end of the island, naturally SO quiet and beautiful, rises rhe rugged walls of the Penitentiary, nanked by out>houses, hospitals, and offices, every s,one of which is eloquent of human degradation. Here, a thousand wre,ched beings, bowed with misery and braGdrd @ih crime, are crowded together. All tho day long, herds of these degraded beings may be seen in their coarse and faded uniform, burrowing in the earth, blasting and sha- ring the rocks that are to form new prison walls, and filling the sweet air with eroans and curses which once thrilled only 10 the Summer bird songs.
 At the other extremity of the island stands the Insane Asylum, beautiful pile, towering proudl. over.a scene ot misery that is enough to make the hear' humble with awe and sympathy. From its grated windows you may hear every sound, horrid or pathetic, in which the in> sane mind expresses its rawlings. At one window is wild face peeriug through the bars, and looking wistMlly at the pas-- ser by with eyes full of entreaty, and the wan hand waving fainter and fainter us the wild gesture is unheeded-trom an- other shrieks ring out upon the water, as the poor maniac calls for his mother to come out from the woods--a beautiful grove that rises ufnr of on the Long Is> land shore.
 Mo.her-mother, come, come, have waited-I have pi.aded-l have prayed for you to c.me. Mother mother!"
 This is the daily cry of poor Ger man boy. The fisherman hears 1t as he gIides by the walls of that gloomy mad house, and lifts his oar with sort of terror, as if his own freedom were .neckery 10 the poor creatures blocked in Ly those massive and iron built walls from the sweet sunny air-the passen> gers lbat float by in our palace s'earh> , boats sometimes heara wild shout rising even above the soise ot ,he engine, an0 sec an arm thrust wildly through the iron bars of the window where this boy IS confined-and in the still night. that cry of "molher, mother, come." rings over the woods-and dies in plaintive mur' murs amid the roar and turmoil of .Ieil Gate"
 Other sounds there are issuing from that dismal dweliing--cnrses that chill the blood-pleadingsssihat might mel: heart of s,one-wild, riotous laughter aud wit, often more keen and satir'ca than springs from the most brilliant ih' teIlect. Besides all this amount Of Ii' ing misery, every association, painful o' horrid, seems crowded 0: this beautiful 1 spot-there is little mound scarcely | stones throw from the wafer, and sur mounted by motely trimmed apple tree tha. looks like some pre,y h,llock, left oj the gardener as pleasant object 10 gree the poor maniac as he gazes from lh'
 window ut his cell. Quiet and 'erdah
 il seems, with the calm sunshine sieepin: on il, and the shadow of the slender tree
 peocilled delicaiely on the sward. as
 nothing less beautiful had ever touched i,s surface. Ye. that is the gallsws tree
 Under its young bougbs year after year
 was the fatal iimbers reared from wnic'
 one human soal alter another was rude
 ly thrust into eternity. That soft grass 1 SO bright and beautiful. has been irOddei
 over and over by the executionef. Those