The Hillsborough Recorder

A Lesson in Tenderness.-I once asked John W. Edmonds, one of the inspectors of Sing Sing Prison, how it was that a Wall-street lawyer, brought into sharp collision with the world, had preserved so much tenderness of heart. "My mother was a Quakeress," said he, "and a serious conversation she had with me when I was four years old, has affected my whole life. I had joined some boys who were tormenting a kitten. We chased her, and threw stones at her, till we killed her. When I came into the house I told my mother what we had done. She took me on her lap and talked to me in such a moving style about my cruelty to the poor helpless little animal, that I sobbed as if my heart would break. Afterwards, if I were tempted to do anything unkind, she would allude to how sorry I was for having hurt the little kitten. For a long time after I would not think of it without tears. I impressed it so deeply that when I became a man I could never see a fellow creature suffering wretched run down by bad fellow without thinking of that hunted and pelted little beast. Even now the ghost of the kitten, and the recollection of my dear mother's gentle lessons, come between me and the proprieties of Sing Sing, and forever admonish me to be humane and forbearing."