The number of inmates is small; only twelve can be received. The business of the asylum is conducted by a committee, including two ministers, a physician, three female overseers, and a matron. The overseers are respectable married women or widows, who voluntarily undertake the duties of a sub-committee. They assume the direction of the household affairs alternately for a month each. They meet frequently at the house, assist in Divine service, and take care of the girls who are discharged. These are provided with situations or placed in business, and require to be upheld and maintained in their new character.
The chaplain assists the ladies’ committee in their duties, but directs his energies particularly to the religious instruction of the inmates. Frequent meetings for prayer are held, and every half year the sacrament is administered to such as he deems duly prepared to receive it, and who have a competent knowledge of its importance and efficacy.
To be qualified for admission, the applicant must be young, and must have a desire to amend. The limited room will not allow the reception of old or worn-out women, who would flock there in crowds to obtain a shelter under which they could die in peace. When a woman’s application is granted, she must go through a novitiate of four or eight weeks. During this time she works and eats with the other inmates, but sleeps alone, and is closely watched by a member of the committee. When her novitiate expires and she is fully received, she is requested to give an explicit account of her life, every particular of which is recorded. Her name is not disclosed to her companions, but she, as are all the others, is known only by a Christian name.
The women are employed in all kinds of housework, needlework, or, when practicable, in any manner which will accustom them to continued physical exertion. Their previous life having made indolence almost “second nature,” this course is adopted to inculcate the necessity of industry. A strict account of the produce of their labor is kept, and a portion is set apart as a fund for their benefit.
The time of their stay is usually about two years. When they leave they give the chaplain a written promise of good conduct, and receive from him a Bible and a Prayer-book, and the sum of money accumulated for them. The results of this benevolent attempt are sufficient to encourage the laborers in the good work, and we can not but think that their endeavors must be productive of great good, based as they are upon the sound principle of receiving but a few women, and treating them as members of one family, in opposition to the general theory of such institutions, whose managers attempt to crowd in as large a number as a large building will contain, and, in the endeavor to generalize rules for reformation, lose the valuable opportunities for noticing and acting upon individual traits of character.
The particulars of the subsequent life of twenty women are given as follows:
| Continued faithful to their promises | 6 | |
| Removed from where they were placed | 10 | |
| Relapsed into vice, only | 1 | |
| Died | 1 | |
| Unknown | 2 | |
| Total | 20 |
CHAPTER XVII.
PRUSSIA.