Hence no stigma is attached to them for having been the inhabitants of a prison.

It may be observed also, that some of the most orderly and industrious, and such as have worked at the most profitable trades, have had sums of money to take on their discharge, by which they have been able to maintain themselves honestly, till they could get into employ.
Such is the state, and such the manner of the execution of the penal laws of Pennsylvania, as founded upon Quaker-principles, so happy have the effects of this new system already been, that it is supposed it will be adopted by the other American States.
May the example be universally followed! May it be universally received as a truth, that true policy is inseparable from virtue; that in proportion as principles become lovely on account of their morality, they will become beneficial, when acted upon, both to individual and to States; or that legislators cannot raise a constitution upon so fair and firm a foundation, as upon the gospel of Jesus Christ! CHAP.

II.
_Monthly court or meeting--constitution of this meeting--each county is usually divided into parts--in each of these parts or divisions are several meeting-houses, which have their several congregations attached to them--one meeting-house in each division is fixed upon for transacting the business of all the congregations in that division--deputies appointed from every particular meeting or congregation in each division to the place fixed upon for transacting the business within it--nature of the business to be transacted--women become deputies, and transact business, equally with the men._ I come, after this long digression, to the courts of the Quakers.

And here I shall immediately premise, that I profess to do little more than to give a general outline of these.

I do not intend to explain the proceedings, preparatory to the meetings there, or to state all the exceptions from general rules, or to trouble the memory of the reader with more circumstances than will be sufficient to enable him to have a general idea of this part of the discipline of the Quakers.
The Quakers manage their discipline by means of monthly, quarterly, and yearly courts, to which, however they themselves uniformly give the name of meetings.
To explain the nature and business of the monthly or first of these meetings, I shall fix upon some county in my own mind, and describe the business, that is usually done in this in the course of the month.