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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Eighteen Months' Imprisonment, by Donald
+Shaw, Illustrated by Wallis Mackay
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Eighteen Months' Imprisonment
+
+
+Author: Donald Shaw
+
+
+
+Release Date: January 26, 2014  [eBook #44755]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHTEEN MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT***
+
+
+This ebook was transcribed by Les Bowler
+
+                         [Picture: Volume Cover]
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+              [Picture: Crowd scene—Horse-drawn Prison Van]
+
+
+
+
+
+                             EIGHTEEN MONTHS’
+                               IMPRISONMENT
+
+
+                            (WITH A REMISSION)
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                    BY
+                                  D—  S—
+
+                           LATE CAPTAIN — REGT.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                      _ILLUSTRATED BY WALLIS MACKAY_
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  LONDON
+
+                        GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS
+                          BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL
+
+                       NEW YORK: 9 LAFAYETTE PLACE
+
+                                   1883
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                  LONDON
+              BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                CHAPTER I
+                                     PAGE
+MY ARREST                               1
+               CHAPTER II
+THE HOUSE OF DETENTION                 12
+               CHAPTER III
+“SETTLING DOWN”                        20
+               CHAPTER IV
+“PRISON FARE”                          31
+                CHAPTER V
+GEORGINA                               41
+               CHAPTER VI
+BOW STREET                             48
+               CHAPTER VII
+NEWGATE                                54
+              CHAPTER VIII
+THE SCAFFOLD                           67
+               CHAPTER IX
+A PRIVATE EXECUTION                    75
+                CHAPTER X
+“NEWGATE ETIQUETTE”                    88
+               CHAPTER XI
+THE TITLED CONVICT                     98
+               CHAPTER XII
+THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT            113
+              CHAPTER XIII
+“CORPULENCY”                          122
+               CHAPTER XIV
+COLDBATH FIELDS                       138
+               CHAPTER XV
+“OAKUM” LET US SING                   159
+               CHAPTER XVI
+THE VISITING JUSTICES                 191
+              CHAPTER XVII
+PRISON TRADES                         203
+              CHAPTER XVIII
+THE OUTER WORLD                       218
+               CHAPTER XIX
+THE CONVALESCENT WARD                 228
+               CHAPTER XX
+CRIMINAL LUNATICS                     248
+               CHAPTER XXI
+PRISON CELEBRITIES                    256
+              CHAPTER XXII
+THE TREAD-WHEEL                       270
+              CHAPTER XXIII
+GARDENING                             282
+              CHAPTER XXIV
+THE CHURCH MILITANT IN PRISON         293
+               CHAPTER XXV
+THE HOSPITAL DEAD-HOUSE               310
+              CHAPTER XXVI
+BURGLARS “I HAVE MET”                 335
+              CHAPTER XXVII
+“JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY”         351
+             CHAPTER XXVIII
+RETROSPECT                            361
+
+LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
+
+                                                                               PAGE
+1.—“BLACK MARIA”                                                    _Frontispiece_.
+2.—A CHEERFUL GROUP                                                              60
+3.—“SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?”                                          63
+4.—THE EFFECTS OF A WARM BATH AT “COLDBATH”                                     141
+5.—A CELL, 8 A.M.                                                               161
+6.—A CELL, 8 P.M.                                                               178
+7. —A TYPICAL TURNKEY                                                           205
+(_a_) _Its Normal Expression_.
+(_b_) _Corroborative Evidence_.
+8.—COUNTING                                                                     241
+9.—“NEGATIVES KEPT”                                                             271
+10.—GARDENING—“SOMETHING APPROACHING”                                           282
+11.—GARDENING—“THE LINE CLEAR”                                                  287
+12.—WHENCE COMEST THOU, GEHAZI? (AN EXHORTATION TO REPENTANCE)                  333
+
+CHAPTER I.
+“MY ARREST.”
+
+
+ON a dreary afternoon in November, cheerless and foggy as befitted the
+occasion, and accompanied by that gentle rain which we are told “falleth
+on the just and on the unjust,” I suddenly, though hardly unexpectedly,
+found myself in the hands of the law, as represented by a burly policeman
+in a waterproof cape and a strong Somersetshire accent.  The
+circumstances that led up to this momentous change can be briefly
+described.  I had gone to the office of a solicitor—one White, with whom
+I had had previous monetary transactions—with reference to a new loan on
+a bill of exchange; and it must be distinctly understood that any
+allusions I may make to this individual’s vocations are not to be
+misinterpreted, for I have the highest respect for his integrity and
+aptitude for business, legal or otherwise, and cannot but admire (as I’m
+sure every honest reader will) the horror with which any dishonest act
+inspired him, which, though it did not deter him from conscientiously
+completing the transaction as a matter of business, was equally swift in
+retributive justice, and condemnatory (to use his own expression) of
+compounding a felony.  Mr. White, in short, is a money-lender, who, in
+addition to the advantages derivable from his legal assistance, is always
+prepared on undoubted security—such as a bill of sale or a promissory
+note—to make cash advances at the rate of 240 per cent.  I am justified
+in quoting this as the gentleman’s rate of interest, for I paid him £5
+for a loan of £45 for fourteen days, a transaction that his cheque on a
+Holborn bank will testify.  The only marvel that suggests itself to my
+mind is, that a person who is so scrupulous in refusing to “compound a
+felony,” as he termed it when he assisted in involving me in the meshes
+of the law, should retain the ill-gotten and usurious sum of £5 one
+moment after he was aware (as he has been for a year) that it was the
+proceeds of a forgery.  But perhaps I am wronging the worthy man; he may
+have subscribed it towards the Hunt he honours with his patronage, or
+have paid it as his subscription to the London and Discounty Club, to
+which, I presume, he belongs.
+
+At first sight this rate of interest may appear somewhat high, but a
+moment’s reflection will dispel the idea.  Here was a gentleman, a member
+of the honourable profession of the law—one who (as he told me) actually
+hunted with Her Majesty’s hounds, and, for aught I know, may have been
+honoured with a nod from the Master of the Buckhounds—one, moreover, who
+occasionally dined with impecunious Irish lords, with whom he had
+transacted business, and talked of such aristocratic clubs as the
+“Wanderers’” and the “Beaconsfield” with as much _sang-froid_ and a
+degree of familiarity such as you and I, gentle reader, might refer to
+the “Magpie and Stump” at Holloway, and which to me at the time was truly
+appalling; here, I say, was a gentleman endowed with all these
+recommendations actually condescending to minister to one’s pecuniary
+wants; and one would indeed have been unworthy of such advantages had one
+carped or squabbled over such vulgar trifles as a paltry 240 per cent.
+There is certainly another point of view from which this “financial”
+business may be regarded; but if the Master of the Rolls and the
+“Incorporated Law Society” take no exception to this occupation of one of
+their members, it is clearly no business of ours to find fault with a
+gentleman who materially adds to his income by combining the profitable
+trade of usury with the profitless profession of the law.
+
+It is a prevalent and very erroneous impression to associate voracity and
+sharp dealings with the Hebrew race, for I’ve found from experience (and
+I’m admittedly an authority) that for meanness, haggling, and exorbitant
+terms, with a cloak of hypocrisy to cover this multitude of sins, the
+Hebrew is considerably out-distanced by his Christian _confrère_.  I
+might indeed go a step further, and add, that, barring a repellent manner
+during the preliminaries of a transaction, but which is purely
+superficial, the dealings of the children of Israel are based on strictly
+honourable and considerate grounds.  No one has ever heard of a Jew
+robbing you first and then prosecuting you; they are invariably satisfied
+with one course or the other.  (I may here be permitted a slight
+digression to note that I intend ere long to publish a list of usurers
+never before attempted, based on my personal experience of them,
+including members of almost every trade and profession, and which for
+completeness and accuracy of detail will put to the blush the hitherto
+feeble attempts of such society journals as _Town Talk_, _Truth_, &c.)
+
+At about four o’clock, then, on this dreary November afternoon I found
+myself with three or four others in Mr. White’s waiting-room.  I verily
+believe one of my companions was a detective, a suspicion that subsequent
+events tend to confirm.  In the frowzy room I found myself waiting for
+more than an hour, during which time my naturally ’cute disposition,
+coupled with a consciousness of guilt, convinced me with a “suspeeciun”
+similar to that of the old lady at the subscription ball at Peebles,
+“amoonting to a positive ceertainty” that something was up.  This
+apprehension was by no means allayed by my distinctly seeing the shadow
+of the burly policeman, in cape and helmet, on the frosted window, as he
+ascended the stairs; and had I been so inclined, there was nothing to
+have prevented me from at once burning the damning document then in my
+pocket and walking down-stairs.  But I was perfectly callous and
+indifferent to the result; indeed, I can only attribute my feelings at
+the time to those of a madman who hailed with delight any change that
+substituted incarceration and an unburthened mind for liberty and an
+uneasy conscience.  The rest of the incidents in this prologue are easily
+told, and the next ten minutes (which abounded with sayings and doings,
+however commendable from a moral point of view, sadly out of place in a
+usurer’s parlour) found me in a cab, in company with a policeman, with
+Mr. White, money-lender, solicitor, and commissioner to administer oaths,
+on the box, his ‘fishy’ partner inside, and driving at the rapid rate
+habitual to the fleetest four-wheelers of three miles an hour en route to
+Bow Street.  Luck now favoured me, and I was fortunate enough to obtain
+an interview with Mr. Vaughan, who was on the eve of departure, and who,
+in a few hurried and well-chosen words, and in a metallic tone of voice
+that I can only, with all respect, compare to the vibrations of the
+telephone, which I heard some years ago in its infancy, conveyed to me
+the momentous intelligence that I was _remanded_ till Tuesday.  This was
+by no means my first appearance at Bow Street Police Court, for though
+not on so serious a charge as the present, I had on a former occasion
+made the acquaintance (officially) of the worthy magistrate.  The
+circumstances are briefly these, and though in no way bearing on my
+present narrative, may be reasonably introduced, as a combination of
+sweets and bitters, such as one gleans by the advertisements, are to be
+associated with “chow-chow,” “nabob pickles,” &c., &c.  Some four years
+ago I had the honour of accompanying a well-known but not equally
+appreciated young baronet, and High Sheriff of an Irish county, notorious
+for his “Orange” (and orange-bitters with a dash of gin) proclivities, to
+a low music-hall.  The weather was hot, and the evening an exceptionally
+warm one in June, such an one, indeed, that the most abstemious might
+have been pardoned for exceeding the bounds of moderation.  About
+midnight we presented ourselves at the portals of that virtuous but
+defunct institution, and were refused a box on the plea of inebriation.
+So indignant, however, were both myself and my blue-blooded if not
+blue-ribboned companion at this monstrous insinuation that we at once
+proceeded to Bow Street, and laid a formal complaint with the inspector
+on night duty.  The books, and probably that official’s marginal notes,
+would doubtless place facts and our respective intellectual conditions at
+the time beyond the shadow of a doubt.  For my own part, I confess (with
+that frankness that has always been my ruin) that if I was not absolutely
+inebriated, I was decidedly “fresh.”  As regards my companion, however, I
+will not presume to venture an opinion, although High Sheriffs admittedly
+never get drunk;—is it likely, then, that this one, the pride of his
+county and an ornament to its Bench, could so far forget himself?
+Absurd!  The sequel, however, has yet to be told; and a few nights
+afterwards, about 9 P.M., alone, and disguised as a gentleman in evening
+clothes, I went to the Night House and requested to see the proprietor.
+A bilious individual hereupon came into the passage, and, supported by a
+crowd of “chuckers out,” hurled me on to the verandah, where luck and my
+proximity to the worthy publican enabled me to deal one blow on a face,
+which eventually turned out to be that of Barnabas Amos; but a member of
+“the force” happened to be passing, and the gentle Amos, not content with
+having previously taken the law into his own hands with questionable
+success, now appealed to the constable, and, in short, gave me in charge
+for an assault.  I will not weary the reader by a description of my
+detention for twenty minutes in the police station, till I was bailed out
+by a householder; nor of the proceedings next morning before the
+magistrate.  Suffice it to say that the case was dismissed; that the
+daily papers honoured me by devoting half a column to a report of the
+case; that six months after, alone and unaided, I opposed the renewal of
+the licence for the night-house; that my thirst for revenge was
+thoroughly satiated; and that I had the gratification of depriving the
+Amos of a weekly profit of £300, besides about £500 for legal expenses;
+and that the Middlesex magistrates did their duty and proved themselves
+worthy of their responsible position by almost unanimously refusing the
+licence, despite the fervid and well fee’d eloquence of Solicitor-General
+and voracious barristers, and thus stamped out about as festering a heap
+of filth and garbage as any that had ever infested this modern Babylon.
+Mr. Barnabas Amos and I were thenceforth quits, and, barring a chuckle he
+no doubt had at my subsequent troubles (such as a less magnanimous person
+than myself might have had at his eventual bankruptcy), I may fairly
+congratulate myself on having had the best of the little encounter.  But
+another feature of this case suggests itself, and I cannot dismiss this
+long digression without a few words in conclusion.  My quasi friend, the
+High Sheriff, did not come well out of this matter.  We had, as it were,
+rowed in the same boat on this eventful night, we had both been refused a
+box on the same grounds, and yet he left me to bear, not only the brunt
+of the police-court row, but, by a judicious silence, got me the credit
+of having tried but signally failed to lead him from the paths of
+rectitude and virtue.  I am prepared to make every allowance for a man in
+his position, lately married to a young and innocent wife, whose ears it
+was only right should not be polluted with such revelations as a
+night-house would naturally suggest if associated with her husband’s
+name; and I was perfectly alive to the necessity of screening him, and
+willing that my name only (as it did) should appear in the proceedings;
+nevertheless, there is a right and a wrong way of attaining such an end,
+and the High Sheriff will, I am convinced, on reflection, admit that he
+might have attained the same result in a more straightforward manner, and
+have spared the feelings of his bride and possibly her younger sisters
+equally as well without leaving a “pal”—to use a vulgar expression—in the
+lurch without an apology.  With this digression I will return (in the
+spirit) to Bow Street, and close the chapter with a bang such as
+accompanied the closing of my cell door, and await the arrival of “Black
+Maria.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+THE HOUSE OF DETENTION.
+
+
+AFTER a delay of about twenty minutes—when for the first time I found
+myself an inmate of a police cell—a very civil gaoler (with the relative
+rank of a Police Sergeant) announced to me, with a “Now, Captain,” the
+arrival of one of Her Majesty’s carriages.  One has frequently heard of
+the Queen’s carriages meeting, and not meeting, distinguished personages,
+such as Mr. Gladstone, Sir Garnet Wolseley, the King of the Zulus, and
+German princelings; but the carriage I refer to must not be confused with
+this type.  They are far from comfortable, the accommodation is limited,
+and the society questionable; and had it not been for the courteous
+consideration of the conductor (a Police Sergeant) I should have been
+considerably puzzled in attempting to squeeze my huge bulk of 19 stone 13
+lbs. (as verified a few minutes later in Her Majesty’s scales) into a
+compartment about 16 inches in breadth.  As a fact, however, I remained
+in the passage, and thus obtained a view of streets and well-known haunts
+under very novel and degrading conditions.  Everyone appeared to stare at
+this van, and everyone seemed to me to particularly catch my eye; but
+this, of course, was pure fancy, resulting, I presume, from a guilty
+conscience—for within the dark tunnel of this centre passage it was
+impossible that anyone in the streets could see, much less distinguish,
+anyone inside.  I discovered a few weeks later that these uncomfortable
+police vans were infinitely superior and more roomy than those attached
+to Her Majesty’s prisons; in fact, I should say they were the only
+attempt (as far as I could discover) at making a distinction between an
+untried, and consequently innocent (vaunted English law—twaddle) person,
+and a convicted prisoner.
+
+My experiences at the “House of Detention” and subsequently at “Newgate”
+convince me that justice demands a great alteration in the rules
+regarding untried prisoners, who are allowed and disallowed certain
+newspapers at the caprice of the chaplain, and actually restricted as to
+the class of eatables their friends may send them.  An instance of this
+occurred in my case.  A kind friend one day brought me a hamper
+containing, as I was informed, a roast fowl and a tongue; the warder at
+the entrance-gate, however, told him that these were luxuries in the
+estimation of the Home-office, and therefore less suited to the palate of
+an untried (and consequently innocent) man than a chop or steak fried in
+tallow and procured from the usual eating-house; and as my friend had
+dragged this white elephant of a parcel about with him for some time, he
+gave it bodily to the turnkey, who consequently reaped the advantage of
+the intended kindness to me.  Next morning I complained to the Governor,
+who assured me he should have made no objection to the “luxury” of a
+fowl; in short, I had been the victim of the zeal of an illiterate and
+astute official, who, putting two and two together, and weighing the
+probable effect of his veto on an inexperienced inhabitant of the outer
+world, had arrived at a very happy arrangement whereby I was deprived and
+he benefited to the extent of a well-selected hamper.  I found the
+Governor a very good sort.  His suit of dittos was a little of the
+“thunder and lightning” pattern; but if his clothes were loud, his
+manners were not—in short, he was essentially a gentleman, both in
+appearance and manners, a beau ideal of the heavy dragoon that existed
+before the Cardwellite era.  I purposely refer to his manners being those
+of a gentleman because it does not always occur that those situated in a
+similar position possess the higher recommendation.
+
+The “House of Detention” appeared to me the most awfully depressing place
+to which my erring footsteps had ever led me.  The darkness, the
+stillness, the novelty of the situation, all tended to this conclusion;
+and I cannot do better than describe what occurred, and leave the verdict
+in the hands of the reader.  Conceive then a man, who an hour previously
+was a free citizen, suddenly finding himself stepping out of a police van
+into a gloomy, white-washed passage, and being inspected and counted with
+a dozen others by a bumptious turnkey, puffed out with his own
+importance, addicted, as I have previously mentioned, to cold fowl and
+tongue, but otherwise oblivious to the veriest rudiments of civilization.
+Conceive, then, the sensations of a man such as I, finding himself
+suddenly confronted by such a biped, who, scanning first a paper and then
+you, begins to drawl out, “What’s your name?  Your age?  Married or
+single?  Protestant or Romanist?” and a volley of such like rubbish,
+which only tends to exasperate one, and which might well be dispensed
+with, seeing that all the desired information is on the paper, and,
+having been supplied by one’s self not an hour before, is sure to be
+corroborated, whether correct or not, and considering, too, that this
+farce is repeated every time you enter and leave the place, and which in
+a case of frequent remands might occur twice a day.  One can hardly
+narrate a single item regarding the treatment of an untried prisoner that
+does not call for redress, _i.e._, if the absurd theory is still
+persisted in that an untried man is an innocent one.  What right has an
+innocent man to be debarred the privilege of seeing friends (under
+reasonable restrictions) as often as he pleases, instead of being limited
+to one visit of fifteen minutes a day?  Why should one be allowed to
+purchase _Town Talk_ and not _Truth_?  Why should the _Graphic_ be
+permitted and not the _Dramatic News_?  These are anomalies no logic can
+explain away, and have no right to be left to the caprice of a prison
+official.  The food supply as at present arranged is a cruel system; a
+prisoner under remand is gratified at hearing that he may procure his own
+food, and naturally shrinks at the idea of subsisting on prison fare till
+absolutely compelled.  No greater mistake ever was made—the latter is
+good, clean, and supplied gratis; the former is nasty in the extreme, and
+scandalously dear.  If the doubtful “privilege” is to be continued, it is
+time the government, in common fairness, controlled the tariff; at
+present a prisoner is at the mercy of the eating-house keeper, and liable
+to any charge he may choose to make.  I must admit that the caterers for
+the “House of Detention” were civil and comparatively reasonable, whereas
+those at Newgate were exactly the opposite.  I shall give a detailed
+account later on of how I was fleeced at the Old Bailey, and I would
+earnestly warn all prisoners awaiting trial to stick to the prison fare,
+and carefully to avoid the refreshments supplied from the cat’s meat
+houses in the neighbourhood.  With these slight digressions I shall
+proceed to a description of the routine at the “House of Detention,” with
+its rules and regulations and privileges, and the impressions they
+conveyed to me; and I cannot do better than impress on the reader that
+this book makes no pretensions to literary merit, but must be regarded
+rather as a journal of facts, whose principle claim is based on their
+having been written by a man who is probably as well known as any in
+England.  I ask no praise, I’m equally oblivious to abuse; criticism I’m
+absolutely indifferent to, being convinced that either my notoriety, my
+popularity, my identity, or unpopularity, will procure me readers far in
+excess of any book of greater merit; and it is a consolation to feel that
+my friends will be glad that I got through some months with a degree of
+comfort never before paralleled, and my enemies (male and especially
+female) will be chagrined at discovering that “Imprisonment with Hard
+Labour” in my case meant kindness from first to last hardly credible,
+absolutely devoid of any labour at all, and accompanied with luxuries as
+regards eating and drinking that could not have been surpassed had I been
+stopping at a first-class hotel and paying thirty shillings a day for
+board and lodging.  Many apparent contradictions may moreover suggest
+themselves, but taken in the light of a diary, these contradictory views
+must be regarded as reflecting circumstances as they appeared to me from
+time to time under various phases.  Suffice it to say that I have
+carefully avoided exaggeration, that everything I narrate can be fully
+substantiated, and may be unhesitatingly accepted as the experiences of a
+man endowed with an average amount of brains, who kept his eyes wide
+open, and who had opportunities given him that no man ever had before,
+whether higher or lower in the social or criminal scale, of seeing a vast
+amount of the “dark side of nature.”  In my innocence I once fancied I
+had seen a good deal, and knew a lot; but the following narrative will
+prove that I was a very babe and suckling, before I became a “Government
+ward.”  Heaven forbid that anyone should purchase his experience at such
+a price; nevertheless, on the principle that has guided me through life
+of trying to see everything and do everything, I can only attempt to
+justify my escapades by endorsing the theory (slightly altered) of the
+immortal Voltaire, that a man who would go through what I have is “_un
+fois un philosophe_, _mais deux fois un criminel déterminé_.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+“SETTLING DOWN.”
+
+
+FRESH arrivals appear to come to this awful place at every hour of the
+day and night.  The police courts belch forth their motley loads on an
+average about twice a day, and when the Sessions are “on,” prisoners
+arrive as late as nine and ten of a night, and the rumbling of “Black
+Marias,” the shouting of warders, the turning of keys, the slamming of
+doors, and a hundred other “regulations” that make night hideous, lead
+one to imagine oneself in a third-class hostelry alongside a railway
+station.  The absence of clocks, too, that strike (for even they are on
+the silent system), combined with the primitive hour of retiring to rest,
+bewilders one in arriving at anything like an approximate idea of time
+between the bell at night and the bell at 6 A.M.  After my first
+interview with Mr. Vaughan, and with the sound of his melodious voice
+still ringing in my ears, I found myself about 6 P.M. alighting from the
+police van inside a dismal courtyard.  We had just passed through a
+massive gate, and had been “backed” on to the entrance of a long and
+uninviting-looking corridor, but beyond that I had not the faintest idea
+of where I was; and if I had been told that the House of Detention was
+situated in the centre aisle of the British Museum, I should not have
+been in a position to dispute it.  As we stepped out, carefully assisted
+by an official actuated apparently rather by precaution than courtesy,
+and carefully scanned and counted, I found myself with eight or nine
+others standing in a row on a huge mat.  There was an entire absence of
+“dressing” in this ragged line, and thus destiny placed me between a
+ragamuffin with a wooden leg and an urchin of about twelve.  My bulk,
+sandwiched between them, formed a charming picture, and filled up the
+mat, if not the “background.”  My friend, the police sergeant, with a
+courtesy that officialism failed to rob him of, handed us over to the
+“Detentionite” barbarian, who, first inspecting us, and then “righting”
+us, went through the offensive and unnecessary formula of catechizing
+us—such as “What is your name?”  “Who ga”—I mean, “Your age,” &c., &c.
+This to me was the first and greatest humiliation; the iron entered my
+very soul, and I realized how awful it all was.  Implacable enemies,
+vindictive tradesmen, revengeful women, chuckle and shout; but time is
+short, and seventeen days will find me in clover, surrounded by every
+consideration that is possible, and as happy as circumstances will
+permit.  When we had all been counted and booked, we were escorted
+downstairs and thrust into very small and separate cells.  These cells
+were literally not more than three feet square, and their only furniture
+consisted of a block of stone intended for a seat.  The turnkey, who
+showed and carefully locked me in, explained that I should only be there
+a few minutes, as we were merely awaiting the arrival of the chief
+warder.  After the lapse of a few minutes, we were taken one by one into
+the office, where a further scrutiny “inside and out” took place.  Here,
+at a desk, sat a warder in front of a ledger; there was, moreover, a
+weighing-machine and a couple of turnkeys.  This constituted the entire
+furniture!  The chief warder, blazing in gold lace and pegtop trousers
+that filled me with admiration at the time, now appeared, and having come
+to the conclusion that I was not one of the “unwashed” division, kindly
+exempted me from the usual bath, the preliminary and very necessary step
+on these occasions.  The chief warder was a very decent and unaffected
+little man, and comparatively free from the penny-halfpenny bounce that
+characterizes the chief warder species in general.  I here underwent, for
+the second time, the catechizing process, which being again carefully
+booked, I was invited in the most dulcet tones to unrobe to the extent of
+everything except my socks and trousers.  With my thoughts wandering to
+the weighing-machine, “how careful,” thought I, “they must be in
+accurately weighing one;” and my conjecture was in a measure correct, but
+my inexperience did not prepare me for the accompanying formula that took
+place.  As I divested myself one by one of my coat, hat, boots, vest,
+shirt, &c., a pair of nimble hands ran over them with lightning rapidity,
+which in their turn passed them on to another pair of equally nimble or
+nimbler hands.  In the twinkling of an eye, the contents of my pockets
+were laid on the table—the modest quill toothpick was not even exempted;
+fingers passed over every seam and lining of my clothes, and then the
+same “delicate touch” was applied to my loins and ankles.  I was then
+requested to get on the machine, and the astounding fact recorded that a
+mountain of humanity in his shirt and socks weighed 19 stone 13 lbs.  I
+have been particular in accurately relating this fact, for later on I
+treat on the subject of obesity; and the remarks I there make, and the
+hints I offer, based on very careful observation and experience, will, I
+am confident, commend themselves to the corpulent, and, IF ACTED ON, will
+prove very beneficial to those who really desire to reduce themselves.
+Every article found on me—money, toothpicks, pocket-book, watch, studs,
+sleeve-links, &c.—were then carefully booked and neatly tied up, and
+having resumed my clothing, I proceeded upstairs to my future abode.
+
+I cannot allow this opportunity to pass without noting the consideration
+that prompted the warder to give me a couple of bone studs to replace my
+own, without which I could not have kept my shirt closed.  It was a
+kindly act, and tends to show that, as a rule and with very few
+exceptions, prison warders are a well-disposed race if properly treated,
+and desirous of rendering any civility to men of my class.  If a prisoner
+is fool enough to stand on his dignity, he must not be surprised if his
+conduct is resented.  Another peculiarity I observed here for the first
+time, but which I found to be the invariable rule at “Newgate” and
+“Coldbath,” was, that on arrival one was always placed in a most
+uncomfortable cell in the basement or even below, and gradually promoted
+upwards.  I can only suppose it was intended as a kind of purgatory, with
+the idea of giving one a bird’s-eye view of what might be expected should
+one’s behaviour make him ineligible for the greater luxuries associated
+with “apartments on the drawing-room floor.”
+
+Having dressed, I accompanied a turnkey through innumerable passages
+abounding in steel gates, which snapped like rat traps as we passed
+through, till we emerged into what appeared the main passage of the
+prison.  My conductor here handed me over to another warder with a “Here
+you are; here’s another one;” and I again, and for the third time, had to
+undergo the “abridged catechism.”
+
+I found this warder a capital fellow.  He tried to put matters as
+cheerfully as he could; and when ushering me into my cell, and noting my
+horror at its bleak appearance, said in a manner that was kindly meant,
+“Oh! you’ll be all right when you’ve settled down a bit.”
+
+“Settled down a bit!”  As well ask the guinea-pig that is put into the
+rattlesnake’s cage to settle down, as to expect a man suddenly deprived
+of liberty to settle down in such a place.  If I had not been of a very
+sanguine disposition, and one that can nerve himself to submit to
+anything, I should certainly have broken down, as I verily believe many
+do.  On the contrary, I began to examine the uncomfortable place, read
+the notices for one’s guidance, and entered into a conversation with my
+guide and gaoler.  He began by telling me that if I wanted supper I must
+order it sharp; and when I expressed a wish to have something, he kindly
+promised to order in a chop and a pint of beer.  The next thing that
+attracted my attention was the hammock; and as my only experience of
+these uncomfortable substitutes for French bedsteads was from a distant
+view on a troopship, and as the idea of 20 stone suspended in mid air was
+out of the question, and as the tesselated floor appeared excessively
+hard, I determined not to risk a fall, for the fall of that house would
+certainly have been great.  I discovered, however, that routine and
+prison discipline made it absolutely impossible for any exception to be
+made unless specially granted, and as none but the highest official, such
+as the Governor (or even the Home Secretary, as I presumed, or perhaps
+the Queen), could sanction a change of such importance as substituting a
+cot for a hammock, no time was to be lost in ferreting out some one of
+sufficient authority to assume the responsibility.  At length the doctor
+was found, and after seeing me and hearing my weight, gave the necessary
+order, subject to the Governor’s approval in the morning.
+
+I have often wondered in how many quires of foolscap this humane act
+involved the little man.  I only hope he got no wigging from the Home
+Office for this assumption of responsibility, for I found him most kind
+and courteous, and in return I fear I worried him out of his life by
+applications for sleeping draughts, which he invariably let me have
+without a murmur.  I took this opportunity also of getting his permission
+to keep my gas burning all night, for I felt that sleep was out of the
+question; and as I had asked for and been promised the special
+_Standard_, which invariably contains some paragraphs of interest of a
+world-renowned General’s, I began to hope that I might “settle down,” as
+my friend the warder had suggested.  But settling down in theory and
+settling down in practice, especially in the “House of Detention,” are
+two distinct things.  The privilege of keeping my gas burning, too,
+involved a most unpleasant consequence, diametrically opposed to
+“settling down.”  Anyone whose light is left burning is supposed to be
+concocting some hideous treachery, and has to be “seen” every fifteen
+minutes; and thus through this long dreary winter night and every
+subsequent ten nights of my stay found me being taken stock of every
+quarter of an hour.  I must—without being aware of it—about this time
+have commenced the “settling down” process, for I could actually bring
+myself to uttering the feeblest jokes, such as “Ah! how are you, old
+cockie?  Just in time; another minute and I should have burrowed through
+the ventilator.”  These little sallies, I am bound to admit, did not
+always meet with the reception their pungency merited.  Occasionally they
+extracted a grin or a chaffy reply; at others a grunt and a bang of the
+trap-door.  But I have again wandered from my first entrance into my
+cell, and demonstrating (what I honestly pleaded) my utter amateurishness
+in the writing of a book.  I must only hope that the tale it unfolds will
+make up for this defect.  A rattle of a tin knife on a pewter vessel,
+followed by the turning of the key, announced the arrival of my supper;
+and, oh, shades of Romano, how “my heart beat for thee!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+“PRISON FARE.”
+
+
+A GREASY cold chop, smelling as if it had been cooked in “Benzine
+collas,” and with about as much warmth as would be imparted to it by a
+flat iron, a slice of bread that had evidently been cut in the early part
+of the day, with salt, mustard, a lump of cheese, and a potato piled up
+beside it, and a pint of the flattest, blackest, nastiest ale in a yellow
+jug without a spout, with my name pasted on it and the plate, constituted
+my meal, and nothing but philosophy and a certain amount of hunger could
+have induced me to attempt to tackle it.  I did, however, and bolted the
+food and gulped down the liquid, and continued the contemplation of my
+cell.  A few minutes later my warder again appeared with the “special”
+and removed my “tray;” and the ringing of the most melancholy-toned bell
+I had ever heard up to then warned me that bed-time had arrived, and I
+proceeded to turn in for my first night under lock and key.  Believe me,
+reader, there is more in this than my words can convey.  Writing as I now
+am, in a comfortable bed at six in the morning (for my past experience
+has instilled very early habits into me), with the window open, and the
+sea within a few yards of me, surrounded by every luxury and comfort that
+an affectionate mother can think of, and in a genial climate in the South
+of France, I cannot even now look back without a shudder to that fearful
+first night of less than a year ago; and the chop and the hammock, and
+the key turning, and the “settling down” appear as vividly before me as
+the most hideous nightmare of an hour’s previous occurrence.
+
+At 6 A.M.—and in November this means in the pitch dark—a bell rings; not
+a heavy tolling bell, but a shrill, sharp hand bell, wrung with all the
+vigour that a prison warder can impart to it.  He walks up and down the
+long and dreary passages, the noise rising and falling as he approaches
+and recedes.  I sat up on my pallet of horsehair, and took it for granted
+I had better get up.  By the considerate thoughtfulness of our free and
+enlightened Government every requisite for a (hurried) toilet is here
+provided, obviating the very slightest necessity for ever leaving one’s
+apartments.  A tap and diminutive brass basin, a water-closet
+(guaranteed, I should say, to produce typhoid in a marvellously short
+space of time), a piece of yellow soap the size of a postage stamp, and a
+towel of the solidity of the main sheet of an ironclad, and bearing
+unmistakable “marks of the beasts” that had been my immediate
+predecessors, were all at hand, leaving no excuse for the most whimsical
+for abstaining from a thorough good (official) wash.  I found, as my
+experience increased, that the two things most neglected in Her Majesty’s
+prisons are cleanliness and godliness.  A terrible make-believe
+distinguishes them both; but if you only burnish up the outside of the
+cup and the platter, the inside may, figuratively speaking, be full of
+dead men’s bones.  I shall adduce very good reasons for these assertions
+when time and my destiny have “settled me down” in Coldbath Fields.
+
+After a delay of half-an-hour the counting process began, which consisted
+of a whole cloud of turnkeys passing rapidly in front of the various cell
+doors.  A little further delay, and I was invited to “exercise.”  I went
+out once and only once, for as a philosopher one must pocket one’s
+foolish likes and dislikes, and endeavour to see everything; but the
+penance was so fearful that I had a word with the doctor, and obtained
+exemption from that date.  Conceive, then, a large and bleak courtyard,
+flagged and partially gravelled, bounded on three sides by the prison
+walls, and on the fourth by high railings and a still higher wall beyond
+it; conceive, too, a couple of hundred of the scum of London, the halt
+and the lame, the black chutnee seller and the mendicant newsvendor, with
+here and there some unfortunate devil like myself in the garb of a
+gentleman; add to this a warder standing on a pedestal at each corner,
+and another roaming round in the centre, and then cap this awful picture
+by watching this frowsy tag-rag mass walking round in a circle about a
+yard apart, and you may possibly form some slight notion of my feelings.
+When I got to the outer door that led into the yard, I hesitated for a
+moment, and I told a warder that I really did not think I could face the
+ordeal; but he advised me, in what was kindly meant, to have a try, and
+that if I walked round no one would take a bit of notice of me.  I found
+this assurance was hardly strictly correct, for my huge size and evident
+superiority (in clothes if not in morals) drew notice on me; and many a
+scoundrel as he limped by asked me, in a gin-and-water voice, what I was
+“in for,” and whether it was the “first” time.  I, however, ignored their
+delicate overtures towards sociability, and longed for daylight and its
+accompanying breakfast.  The hour’s exercise eventually passed by, and I
+returned to my den, where shortly afterwards my breakfast appeared.  This
+came from the eating-house over the way, and a nastier, colder, or more
+revolting conglomeration of roll sliced and buttered, a fried egg, and a
+piece of bacon that must have spent the night in a rat-trap, and a pint
+of chicory in a yellow jug, I never saw.  I ventured to draw the warder’s
+attention to the proximity that existed between these various delicacies,
+but he explained that mine was only one of some seventy other breakfasts
+of “privileged” prisoners, and that they had been in the passage for over
+an hour.  Assuming, therefore, that my _déjeûner_ had probably been
+sandwiched between a burglar’s tripe and onions and some other brother
+malefactor’s tea and shrimps, I held my breath and “laid on,” and was
+surprised what a hole I had made in all the good things in an incredibly
+short period.  But time (especially in Houses of Detention) waits for no
+man, and in a twinkling my breakfast things were removed, and a bell
+summoned us to chapel.  I now found myself in church, and after a ten
+minutes’ farce, which embraced every modern religious improvement—such as
+singing, a sermon, and a chaplain in a white surplice—we were again
+escorted back, and awaited the visit of the Governor.
+
+The chaplain at the “House of Detention” was, I should say, rather a good
+sort; he and I had frequent conversations, and as he was the man who had
+once put a spoke into Bignell’s “Argyll” wheel, and as I was the humble
+instrument that had “smashed, defeated, and utterly pulverized” Barnabas
+Amos and his night-house, a bond of mutual interest at once sprang up
+between us as enemies of immorality in general, and Bignell and Amos in
+particular.  This reverend gentleman was, I should say, decidedly High
+Church; he wore all day (and for aught I know all night) a black
+skull-cap and gown, and possessing an enormous red beard, that came down
+to his waist, he invariably inspired me with much the same amount and
+sort of reverence that I entertain when contemplating stained-glass
+likenesses of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.  His manner at first was a
+little pompous, especially when he was telling me of the sort of books he
+would permit and not permit me to order in; he was, however, despite
+these peculiarities, unmistakably a gentleman, both in manner and
+appearance—two qualifications I subsequently discovered were sadly
+deficient in more than one of his species.  And now the door was opened
+with a terrific bang, and I was told by a turnkey with bated breath and
+evidently suffering from excessive mental excitement, that “the Governor”
+was coming round, and before I had time to shake myself together, and
+rise to receive him, the great man was in my cell.  Captain — was the
+beau ideal of a plunger, and had served many years in the K.D.G.’s.  He
+eventually exchanged from soldiering to “prisoning,” and had served his
+time as “Deputy” of Exeter and Cold Bath Fields prisons.  I was told at
+this latter retreat that he was in those days excessively zealous in the
+matter of dust, and that his great height enabled him to extract
+infinitesimal atoms of this irrepressible commodity from shelves and
+ventilators that men more of the “Zachæus” type would never have noticed.
+Like most men, however, time had blunted his zeal for these trifles, and
+when I saw him he had grown out of these absurdities of his novitiate,
+and appeared as one who had an unpleasant duty to perform, and who was
+anxious to do it as pleasantly as possible.  He accosted me as one might
+expect a gentleman would, and asked me if there was anything he could do
+to ameliorate my condition?  I mentioned certain things, and he at once
+gave the necessary orders for my being permitted newspapers, pen, ink,
+and paper, my gas at night, and exemption from chapel and exercise.  All
+this brought it to near twelve o’clock, when dinners commenced being
+“served;” and without detailing all the horrors I ate, suffice it to say
+that another plateful of offal, such as a hyæna would jib at, duly made
+its appearance, and was as duly demolished, more or less.  The first day
+in this terrible place is perhaps more awful than any subsequent one;
+for, irrespective of the novelty of the situation and not having “settled
+down,” it must be taken into consideration that one has barely had time
+to communicate with friends and solicitors, and thus the day passes
+wearily away, affording ample time for reflection and the realisation of
+the fact that one may be in the heart of London and yet as far away from
+friends and relatives as if in the middle of the Desert of Sahara.  The
+above sketch will pretty accurately convey an idea of a day’s routine in
+the House of Detention, excepting perhaps a visit from a friend daily, a
+restriction that is as iniquitous as it is illogical, and which I trust
+the authorities will consider worthy of alteration.  Visits from
+solicitors constitute another feature of this existence.  Visits from
+friends are made as uncomfortable as can well be conceived; the drop
+window in the cell door, 12 inches by 8, and carefully covered with zinc
+netting, is opened, and with the visitor on the one side in the cold and
+dark passage, and the prisoner on the other in his cell, it is really
+difficult to hear all that is said, for the echo and shouting that is
+going on throughout requires a very practised ear to catch the muffled
+sounds.  If any reader has ever put his head into a sack (which I
+haven’t) and tried to talk, or heard the ghost speak at a transpontine
+theatre, some idea of the extraordinary hollow change in the voice may be
+imagined.  A more inconsiderate system could hardly be adopted, and
+absolutely debars respectable persons from submitting to the ordeal
+entailed by such visits.  The visits of solicitors are, however, far
+better managed, and permitted with a degree of comfort that quite
+surprised me.  A private room is placed at your disposal, where you can
+say (and, as I found, do) pretty much what you please without let or
+hindrance; and beyond having a badge temporarily placed on your arm to
+indicate the number of your cell, and having the door carefully locked,
+you might fancy yourself having a _tête-à-tête_ on a rainy day in the
+second class refreshment-room of the Crystal Palace.  Only two unusual
+circumstances occurred to vary the monotony of my daily life; the one was
+the being served with a writ by a foolish tailor in Pall Mall, or rather
+his executors, for poor old Morris had long since paid the penalty of
+affluence and good feeding.  That any men of the world, such as I
+supposed them to be, should have lent themselves to anything so childish
+as to serve a man with a “writ” who was awaiting his trial on a charge
+that might involve a seclusion “for years or may be for ever” passes my
+comprehension.  I often felt I owed an apology to the unhappy deputy of
+these irrepressible snips, for he must have found it cold and very
+miserable whilst awaiting my arrival in that cheerless corridor, and I
+registered a vow, when the opportunity occurred, to express my regret for
+the scant comfort and apparent want of courtesy he received at my hands;
+but I was the victim of cruel circumstances over which I had no control.
+Another event that intruded itself on the even tenor of my ways was a
+letter from “Georgina”; and as the narration will involve a certain
+essential digression to make matters clear, I must again ask the reader’s
+indulgence.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+GEORGINA.
+
+
+WHO has not heard of Georgina?  Ask Gounod, ask Monsieur Riviere, ask Mr.
+Vaughan, ask me, ask yourself, indulgent reader.  I made this lady’s
+acquaintance some five years ago, about eleven P.M., outside Covent
+Garden Theatre, when she was apparently being supported by her seconds
+and spongeholders, after her third or fourth round (I forget which) with
+the “Leicester Square Pet” or the “Regent Street Chicken,” or both.  I
+was not an eye-witness of this revival of the good old days of the ring,
+so my statement as to details must not be implicitly accepted.  I,
+however, made one of an excited and surging mob, and gleaned that the
+cause was the fair Georgina, who had lately been “removed” from inside
+the theatre.  In a thoughtless moment, and with an eye to business, and
+with the hope of turning an honest penny by taking this amiable creature
+into the provinces (for I dabbled in things theatrical in those days) I
+entered into conversation with one of her satellites, which ripened into
+an intimacy of the most deplorable and expensive nature, and ended in the
+climax that procured me a most abusive and threatening letter whilst in
+the House of Detention, and subsequently a visit from her on my second
+appearance at Bow-street, where she occupied a prominent position in the
+front row.  Immediately, then, after this lady’s notoriety connected with
+the above _contretemps_, it struck me that she could not fail to “draw”
+in the provinces, if not on her merits as a vocalist, at least on account
+of her other amiable accomplishments.  A series of visits to her
+residence ended in my securing the professional services of this
+inestimable treasure; and though the terms and conditions with which she
+hampered her agreement to accompany me on a six weeks’ tour were
+sufficient to have made a more experienced man hesitate, I at length
+consented to all she proposed, and our agreement was virtually completed.
+Georgina is, I should say, an implacable foe; she is also, I should
+fancy, a good friend until a row—an inevitable consequence—takes place.
+This latter characteristic showed itself on this occasion; she made it a
+_sine quâ non_, and refused to budge an inch unless I agreed to permit
+her to be accompanied by a huge French woman whom she called her
+companion, and a sickly youth whom she designated her secretary.  I was
+not only to cart this worthy couple about first-class, but to pay for
+their board and lodgings.  As the French person was as voracious as a
+cormorant, and as the secretary was apparently suffering from some
+complaint that impelled him to eat inordinately three or four times a
+day, and as provincial hotels are proverbially expensive when the
+ordinary routine is in the least deviated from, and as nothing but the
+best and most _récherché menu_ was considered good enough for this worthy
+trio, my bill and my feelings after a three days’ experience may be
+easier imagined than described; added to all this, Georgina’s delicate
+health precluded her from abstaining from food for any length of time,
+and thus when we journeyed from one town to another a hamper of prog had
+to be invariably made up for sustaining nature in the transit.  Good
+heavens! such appetites would have eaten one out of house and home, even
+if any profits had been made; but when the takings were absolutely “nil,”
+and the working expenses about £100 a week, it will not surprise the
+reader to learn that I lost £400 in less than a fortnight, and returned
+to London a sadder and a wiser man.  I cannot omit one absurd feature in
+this “starring” tour which occurred in a town very far north, and which
+happily brought my disastrous tour to an abrupt and unexpected
+conclusion.  The hour that the concert was to commence was eight; the
+audience had been respectfully solicited to be in their places by that
+hour—a request, I am bound to admit, the entire audience present
+considerately complied with—everything, in short, was done by visiting,
+puffing, advertising, and personally canvassing, that ingenuity and
+activity on my part could suggest; and at a quarter before eight I
+awaited behind the curtain (seeing, but unseen), with throbbing heart,
+the arrival of the vast crowds that I confidently expected.  The fair and
+amiable one was seated on a fauteuil, radiant with smiles, and attired in
+a matchless robe of white water silk and ruffles—a kind of mixture
+between the “Marie Antoinette” and the “Gorgonzola” styles, or what the
+cross would be, if such styles do or ever have existed—(should any lady
+read this description she will, I trust, pardon any imperfections of
+detail.)
+
+The female cormorant was administering some light stimulant, for Georgina
+is subject to fits of nervousness, incredible as this may appear.  The
+emaciated one was in front assisting in looking after the money-taker;
+and I feel thankful to Providence on his account, if not on my own, that
+this was far from an arduous task, for the poor fellow was evidently
+delicate and physically incapable of lifting a heavy cash-box, and so,
+with all my faults, blood-guiltiness cannot be laid to my charge.  Time
+meanwhile was rapidly passing, and a huge clock pointed to three minutes
+to eight, then two minutes, then one, and then eight o’clock struck, and,
+oh horror of horrors! the _sole_ occupant of the enormous building was
+the critic of the local paper.  Decency forbade our opening the concert
+to this solitary unhappy man; it appeared to me to be cowardly to attack
+him alone, and to pit him single-handed against the invincible Georgina,
+who had demolished a conductor and his manager a week previously, and who
+now showed symptoms of “annoyance” that nothing but my soothing powers
+prevented bursting into a flame.  My plan of action was immediately
+taken; to hesitate a moment was to be lost.  I at once sent for the
+“secretary,” and first thought of telling him to make a short speech from
+the stage to our solitary audience; but reflection decided me in
+approaching him myself.  I apologised for the unusual occurrence (it had
+in reality happened wherever we had been, though not to the extent of
+less than seven or eight); I offered to return him his money, for I was
+well aware his was a complimentary ticket, and verily believe that the
+united purses of the entire company could not have scraped together five
+shillings.  He muttered something I tried not to hear, and next day
+repaid my intended courtesy by a flaming smashing article that would
+effectually have ruined us had we moved elsewhere.  But events were
+occurring at the same time which put it out of my power to continue this
+disastrous tour.  About eleven o’clock the landlord of the hotel
+presented himself at my room, said the lady and her friends had left, and
+politely but firmly intimated that he could not permit me to remove my
+luggage till a little bill of £8 was settled.  The rest is soon told.  I
+hurried back to London, remitted the £8, and abandoned the tour.  I had
+not, however, heard the last of my musical _bête noire_; she and the
+“secretary” both dunned me for their railway fares, which I of course
+ignored, and I heard no more of her till she dug me out at the House of
+Detention, when she threatened me with legal proceedings for detaining,
+as she alleged, her photographs—the real fact being that, after our last
+stampede, her photographs that were displayed were seized by some
+indignant creditor in expectation of a ransom.  For my part I hope I have
+really heard the last of this irrepressible creature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+BOW STREET.
+
+
+AN eventful day was now approaching, and on the morrow I was to appear at
+Bow Street for the first time after my formal remand of the previous
+Friday.  I felt an instinctive conviction that my appearance (even though
+it had not appeared up to that time in the newspapers) would be generally
+known, and draw together a crowd actuated by motives either of like,
+dislike, or curiosity; nor was I wrong in my surmise.  An official at the
+police court informed me that numbers of inquiries had been made as to
+the time of my probable appearance; and as the appointed hour drew near
+fresh arrivals and those that had been waiting since 10 A.M. combined in
+making up a crowd that literally crammed the court.  It was, I admit, a
+very trying ordeal, for I had been pretty accurately informed what
+persons were in the court and waiting to see the “fun.”  I did, however,
+the best (though, I fear, a very foolish) thing under the circumstances,
+and primed myself with liquor, which certain friends, by dint of great
+ingenuity, managed to convey to me, for the gaoler, though a most civil
+and obliging man, was a terrible disciplinarian, and one that was not to
+be “squared.”  Had I not taken these repeated nips—and I’m afraid to say
+how much I imbibed—I firmly believe I could never have gone through the
+examination with the _sang froid_ I displayed.
+
+About 12 o’clock a hurrying of feet approaching my cell announced to me
+that my turn was come; and after a momentary pause in the passage I found
+myself escorted by a constable and in the dock.  I can never forget that
+terrible moment.  In front, on each side, and behind me was a dense
+throng, representing every class of persons I had ever had dealings with.
+One expected a certain amount of hostility from the side of the
+prosecution, but the array of faces I then saw opened up in me a new
+train of thoughts.  Here was a room thronged with people I had befriended
+and people I had never injured; men I had stood dinners to when their
+funds were lower than mine; lodging-house keepers that had fleeced me,
+and waiters I had tipped beyond their deserts; nameless attorneys from
+the slums of the City, courting daylight and publicity in the hopeless
+endeavour to get their names into print by the gratuitous offer of their
+valuable but hitherto unappreciated services—all craning their necks to
+stare at and exult over a poor devil, who, whatever his faults, was now
+at a disadvantage.  It was the old adage of “hitting a man when he is
+down;” and I’m thankful for the experience that has enabled me to form a
+just estimate of the worthlessness of such professions of friendship.  On
+the other hand, I heard of many persons—to their honour, be it said—who
+abstained from being present through feelings of generous consideration.
+My _quasi_-friend Georgina occupied a conspicuous place in the front row.
+I verily believe she never took her eyes off me, but her offensive stare
+had no charm for me; I had more serious matters to occupy my mind.  A
+mountain of flesh that I was once on terms of intimacy with was also
+present, panting with excitement, but, like the Levite of old, “he passed
+over on the other side.”  I will not weary the reader with details that
+repeat themselves almost daily in the police reports; suffice it to say
+that I was again remanded for another week, and then formally committed
+for trial at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court.
+
+On my two previous remands to the House of Detention I had always managed
+to remain at Bow Street till the 5 o’clock van took its load of victims.
+It was, at all events, a change, and infinitely more agreeable than the
+depressing atmosphere of Clerkenwell.  On the day, however, of my
+committal to Newgate I was informed that I could not, as before, wait
+till 5 P.M., but must be ready to start at 2.  The rope was clearly
+getting “tauter”; discipline was gradually assuming its sway, the circles
+around me smaller and smaller.  The other occupants of the “Black Maria”
+were, like myself, all committed for trial; and as we drove along I was
+much surprised at the marvellous knowledge they appeared to have gained
+of me and my affairs.  I was, as before, standing in the passage and not
+in a compartment, and consequently could hear all that passed between the
+various passengers.  My case was the sole subject of conversation;
+occasionally I was the object of a little mirthful sally.  Thus, a man
+who had been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment in default of paying
+a fine, said, “Ah, Capting, you might give us two of them quids to pay my
+fine”—referring to some money that had been alluded to in the court as
+having been in my possession at the time of my arrest.  Another hinted
+that I “Best take a good look at the streets, ’cos all wud be changed
+like afore I cum out agin.”  Another assured me that the warm baths in
+Newgate “wus fine but ’ot.”  A lady, too, graced our party; she was
+tawdry, I admit, and lived in the Dials.  Her misfortune was that she had
+mistaken someone’s purse for her own.  She was howling over her ill-luck
+for the first part of the journey, but before we arrived at our
+destination had quite recovered her usual spirits.  She told me she was
+an actress—an assertion I am not in a position to dispute, though I found
+her conversation quite as intellectual as that of the usual ballet-girl
+class; and as she was the last “lady” I was likely to see or hear for
+some time, I paid great respect to her conversation.  All these
+familiarities were terribly grating to me; they were more difficult to
+bear than any of my previous humiliations.  They were, as it were, the
+first instalments of being addressed as an equal by inferiors who had
+hitherto recognised me as a superior; and as we drove along, past objects
+as familiar to me as my own face, I felt the lump rising in my throat,
+and I dread to think what weakness I might have been guilty of had not a
+sharp turn brought us in front of Newgate, and the opening of a huge gate
+on its creaking hinges recalled me to a sense of my unenviable position.
+The van, having crossed the courtyard, was backed against the door, where
+a string of warders formally received us; and after again submitting to
+the painful ordeal of being catechized, I found myself traversing a
+dismal and nearly dark corridor; and then the hideous conviction forced
+itself on me for the first time that I was actually a prisoner and
+securely lodged in Newgate.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+NEWGATE.
+
+
+SO much has been written about this national Bastille, and so many have
+gone over the building, that one feels as if writing about “a tale that
+is told.”  Nevertheless, I trust my narrative may describe things never
+before alluded to, and be found to contain matters of interest that came
+under my personal observation.  The first thing at Newgate that a fresh
+arrival has to submit to is the indispensable bath, accompanied by a very
+minute and simultaneous search.  I was at once ushered downstairs and
+into a very roomy and luxurious bath room, quite as good as any supplied
+for eighteenpence at West End establishments, and being invited to
+undress and get into the bath, had the gratification of observing my
+clothes undergo, one by one, a very thorough overhauling.  Each item was
+severally manipulated, and I am convinced not a pin could have escaped
+detection.  Meanwhile I was splashing and thoroughly enjoying myself,
+much as one has seen a duck that has been cooped up for a week when
+suddenly turned into a pond.  I had not had such a revel for ten days,
+and in the ecstasy of the moment I felt as if it was almost worth the
+journey to Newgate for such a luxury.  This periodical bath is one of the
+greatest “inflictions” the average prisoner has to submit to, and
+numerous instances came under my observation at a later period, of
+ingenuity displayed by frowzy malefactors to evade this regulation.
+Twenty minutes found me again “clothed and in my right mind,” and I was
+ushered into a cell on the same subterraneous floor.  This cell was
+certainly the most empty I had ever seen; its entire furniture literally
+consisted of a camp stool and a thermometer, and this latter instrument
+caused me considerable annoyance, for I am not exaggerating when I assert
+that an absurd make-believe display of anxiety for one’s welfare involved
+a visit and calculation of the temperature every half-hour through the
+night.  I utterly failed to fathom this custom, the more so as the
+turnkey who made the calculation probably understood as much about it as
+he did of astronomy, and can only attribute it to the inherent politeness
+developed in the officials who periodically have lodgers whom they begin
+by feeding up, and eventually end by launching into eternity with a hand
+shake, if we are to believe the papers.  This idea is not my own, but was
+suggested to me by a terrible scamp and fellow lodger whom I shall
+presently introduce to the reader.  An absurd habit that prevailed at
+Newgate, and which contrasted strangely with the other customs, was that
+of the chief warder as he finally counted us at night.  This official,
+having glared at you with an expression such as the rattlesnake may be
+presumed to give the guinea-pig just before dinner, invariably said “Good
+night!”  I was so struck by this unique and time-honoured custom that I
+asked my friend and valet—for he cleaned out my cell and did other jobs
+for me—Mr. Mike Rose what it meant.  “Well,” he said, “they gets into a
+sort of perlite way like, ’cos whenever a cove swings they nigh allus
+shakes hands with ’im, and maybe this is ’ow they gits perlite like.”
+There was something so original in this logic that I could not but be
+impressed by it, and though I failed to discover the connection between
+the two circumstances, still I had realized that Mr. Mike Rose was a bit
+of a character and worth cultivation.  Very shortly after my
+incarceration in the thermometer-furnished cell I was visited by the
+surgeon, and having obtained his permission to have a bed instead of a
+hammock, a wooden tressel was brought in with sheets, bolster, and
+blankets.  I at once proceeded to make my couch, deeming bed the best
+place on such a cold and cheerless afternoon; and 6 o’clock P.M. found me
+in bed, vainly endeavouring to get warm, with my eye fixed on the
+thermometer, and muffled up to the chin with sheets and blankets, all of
+which were stamped in letters three inches long with the ominous words
+“NEWGATE PRISON.”  I really believed that my first night’s experience at
+the “House of Detention” was sufficiently awful, but it was nothing to my
+sensations here.  The associations of the place, the idea that many a
+murderer had probably occupied this very cell, and possibly slept in
+these identical bed-coverings, all forced themselves upon me.  The bells
+of the numerous churches which abound round Newgate also seemed desirous
+of adding to one’s misery by joyful peals; they were practising their
+weekly bell-ringing, and one chime was repeating over and over again—in
+mockery of me, as it were—Haydn’s “Hymn of the Creation,” and “The
+Heavens are telling” kept floating into my ears through granite walls and
+iron bars; and though I tried very hard to stifle sound by burying myself
+under the “broad-arrowed” bed-clothing, all my efforts were futile, till
+sleep, kind sleep, took pity on me, and I wandered in my dreams far away
+from my dreadful abode, only to be recalled to the hideous reality by the
+mournful prison bell, and—
+
+    “Sorrow returned with the light of the morn,
+    And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.”
+
+The daily routine is somewhat different to that of the “House of
+Detention.”  One official only counts the prisoners of a morning, and
+asks you at the time if you wish to see the doctor during the day.  I was
+once tempted to express this wish with a view of procuring a sleeping
+draught.  He questioned me as to my symptoms in an apparently interested
+manner, and eventually ordered me a dose of “No. 2.”  No. 2, I may here
+state, is a ready-made article, and is baled out of a huge jar into a
+dirty tin cup.  I took my dose, and, without further detailing the
+result, am extremely grateful I had not been prescribed No. 1.  If I had,
+it is very doubtful whether this narrative would ever have been written.
+The first day is occupied with details to which considerable importance
+appear to be attached—namely, your description—every particular of which
+is carefully booked by the head of each department, and a more senseless,
+harassing ordeal can hardly be conceived.  Surely one inspection and
+general description (this was my third within ten days) ought to suffice,
+and might without much trouble be forwarded from one prison to another.
+It is idle to deny that half the questions put to you are absolutely
+unnecessary, and the conviction is forced on you that you are being
+pumped from sheer curiosity.  Thus the Chaplain, in the blandest manner,
+only to be acquired by constant attendance on murderers previous to
+execution, asked me questions that appeared most impertinent—as to where
+I lived, and if I had any relatives, and where they lived.  I at once
+told him I considered all this quite unnecessary, and declined to
+enlighten him.  Immediately after breakfast on the first morning the
+prisoners are taken in packs of about twenty before the Governor.  This
+man is what is known in the army as a “Ranker”—that is, one who by merit
+has raised himself from the rank and file to his present position—and had
+apparently brought with him many of those habits which, however
+commendable in a turnkey, are beneath the dignity of a Governor and lower
+the position he ought to occupy.  Acting on the habits associated with
+his youth, this Governor commenced a minute examination of one’s
+physiognomy.  Seizing you by the nose or ear (I forget which), and
+scowling hard, he began, “Eyes grey, complexion fresh, mole on neck,
+&c.;” and having further personally superintended your being measured and
+weighed, you were filtered through, as it were, into the presence of the
+Chaplain, who tried to pump you as before described, and who, in his
+turn, passed you on to the doctor, who appeared to have a kind of roving
+commission to endeavour to extract any crumbs of information omitted by
+his two _confrères_.
+
+                       [Picture: A Cheerful Group]
+
+The whole style and system at Newgate was excessively low.  I was
+moreover very much struck by the resemblance that appeared to exist
+between the officials from the highest to the lowest.  Every one had the
+same unpleasant expression that suggested the idea that they lived in
+gloomy streets, where the drainage was bad.  I attribute this in a
+measure to a commendable desire on the part of the subordinates to
+imitate their chief, who had not a pleasant expression, and shows how
+necessary it is that Government should select a gentleman by birth and
+manners—irrespective of every other recommendation—for a position of such
+delicacy as that of a prison Governor.  The next ordeal one had to submit
+to was “Chapel,” and, barring the novelty of the scene, I can hardly
+conceive a more absurd farce.  The pumping Chaplain was here
+metamorphosed into the surpliced cleric, and it is difficult to decide in
+which character he was most objectionable.  In justice I must commend him
+for the brevity of his remarks, for from find to finish—from “When the
+wicked man” to the end of the sermon—was all compressed into fifteen
+minutes, and away we again trudged, like Alice in Wonderland, in search
+of further novelty.  The Chapel of Newgate is a very awful place;
+anything more calculated to banish reverential feeling and inspire horror
+can hardly be conceived.  On each side is a huge cage, different from
+anything I had ever seen, except, perhaps, the elephant house at the
+Zoological.  In these, prisoners convicted and prisoners awaiting trial
+are severally placed, thus effectually dividing the Scotland Yard sheep
+from the Scotland Yard goats.  Above, protected by small red curtains,
+were diminutive balconies, capable of holding three persons at most;
+these were for the accommodation of murderers, from whence they receive
+the consolations of religion (official) whilst awaiting strangulation.
+The vibration of a curtain led me to the conclusion that one of these
+mortuaries was daily occupied, a suspicion that was confirmed by events
+which I subsequently heard and saw.  I discovered, indeed, that a
+gentleman who had cut the throats of half his family, and who eventually
+benefited by the religious consolation of the Chaplain and the delicate
+attentions of Mr. Marwood, was a fellow-lodger at the same time as
+myself.  I saw the poor wretch every day passing and repassing, and later
+on “assisted” at certain preliminaries in his honour.  I moreover had a
+bird’s-eye view of his last appearance in public, facts that I shall duly
+narrate hereafter.
+
+“Exercise” was an indispensable feature of life in Newgate, and nothing,
+I believe, could have exempted one from this ordeal.  It answered,
+indeed, more purposes than one.  Health was doubtless essential;
+identification, however, was considerably more important.  Three times a
+week, and before starting on our circus-like walk, all the prisoners
+awaiting trial, amounting to over two hundred, were ranged shoulder to
+shoulder round the walls, a preliminary that at first puzzled me
+considerably.  I was not, however, left long in ignorance.
+
+             [Picture: “Should old acquaintance be forgot.”]
+
+A little way off, and apparently approaching, I heard the measured tramp
+of an advancing crowd, and suddenly there appeared a long string of men
+in single file; these were the detectives, some seventy or eighty in
+number, bent on a mission of recognition.  Slowly they passed before us,
+each one staring and occasionally stopping and addressing a prisoner, or
+whispering to one of their companions.  These preliminary enquiries often
+led to minuter inspections; and if they expressed the wish, a prisoner
+was afterwards honoured by a private view, and carefully compared with
+photographs and police descriptions.  This, no doubt, is a very essential
+proceeding, and many a man “wanted” for an undiscovered crime in another
+part of the kingdom, and committed months or years previously, is
+recognized by this salutary custom.  As may be supposed, this inspection
+had absolutely no personal interest to me.  Still the ordeal, degrading
+in the extreme, never failed to inspire me with horror; and I dreaded the
+mornings when the “detecs,” as they were lovingly termed, made their
+appearance.  There was something so weird and uncanny in the whole
+thing—the distant tramp, the solemn march past, the offensive leer, the
+familiar stare, all combined to make a horrible impression.  A more
+repulsive body of men than these “detecs” can hardly be conceived, got up
+as they were in every kind of costume—men in pot hats and slap-bang
+coats, others in shabby-genteel frock coats and tall hats; some in
+fustians and others in waterproofs and leggings, but all with the same
+unmistakable expression.  I hope the authorities are not under the
+impression that these individuals are unknown to the law-breaking
+community, for no greater fallacy can possibly exist.  I never missed an
+opportunity hereafter of asking habitual criminals this question, and am
+satisfied that their appearances, their beats, and their daily routine
+are known to every habitual criminal in London.  I’ll prove this
+hereafter.  Meanwhile, one has only to look about in the streets, and he
+cannot fail to observe a civilian frequently talking to a policeman.
+This man is not asking his way, but is in nineteen cases out of twenty a
+“recogniser”; nor can it be wondered at if their foolish actions and
+evident unwillingness to conceal their vocation makes them as
+distinguishable as they are.  I will confidently assert that every
+pickpocket and every “unfortunate” knows each and every one of these
+detectives; and as they invariably frequent the same beat, and pursue the
+same tactics at the same time every day, it can hardly be wondered at.  I
+know—and it will hardly be asserted that I could know it except by having
+heard it from others—that a detective is “due” daily at King’s Cross
+Metropolitan Station about two P.M., and remains about an hour, and that
+on race-days he is there before the return from the meeting.  If this is
+true—as I believe it to be—it is natural to suppose that other facts are
+equally well known.  I could adduce a hundred instances of this sort, for
+I made burglars my particular study, and will disclose hereafter my ideas
+of the many fallacies that at present exist on this subject, and the
+causes that lead to burglaries, and how they are easiest avoided.  I
+never lost the opportunity of questioning a burglar or a pickpocket, and
+during the next few months I saw some very fair specimens of these
+respective species.  My remarks must not be taken as referring to the
+higher Scotland-yard detectives, than whom no cleverer body exists, but
+to these trumpery plainclothes men, or “recognisers,” that may be seen at
+every corner, and who, I verily believe, do more to impede than further
+justice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+THE SCAFFOLD.
+
+
+IN the corner of the yard where I daily exercised stood an unpretending
+looking shed, with slate roof and large folding doors, and resembling a
+coach-house more than anything I can compare it to.  This building always
+puzzled me, and I enquired of my friend and fellow-lodger, Mr. Mike Rose,
+what it was.  I then discovered it was the scaffold, that grim limb of
+the law on which so many wretches have periodically suffered within three
+weeks of their sentence at the Old Bailey Sessions, or, as they are
+familiarly known, “The C. C. C.”  I was most anxious to have a minute
+examination of this masterpiece of Marwood’s, for it is admitted that
+that eminent manipulator of the carotid artery has brought his genius to
+bear on the grim subject with such success that drop, knot, and platform
+have all arrived at the highest possible degree of perfection.  It was
+the custom to utilise the services of certain prisoners every day in
+general cleaning and helping about the prison, and as I was convinced
+that “the scaffold” would, like every other prison institution, require a
+periodical clean up, I suggested to my turnkey that if the chance
+occurred he should select me to assist in this cheerful and instructive
+duty.  He laughed at the idea of _my_ doing such work, and added that
+they only selected men whose antecedents had habituated them to scrubbing
+and cleaning; but I explained to him that if Mike and I were selected,
+that Mike would do all the washing, and that I would exercise a sort of
+moral effect and general supervision that could not possibly make the
+slightest difference to him, and was based on an agreement between Mike
+and myself, whereby for a consideration of bread and butter, and my
+leavings generally, he was to clean out my cell daily and make himself
+useful to me, and on my behalf.  This warder was a very good sort—indeed,
+about the only one that had not that offensive “bad drainage” expression
+I had noticed in the others.  So he promised compliance, and one day
+after dinner I found myself in company with Mike, crossing the yard—I
+with a duster and he with a mop and pail _en route_ to the scaffold.
+There is something horrible in this idea, and many readers will probably
+consider my act and desire to participate in such a task as in the worst
+possible taste, but I felt I should _never_ have such a chance again, and
+being, moreover, a philosopher, and actuated, even at that early stage,
+with a determination of some day writing my experiences, I lost no
+opportunity from the first day of my incarceration to the last to see
+_everything_ by hook or by crook.  I can fairly say I attained my object,
+and saw _more_ than any other man has ever done before, and that too
+under such favourable circumstances as something more than chance enabled
+me to.  It may not here be out of place to say that I have read every
+book, sensational or realistic, that purports to describe prison life,
+and have invariably come to the conclusion that the writers never really
+wrote from personal observation, or, if they did, had failed signally in
+giving a correct description of what actually exists.  Many were
+well-written books, but they were NOT prison life.  This narrative (to
+use an advertising phrase) supplies a want long felt, and if it abounds
+with faults of composition—as I readily confess it does—it compensates in
+a measure for its shortcomings by the accuracy of its details.  It is
+written in a vein, moreover, more likely—as I hope—to meet public
+approval than that snivelling, sanctimonious style adopted by its
+predecessors, and which, even if sincere, would nevertheless be palling,
+but where indulged in by some scheming, anonymous, rascally jail-bird, is
+as impertinent as it is nauseous.  I have no faith in converted burglars.
+The entire scaffold is a most unpretending construction, and situated in
+any other yard but Old Bailey might pass observation as a highly-polished
+and tidy out-house.  The floor is level with the outer yard, so that the
+chief actor is spared the painful necessity of trying to ascend a flight
+of steps with quaking knees and an air of assumed levity.  A few steps,
+quite unobservable whilst standing on the “drop,” lead down from the back
+of the flooring into a bricked pit below, and a long bolt, worked by a
+wheel, enables this apparently solid flooring to split from the centre
+and to launch the victim in mid-air into the centre of this truly
+“bottomless pit.”  I minutely examined all this, and (as its thorough
+dusting necessitated) rubbed and burnished every portion I could think
+of.  My _confrère_, meanwhile, was on his hands and knees, scrubbing away
+like grim death, and preparing the floor for the ceremony that was to
+take place a few days hence.  Mike all this time was giving me the
+benefit of his vast experience; and as he appeared to hear everything
+that was going on, he led me to understand that eight A.M. on Monday next
+would witness one of those dreadful private executions that periodically
+take place, witnessed by none but prison officials, and associated, I
+verily believe, in many instances by circumstances of brutality that
+would not admit of publicity.  He added that we might by luck get a view
+of the procession, or at least hear a little, for, as he considerately
+pointed out, our cells actually overlooked the yard.  I was most anxious
+to hear how we might attain to this unusual excitement, and listened
+attentively whilst Mike enlightened me in something of the following
+style:—“Yer see, they’ll begin to fake the cove about eight—ah, afore
+that, and none of us, see, will be allowed out that morning, you bet; so
+if we can get a bit of glass out of the windey—see—and plug it round wi’
+bread, why none on ’em wud be none the wiser, and we might see a rare
+lot; never you mind, leave it to me, and to-morrow when I cleans your
+cell, I’ll fix it for yer.”  This was indeed something to look forward
+to, and next morning when Mike appeared he led me to understand, by the
+most hideous grimaces, that he had succeeded on his own window, and
+prepared to do the same by mine; so leaving him to himself, I withdrew
+into another cell, for it is a peculiarity of prison system that if two
+men are together, or even near one another, they are invariably watched,
+but if alone they are comparatively unobserved, and free to prosecute any
+undertaking without the least risk of detection.  Mike’s gestures,
+accompanied by a rolling of his eyes in the direction of the window,
+convinced me on my return that he had succeeded in his undertaking, and
+having the highest opinion of his constructive and destructive
+capabilities, I determined not to approach the window nor to test his
+work till the supreme moment arrived.  Mike was one of those individuals
+who undergo imprisonment as a matter of course, and with considerably
+greater advantage than most men.  I do not here include myself, for mine
+was an exceptional case; he had benefited by the experience of years, and
+though only a young man, appeared to be intimate with every prison in the
+kingdom; he was, moreover, a most willing and respectful man and a
+capital worker, and, as such, a favourite with the warders, who knew they
+could always depend on a job being well done by him; he was,
+consequently, all day employed on odd jobs, which carried with them
+privileges that enabled him to roam about and give the uninitiated—such
+as myself—the benefit of his profound and varied experience.  Mike, I
+fear, was a terrible ruffian; he was now awaiting his trial for burglary
+and personal violence, and though he assured me it was a mere nothing,
+and a grossly exaggerated and trumped-up charge, I gleaned from the facts
+that came out at his trial that he had rifled the contents of a small
+shop in the City Road, and that when the old woman who lived on the
+premises had ventured to remonstrate, that Mike had marked his sense of
+such an unjustifiable proceeding by half throttling her, and eventually
+making away “for a little season.”  He assured me, however, it was
+“nothing,” adding, however, that as it was his fourth conviction, he
+quite expected penal servitude.  He informed me also that he had written
+an elaborate defence, which he proposed reading to the judge and jury.
+This defence he insisted on showing me, and I am bound to say that a more
+damning document, or one more capable of hanging a man, I never saw; but
+luck and circumstances happily (for him) prevented him carrying out his
+intention of reading it, and Mike by the omission got off with two years’
+hard labour.  Mr. Rose, who was about four-feet-four in his stockings,
+communicated to me, amongst other interesting facts, that he was a
+volunteer, and I could not help realising on various occasions after he
+had been performing violent exercise in my cell, that there was some
+truth in the adage that “a Rose by any name would smell as sweet.”  Mike,
+in short, was a character, and whether in chapel, where he apparently led
+the choir and knew every response by heart, or in the prison, where he
+appeared _au courant_ with everything and everybody, I found him a most
+useful neighbour, invariably obliging and respectful, and willing to turn
+his hand to anything.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+A PRIVATE EXECUTION.
+
+
+THE eventful day at length dawned when the scaffold was to be brought
+into requisition.  “The condemned sermon” of the day before, to say
+nothing of the evident bustle that was going on, had sufficiently
+prepared our minds for what was about to happen; and the getting our
+breakfasts half an hour earlier, and the omission of the usual passage
+cleaning, all clearly pointed to some unusual occurrence.  My friend the
+warder, too, kept me thoroughly _au courant_ with what was passing, and
+when giving me my breakfast added, “Well, I sha’n’t be back just yet, as
+I’ve got to assist at a little business down below that will take about
+an hour.”  After, therefore, he had left me, I mounted my stool, and
+having contemplated Mike’s handiwork with considerable satisfaction,
+removed the pane of glass and awaited the procession with very much the
+same sensation that I have looked out for the passing of the Lord Mayor’s
+Show or Mr. Hengler’s circus.  The view I anticipated can hardly be said
+to have been obtained under the most favourable circumstances.  Perched
+on a stool, and liable, if detected, of getting into a very serious
+scrape, was in itself sufficient to infuse a certain amount of alloy into
+the transaction; but when to all this must be added my own feelings—that
+here was I, ONE prisoner actually confined within the same walls, and
+watching the execution of ANOTHER prisoner—it will readily be conceived
+that a piquancy was introduced into the proceeding such as seldom or ever
+has fallen to the lot of an individual in my position.  I could not have
+had long to wait, though the discomfort of my position and the anxiety
+attending it made it appear a matter of hours; and no twenty stone of
+humanity ever suffered more torture than I did whilst with craned neck
+and squinting through a crevice I awaited the advent of this hideous
+procession.  The dismal toll of St. Sepulchre’s bell and the distant
+tramp of advancing footsteps, however, announced that the “time had
+come.”  I could distinctly hear the “Ordinary” repeating in very ordinary
+tones portions of the Burial Service as the weird procession passed below
+me; a dense fog made it very indistinct, but there it was almost beneath
+me—the warders first, then the Governor, and then the condemned man
+trussed like a turkey, supported by Marwood, and immediately preceded by
+the chaplain.  I could have dropped a biscuit amongst the party, so near
+were they, as they passed through a wicket and were lost to sight.  A
+solemn silence now ensued, followed after a few moments that appeared
+like hours by a terrible thud; and I pictured to myself the lately
+scrubbed floor giving way, and my fellow-prisoner suspended mid-air in
+that dark and bottomless pit.  The closing of the outer shed doors
+recalled me to my senses, and the approaching sound of footsteps, as the
+“small and early party” dispersed, some to breakfast and some to the
+morning paper, but all to reassemble an hour hence for the inquest, the
+quicklime, the thrusting into a hole, and the general obliteration of the
+morning’s work, suggested to me the advisability of at once restoring my
+apartment to its normal condition.  So with one piece of bread jammed
+into the window, and another jammed into my mouth, I resumed my breakfast
+as if perfectly oblivious of the terrible drama that had just taken
+place.  A few hours later we were exercising in the identical yard, and
+the modest coach-house with its closed doors looked as disused as the
+portals of a swimming-bath on Christmas Day.
+
+The scene just enacted and the _débris_ of my breakfast forcibly recalled
+to my mind an execution I witnessed many years ago from, as I believe,
+the identical eating-house that had just supplied me with my breakfast.
+It was in ’65, as near as I can recollect, that myself and three or four
+others engaged a room on the first floor with two windows to witness the
+execution of Müller for the murder of Mr. Briggs.  A public hanging has
+been so often and so graphically described that I hesitate to attempt to
+add anything that is not already known.  On the night before (Sunday) we
+agreed to rendezvous at 10 o’clock at the Raleigh Club.  It was raining
+in torrents, and it was a question in our minds whether or no we should
+brave the elements; but an empty four-wheeler standing outside settled
+the point, and we proceeded on our ghastly journey.  As it turned out,
+the deluge was all in our favour, for had it been fine we should never
+have got near the place, and would assuredly have shared the fate of a
+cab-load of young Guardsmen who had preceded us about an hour, and who
+unluckily arrived between the showers and never got beyond Newgate Lane;
+at this point they were politely but firmly invited to descend, stripped
+to their shirts, and then asked where the cabman should drive them to.
+We, however, were more fortunate.  In a sheet of water that even the
+stoutest burglar found to be irresistible, we alighted in a comparatively
+deserted street in front of our unpretending coffee-house; and a few
+minutes found us in a cosy room with a blazing fire, and a servant who
+had preceded us laying out the contents of a hamper of prog.  The scene
+on the night previous to a public execution afforded a study of the dark
+side of nature, not to be obtained under any other conditions.  The
+lowest scum of London appeared to be here collected in dense masses,
+which, as the hour of execution approached, amounted, according to the
+_Times_, to at least 100,000 people.  The front of Newgate was strongly
+barricaded, huge barriers of stout beams traversing the street in all
+directions; they were intended as a precaution against the pressure of
+the crowd; they, however, answered another purpose, not wholly
+anticipated by the authorities.  As the crowd increased, so wholesale
+highway robberies were of momentary occurrence; and victims in the hands
+of some two or three desperate ruffians were as far from help as though
+divided by a continent from the battalions of police that surrounded the
+scaffold.
+
+The scene that met our view as we pulled up the windows and looked out on
+the black night and its still blacker accompanyists baffles description.
+A surging mass, with here and there a flickering torch, rolled and roared
+before us; above this weird scene arose the voices of men and women
+shouting, singing, blaspheming; and as night advanced, and the liquor
+gained firmer mastery, it seemed as if hell had delivered up its victims.
+To approach the window was a matter of danger; volleys of mud immediately
+saluted us, accompanied by more blasphemy and shouts of defiance.  It was
+difficult to believe we were in the centre of a civilised capital that
+vaunted its religion and yet meted out justice in such a form.
+
+The first step towards the morning’s work was the appearance of workmen
+about 4 A.M.; this was immediately followed by a rumbling sound, and we
+realized that the scaffold was being dragged round.  A grim, square,
+box-like apparatus was now indistinctly visible, as it was slowly backed
+against the “debtors’ door.”  Lights now flickered about the scaffold; it
+was the workmen fixing the crossbeams and uprights.  Every stroke of the
+hammer must have vibrated through the condemned cells, and warned the
+wakeful occupant that his time was nearly come.  These cells are situated
+at the corner nearest Holborn, and passed by thousands daily who little
+know how much misery that bleak white wall divides them from.  Gradually
+as day dawned the scene became more animated, and battalions of police
+marched down and surrounded the scaffold.  Meanwhile a little
+unpretending door was gently opened; this is the “debtors’ door,” and
+leads direct through the kitchen on to the scaffold.  The kitchen on
+these occasions is turned into a temporary mausoleum, and draped with
+tawdry black hangings, which conceal the pots and pans, and produce an
+effect supposed to be more in keeping with the solemn occasion.  From our
+standpoint everything was visible inside the kitchen and on the scaffold;
+to the surging mass in the streets below this bird’s-eye view was,
+however, denied.  Presently an old and decrepit man made his appearance,
+and cautiously “tested” the drop; but a foolish impulse of curiosity led
+him to peep over the drapery, and a yell of execration saluted him.  This
+was Calcraft, the hangman, hoary-headed and tottering and utterly past
+his work.
+
+The tolling of St. Sepulchre’s about 7.30 A.M. announced the approach of
+the hour of execution; meanwhile a steady rain was falling, which,
+however, in no way decreased the ever-increasing crowd.  As far as the
+eye could reach was a sea of human faces.  Roofs, windows, church rails,
+and empty vans—all were pressed into the service, and tightly packed with
+human beings eager to catch a glimpse of a fellow-creature on the last
+stage of life’s journey.  The rain by this time had made the drop
+slippery, and necessitated precautions on behalf of the living if not on
+those appointed to die; so sand was thrown over a portion (not of the
+drop—that would have been superfluous), but on the side, the only portion
+that was not to give way.  It was suggestive of the pitfalls used for
+trapping wild beasts—a few twigs and a handful of earth, and below a
+gaping chasm.  Here, however, all was reversed; there was no need to
+deceive the chief actor by resorting to such a subterfuge: he was to
+expiate his crime with all the publicity a humane government could
+devise.  The sand was for the benefit of the “ordinary,” the minister of
+religion, who was to offer dying consolation at 8 and breakfast at 9 A.M.
+
+The procession now appeared, winding its way through the kitchen, and in
+the centre of the group walked Müller, a sickly, delicate-looking lad,
+securely pinioned and literally as white as marble.  As he reached the
+platform, he looked up, and placed himself immediately under the hanging
+chain.  At the end of this chain was a hook, which was eventually
+attached to the hemp round the poor wretch’s neck.  The concluding
+ceremonies did not take long, considering how feeble the aged hangman
+was.  A white cap was first placed over his face, then his ankles were
+strapped together, and finally the fatal noose was put round his neck,
+the end of which was then attached to the hook.  I fancy I can see
+Calcraft now, laying the “slack” of the rope that was to give the fall
+lightly on the doomed man’s shoulder, so as to preclude the possibility
+of a hitch, and then stepping on tiptoe down the steps and disappearing
+below.  The silence now was truly awful.  I felt my heart in my mouth; it
+was the most terrific suspense I had ever realized.  I felt myself
+involuntarily saying, “He could be saved YET, YET, YET;” and then a thud,
+that vibrated through the street, announced that Müller was launched into
+eternity.  My eyes were literally glued to the spot.  I was fascinated by
+the awful sight; not a detail escaped me.  Calcraft meanwhile, apparently
+not satisfied with his handiwork, seized hold of the wretch’s feet and
+pressed on them for some seconds with all his weight, and with a last
+approving look shambled back into the prison.  Meanwhile the white cap
+was getting tighter and tighter, until it looked ready to burst; and a
+faint blue speck that had almost immediately appeared on the carotid
+artery after the drop fell gradually became more livid till it assumed
+the appearance of a huge black bruise.  Death, I should say, must have
+been instantaneous, for he never stirred a muscle, and the only movement
+that was visible was that from the gradually stretching rope as the body
+kept slowly swinging round and round.  The hanging of the body for an
+hour constituted part of the sentence, an interval that was not lost upon
+the multitude below.  The drunken again took up their ribald songs,
+conspicuous amongst which was one that had done duty pretty well through
+the night, and ended with, “Müller, Müller, he’s the man”; but the
+pickpockets and the highwaymen reaped the greatest benefit.  It can
+hardly be credited that respectable old City men on their way to
+business, with watch-chains and scarf-pins, in clean white shirt-fronts,
+and with unmistakable signs of having spent the night in bed, should have
+had the foolhardiness to venture into such a crowd, but there they were
+in dozens.  They had not long to wait for the reward of their temerity.
+Gangs of ruffians at once surrounded them; and whilst one held them by
+each arm, another was rifling their pockets.  Watches, chains, and
+scarf-pins passed from hand to hand with the rapidity of an eel;
+meanwhile their piteous shouts of “Murder!” “Help!” “Police!” were
+utterly unavailing.  The barriers were doing their duty too well, and the
+hundreds of constables within a few yards were perfectly powerless to get
+through the living rampart.
+
+From our window I saw an interesting case of mistaken identity, and I was
+glad to have the opportunity of saving an innocent man from arrest.  The
+incident was referred to in the next day’s papers, and was briefly this.
+A well-dressed old man had had his scarf-pin pulled out, and a policeman
+by this time being luckily near, a lad standing by was taxed with the
+theft.  We, however, from our vantage ground had seen the whole affair,
+and recognized the real culprit, who was standing coolly by whilst the
+innocent man was being marched off.  By shouting and hammering with our
+sticks, we eventually succeeded in attracting the notice of the
+constable, and pointed out the real culprit, and the pin was then and
+there found on him.
+
+Whilst these incidents were going on, 9 o’clock was gradually
+approaching, the hour when the body was to be cut down.  A few minutes
+previously two prisoners had brought out the shell—a common deal one,
+perforated with holes.  I remember remarking at the time how small it
+looked; and my conjecture proved correct, for it was with difficulty that
+the body could be squeezed in.  It showed with what consummate skill and
+regard to economy the exact size of the body must have been calculated.
+With its clothes on, the corpse was too big for the shell; divested of
+them, however, there was doubtless ample room, not only for it, but for
+the layers of quicklime that enveloped it.  And now Calcraft again
+appeared, and producing a clasp-knife, with one arm he hugged the body
+and with the other severed the rope.  It required two slashes of the
+feeble old arm to complete this final ceremony, and then the head fell
+with a flop on the old man’s breast, who, staggering under the weight,
+jammed it into the shell.  The two prisoners then carried it into the
+prison, the debtors’ door closed till again required to open for a
+similar tragedy, and the crowd meanwhile having sufficiently decreased,
+enabled us to go home to bed, and to dream of the horrors of the past
+twelve hours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+“NEWGATE ETIQUETTE.”
+
+
+VISITS at Newgate are made under great disadvantage, and have not even
+the recommendation of privacy.  A few of the more respectable (as regards
+clothes) prisoners, such as myself, were allowed to see our daily
+visitors in a portion of the enclosure a little removed, but still so
+near the regular place that it was almost impossible to hear what was
+said on account of the terrible roar made by the united lungs of a
+hundred malefactors and their demonstrative friends.  Visits are only
+permitted between two and four o’clock, and as everybody comes about the
+same hour, the babel that ensues may be readily conceived.  As, moreover,
+we are untried, and consequently innocent, people, these restrictions as
+to time and numbers are clearly unjust, and merit alteration.  Solicitors
+are permitted to consult with their clients in glass boxes, where all can
+be seen but nothing heard.  These cases are situated in the direct route
+through which sight-seers are conducted.  An amusing incident occurred to
+me on one occasion.  I was in deep consultation with an eminent solicitor
+of Gray’s Inn Square, as a herd of some ten country bumpkins, male and
+female, were being piloted about, and I distinctly saw their conductor
+make a motion that evidently referred to me.  I cannot, of course, say
+what that communication was, but it was evidently enough to raise the
+desire on the part of one of the females to have a closer inspection of
+me.  With a light step, such as a sack of coals might make on a skating
+rink, the biped cautiously stalked me, and deliberately flattened her
+“tip-tilted,” turn-up nose against the window.  Without a moment’s
+warning, I bounded from my chair and shouted out, “Sixpence extra for the
+chamber of horrors.”  The fair creature jumped as if shot from a
+catapult, and I fancy I can now see her black stockings and frowzy
+petticoat as she flew towards her party.  Hemma Hann had been taught a
+lesson!
+
+There are certain abuses that call for immediate and rigorous suppression
+at Newgate, the more so as it is a place where prisoners are, as it were,
+in transit, and thus many things that might be made real advantages are
+(or were a year ago) gross injustices.  I refer specially to the
+“privilege” of procuring your own food.  Men awaiting trial are naturally
+ignorant of the system and its details, and I cannot do better than state
+what occurred to me, and the absolute injustice I was subject to; for my
+case is only similar to that of many others, who have not perhaps the
+same advantage as I have of ventilating the grievance.
+
+I was asked on the first day what I would like to order, and deeming it
+safest to avoid mistakes I gave one order to hold good daily.  I ordered
+a pint of milk and a plate of bread and butter for breakfast; a plate of
+meat and a pint of ale for dinner; and for supper a pint of milk and a
+plate of bread and butter.  Now I ask any unprejudiced reader what ought
+such food to have cost, supplied to a prisoner from a common coffee-house
+in such a district?
+
+I have been at the trouble of enquiring at this and similar
+eating-houses, and find that their prices for the above articles are, for
+a pint of milk, 4d.; bread and butter, 3d.; a plate of meat and
+vegetables, 8d.; bread, 1d.; and a pint of ale, 4d.; total, 2s. 3d.  But
+a free citizen and a caged prisoner are two different things, for which
+there are two different prices.  For the above homely fare I was charged
+3s. 6d. a day, and as my money was in the hands of the prison
+authorities, I had absolutely no redress.  No notice was ever taken of a
+complaint, though I made a dozen.  Often my beer did not come, but I was
+charged all the same; my milk was frequently forgotten, and eventually
+appeared an hour after in a boiled state—and yet this scandalous charge
+was paid daily.  I ask any humane government, is not this a shame?  What
+is the only inference that can possibly be drawn?  Surely it is within
+the bounds of possibility that these officials, badly paid and half fed,
+supplement their day’s food at the expense of the prisoner; if they do
+not, would they permit the coffee-house keeper to reap such profits?
+Common sense suggests there must be collusion.  I am fortified in this
+opinion by what I’ve lately seen.  During the past few weeks I’ve been
+round this grimy district, and seen the turnkeys running in and out from
+the wicket opposite into certain of these houses that I could indicate,
+and the honorary membership that appears to exist leaves no room for any
+interpretation but the one suggested.  I sincerely hope this matter may
+not be deemed too trivial to be looked into, and that it will be the
+means of introducing an improvement of the system, whereby a prisoner can
+procure articles at fixed prices, and that this tariff is hung up in
+every cell.  My treatment was so glaringly unjust that I cannot lose the
+opportunity of giving publicity to the sequel.  On the eve of my
+departure to “Cold Bath Fields,” I was asked to sign the usual paper
+which purported to show how my money, £1 5s. 4d., had been expended, and
+as a proof of my being satisfied with it.  This I distinctly declined to
+do; and one would have supposed that in an establishment where “justice”
+plays so prominent a part, my refusal would at least have elicited an
+enquiry.  On the contrary, however, pressure was actually brought to bear
+on me, and even the Governor lowered himself by making it a personal
+matter.  The man, as I said before, was not a gentleman by birth, but I
+was hardly prepared for such violent partizanship on his part.  “So I
+hear you decline to sign the receipt for your money.  Very well; I shall
+retain the money, and report your conduct to the Governor of Cold Bath
+Fields.”  This was the dignified speech that greeted me next morning.  In
+reply, I assured him that I certainly should not sign, and he might
+report me to whomsoever he pleased.  Thus ended our squabble; and it
+might as well have been spared, for I found on my arrival at Cold Bath
+Fields that only 4s. 5½d. had been sent with me, and that consequently
+the eating-house man had been paid £1 0s. 10½d. by his patron the
+Governor on my behalf, and despite my protest.  With the abolition of
+Newgate as a prison, except during the sessions, it is sincerely to be
+hoped that these crying scandals have been abolished too.
+
+One thing that struck me particularly was the small number of warders in
+comparison to the prisoners.  Seven or eight, from the Governor to the
+lowest turnkey, comprised the entire staff, and were responsible for the
+safety of some two hundred prisoners.  Such a number was clearly
+inadequate, and the risk they ran, however remote, was forcibly brought
+to my notice by a conversation I once overheard.  Amongst others awaiting
+trial was a desperate-looking ruffian of low stature, with bull head and
+black shaggy eyebrows—a man who had undergone more than one sentence of
+penal servitude, and who, to judge by his appearance, was capable of any
+atrocity.  This ruffian was pointing out one morning how easy it would be
+to make a dash at the warders, and then, without the possibility of
+opposition, simply to walk out.  The plan certainly seems feasible,
+especially during chapel, where four or five warders are absolutely at
+the mercy of two hundred prisoners.  One can only suppose that a moral
+restraint exists, and on which the authorities rely, that would prevent
+many from joining in such a mutiny, and who, if a choice had to be made,
+would prefer to join issue with the warders rather than with their
+unsavoury opponents.  During the sessions the regular staff is augmented
+by five or six additional hands, for the most part feeble old men,
+suggestive of sandwich men out of employment.  I was much amused by one
+of these patriarchs who was left in absolute and sole charge, and daily
+superintended the exercise of some fifty or sixty prisoners.  I never
+lost an opportunity of having a chat with him, as he stood shivering in a
+threadbare ulster, with a dew-drop on his nose, a ragged comforter round
+his neck, and his poor old gums rattling in the drafty yard.  I found,
+however, that he was not devoid of official dignity, and had a very high
+conception of the position and importance of “officers,” as every turnkey
+likes to be styled.  I remember saying to the poor old chap one day, “You
+officers must have a very difficult duty to perform, what between
+maintaining your dignity and doing your duty strictly.”  A leer, such as
+one might associate with a magpie looking down a marrow-bone, was all he
+vouchsafed in reply for a moment, and I feared he suspected I was pulling
+his leg; but I was eventually reassured by his replying, “Yis, there’s no
+responsibler dooty than an officer’s.”  “Yes,” I replied, “but I’ve
+always heard that you officers are sad dogs;” and as I moved away I heard
+the old gums clatter as if pleased at the compliment, and if I had had a
+shilling in my pocket I should certainly have given it to the old
+“officer.”  The first day of the sessions had now arrived, and I rose
+with mingled feelings of anxiety and pleasure; anxiety for what the day
+might bring forth, and pleasure at the thought that anything was better
+than the uncertainty that at present involved my future, and hailing with
+delight the prospect of knowing the worst.  I never expected, however,
+that my case would be tried on the first day, and was therefore
+considerably taken back when, about 3 P.M., my door was suddenly opened,
+and with a “Come along, you’re wanted in the Court,” a warder made his
+appearance.  The awful reality now burst on me for the first time that I
+was on the point of appearing in a criminal dock to answer a charge of
+forgery, and uttering forged bills.  I won’t weary the reader by saying
+more than that I pleaded guilty to the uttering, but denied the forging,
+as I still do, and ever shall; but being informed that the two acts were
+considered synonymous, my plea was registered as “guilty,” and I was
+sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment with hard labour.  I am now
+entering on a phase of my career which may be considered as the
+commencement proper of my narrative, and one that I expected, from the
+steps that led up to it, would consist of harshness and brutality, such
+as one reads of in stories of the Bastile and other prisons; whereas, on
+the contrary, I was leaving all that behind, and about to experience a
+kindness and consideration I can never adequately describe or be
+sufficiently grateful for.  But a word or two is necessary before we
+leave Newgate to enable me to describe the Old Bailey Court House and its
+sombre approaches, its subterraneous passages, and dingy cells.  I must
+also make a digression to narrate the heart-breaking story of a poor
+wretch which he himself told me, and which I’ve reason to believe is
+strictly true, and to which his position as a man of title—I shall
+refrain from giving his name—imparts a considerable degree of interest.
+It is a tale which demonstrates to what a contemptible state a man can
+bring himself by the excessive use of stimulants, and how that
+degradation is augmented when wedded to immorality, culminating in the
+inevitable shipwreck that waits on bright prospects and a long rent roll
+when drink and prostitution appear at the altar, only to be divorced, as
+in the present case, by a term of penal servitude.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+THE TITLED CONVICT.
+
+
+ON the morning after my arrival at Newgate it was with considerable
+surprise that I saw a man in convict dress, who was apparently the object
+of special watch and guard.  My curiosity was considerably increased from
+the circumstance of his being the only individual out of some two hundred
+in this conspicuous attire; he was moreover clearly not a novice, but
+wore the dreadful suit with the apparent ease of a man to whom it was by
+no means a novelty.  He looked horribly ill, and a terrible eruption that
+showed itself on his neck, face, and hands gave unmistakable evidence
+that the unhappy wretch was literally rotten; added to this, however,
+there was a something about him, a “_je ne sais quoi_,” that marked the
+gentleman and asserted the blue blood, despite the convict dress, the
+loathsome disease, and the degrading surroundings.  A fixed melancholy
+seemed never to desert him.  When he moved, it was with eyes cast down,
+and nothing appeared to interest him; it was the motions of a human
+machine, bowed down with grief or shame, or meditating some awful
+vengeance.  I was so struck with all this that I determined to lose no
+opportunity of scraping an acquaintance with the mysterious stranger.  I
+enquired of a warder, but all he knew or pretended to know was that he
+was undergoing a sentence of 20 years’ penal servitude, and had lately
+been drafted there from a convict prison; that he had only been there a
+few days, and would in all probability be moved elsewhere very shortly.
+Chance favoured my desire to make his acquaintance.  It was on a Saturday
+afternoon, a time devoted to a very general and extra clean up, and when
+almost everyone is put on a job.  My warder—like a brick—had put me, at
+my urgent request, to “dusting” the rails, a duty, I had observed, at
+which the convict was frequently employed.  I got as near as discretion
+would permit, and ventured to ask him who and what he was.  He looked at
+me at first with a mingled expression of surprise and distrust, but being
+apparently reassured by either my manner or my dress, began in short,
+jerky sentences in something of the following style: “You ask me who I
+am.  That’s a question I haven’t heard for six long years.  Since that
+time I’ve been an unit, 4016 of Portland, and praying night and day that
+death would release me.”  I was alarmed at his excited manner; his eyes
+flashed, he quivered like a maniac, and I begged him to be calm.  This
+appeal seemed to touch some long dried-up spring; kind words evidently
+sounded strange to him, and a tear trickled down his seamed and hollow
+cheeks.  The weakness, however, was but momentary, and wiping his eyes
+with his coarse blue handkerchief, he began in a melancholy voice the
+following sad story:—
+
+“You ask me who I am, or rather who I was.  Know, then, that six years
+ago I was known as —.”  I started at the name, for it was a well-known
+and titled one.  “At an early age my parents died, leaving me the
+possessor (under guardians) of £20,000 a year, an estate in England, and
+another in Ireland, a house in London, and an ancient title.  My uncle
+and guardian, alas! was actuated by no affection for me, but considered
+that if he placed me under a good tutor, insured me a liberal education,
+and sent me to see the world, he was fairly earning the handsome salary
+allowed him by the Court of Chancery, whose ward I was.  At the age of 18
+I started with my tutor on a three years’ tour, it having been decided
+that I should thus have seen everything, and made a fitting termination
+to the education of a man with the bright prospects I so confidently
+considered were in store for me.  Would to God I had been born a navvy; I
+should never then have become what you now see me.  The eventful era in
+my life at length arrived.  After seeing everything and going half over
+the world, I found myself in England again, and on the eve of being
+invested with the absolute control of my huge estates.  I will not insult
+you, nor deceive myself, by concealing any of my blemishes.  Know, then,
+I was a drunkard, a confirmed sot at 21, too weak to resist the dram
+bottle, and capable of every folly, every crime, when under the influence
+of its fatal spell.  I moreover hated the society of gentlemen, and was
+never happy except in low company.  In London, whither I came after
+taking possession of my estates, I did not know a soul; the few
+respectable friends or relatives of my father I studiously avoided.
+Pleasure for me was only to be attained by herding with cads and
+prostitutes.  My position, my title, my wealth, made this an easy task,
+and I soon became acquainted with a number of that voracious, threadbare
+class.  My most intimate friends were broken-down gentlemen and
+spendthrifts of shady reputation; fighting men and banjo men, and
+blood-suckers of every type, who flattered my vanity, and led me as it
+were, with the one hand, whilst they rifled my pockets with the other.
+They ate at my expense, they drank at my expense; I paid their debts in
+many instances, and any rascal had only to recount to me a tissue of lies
+for me to at once offer him consolation by the ‘loan’ of a cheque.  ‘What
+matters it,’ thought I; ‘was I not —, and had I not more money than I
+could possibly spend in a century?’  I was passionately fond of theatres,
+not respectable ones where I should have had to behave decently, but low
+East-end and transpontine ones, where I was a very swan amongst the
+geese, and where my title and wealth obtained me the inestimable
+privilege of going behind the scenes, and throwing money about in
+handfuls.  On these almost nightly visits I was invariably dunned and
+asked for aid by every designing knave; they saw I was a fool, and
+usually drunk, and what I mistook for homage was in reality the treatment
+that only a contemptible drunkard with money, such as I, ever gets.
+Every scene-shifter had a harrowing tale, or an imaginary subscription
+list, to all of whom I administered bounteous monetary consolation; and
+any varlet with a whole hand, and a greasy rag round it, at once received
+a ‘fiver’ as a mark of sympathy for his painful accident.  In short, I
+was a fool, looked on as only fit to be fleeced, and simply tolerated for
+the sake of my money.  Would to God I had confined myself to these
+contemptible but otherwise harmless follies!
+
+“It was on a dull foggy night—a night I can never forget—that some
+half-dozen of my boon companions had been dining with me at a celebrated
+restaurant.  The _débris_ of the dessert had not been removed, and they
+were sipping their coffee whilst I was settling the bill, when a
+suggestion was made that we should go to the ‘Sussex.’  The ‘Sussex’ was
+a very disreputable theatre, situated somewhere over the water, and
+supported entirely by the lowest classes and a few golden calves, such as
+myself, who were serving their apprenticeship, and who were permitted the
+inestimable privilege of going behind the scenes—entering the green-room,
+or indeed any room, and paying ten shillings a bottle for as much fluid
+of an effervescent nature in champagne bottles as anybody and everybody
+chose to call for.  On these occasions we were ushered into the sacred
+precincts, with a certain amount of implied caution similar to and about
+as necessary as that assumed by a ragamuffin in the streets when asking
+you to buy a spurious edition of the _Fruits of Philosophy_.  This,
+however, in my ignorance, only enhanced the pleasure.  We were, as I
+believed, participating in some illegal transaction, permitted only to
+the most fortunate.  As a fact, we were violating no law; and if the Lord
+Chamberlain did not object, Scotland Yard certainly didn’t.  Etiquette on
+these occasions demanded that we should be formally introduced to the
+various ‘ladies’ that frequented the green-room—a custom I considered
+highly commendable, for in my ignorance I believed that not the slightest
+difference existed between the highest exponent of tragedy and the
+frowsiest ballet-girl in worsted tights and spangles.
+
+“On this particular night, as I was watching the transformation scene
+being ‘set,’ and listening to the sallies of the tawdry ‘fairies’ that
+crowded the wings, my attention was attracted by a tall woman, who was
+gnawing a bone with a gusto that conveyed to me the impression she hadn’t
+eaten for a month.  I felt for the poor creature, and went and stood near
+her.  I thought at the time (for I was very drunk) that she was the most
+beautiful being I had ever seen; her pink-and-white complexion (it was in
+reality dabs of paint) appeared to me to be comparable only to a
+beautiful shell.  I was spellbound by the sight, and instantaneously and
+hopelessly in love.  It would have been a mercy—may God forgive me!—if
+that bone had choked her.  That woman eventually became ‘her ladyship.’
+But I’m anticipating.”
+
+The poor fellow here became so affected that I begged him to pause; it
+was, however, useless.
+
+“The sight of her in a measure sobered me, and I asked her who and what
+she was.  She told me a harrowing tale of how she was the eldest of seven
+children; that her mother was bed-ridden and her father blind; and how
+she toiled at a sewing-machine all day and at the theatre all night, and
+then only earned a miserable pittance, barely sufficient to keep a roof
+over their heads.  The recital affected me considerably (drunken people
+are easily moved to tears), as she went on to tell me how she had been in
+the theatre since 11 that morning (for it was the pantomime season, and
+there had been a morning performance), and how she had not tasted food
+until a carpenter had kindly given her the remains of his supper.  I lost
+no time in procuring a bottle of champagne, and felt happier than I had
+for years as she placed a tumblerful to her parched lips and drank it off
+at a gulp.  A few moments later I saw ‘little Rosie’ (for so she told me
+her blind parent loved to call her) being lashed to an ‘iron,’ and posing
+as an angel for the great transformation scene in course of preparation.
+I subsequently discovered—though, alas! too late—that ‘little Rosie’ was
+nightly to be seen outside the ‘Criterion’ and in front of the ‘Raleigh,’
+and was known as ‘big Rose.’  But my mind has again got in advance of my
+story.  Oh, dear! oh, dear! where am I?”
+
+At this stage I really got alarmed, far his excitement was evidently
+increasing.  Happily, however, a passing official necessitated silence,
+and he eventually resumed with comparative composure.
+
+“I will not weary you with unnecessary details; suffice it to say that
+within a month we were married, and the vows that were made ’till death
+should us part’ were eventually broken by the living death that consigned
+me to penal servitude.  After our marriage ‘little Rosie’s’ nature
+gradually began to change; and the frankness and _naïveté_ that had so
+captivated me gradually gave way to habits and sentiments that astonished
+and alarmed me.  I verily believe that, had I found in her the woman I
+hoped and believed her to be, I should truly have reformed, and given up
+that vile curse, drink.  Instead of that, however, I found at my elbow
+one who was always ready to encourage me in the vice.  Port was her
+favourite tipple, and though my own state seldom permitted me to judge of
+her consumption, still in my lucid intervals of sobriety I was astonished
+at the amount she consumed.  Gradually we began to turn night into day,
+and nights of debauch regularly followed the few hours of daylight we
+seldom or ever saw.  Even yet I had not abandoned all hope of reform.  My
+conscience smote me when I was sober enough to heed it, and in hopes of
+avoiding temptation I hurried with my wife to Ireland; but even here she
+could not rest quiet.  The cloven foot persisted in showing itself, and
+we were tabooed by the whole county.  In this I found further cause for
+mortification—I who might have been looked up to and sought after.  I
+tried to spare my wife’s feelings by concealing the real cause of our
+existence being ignored; but, fool that I was, I gave way to her
+importunings, and actually called on those who had avoided us.  The
+well-merited reward of my temerity was not long in coming.  Some of the
+county families returned our cards by post, whilst others sent them back
+by a servant; and at a subscription ball that took place not long after
+we received the cut dead.  This filled up the cup of my humiliation, and
+I rushed back to London.  I had realised the fact that virtue won’t herd
+with vice.
+
+“A cousin about this time made his appearance, and gradually became a
+daily visitor; and had my muddled faculties been more capable of forming
+an opinion, I might have been puzzled how a well-dressed and apparently
+gentlemanly man could be the nephew of either the blind father or the
+bed-ridden mother.  Gradually, however, my suspicions were aroused, and I
+employed a detective to watch them both.  He fulfilled his duty, alas!
+too well, and I received incontestable proof that my wife was a —, and
+that the ‘cousin’ was a man with whom she had lived for years.  A sickly
+child, too, that frequently came to the house, and whom she often told
+me, with tears in her eyes, was her ‘dead sister’s,’ I had reason to
+suspect was a much nearer relative.  But my feelings outstride my
+discretion.  I’m again going too fast, and surely you’ve heard enough?”
+
+I begged him to continue, for I was deeply interested in his tale.
+
+“My wife now began to display reckless extravagance; nothing was good
+enough for her; the handsome settlement I had made on her failed to meet
+a fraction of her expenses, and she became so degraded as to borrow money
+of my very servants.  Love, they say, is blind, and in my case, I fear,
+was frequently blind drunk.  On these occasions I would agree to
+anything, and gradually signed away first one thing, and then another,
+till I found myself divested of house, estates, everything, and a
+pensioner on my wife’s bounty.  It may seem incredible that anything
+should be capable of bringing the blush of shame to such as I—I who for
+six long years have worn this dreadful dress—but, believe me, my cheeks
+tingle even now when I think of it all.  I was at length compelled to
+resort to the pawnbroker’s, and watch, chain, ring, everything, found
+their way to an establishment in — Road.  My credit, once good, was
+entirely gone; tradesmen to whom I owed money began to dun me; others
+refused me the smallest credit; servants, washerwomen, butchers, and
+bakers all were creditors; writs and County Court summonses were of daily
+occurrence; and the family mansion that my ancestors had never disgraced
+was in the hands of the bailiffs.  How I cried out in my anguish will
+never be known.  Relations I had none to whom I could apply for sympathy
+or advice.  My only friend was ‘drink,’ and in my misery I turned to it
+with redoubled energy.  I have not much more to tell; the climax which
+brought me here was very near at hand.  One afternoon I had returned to
+our lodgings (we were then in apartments at 28, — Place) rather sooner
+than expected from a fruitless endeavour to borrow a few pounds.  I had
+stopped at every public-house, and gulped down a dram of cheap spirits,
+in hopes of lightening my sorrow; I was, I believe, almost mad with
+misery and drink.  As I entered the room the first thing that met my gaze
+was the hated ‘Cousin.’  To seize a loaded pistol that always hung over
+the mantel-piece was the work of a second, and, without aim, without
+deliberation, I fired.  The report and my wife’s screams alarmed a
+policeman who happened to be passing by; he entered and found her
+swooning on the ground, but happily uninjured.  Thank God! I’m free of
+that crime—and the tell-tale bullet lodged in the wall.  Concealment was
+hopeless.  I was there and then arrested, and eventually sentenced, on
+the evidence of my wife and her paramour, to ‘twenty years’ penal
+servitude.’”
+
+His excited state alarmed me.  I feared we should be observed, but it was
+hopeless to attempt to check him as, with eyes starting, and the tears
+flowing fast, he added, pointing to his seamed and blotchy face: “The
+worst has yet to be told; look at these scars that I shall carry with me
+to the grave.  Can you suspect what they are?  My —.”
+
+“Hush!” I said, “they have noticed us.”
+
+I never saw him again, but heard, months after, that the unhappy man had
+died, and that the bright expectations accruing from youth, birth, and
+fortune, that had been formed six short years ago, lie buried in a
+nameless convict’s grave.
+
+Not long ago I walked round to the pawn shop in — Road, with the morbid
+desire of testing the truth of some of his assertions, and found that the
+watch, chain, and ring were still there.  I informed the worthy
+pawnbroker of the real name and sad fate of his former customer, and was
+almost tempted to purchase the cat’s-eye as a souvenir of my
+quasi-friend; but more prudent counsels prevailed, and I relegated them
+to the auction-room, to go forth with their crests and monograms, a sad
+memento of fallen greatness.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+THE CENTRAL CRIMINAL COURT.
+
+
+AFTER my sudden summons to attend the Court I found myself in the yard
+below, where, in company with some twenty others, I was placed in
+rotation according to a list the Governor and chief warder were
+“checking.”  This formula being completed, we proceeded in single file,
+preceded by an “officer” and followed by a patriarch, along the
+subterraneous passages that connect the prison with the Old Bailey
+Court-house.  These passages are the last remnants of the old prison, and
+demonstrate the change that has taken place in the accepted notions of
+insuring the safety of prisoners.  Every few yards a massive iron door
+some inches thick, with huge bolts and a ponderous key, bars the passage.
+Having passed through all these, we came to a halt in a dark recess,
+partially lighted by gas, on each side of which were arched cells,
+suggestive of those of the Adelphi.  Into each of these five or six of us
+were conducted, for by the prison system prisoners before trial may be
+herded together; after conviction, however, all that ceases, and one is
+“supposed” henceforth to be isolated.  After a delay of some twenty
+minutes, and during which I was initiated into the style of society I
+might expect for the future, my name was called and I was conducted up a
+wooden stair.  The hum of voices—for I could see nothing—indicated to me
+that I was in the vicinity of the Court and on the stair leading into the
+dock—one of those mysterious boxes I had often seen from the opposite
+side, where criminals popped up and popped down so suddenly and so
+mysteriously.
+
+I had seen many murderers sentenced to death from that very dock, and was
+often puzzled at the geography of the place; all this, however, was now
+made perfectly clear.  It was with mingled feelings of astonishment and
+bewilderment that I found myself, suddenly and without warning, the
+observed of all observers.  The crowded Court, the forest of well-known
+faces—vindictive prosecutors, reluctant witnesses, quasi-friends come to
+gloat over my misfortune, and one or two real sympathisers—all appeared
+glued together to my bewildered gaze.  Beyond, and seated against the
+wall, were innumerable figures robed in flowing scarlet gowns, and
+presenting to my senses so ghastly and weird a picture that I can compare
+it to nothing but that impressive trial scene in “The Bells,” to which
+Mr. Irving imparts such terrible reality.  It only required the mesmerist
+to complete the resemblance; and he must have been there, although
+invisible, for I was mesmerized, or at least completely dazed.  By
+degrees, however, I recovered my senses, and embracing the whole scene,
+summed up the vanity of human sympathy and the value to be attached to
+friendship, as it is called.  Reader, whoever you are, take the word of a
+man who has been rich and surrounded by every luxury.  Friends will
+cluster round you in your prosperity as they did round me, and when they
+have eaten you out of house and home, and robbed you by fair means or
+foul, by card playing and racing, you must not be surprised if you
+discover that the most vindictive and uncompromising are those you least
+expected.  “For it was not an enemy that reproached me, then I could have
+borne it—neither was it he that hated me, that did magnify himself
+against me; but it was a man, mine equal, my guide, and my
+acquaintance—yea, mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did
+eat of my bread—hath lifted up his heel against me.”
+
+The ordeal at length had been gone through, and I was on my return
+journey to the prison as a “convicted prisoner.”  A prisoner after
+sentence consists of only two classes, the “convict” and the “convicted
+prisoner,” and it is marvellous how soon the difference shows itself.
+The “convicted prisoner” finds absolutely no change beyond being deprived
+of the questionable privilege of procuring his own food at an exorbitant
+rate.  With the “convict,” however, things are very different.
+Immediately after sentence he is stripped of all his clothes, his hair
+and beard are cropped as close as scissors can do it, and he is
+metamorphosized by the assumption of the coarse brown and black striped
+convict dress.  The change is so marvellous that it is difficult at first
+to recognize a man.  One poor fellow I saw, a gentlemanly-looking man
+from the Post-office, that I frequently spoke to, was so changed when I
+saw him next morning in Chapel that I could not for the moment recognize
+the poor wretch who kept grinning at me with an air of levity as assumed
+as it was painful.  I am not ashamed to admit that I thanked Providence I
+had escaped that fearful doom.  It is not generally known that two years’
+imprisonment is the limit of a sentence of hard labour, after which the
+next higher punishment involves five years’ penal servitude.  There is a
+vast deal of ignorance displayed on this subject, even by those who might
+be supposed to know better.  It is generally believed that imprisonment
+with hard labour is a severer punishment than penal servitude.  No
+greater fallacy ever existed.  I base my assertion, not so much on
+personal experience (for I was exceptionally fortunate), as on what I saw
+of the treatment of others; and I confidently assert—and my opinion would
+be corroborated by every respectable prisoner (if such an anomaly can
+exist)—that two years’ “hard labour” is an infinitely lighter punishment
+than even two years of penal servitude would be; and I can only attribute
+the general acceptation of this error to the fact that convicts get a
+little more food than convicted prisoners, and prisoners as a rule will
+do anything for “grub.”
+
+I have now brought my experiences of Newgate to a close, and shall
+briefly describe our departure to our final and respective destinations.
+An unusual bustle one morning indicated that something out of the
+ordinary was about to happen, and though we received no actual warning,
+it was generally buzzed about that we were to make a start after
+breakfast.  At breakfast-time the warder told me to put my things
+together, and half an hour later found me and sixteen others marshalled
+in the corridor, where, being carefully compared with our respective
+descriptions, we were formally handed over to a detachment of warders
+from Coldbath Fields.  Other parties were being simultaneously paraded
+for Holloway and Pentonville, the latter all in convict dress and as
+pitiable a looking set as can well be conceived.  I discovered, both now
+and subsequently, that a human being is invariably referred to as if he
+were a parcel.  Thus, on arrival, one is said to be “received,” and one’s
+departure is described as being “sent out.”  This is not intended in an
+offensive sense, but may be taken rather as a figure of speech.  In the
+adjoining yard were half a dozen vans—indeed, I had never before seen
+such a formidable array, except, perhaps, a meet of the four-in-hand club
+on a rainy day—and into one of these I was politely conducted, with a
+degree of precaution as unnecessary as it was absurd.
+
+No reader can accuse me of rounding the points of this ungarnished story,
+or endeavouring to conceal any incident, however unpleasant.  As,
+however, my subsequent experiences may discover a treatment so kind and
+exceptional as to appear almost incredible, I must only ask the reader to
+credit me with the veracity that my previous frankness entitles me to
+expect.  My anxiety on this point is considerably enhanced by the
+contradiction it will bear to other narratives I have read, and which,
+purporting to describe prison life, invariably represent it as a hot-bed
+of cruelty, where prisoners are starved and otherwise ill-treated, all of
+which I emphatically deny, and cause me to doubt whether one single
+specimen of these so-called personal narratives is anything else but an
+“idle tale,” written with a view of enlisting sympathy, and possibly
+turning an honest penny.  If these writers and these prisoners had seen
+as much as I have (from outside) of prisons on the Continent, in Morocco,
+and in China, they would think themselves very fortunate in their present
+quarters.  I—who have seen prisoners starving in prisons in Morocco, and
+absolutely “unfed,” except by the charity of visitors, who usually
+scramble a few shillings’ worth of bread amongst them; and who, for a
+dollar to the jailor, have seen a Chinaman at Shanghai brought out, made
+to kneel down and have his head sliced off like a water-melon—have no
+patience with these well-fed, well-clothed, and well-housed rascals.  I
+would send all these discontented burglars and their “converted”
+biographers to China or Morocco, and omit to supply them with return
+tickets.  I have lately read a book connected with penal servitude, by an
+anonymous writer, in which this innocent lamb is whining throughout of
+his hardship in being compelled to herd with criminals; and it says a
+great deal for his imitative capacity that he should so naturally and so
+thoroughly have adopted the almost universal “injured innocence” tactics
+of the habitual criminal.  One great nuisance at all prisons is the
+almost universal habit that prisoners have of protesting their innocence;
+they protest it so often to everybody on every possible occasion, that
+they eventually begin to believe that they really are innocent.  I found
+these guileless creatures great bores; indeed I am (I am convinced) well
+within the mark when I assert that there were only about three-and-twenty
+guilty persons besides myself amongst the fifteen hundred prisoners in
+Coldbath Fields.  This compulsory herding with innocent burglars is a
+great trial, and one that never enters into the calculation of a judge.
+
+A short drive at a good pace on this early December morning brought us to
+the gates of Coldbath Fields Prison; and as I stepped out, I could not
+help recalling Dante’s famous line—
+
+    “All hope abandon ye who enter here.”
+
+It only proves how apt one is to form erroneous ideas from first
+impressions.  I was never more mistaken in my life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+“CORPULENCY.”
+
+
+From my birth up to within the past twelve months I have had the
+misfortune to be afflicted with one of the most dreadful diseases that
+flesh is heir to.  It is one that entails suffering both to body and
+mind, and from which a vast proportion of humanity suffers in a more or
+less aggravated form.  It is a slow and insidious disease that never
+decreases of its own accord, but on the contrary develops itself with
+one’s increasing years as surely as the most virulent cancer.  It has
+this advantage, however, over this latter dreadful complaint—that it
+invariably yields to treatment conscientiously applied; but it has also
+this disadvantage, that, whereas other afflictions invariably enlist the
+sympathy of our fellow-creatures, this one never fails to be jeered and
+hooted at and turned into ridicule by the coarse and vulgar of our
+species.  This complaint, surprising as it may appear, is held in
+contempt by most of the faculty, and I doubt whether it has ever received
+baptism in the English or any other pharmacopoeia.  I will therefore
+without further preamble state, for the benefit of afflicted humanity,
+that it is called “obesity.”  In the course of my remarks I may be led
+into the use of what may appear strong expressions; and if I should
+unwittingly offend the susceptibilities of any fat reader, he or she
+will, I trust, forgive it, as coming from one who has, as it were, gone
+through the mill, and been subjected to the like ridicule and the like
+temptations as themselves.
+
+For thirty-eight years I’ve been a martyr to obesity.  At my birth, as I
+am credibly informed, I was enormous—a freak of nature that was clearly
+intended for twins.  As I developed into boyhood I still maintained the
+same pronounced pattern; and when I entered the Army as an ensign, it was
+said, with a certain amount of truth, that I was eighteen years of age
+and 18 stone in weight.  I am particular in giving these otherwise
+uninteresting details, for I am aware from experience how fat people
+catch at every straw to evade a “regimen,” and invariably say as I did,
+“Nothing will make me thin,” “I’ve tried everything,” “It’s natural in
+our family,” “My father weighed nineteen stone,” &c., &c.  I say to these
+people, “This is rubbish.  I don’t care if your father weighed forty and
+your grandmother fifty stone; I’ll GUARANTEE to REDUCE you perceptibly
+and with PERFECT SAFETY if you’ll guarantee to follow my instructions.”
+
+For the past fifteen years I’ve tried every remedy, with, however, the
+invariable result—that they did me no good, or at least so little that I
+came to the conclusion that the result did not repay the inconvenience.
+It must here be understood that when I refer to “remedies,” I do not
+speak of some that aspire to that title, which, if they don’t kill, don’t
+certainly cure; nor of others which will assuredly first cure and then as
+certainly kill—though I confess to have given even these a trial, and
+swallowed ingredients that don’t come well out of analysis.  I would warn
+all zealous fat people to be careful of these concoctions, and at least
+consult a physician before saturating their systems with poisons.  I do
+not even refer to other “remedies,” admittedly and which I have found
+safe, though before concluding my hints I shall have a word to say about
+them, and give my opinion of their respective titles to merit, on the
+principle that “a wink is as good as a nod to a blind horse.”  In support
+of my claim to credence I may state that my appearance was known to
+almost everybody, many of whom have since seen me as I now am; and though
+I cannot produce testimonials from a corpulent clergyman in Australia who
+weighed 40 stone and now only 14, and never felt better in his life, nor
+from the fat Countess del Quackador, of Buenos Ayres, who attributes her
+recovery to the sole use of —, still I can produce myself, and seeing is
+usually admitted to be half way to believing.  My theory is based on that
+of that excellent man and apostle of corpulency, the late Mr. Banting—a
+theory which, as propounded by him, was in a crude state, but, like all
+great discoveries, is capable of improvement based on experience.  In
+short, I agree with him as a whole, but differ on many essential points.
+I felt, whilst practising his treatment, that something was wanting, and
+my experience has since discovered what that something is.  Others like
+myself may have found the Banting theory deficient beyond a certain
+point.  I would ask these to give mine a fair trial for three months.
+
+Anyone who has waded through my narrative will observe that the dietary I
+subsisted on for some months of my life was in itself incapable of
+reducing a man; and it was thanks to the liberal margin I had to work
+upon, and the facilities I enjoyed for not only weighing myself, but also
+my food, that I attribute in a great measure the perfecting of my theory,
+and the reliance that may be placed on it.  Banting lays down as a
+principle that “quantity may fairly be left to the natural appetite,
+provided the quality is rigidly adhered to.”  In this I disagree with
+him, but on the contrary confidently assert that until the subject is
+reduced to its proper size, it is absolutely imperative to limit the
+quantity as well as the quality.  The quantity, however, is a liberal
+one, both as regards solid and fluid.  At the same time it must be
+remembered that great ignorance exists as to the weight of the commonest
+articles of dietary, and to form an estimate of their weight by their
+appearance can only be attained by experience.  One often hears of
+persons that “don’t eat more than a bird,” and stout people are
+invariably accredited with being small eaters.  It would astonish these
+persons to find that they consume in blissful ignorance three or four
+pounds a day.  I would recommend every corpulent person to purchase a set
+of cheap scales capable of weighing accurately one, two, four, and eight
+ounces (an ounce is a word that conveys a diminutive impression, yet
+eight of them constitute half a pound); these can be procured at any
+ironmonger’s at a cost of two or three shillings.  I would also suggest a
+half-pint measure; this involves an outlay of about twopence.  Without
+these two articles no corpulent person’s house can be considered properly
+furnished.  Before commencing the experiment it is indispensable to be
+accurately weighed, taking care to weigh _all_ you have on (separately
+and at another time), so that your exact weight can be arrived at,
+whether attired in summer or winter clothing.  By degrees this weekly
+weighing becomes an amusement, and one that increases as your weight
+decreases.
+
+The following table may be accepted as fairly accurate, and shows what
+the respective natural weights of persons ought to be.  I do not lay down
+a hard and fast rule, that in no case ought it to be exceeded.  On the
+contrary, my theory, based on personal experience, convinces me that
+every person has his own peculiar weight and dimensions as intended by
+Nature, and when he has found his “bearings”—which he will have no
+difficulty in doing, as I shall explain hereafter, by unmistakable
+symptoms—any further reduction is attended with difficulty, and is,
+indeed, unnecessary.  Taken, however, as something to work upon, the
+following scale, obtained from a leading insurance company, may be
+studied with advantage; and when the corpulent reader has arrived within
+half a stone of the specified weight—a generous concession surely—he may
+then, but not till then, begin to take occasional liberties, both as
+regards quantity and quality.  I am offering these remarks to those only
+who conscientiously intend to give my theory a fair trial.  To those
+lukewarm disciples who would like to be thin, without possessing the
+self-denial necessary for this most simple remedy, I cannot do better
+than apply the views I once heard expressed by a piper to a cockney
+officer in a Highland regiment who asked him to play the “Mabel”
+valse—that “it would only be making a fool of the tune and a fool of the
+pipes.”
+
+Average weight for a          High
+       person
+ Stones      Pounds     Feet     Inches
+        8      2 or 3        5          0
+        8       8 – 9        5          1
+        9       1 – 2        5          2
+        9       8 – 9        5          3
+        9     11 – 12        5          4
+       10       3 – 4        5          5
+       10       6 – 7        5          6
+       10      9 – 10        5          7
+       11       2 – 3        5          8
+       11      9 – 10        5          9
+       12       4 – 5        5         10
+       12     10 – 12        5         11
+       13           0        6          0
+
+When the reader has attained to within half a stone of these figures, he
+will have the game in his own hands, and can regulate his system with as
+much accuracy as a clock.  On November 25th, 1881, I weighed the enormous
+weight of 19 stone 13 lbs.  On October 1st, 1882, I weighed 12 stone 4
+lbs., and with a loss of 18 inches in girth—_i.e._, a reduction of 7
+stone 9 lbs.; and as this can be verified, my opinion is at least worthy
+of attention.  I consider it absolutely necessary that one should at
+first limit one’s self to 2 pounds solid and 3 pints fluid daily; and I
+cannot do better than give the dietary I have pursued for the past five
+or six months in the south of France:—
+
+_At_ 6 A.M.—I take half-a-pint of black coffee and one ounce of coarse
+_brown_ bread or biscuit.
+
+_At_ 9 A.M.—I breakfast off four ounces of lean meat, three ounces of
+brown bread or biscuit, and half-a-pint of black coffee.
+
+_At_ 2 P.M.—I have six ounces lean meat, three ounces brown bread or
+biscuit, six ounces green vegetables, and half-a-pint of any fluid except
+ale, effervescing wines, or aërated waters.
+
+_After Dinner_—I take half-a-pint of coffee.
+
+_At_ 6 P.M.—I take half-a-pint of coffee.
+
+_At Supper_—I have two ounces brown bread or biscuit, and a couple of
+glasses of sherry or claret.
+
+Independently of this I eat fruit _ad lib._  I find as a broad rule that
+all vegetables that grow above ground, such as cauliflower, artichokes,
+sprouts, &c. (except peas and rice), are conducive to health; whereas all
+that grow underground, such as potatoes, carrots, beet-root, &c., are fat
+persons’ poison.  It is immaterial what meat one eats, whether fish,
+flesh—except pork—or fowl, but it is necessary to avoid the fat.  Stout
+persons will find, as I did, an inclination to smuggle in a little, but
+they must flee from the temptation.  A severe trial at first is confining
+one’s self to this quantity and quality, whilst others are indulging to a
+greater extent at the same table; but the feeling soon wears off, and
+must be looked on as the penalty attached to Pharaoh’s fat kine.  Fat
+people never consider that if they were suffering from a cancer they
+would not hesitate to submit to amputation—and amputation is not
+unattended with pain—to prolong life; and yet they waver regarding the
+treatment of corpulency—an equally certain enemy to life—with a painless
+remedy!  Do they invariably also, in other paths of life, return good for
+evil, and heap coals of fire on an enemy’s head?  And yet here is a
+hideous, ungainly, deadly foe pampered and fattened at the cost of life,
+comfort, and appearance.  And then the ridicule!  I ask you, amiable fat
+reader, is that agreeable?  I would, in fact, make obesity penal, as
+calling for special legislation, whereby the police would be justified in
+arresting oleaginous pedestrians, clapping them into the scales at the
+nearest police-station, and if they exceeded a certain number of feet in
+circumference, or weight, at once procure their summary imprisonment,
+without the option of a fine.  The streets would thus be cleared of these
+fleshy obstructions; besides which, if the law recognises attempted
+suicide as a crime in one way, why not in another?  The dietary I have
+suggested is conducive to constipation, a result that brown bread
+remedies considerably, if not entirely removes.  There are brown breads
+and brown breads, however, and after trying a good many, I have come to
+the conclusion that the “whole meal bread” made by Messrs. Hill and Son,
+of 60, Bishopsgate Street Within, and 3, Albert Mansions, Victoria
+Street, is admirably adapted to the requirements of the corpulent.  It
+keeps the bowels open, is delicious in flavour, and entirely free from
+the alum that finds its way into many other kinds.  Some six months ago I
+had an interview with a member of this firm, and explained my views of
+the advantages that would attend a biscuit made of the same meal.  I have
+lately tasted some made by them, that are apparently specially adapted
+for the consumption of the corpulent; and as they have agents in every
+part of the kingdom, the regular supply is within the reach of all.  I
+strongly commend these to all my readers.  There is one more item to
+which I attach great importance, namely, the taking at bed-time of one
+teaspoonful of liquorice-powder (German Pharmacopoeia) in half a tumbler
+of water.  This quantity may be gradually increased, as circumstances
+seem to require; and as a good deal depends on the purity and freshness
+of this drug, the advisability of going to a good chemist cannot be too
+strongly urged.  I have often been told that smoking is injurious to the
+corpulent, but this I consider sheer nonsense.  I smoke from morning to
+night, and, on the contrary, believe it makes up for the larger amount of
+food one had previously been in the habit of consuming.  In America,
+where I spent many happy years, I was never without “a smoke,” a habit I
+still continue, though with the disadvantage of having to substitute
+British for the fragrant Oronoko and Perique tobaccos.  This latter is,
+in my estimation, whether used as cigar, cigarette, or in a pipe, the
+finest tobacco in the world.  I have discovered, beyond doubt, that a
+person afflicted with obesity is affected by the smallest transgression
+of the strict _regimen_.  I have for experiment taken one lump of sugar
+in my coffee at meals, and found that this single innovation has produced
+an increase of a pound in my weight in a week; indeed, a person disposed
+to this affliction is as sensitive as an aneroid.  It was in May last
+that I first determined to reap at least one benefit from my late
+incarceration, and, by a careful regard to quantity and quality, to test
+effects that my position and the time at my disposal offered great
+facilities for, and thus reduce corpulency to a science, and its
+reduction to a certainty.  A reference to other portions of this
+narrative will put it beyond a doubt that the unlimited amount of food at
+my disposal made this an easy task.  I will not here go into these
+particulars, as a detailed account necessary for the unbroken interest in
+my narrative will be found elsewhere, but will confine myself to giving a
+table of the reduction I made in myself by my own free-will and
+determination.
+
+                                I weighed
+          1881.             stone     pounds
+November 25th                    19         13
+December 7th                     19          9
+   ,,   19th                     18         12
+          1882.
+January 10th                     18          1
+   ,,   31st                     17         12
+March 20th                       16         10
+May 18th                         16          4
+June 6th                         15         12
+   ,,   20th to July 2nd         15          8
+July 15th                        15          4
+   ,,   29th                     14         10
+September 2nd                    13          2
+   ,,   9th                      12         10
+   ,,   23rd                     12          6
+October 1st                      12          4
+
+Making a total loss of 107 lbs. (7 stone 9 lbs.) in 318 days.  This loss
+was not obtained without great determination and self denial, but was it
+not worth it?  If any corpulent reader could see my photograph of
+November, 1881, and November, 1882, he would, I think, admit it was, and
+receive a stimulus to persevere as I did.  A reference to the above table
+will show no diminution between June 20th and July 2nd.  I attribute this
+to my having found what I call my “bearings,” for though continuing in
+the same course, I could not get away from 15 stone 8 lbs.  I persisted,
+however, and eventually succeeded; and the next date shows a steady
+decline.  I would recommend no experimentalist to transgress this bound,
+and when they find that after a fortnight’s continuance of the strict
+system they have obtained no perceptible diminution of weight they should
+STOP; they have found their “bearings,” and any further perseverance is
+attended with unnecessary inconvenience.  The time, however, has then
+come for most careful watch and guard, and the slightest liberty is
+accompanied by a proportionate increase.  Yielding to the kindly meant
+advice of friends, I some months ago took new milk and other fattening
+luxuries, with the result of increasing a stone in six weeks.  I had,
+however, the remedy in my own hands, and can now play fast and loose with
+an amusing degree of certainty.  I can, without an effort, reduce or
+increase my weight three or four pounds in a week, and having attained
+the comfortable weight of 13 stone 10 lbs, I am determined never again to
+turn the scale beyond 14 stone.  I allow this margin as the legitimate
+perquisite of advancing years.
+
+In conclusion, I guarantee reduction with perfect safety to all who will
+honestly try the following _regimen_ in its integrity for three months:—
+
+_Breakfast_—Eight ounces coarse brown bread (yesterday’s baking); four
+ounces lean meat; one pint coffee or other fluid.
+
+_Dinner_.—Four and a-half ounces brown bread; six ounces any lean meat
+(or, if preferred as an occasional substitute, half-pint of soup—ten
+ounces); six ounces green vegetables; one pint fluid.
+
+_Tea_.—One and a-half ounces brown bread; half a pint of coffee.
+
+_Supper_.—One or two glasses of wine, or a glass of spirit and water
+(except rum); and two ounces biscuit.
+
+_Total_.—Two pounds solid and three pints fluid.
+
+_Bed-time_.—One teaspoonful liquorice powder (German pharmacopoeia) in
+half a tumbler of water.
+
+I have parcelled the above out into meals to meet the ordinary taste,
+though it is quite immaterial how or when the quantity is taken.  It is,
+moreover, a matter of perfect indifference whether tea (no sugar or
+milk), claret, or, in fact, any other fluid (except ale and aërated or
+effervescing drinks), is substituted for coffee.
+
+The principal points on which I differ from the so-called “Banting”
+system are:—
+
+(_a_) The limiting of the quantity till a proper reduction has taken
+place.
+
+(_b_) The occasional substituting (if desired) of soup for meat, which I
+have found attended with no inconvenience.
+
+(_c_) The substitution of brown bread or brown biscuit for toast or
+rusk—thereby obviating constipation.
+
+(_d_) The taking of liquorice powder at bed-time in lieu of the alkaline
+on rising.
+
+To the uninitiated the above may appear trifles; their advantage can only
+be estimated by those who have tried both systems.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+COLDBATH FIELDS.
+
+
+AS the key turned in the ponderous door, and I found myself, with sixteen
+others, standing on a huge mat in a dismal corridor, I realised that I
+had arrived “home,” or at what I might consider as such, for—as I
+imagined—the next eighteen months.  I had already passed one week in
+Newgate, and really thought, in the sanguineness of my heart, that I had
+made a considerable hole in my sentence, and that the remaining
+seventy-seven weeks would soon slip by.  My first intimation that the
+place was inhabited, except by mutes, was hearing a metallic voice
+saying, _pro bono publico_, “You’ll find that talking is not permitted
+here—you mustn’t talk.”  By peering into the gloom I discovered that the
+voice belonged to a bald head, and the bald head to a venerable head
+warder.  The poor old man was super-annuated shortly after, and evidently
+meant to show the recruits he was not to be trifled with, and that there
+was life in the old dog yet.  We were next taken through endless
+corridors to the “Reception Room.”  Can any name be more suggestive of
+satire, except perhaps “Mount Pleasant,” the hill so called on which the
+prison stands, bounded at each corner by a public-house, and a “pop-shop”
+here and there sandwiched in between!  The reception we received in the
+Reception Room was far from a cordial one; it was, indeed, as cold as the
+weather outside.  The Reception Room is octagon shape, with benches
+arranged over the entire floor; on these we were directed to sit down,
+about a yard apart.  In front was a large desk and a high stool, on which
+a turnkey was perched, whose sole duty was to prevent the least
+intercourse between the prisoners; in fact, the entire room and its
+fittings conveyed the impression of being connected with a charity school
+for mutes.  The Reception Room is the first and last place a prisoner
+passes through; it is here that, on his arrival, he is transformed into
+the Queen’s livery, and again on his departure reverts to citizen’s
+clothing—it is, in fact, the filter through which the dregs of London
+have to pass before becoming sufficiently purified to be again permitted
+to mingle with the pure stream outside.  The silence of the grave is its
+normal condition, where the novice receives a foretaste of the “silent
+system.”
+
+           [Picture: The Effects of a Warm Bath at “Coldbath.”]
+
+We must have sat thus silently for at least an hour, when a door from
+outside was unlocked, and a warder, accompanied by two prisoners carrying
+sacks, made their appearance.  The contents of these, being thrown on the
+floor, were discovered to be boots, not new ones, or even pairs, but very
+old and dirty, mended and patched with lumps of leather on the soles, on
+the heels, and, in fact, anywhere.  We were now invited to “fit”
+ourselves, and a scramble ensued amongst a section of the prisoners.  I
+selected a nondescript pair, tied by a cord, as unsuited a couple as ever
+were united, the right foot of which would have fitted an elephant, and
+the left have been tight for a cork leg.  With this unsavoury acquisition
+on my lap I resumed my seat.  It is the custom, as I before hinted, to
+show one the worst of everything at first, and the rule that applied to
+the cells was clearly in force regarding the boots.  I found, however,
+that after the general “fit,” and when a comparative lull ensued, that
+some of the more fortunate ones had better ones supplied, and I shortly
+after received a new pair in exchange for my “fit.”  The next thing that
+made its appearance was a basket full of caps and stocks.  Here I was
+less fortunate, and the size of my head precluded the possibility of a
+fit.  The basket was followed by a bundle of wooden labels, on each of
+which our various names were inscribed; with these in our hands, we were
+told to “Come along.”  My label considerably puzzled me.  We now found
+ourselves in the corridor devoted to baths, where each man received a
+bundle of clothing.  The object of the label now manifested itself; it
+was to attach to our clothes—not likely to be wanted for some time.  The
+bundles consisted of a pair of blue worsted socks, a blue striped shirt,
+a blue pocket-handkerchief the thickness of a tile, a towel as coarse as
+a nutmeg-grater, and a suit of clothes.  The clothes, when new, are
+really very good, and by no means objectionable.  There is nothing of
+that conspicuous, degrading appearance about them that distinguishes the
+convict dress.  On the contrary, the trousers and vest are well cut, and
+made of good warm mole-skin; the jacket is a capital material, and were
+it not for painful associations, and the possibility of unpleasant
+attentions from zealous policemen, I would gladly have a suit of the
+jacket material.  The otherwise agreeable effect is somewhat marred by
+the broad-arrow Government mark, which appears to be applied regardless
+of all symmetry and indeed of all expense.  No general rule apparently
+exists as to the marking of this cloth, which one must conclude is left
+entirely to the discretion and good taste of the individual armed with
+the paint-pot.  This want of uniformity thus lends an agreeable variety
+to the different appearances of individuals; for my part, I always felt
+that I resembled the “Seven of Spades.”  The Baths are, as I found them
+at Newgate, in themselves excellent, and if one could forget one’s
+probable predecessor, the enjoyment would be considerably enhanced.  They
+were, I daresay, perfectly clean, though I always fancied I detected a
+Seven-Dials mouse-trap flavour in the atmosphere, and in the water.  The
+bath, as an institution, admirably fulfils its twofold function; it
+insures a thorough wash, and removes the last trace of one’s former self.
+Entering the apartment with the bundle under my arm, I proceeded to
+divest myself of my clothing.  I had not, however, been many seconds
+submerged before an eye was applied to the peephole, followed by the
+entrance of a turnkey, and all my clothing was carefully removed.  The
+process of re-dressing was not an easy one; nothing came within a foot of
+my size except the socks; the overalls declined to do anything like
+meeting, and a piece of twine was pressed into the service.  The
+waistcoat was another trial, necessitating the turnkey calling for the
+“corpulent waistcoat.”  Trussed up in this fashion, I patiently awaited
+the “corpulent” waistcoat, a marvel of tailoring.  The chest measurement
+could not have exceeded thirty-six; whilst the waist (?) must have been
+one hundred.  From the “corpulent” one only reaching half-way down my
+chest, I concluded that its original owner must have been about
+five-foot-nothing.  But the warder very good-naturedly said “he’d make it
+all right,” and not long after I was measured, and within twenty-four
+hours possessed a brand-new suit.  My enormous size also necessitated
+special shirts; a couple were made in an incredibly short space of time,
+and all through my career I experienced the benefit of wearing linen that
+had never been contaminated by contact with “baser metal.”  The warder to
+whom I was indebted for these delicate attentions was one of the best in
+the prison, and though I never came much in contact with him, I
+understood he was a great favourite.  He was connected with the stores,
+and could get more done in an hour than one of the blustering kind in a
+week.  Before leaving the baths, I would wish to draw attention to a
+custom that calls for immediate alteration.  The system at present in
+vogue is for all prisoners to have a bath immediately on arrival, _after_
+which they undergo medical examination.  At these examinations, as is
+well known, many creatures are found, not only to be alive with vermin,
+but suffering from itch.  With these facts, that are not to be gainsaid,
+common sense surely suggests a medical examination _before_ instead of
+_after_ the bath, an arrangement which, however disagreeable to the
+surgeons, would be a considerable benefit to the prison inmates
+generally.  It is a common occurrence for men who have been in prison
+three, and even six months, to be found to be suffering from itch, and it
+is equally certain that they caught it in these baths, which are _pro
+bono publico_ once a fortnight.  I thank God I was spared any of these
+“plagues,” though I never took my periodical dip without finding my
+thoughts wandering to Scotland and the Argyll (not Bignell’s).
+
+Having joined my companions we were reconducted to the reception-room,
+which by this time was crowded by contributions from the various
+Police-courts.  My Newgate friend Mike was now thoroughly in his element;
+he appeared to take a pride in showing his intimacy with the etiquette of
+the place, and seemed quite hurt if a warder didn’t recognize him as an
+old acquaintance.  As I looked down the benches now fully occupied, I
+fancied I could have distinguished every new comer from the _habitué_ by
+the way they wore their caps.  The new hands put them on in such a manner
+that they resembled a quartern loaf, whilst the more experienced—such as
+Mike—cocked them with a jaunty air as if proud of the effect.  At a later
+period I observed that a great deal of vanity existed on the subject of
+toilet amongst the regular jail-birds: they plastered down their hair—as
+I know—with the greasy skimmings of their soup, or applications of suet
+pudding; and many—incredible as it may appear—shaved regularly with their
+tin knives and the back of a plate for a mirror.  Hair-cutting now
+commenced, and anyone whose hair was too long was effectually operated
+on.  It is a mistake to suppose that prisoners’ hair is cut in the
+barbarous manner that is applied to convicts; nothing is done to them
+beyond what a soldier has to submit to—namely, having his hair and beard
+of moderate length.  As I have all through life kept what I have as close
+as possible, the hair-cutting in my case was dispensed with, and through
+the subsequent few months I had always to ask for the services of the
+barber, and invariably received the same reply—“Surely, yours is short
+enough!”  There was one item in the crop I was never subjected
+to—probably because my moustache was small—but which I certainly should
+not have liked; it was the habit of clipping the ends square to the lip.
+I’ve often seen men in London and elsewhere with this distinctive crop,
+which I should now invariably associate with prison life; and if I met a
+Bishop who affected this style it would be difficult to convince me that
+I had not met him “elsewhere.”  The next person that intruded himself
+was—as I was informed—a chaplain.  His attire was far from clerical, and
+consisted of a billycock hat—not a good, honest, disreputable one, but
+one of your shabby-genteels, so infinitely more fatal—a coat that
+suggested Crosse and Blackwell’s cut, and boots suspiciously resembling
+the prison make.  He interrogated me in my turn, though I fear his
+curiosity was far from satisfied.  His mania was the ceremony of
+“confirmation,” and when he discovered I had omitted that essential form,
+I at once passed into his black books.  Happily, I was perfectly
+indifferent to his displeasure or his patronage—indeed the latter would
+have been the most unbearable.  He never forgave me, however, as a
+discreditable tiff we had long after conclusively proved.  As I got to
+see more of this shining light I began to suspect that he must have been
+a Jesuit, he did so much to make Protestantism obnoxious.
+
+I was next passed on to a schoolmaster—a gradual improvement in
+accordance with the system is here apparent—who amused me by inquiring if
+I could read, how I spelt “oxen,” if I could write, and if I thought I
+could “write a letter?”  This latter question was very conclusively set
+at rest a week later by an incident that occurred in which I was the
+chief culprit, and which necessitated the collective wisdom of the Home
+Office and a full bench of the Visiting Justices to adjudicate upon.
+Meanwhile, I had “passed” this scorching examination, and had to sit
+quietly by and listen to illiterate costermongers and rascally
+pickpockets being severally questioned.  It had its amusing features,
+although I felt how degrading it was for a public school-boy and a
+gentleman by birth and education to be compelled under any combination of
+circumstances to submit to be catechized by such a trio.  The next person
+to appear was the doctor—the dearest, kindest old gentleman I ever met.
+His manner to all was alike considerate and kind; one, moreover, who
+seemed to be aware that the position of a gentleman (unless usurped by a
+cad) loses nothing of its dignity by a courteous bearing towards
+inferiors or men placed in a painful position—a manner that inspired
+respect and yet precluded the possibility of a liberty, a refreshing
+contrast to a nondescript that had preceded him, and the beau idéal of a
+fine old English gentleman.  Stripped to the waist and behind a screen,
+we were one by one subjected to a minute examination.  A schemer had a
+very sorry look-out with this eminent physician; no dodge could possibly
+avail, for he was intimate with every “ailment” that criminal flesh is
+heir to.  It was amusing, after hearing some rascal relate the numerous
+complaints from which he was suffering, to hear the surgeon quietly say
+with a smile, “Oh, you’ll soon be all right,” and to see the hospital
+warder write down, “Fit, hard labour.”  This short and apparently
+informal ceremony is the most momentous in one’s future career, and
+though unaware of it at the time, I was not surprised later on at the
+importance attached to it by the experienced criminal.  By it one’s
+future treatment is entirely guided, and the class of labour is carefully
+selected in accordance with its decision.  A card, then and there signed
+by the surgeon, and which is always fixed on one’s cell door, decides
+one’s future vocation; and “Hard labour,” or “Light labour and bed,” bear
+a significance incredible to the uninitiated.  As I stood before the kind
+old man stripped to the waist (or rather to where my waist now is) I was
+amused by his astonishment at my enormous proportions.  I satisfied him I
+was not deceiving him by a reference to an operation I had once
+undergone; and this, coupled with my unnatural size, decided him I was
+incapable of hard labour, and the words, “Light labour and bed,” were
+recorded on my card.  Before many hours had passed I realized the benefit
+of those magic words.  These preliminaries, as is always the case in
+well-constructed dramas or farces, only led up to the event of the
+day—the inspection by the Governor.  In Her Majesty’s prisons these
+individuals are clothed in attributes something more than mortal, and
+receive an amount of homage sufficient to turn the head of a fool or a
+snob.  In this instance the Governor was neither, and though a strict
+disciplinarian, was the justest and “straightest” man I ever met.
+Prisoners and warders were equally amenable to his discipline, and the
+slightest dereliction of duty brought him down on you like a load of
+bricks.  There was no abuse or verbosity accompanying this discipline,
+and though he was feared, I believe he was equally liked and respected by
+every man in the prison.  The advent of such a personage naturally
+involved a proportionate amount of preparation, and everything received
+an overhaul.  Men who wore Her Majesty’s livery for the first time, and
+were mere babes in the mysteries of its graceful adjustment, were told to
+put their stocks “square on,” or button this button and not that of their
+vests and jackets; lumps of coal that had burned crooked were carefully
+straightened, and even the coal-box got a lick of whitewash at the last
+moment.  We were then rehearsed in a sort of drill: every man was
+informed that when “attention” was called he was at once to “spring” up
+smartly and remain standing—an old vagrant, aged 100 to judge by his
+appearance, “sprang” with so much zeal that I really thought he had
+cricked his neck.  When all the preparations were considered complete,
+and we had attained an efficiency worthy the reputation of the “North
+Corks,” and as some minutes had yet to elapse before the great man’s
+arrival, it was deemed advisable to fix our thoughts in the same
+reverential groove by reading certain rules for our future guidance.  The
+following notice is one of the half-dozen that hang up in every cell—all
+of which I shall produce hereafter.  They can hardly be considered as
+light reading, or such as one would select unless absolutely compelled;
+nevertheless, they afforded me a certain amount of occupation by learning
+them by heart during the many solitary hours I spent hereafter:—
+
+
+
+ABSTRACT OF THE REGULATIONS
+
+
+                               RELATING TO THE
+
+                      TREATMENT AND CONDUCT OF CONVICTED
+                             CRIMINAL PRISONERS.
+
+    1.  Prisoners shall not disobey the orders of the Governor or of any
+    officer of the prison, nor treat them with disrespect.
+
+    2. They shall preserve silence, and are not to cause annoyance or
+    disturbance by making unnecessary noise.
+
+    3. They shall not communicate or attempt to do so with one another,
+    or with any strangers or others who may visit the prison.
+
+    4. They shall not disfigure any part of their cells or damage any
+    property, or deface, erase, destroy, or pull down any rules or other
+    papers hung up therein, or commit any nuisance, or have in their
+    cells or possession any article not sanctioned by the orders and
+    regulations.
+
+    5. They shall not be idle, nor feign sickness to evade their work.
+
+    6.  They shall not be guilty of profane language, of indecent or
+    irreverent conduct, nor shall they use threats towards or commit
+    assaults upon officers or one another.
+
+    7.  They shall obey such regulations as regards washing, bathing,
+    hair-cutting, and shaving as may from time to time be established,
+    with a view to the proper maintenance of health and cleanliness.
+
+    8.  They shall keep their cells, utensils, clothing, and bedding
+    clean and neatly arranged, and shall when required clean and sweep
+    the yards, passages, and other parts of the prison.
+
+    9.  If any prisoner has any complaint to make regarding the diet, it
+    must be made immediately after a meal is served and before any
+    portion of it is eaten.  Frivolous and groundless complaints,
+    repeatedly made, will be dealt with as a breach of prison discipline.
+
+    10.  A prisoner may, if required for the purposes of justice, be
+    photographed.
+
+    11.  Prisoners shall attend divine service on Sundays, and on other
+    days when such service is performed, unless they receive permission
+    to be absent.  No prisoner shall be compelled to attend the religious
+    service of a church to which he does not belong.
+
+    12.  The following offences committed by male prisoners convicted of
+    felony or sentenced to hard labour will render them liable to
+    corporal punishment:—
+
+    1st.  Mutiny or open incitement to mutiny in the prison, personal
+    violence to any officer of the prison, aggravated or repeated
+    assaults on a fellow-prisoner, repetition of insulting or threatening
+    language to any officer or prisoner.
+
+    2nd.  Wilfully and maliciously breaking the prison windows, or
+    otherwise destroying the prison property.
+
+    3rd.  When under punishment, wilfully making a disturbance tending to
+    interrupt the order and discipline of the prison, and any other act
+    of gross misconduct or insubordination requiring to be suppressed by
+    extraordinary means.
+
+    13.  A prisoner committing a breach of any of the regulations is
+    liable to be sentenced to confinement in a punishment cell, and such
+    dietary and other punishments as the rules allow.
+
+    14.  Any gratuity granted to a prisoner may be paid to him through a
+    Prisoners’ Aid Society, or in such way as the Commissioners may
+    direct.
+
+    15.  Prisoners may, if they desire it, have an interview with the
+    Governor or superior authority to make complaints or prefer requests;
+    and the Governor shall redress any grievance or take such steps as
+    may seem necessary.
+
+    16.  Any prisoner wishing to see a member of the Visiting Committee
+    shall be allowed to do so on the occasion of his next occurring visit
+    to the prison.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+    _Printed at H.M. Convict Prison_, _Millbank_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+A slamming of doors and turning of keys, and a perfect Babel of voices
+shouting “Attention!” heralded the Governor’s approach.  I can only
+compare the discord to that which invariably accompanies the progress of
+an African tribe through a friendly village.  A few pop-guns and a
+tom-tom or two would certainly make the resemblance more complete, though
+they would probably be objected to by the Home Office on the plea of want
+of precedent.
+
+The halo of veneration that surrounds a prison governor is by no means
+confined to himself, but obliquely and in a modified form imparts itself
+to the humblest of his followers.  A miserable door-slammer that usually
+accompanied him, and combined with this important duty the occasional
+distribution of letters, amused me on one occasion when I ventured to ask
+him if he had a letter for me.  Such a liberty “from the likes of me to
+the likes of him” was hardly to be tolerated; and he had the cheek to
+send me a message that “he objected to be spoken to when accompanying the
+Governor.”
+
+The door at length opened, and the great man was in the room.
+“Attention!” was shrieked out as only sycophants can do, and duly
+responded to; and the halt and the maim, “Old Hundred,” myself, burglars,
+and pickpockets, presented one uninterrupted, swerving, rickety line.  As
+a spectacle, it must have been truly imposing, during which the Governor
+sat down.  Our names were then respectively called out, and we crossed
+from one bench to another to show, as it were, our action.  Not a muscle
+of the inspecting officer’s face moved during these scenes in the arena;
+and it might have been the Sphinx inspecting the army of Pharaoh, so
+little attention did he apparently pay to us.  Nothing, however, had
+escaped him; and I learnt to believe there was some truth in the
+assertion that he had eyes in his boots, if not in his pockets also.
+
+As may be supposed, these various inspections took a considerable time,
+and the day was drawing in before they were all ended.  We were thereupon
+informed that we should occupy temporary cells for “this night only,” and
+that our final allotment to various parts of the prison would be
+postponed till the morrow.  The cell I now found myself in was indeed a
+small one—evidently only used as a half-way house, and fitted as
+sparingly as the thermometer one at Newgate.  A notice posted up warned
+us not to go to bed till the bell rang at eight; and not wishing to break
+a rule before I had been in the place a day, I foolishly complied with
+the order.
+
+Meanwhile it was getting dark, and though a gaspipe was fitted into the
+wall, there was not the slightest indication of its being likely to be
+lit.  Mike, who had frequently been here before, intimated his intention
+of turning in, and, “order be blowed!” strongly advised us to do the
+same.  I only regret I was weak enough not to.  The gloom gradually
+increased till we were left in outer darkness.  To find the bed-clothing
+would now have been a difficulty; to make any resemblance to a bed an
+absolute impossibility.  Still, on the strength of the notice, I waited
+through many dark and cold hours, until a brute with a human voice
+shouted out from somewhere, “You chaps will get no light to-night, so you
+can turn in when you please.”  I was informed afterwards this was a
+favourite and utterly unauthorized assumption of authority on the part of
+this bully, and I trust it has only to be noticed to preclude the
+possibility of its continuance.  It was a barbarous and cowardly act, and
+strictly opposed to the usual system of the prison.  How I got through
+that cold night I cannot tell, for bed, bedding and light were all
+strangers to me; but night, more merciful than man, threw its mantle over
+me, and I slept as sound as only the weary can.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+“OAKUM” LET US SING.
+
+
+NEXT morning after breakfast we were drafted to our various localities,
+and, incredible as it may appear, and to show how efficient is the
+isolation system, men with whom I parted company that morning I never saw
+again, though I knew they were in the same building.  Our various
+destinations were indicated in a somewhat primitive style—a huge
+chalk-mark on our backs.  As I threaded my way through various wards with
+a C scrawled on my back, a smell of tar indicated our approach to what
+might under altered circumstances have been presumed to be a
+ship-chandler’s; it was, however, only the oakum district.  We were here
+received by the warder in command, and I was assigned to the fifth
+storey.  I was further presented with my official number—594, on a brass
+plate.
+
+I now discovered the benefit of “light labour and bed.”  This particular
+ward, together with the two in its immediate vicinity, is principally
+devoted to fresh arrivals; bed is the exception and oakum is the rule.
+It is absolutely impossible for any accident to exempt you from
+commencing your career for one month in these wards; it rests, however,
+with yourself whether you pick oakum or find a substitute.  I decided on
+the latter course.  The system of prison life is such a contemptible one,
+and the espionage, jealousy, currying favour, and tale-bearing so general
+between the officials from the highest to the lowest, that this portion
+of my task is a very delicate one.  Whatever I write will be carefully
+sifted; and if I give the slightest clue capable of being followed up, I
+should probably injure some warder, assistant warder, or prisoner who did
+me incalculable services at great personal risk; and as this is the last
+thing I have the smallest intention of doing, I wish to state, once for
+all, that all names and dates I give are intentionally altered, and that
+any official who ever befriended me has nothing to fear from my
+revelations.
+
+                        [Picture: A Cell.  8 A.M.]
+
+As I ascended the spiral staircase a shout of “Coming up!” intimated to
+the attics that a fresh victim was approaching, and I was formally
+received and conducted to my cell.  The first impression of my permanent
+address was not encouraging.  On a shelf was a Bible and prayer-book, a
+tin plate, a tin mug, and a tin knife, a wooden spoon, a box of salt, and
+a piece of soap, producing a combination such as may be seen in any of
+the illustrated papers during a small war, and supposed to illustrate, as
+circumstances require, the utensils in daily use amongst Zulus, Ashantis
+or whatever savages we may happen to be slaughtering at the time.  In
+another corner was a diminutive basin the size of a saucepan, a
+slop-pail, and a can of water.  On a shelf was a rug and two blankets;
+bed or bedstead was conspicuous by its absence; and on the table was a
+lump of rope.  My turnkey, having examined my card, ordered in a bed and
+bedstead, and explained that the rope was to be converted into oakum.  A
+few words and we understood one another; in short, he was a man after my
+own heart.  I have no scruple in mentioning this, for I regret to say the
+man was dismissed shortly after—through no fault of mine, though
+indirectly connected with me.  I can never forgive myself when I reflect
+that I had any share in the transaction, though it is a consolation to
+know that, had he been as careful as he ought, nothing could have brought
+the offence home to him.  In the first instance, he was the victim of as
+foul a piece of treachery as ever disgraced humanity, and then he lost
+his head, and compromised himself when absolute silence would have
+cleared him.  I shall narrate the particulars later on.  In addition to
+the above-named furniture, the walls were decorated with a number of
+printed notices describing your duties, diet, &c., and a prayer (!); a
+wooden—so much a dozen—effort, supposed to be specially adapted to the
+requirements of “awakening burglars.”  I learnt all these by heart by way
+of amusement, and will give them for the benefit of the reader.  I take
+especial pleasure in reproducing them, as I believe they’ve never seen
+daylight before.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+SYSTEM OF PROGRESSIVE STAGES FOR MALE
+PRISONERS SENTENCED TO HARD LABOUR.
+
+
+    1.  A prisoner shall be able to earn on each weekday 8, 7, or 6
+    marks, according to the degree of his industry; and on Sunday he
+    shall be awarded marks according to the degree of his industry during
+    the previous week.
+
+    2.  There shall be four stages, and every prisoner shall pass through
+    them or through so much of them as the term of his imprisonment
+    admits.
+
+    3.  He shall commence in the first stage, and shall remain in the
+    first stage until he has earned 28 × 8, or 224 marks; in the second
+    stage until he has earned 224 more marks, or 448 in the whole; in the
+    third stage until he has earned 224 more marks, or 672 in the whole;
+    in the fourth stage during the remainder of his sentence.
+
+    4.  A prisoner whose term of imprisonment is twenty-eight days or
+    less shall serve the whole of his term in the first stage.
+
+    5.  A prisoner who is idle, or who misconducts himself, or is
+    inattentive to instruction, shall be liable
+
+    (1) To forfeit gratuity earned or to be earned, or
+
+    (2) To forfeit any other stage privileges.
+
+    (3) To detention in the stage in which he is until he shall have
+    earned in that stage an additional number of marks.
+
+    (4) To degradation to any lower stage (whether such stage is next
+    below the one in which he is or otherwise) until he has earned in
+    such lower stage a stated number of marks.
+
+    As soon as the prisoner has earned the stated number, then, unless he
+    has in the meantime incurred further punishment, he shall be restored
+    to the stage from which he was degraded, and be credited with the
+    number of marks he had previously earned therein.
+
+    6.  None of the foregoing punishments shall exempt a prisoner from
+    any other punishment to which he would be liable for conduct
+    constituting a breach of prison regulations.
+
+    7.  A prisoner in the first stage will
+
+    (_a_) Be employed ten hours daily in strict separation on first class
+    hard labour, of which six to eight hours will be on crank,
+    tread-wheel, or work of a similar nature.
+
+    (_b_) Sleep on a plank-bed without a mattress.
+
+    (_c_) Earn no gratuity.
+
+    8.  A prisoner in the second stage will
+
+    (_a_) Be employed as in the first stage until he has completed one
+    month of imprisonment, and afterwards on hard labour of the second
+    class.
+
+    (_b_) Sleep on a plank-bed without a mattress two nights weekly and
+    have a mattress on the other nights.
+
+    (_c_) Receive school instruction.
+
+    (_d_) Have school books in his cell.
+
+    (_e_) Have exercise on Sunday.
+
+    (_f_) Be able to earn a gratuity not exceeding 1s.
+
+    (_g_) The gratuity to a prisoner in this stage, whose sentence is not
+    long enough for him to earn 224 marks in it, may be calculated at 1d.
+    for every 20 marks earned.
+
+    9.  A prisoner in the third stage will—
+
+    (_a_) Be employed on second class hard labour.
+
+    (_b_) Sleep on a plank-bed without a mattress one night weekly, and
+    have a mattress on other nights.
+
+    (_c_) Receive school instruction.
+
+    (_d_) Have school books in his cell.
+
+    (_e_) Have library books in his cell.
+
+    (_f_) Have exercise on Sunday.
+
+    (_g_) Be able to earn a gratuity not exceeding 1s. 6d.
+
+    (_h_) The gratuity to a prisoner in this stage, whose sentence is not
+    long enough for him to earn 224 marks in it, may be calculated at 1d.
+    for every 12 marks earned.
+
+    10.  A prisoner in the fourth stage will—
+
+    (_a_) Be eligible for employment of trust in the service of the
+    prison.
+
+    (_b_) Sleep on a Mattress every night.
+
+    (_c_) Receive school instruction.
+
+    (_d_) Have school books in his cell.
+
+    (_e_) Have library books in his cell.
+
+    (_f_) Have exercise on Sunday.
+
+    (_g_) Be allowed to receive and write a letter and receive a visit of
+    twenty minutes; and in every three months afterwards to receive and
+    write a letter, and receive a visit of half-an-hour.
+
+    (_h_) Be able to earn a gratuity not exceeding 2s.
+
+    (_i_) The gratuity to a prisoner in this stage, whose sentence is not
+    long enough for him to earn 224 marks in it, may be calculated at 1d.
+    for every 10 marks earned.
+
+    (_j_) The gratuity to a prisoner in this stage, whose sentence is
+    long enough to enable him to earn more than 896 marks, may be
+    calculated at the same rate, provided that it shall not in any case
+    exceed 10s.
+
+                                  * * * * *
+
+    _Printed at H.M. Convict Prison_, _Millbank_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+The composition of this abstract, alternating as it does between threats
+of punishment and hopes of “employments of trust,” clearly stamps it as
+intended to appeal to the feelings and adapt itself to the capacities of
+the lowest classes.  That any man of education could be roused to any
+degree of ambition by such “trust” as would be likely to be placed in
+him, is to suppose an impossible absurdity.  The “system” throttles any
+such contingency, and leads—as all short-sighted policies do—to men
+believing in no such thing as good faith, and having no inward
+restraining motive for abstaining from deception.  Why will not the Chief
+Commissioner of Prisons see that the brute power at their disposal is
+wholly inadequate to prevent a man with a modicum of brains and a few
+sovereigns from doing as he pleases?  Let them try the “confidence trick”
+in a modified form with the better class of prisoners, and if it is found
+to fail, revert to the hard and fast rule.  A discretionary power in the
+hands of such a man as the Governor of Coldbath Fields would thoroughly
+test the experiment.
+
+What trash “employment of trust” sounds to a man who knows that from
+first to last—however exemplary his behaviour—he is suspected, and never
+supposed to be lost sight of!
+
+Personally, I felt I’d as lief be in the punishment cells as in any
+“employment of trust”; they are both birds of the same feather,
+recognizing no code but brute force, distrust, and degrees of punishment.
+I can only compare the prison system to a huge machine, capable of
+crushing a man body and soul, or handling him so lightly that nothing but
+the “idea” and its moral obligations remain to remind him of its hideous
+proximity.  If any further proof is required of the truth of my
+deductions, my personal experience will amply provide it.
+
+
+
+SHORT PRAYERS FOR MORNING AND EVENING.
+
+
+_Morning_.
+
+
+    O GOD and Holy Father, Thou hast in mercy watched over me through the
+    night; in Thy tender love keep me this day from evil.  I have greatly
+    sinned against Thee.  Do Thou turn me from all my evil ways; wash me
+    in the blood of Jesus, and let Thy Spirit lead me that I may hate sin
+    and love what is right.  Let Thy grace preserve me amidst all trials,
+    that I may be made truly a servant of Jesus Christ and ever love and
+    serve my God and Saviour.  Amen.
+
+
+
+_Evening_.
+
+
+    O GOD, Thou hast safely brought me to the close of another day.  May
+    Thy goodness lead me to repentance that I may give Thee my heart.
+    Forgive all my evil thoughts, and words, and deeds.  What good
+    thoughts I have had from Thee do Thou strengthen, that I may love
+    Thee more and serve Thee better.  Keep me, O God, and all whom I
+    love, from danger or sin this night, and so preserve us by Thy grace
+    that at last we may sleep in Jesus and be for ever with the Lord.
+    Amen.
+
+This hypocritical effusion hangs over one’s table, and is supposed to be
+admirably adapted for “awakening” burglars, and turning pickpockets from
+the error of their ways.  As a literary composition it is beneath
+criticism, and would disgrace a “National School” boy in a proclaimed
+district.  I don’t know who is the inspired author, nor how they are sold
+by the dozen.
+
+
+
+NOTICE.
+
+
+    “Prisoners who desire assistance from the agent of the Discharged
+    Prisoners’ Relief Committee, in finding employment on discharge,
+    should apply to the Governor fourteen days before they go out, when
+    their cases will be investigated.  Wilfully false statements as to
+    antecedents, &c., will disqualify a prisoner from assistance, as will
+    also misconduct in prison.”
+
+There is no institution I heard so much abused as the above, and although
+I cannot speak from personal knowledge, I should say that a thorough
+enquiry into its working (not its profession) might possibly be attended
+with benefit.  Beyond seeing a fly-blown old man waddling about the
+prison, who, I was informed, was the agent, I know nothing, and care
+less, about this doubtless admirable institution.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+DIETARY FOR CONVICTED PRISONERS.
+
+                                No. 1.
+
+  MEN, WOMEN, AND BOYS UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE, WITH AND WITHOUT
+                             HARD LABOUR.
+Breakfast      Daily                            8 ounces bread.
+Dinner         Daily                            1½ pint _stirabout_
+                                                (containing 3 ounces
+                                                Indian meal and 3
+                                                ounces oatmeal).
+Supper         Daily                            8 ounces bread.
+                                No. 2.
+
+                        MEN WITH HARD LABOUR.
+Breakfast      Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             6 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                6 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes.
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   6 ounces bread, ½
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+ MEN WITHOUT HARD LABOUR, WOMEN, AND BOYS UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE.
+Breakfast      Daily                            5 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             5 ounces bread, 6
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                5 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes.
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   5 ounces bread, ½
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            5 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+                                No. 3.
+
+                        MEN WITH HARD LABOUR.
+Breakfast      Daily                            8 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             4 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 8
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                8 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 3
+                                                ounces cooked beef
+                                                (without bone).
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   8 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, ¾
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+ MEN WITHOUT HARD LABOUR, WOMEN, AND BOYS UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE.
+Breakfast      Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             4 ounces bread, 6
+                                                ounces potatoes, 6
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                6 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 3
+                                                ounces cooked beef
+                                                (without bone).
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   6 ounces bread, 6
+                                                ounces potatoes, ¾
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+                                No. 4.
+
+                        MEN WITH HARD LABOUR.
+Breakfast.     Daily                            8 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint porridge.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             6 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 12
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                8 ounces bread, 12
+                                                ounces potatoes, 4
+                                                ounces cooked beef
+                                                (without bone).
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   8 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 1
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            8 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint porridge.
+ MEN WITHOUT HARD LABOUR, WOMEN, AND BOYS UNDER SIXTEEN YEARS OF AGE.
+Breakfast      Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+Dinner         Sunday and Wednesday             4 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 10
+                                                ounces suet pudding.
+               Monday and Friday                6 ounces bread, 10
+                                                ounces potatoes, 3
+                                                ounces cooked beef
+                                                (without bone).
+               Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday   6 ounces bread, 8
+                                                ounces potatoes, 1
+                                                pint soup.
+Supper         Daily                            6 ounces bread, 1
+                                                pint gruel.
+
+On Mondays beans and fat bacon may be substituted for beef.  At the
+expiration of nine months one pint of cocoa, with two ounces extra bread,
+may be given at breakfast three days in the week, in lieu of one pint of
+porridge, or gruel, if preferred.
+
+The following will be the terms to which the above diets will be
+applied:—
+
+Prisoners sentenced to seven days and under, No. 1 diet for the whole
+time.
+
+Prisoners sentenced to more than seven days, and not more than one month,
+No. 1 diet for seven days, and No. 2 diet for remainder of term.
+
+Prisoners sentenced to more than one month, and not more than four
+months, No. 2 diet for one month, and No. 3 diet for remainder of term.
+
+Prisoners sentenced to more than four months, No. 3 diet for four months,
+and No. 4 diet for remainder of term.
+
+
+
+TABLE OF SUBSTITUTES
+
+
+    For cooked English beef or potatoes, which may be issued, if deemed
+    necessary, by the authorities.
+
+    In lieu of four ounces cooked English beef:
+
+    Five ounces Colonial beef or mutton, preserved by heat (served cold);
+    nine ounces beans, one ounce fat bacon, four ounces American or other
+    foreign beef, preserved by cold (weighed after cooking), eight ounces
+    cooked fresh fish; six ounces cooked salt meat; twelve ounces cooked
+    salt fish.
+
+    In lieu of three ounces cooked English beef:
+
+    Three-and-three-quarter ounces Colonial beef or mutton, preserved by
+    heat (served cold); seven ounces beans, three-quarters of an ounce
+    fat bacon; three ounces American or other foreign beef, preserved by
+    cold (weighed after cooking); six ounces cooked fresh fish;
+    four-and-a-half ounces cooked salt meat; nine ounces cooked salt
+    fish.
+
+    In lieu of twelve ounces potatoes:
+
+    Eight ounces cabbage or turnip-tops; twelve ounces parsnips, turnips,
+    or carrots; twelve ounces preserved (dried) potatoes; eight ounces
+    leeks; twelve ounces rice (steamed till tender).
+
+    In lieu of ten ounces potatoes:
+
+    Seven ounces cabbage or turnip-tops; ten ounces parsnips, turnips, or
+    carrots; ten ounces preserved (dried) potatoes; seven ounces leeks;
+    ten ounces rice (steamed till tender).
+
+    In lieu of eight ounces potatoes:
+
+    Six ounces cabbage or turnip-tops; eight ounces parsnips, turnips, or
+    carrots; eight ounces preserved (dried) potatoes; six ounces leeks;
+    eight ounces rice (steamed till tender).
+
+    In lieu of six ounces potatoes:
+
+    Four ounces cabbage or turnip-tops; six ounces parsnips, turnips, or
+    carrots; six ounces preserved (dried) potatoes; four ounces leeks;
+    six ounces rice (steamed till tender).
+
+    All the meats to be weighed without bone.
+
+    All vegetables to be weighed after cooking.
+
+                                  * * * * *
+
+    _Printed at H.M. Convict Prison_, _Millbank_.
+
+A careful perusal of Dietary 4 will convince the reader that it is
+sufficiently generous to obviate any loss of weight, and yet, as a rule,
+prisoners fall away on it, (There are some extraordinary exceptions to
+this rule, and one man, a gentleman by birth, and an ex-officer in the
+army, increased two stone in a few months; the absolute half-starved
+vagrant also, of course, fattens on it.)  I can only attribute it to the
+voracious way they bolt their food.  It is stated of that eminent
+projector, the late Mr. Rumford, that he once submitted to the then
+Elector of Saxony a scheme whereby he might reduce the expense of
+maintaining his army, without impairing its efficiency, by a very simple
+method, namely, to reduce the amount, but compel his soldiers to
+masticate their food.  I cannot say if the suggestion was acted on, but I
+am thoroughly convinced that if prisoners received less, and were
+compelled to eat slower, a considerable saving to the state and an
+improvement in the appearance of the men would be effected.  Personally I
+found during the very few weeks I subsisted on this diet that it was more
+than I could possibly eat, and withal good.  The gruel, I confess, is an
+acquired taste, and I was almost immediately permitted to substitute
+cocoa.  The porridge was also a sad disappointment.  I innocently hoped
+to have found the delicious composition associated with the land of cakes
+and immortal Burns, and could have burst into tears in recognising it as
+intensified gruel.  Its nourishing powers, however, are not to be
+gainsaid; and to see malefactors shovelling it away, as I have, one would
+suppose they enjoyed it.  The recitation of the substitutes for cooked
+beef I am compelled to characterise an official quibble.  During the few
+months I spent at Coldbath I never heard—as I certainly should—of any
+beef being issued at all, the invariable substitute being Colonial meat
+served cold, except on one occasion, when salt fish was supplied.  On the
+merits of this last item I cannot speak personally, for long before that
+I was on a daily diet of mutton and mutton broth, as I describe
+hereafter.  For the preserved Colonial meat, however, I have nothing but
+praise.  “Served,” as it was, under every disadvantage, I found it
+excellent; and as it can be purchased for seven-pence a pound, the marvel
+is that the poorer classes, who seldom or never taste butcher’s meat, do
+not patronise it more largely.  I can only suppose its merits are
+unknown.
+
+The bedstead, or “plank-bed,” as it is termed, is the hardest couch I
+ever felt; with a mattress on it I could feel every grain in the wood,
+and shuddered to think of my companions, all of whom had to submit for a
+month to the board “pure and simple.”  It is only raised three inches
+from the floor, and is two feet in breadth—a tight fit for twenty stone.
+I had now fairly settled down in my final destination for a month, and
+will describe the routine of the day:—
+
+6 A.M.       —Rise.
+6.30 „       —Breakfast.
+7 „          —Take down the day’s work, and receive a fresh supply.
+8 to 9 „     —Exercise.
+9 „          —Chapel (three times a week).
+12 noon      —Dinner.
+5 P.M.       —Supper.
+8 „          —Bed.
+8.30 „       —Lights out.
+
+                        [Picture: A Cell.  8 P.M.]
+
+A slight difference existed between the regulation here and at Newgate on
+the subject of “lights out.”  At Coldbath it was a serious offence to
+retire before 8 P.M.  At Newgate it was, however, optional, though
+hampered with an absurd condition.  One evening, at this latter awful
+place, I had determined on a comfortable read; with this object I
+undressed about 7 P.M., and, pulling my bed under the lamp, abandoned
+myself to the perusal of _Chambers’ Magazine_, for 1878.  Barely,
+however, had I commenced, when “in a moment all was dark.”  I ascertained
+next morning that it was a rule to put out the gas as soon as a man got
+into bed; whether from economical motives or as an extra mode of
+annoyance, I never troubled to ask.
+
+The brown bread, which was often warm from the oven, was as good as any I
+have ever tasted, and the quantity enough to satisfy anyone; and yet the
+ordinary prisoner would devour his and gratefully accept as much as
+anyone else would give him.  I found that prisoners would do anything for
+food, and through my entire career I bartered it in exchange for soap,
+etc.  Amongst other recipients of my bounty was a German Jew who lived
+near me.  He spoke very little English, and as I speak German fluently, I
+often had a word with him.  He told me the usual story about being
+sentenced for nothing; and though I did not believe a word of it, it led
+to his being put on my free list.  A more voracious appetite I never met
+with, and the way he bolted half a pound of bread and three or four
+potatoes was truly appalling; indeed, so unsatisfactory was it, that I
+transferred my patronage after a week; one might as well have tried to
+fill Nelson’s monument.  Giving away food is strictly prohibited—a
+regulation that necessitates certain precautions, commendable for their
+suitability rather than their cleanliness.  The usual mode is for the
+donor to stuff bread, potatoes, or a lump of suet down his stocking or
+inside his shirt, and when time and circumstance permit, to transfer it
+to the recipient of his bounty, who in his turn first shoves it up his
+back or into his cap, to be transferred at leisure into the mouth or
+elsewhere.  This manipulation never commended itself to me; and my rule,
+though not much more refined, had at least the advantage of avoiding any
+personal contact with the greasy dainties.  I placed all my food in my
+pocket-handkerchief, and transferred it bodily in exchange for the
+others’.  This rule only applied to the clean linen day, when I was
+enabled without delay to get rid of my brother-reprobate’s _mouchoir_.
+On other occasions I received their pocket-handkerchiefs clean, and
+returned them later on full of good things.  I let it be understood that
+I never took a handkerchief unless it was clean; and so perfect did the
+system become, that I had only to say _en passant_, “Your handkerchief
+to-morrow,” and it was duly handed to me washed and perfectly clean.  I
+only once was offered a treat of this kind.  It was a poor black man (I
+often see him about).  I watched him fumbling in his chest and eventually
+produce a crust; this he secreted for some minutes in his fist, and then
+said, “Here, master,” and held it out to me.  I can see his look of
+surprise that followed my refusal; but it was kindly meant, and though I
+declined the emetic, I wouldn’t have hurt his feelings for the world.
+Soup that I didn’t consume I usually placed outside the door, hoping that
+my regular “cleaner” would reach it in time.  In this, however, I was
+often disappointed, for my custom having got known, a raid was frequently
+made on it by others—a practice I determined to try and circumvent.
+
+I was suffering at this time from liver complaint, and had on my shelf a
+concoction of taraxacum and podophyllin.  Of this I poured one day about
+two doses into my mutton broth; and as it was somewhat discoloured by the
+process, I added half a cup of soapsuds and a handful of salt.  Not long
+after the two thieves arrived, and I could distinctly hear their long
+gulps as they swallowed the savoury concoction.  My commendable endeavour
+to break them of pilfering was, however, a complete failure; and the only
+remark I overheard was, “I say, Bill, it’s damned salt, ain’t it?”
+
+The soap one received had to last a fortnight, and was not sufficient for
+a thorough wash daily and the periodical bath, and I experienced great
+inconvenience at first by having to economize; but when it had got mooted
+about that there “was a swell as was mug enough to swap grub for soap,”
+my market became literally glutted, and I was enabled to revel in a bath
+every morning.
+
+Washing one’s cell floor was not an agreeable duty.  At first I puffed
+and blew like a grampus, but it soon became a very simple affair, and I
+became a perfect adept at the charwoman business.  I heard whilst here,
+from a reliable source, of some man who after leaving the prison was
+staying at a West-end hotel, and who, seeing a servant shirking her duty
+whilst scrubbing the doorstep, and unable to resist the force of habit,
+very kindly gave her the benefit of his experience, and stripping off his
+coat, proceeded to lay-to assiduously.  I should not hesitate to do the
+same under certain circumstances.  This “doing” one’s own apartment was
+the only derogatory duty I had ever to perform; and as it was a private
+show, and clearly for one’s own benefit, I never had the slightest
+objection to it; the more so as the taking of my morning bath (the
+saucepan on the floor) had half completed the process.
+
+Oakum-picking cannot be called an intellectual employment.  I should say,
+too, it was decidedly monotonous, though I can hardly speak from personal
+experience.  I tried the experiment of unravelling the rope, but it was
+so intensely provoking that I turned my thoughts to evading the
+necessity.  My turnkey and I were friends within twenty-four hours, and I
+consulted him about getting a substitute.  As turnkey and prisoner had
+both left before I had, I may say, without injuring anyone, that for a
+weekly consideration my task was picked daily.  Of a morning a bundle was
+mysteriously thrown into my cell, and a few moments later I proudly
+descended with “my work,” and dropped the unused rope on the stair.  The
+usual task that prisoners have to pick is three pounds a day, but being a
+light-labour man I was only assigned one pound.  I invariably returned a
+portion of this modified amount unpicked, thereby lulling the suspicions
+of a dense but offensively-inclined taskmaster.  Oakum is one of the most
+tell-tale commodities I ever came across.  If merely unravelled, it
+remains black and juicy; but the more it is picked and pulled the paler
+it gets, till it is capable of assuming the appearance of Turkish
+tobacco.  An experienced eye can at once detect the amount of labour
+bestowed on it, and some of the huge bundles I saw my _confrères_
+carrying down were works of art as regards finish.  The man who actually
+picked my oakum was the “cleaner,” a privileged individual with a roving
+commission.  His duties frequently brought him to my cell, and he told me
+he was a “racing man.”  I discovered, however, as we became better
+acquainted, that the designation is capable of considerable expansion,
+and that his peculiar talent was the “three-card trick.”  He knew every
+racecourse in England as well as every prison, and never failed of a
+morning to inquire how I had slept, adding, that he always slept badly
+the first few nights in a strange prison; and my reply that I was not
+affected in a “similar way” appeared to cause him considerable surprise.
+In my unravelling process I one day chanced to come across a bit of cane.
+It was certainly moist from proximity to the tar, but I carefully dried
+and subsequently smoked it.  I can hardly say the pleasure was unalloyed,
+for it bore such a resemblance to the fragrant British Havanna that I got
+alarmed, and put it out.  It was the only smoke I had for months.
+
+Exercise at Coldbath was an important institution, and considering it was
+the only fresh air I at first experienced in the day, I always looked
+forward to it.  An hour is the regulation time, but seldom is the boon of
+that duration; and if the warder is otherwise engaged, the exercise has
+to give way, and thus the prisoner is deprived of a healthy occupation to
+meet the convenience of a selfish turnkey.  Overlooking the exercise-yard
+attached to C ward were a row of houses, and I often wondered what the
+lookers-on thought of the moving mass of misery that circled round below
+them.  To me, with my limited facilities, there was ample room for
+reflection; and I often marvelled how such various types of humanity
+could have been collected, or indeed that they ever existed.
+
+One feeble old man particularly attracted my notice.  He was almost
+unable to walk round from sheer old age, and appeared altogether
+incapable of having qualified in any way for lodgings at Coldbath.  I
+asked a warder what on earth he had done.
+
+“Well,” he said, “they say he’s a bad ’un.  He’s here for violently
+assaulting the police, and got six months.”
+
+“But,” I added, “he don’t look as if he would last so long; he must be at
+least a hundred!”
+
+“Very likely,” was the reply.  “The fact is, a new rule has come in
+lately, and pauper prisoners are buried in the prison; so they sent him
+here in hopes of starting our new cemetery.”
+
+Another peculiarity that struck me forcibly was the apparently universal
+obstruction that appeared to exist in the criminal throat.  It was
+absolutely epidemic, and the sounds—such as are made by an over-wound
+moderator lamp—that accompanied their fruitless endeavours to obtain
+relief were excessively revolting.  This and the like are the worst
+features of coming in contact with these dirty wretches.  Many habits
+usually looked upon as filthy were freely indulged in, and anyone who
+instinctively abstained from participating was looked upon as an
+outsider.  A foolish habit I had contracted in my youth of applying my
+pocket-handkerchief to its natural use was, I fancy, specially resented.
+I could never shake off these feelings, and though with them, was never
+“one of them.”  I always kept them at arms’ length, and invariably
+received some implied recognition of my superiority.  The better class of
+prisoners for the most part addressed me as “Capting,” or “Sir”; and even
+the lowest, if they spoke—which I never encouraged—did so with some small
+degree of reserve.  The neighbourhood abounds with street-organs; indeed,
+it is the head-quarters where the instrumentalists for the most part
+live, the consequence being that, like the lady of Bambury Cross, we had
+music wherever we “goed.”  About this time a certain popular air was much
+in vogue, and evidently much admired by the criminal classes.  I enquired
+the name of this vile music-hall ditty, but without effect; and can only
+describe it by the fact that no sooner did it commence than the whole mob
+appeared to cheer up, and took up a sort of gin-and-water refrain which
+they buzzed out—“Ho moy littul tarling, ’ow are yew?”  The wretch who
+composed it deserves a month.  It is impossible to describe the monotony
+of these days without occupation—for my deputy did my task—and without
+books.  The religious tract, as a leaflet was officially styled, had to
+last a fortnight; and I knew by heart all about “The Sweet Recollections
+of a Sweep,” and “The Converted Charwoman of Goswell Road.”  “What
+Pickest Thou, you Wretch?” and “How are your Poor Fingers, you
+Blackguard?” were also works contained in this religious repertoire, and
+altogether of a more thrilling description.  They were generally
+understood to have been the work of a local divine, as indeed their style
+suggested.  The library books are a very sorry lot, though probably well
+adapted to the capacities of their readers.  The rule, too, that permits
+their change only once a fortnight is in itself a species of torture
+unworthy of the system that sanctions them at all.  The type for the most
+part is large, and such as an educated man can read in a day.  Why, then,
+spoil a gracious act by limiting its very innocent scope.  Such, too, is
+the reckless supervision of these literary treasures that I received no
+less than seven school histories of England during my career.  I felt
+this as almost a reflection on the Dean of W— and my classical education
+generally.
+
+There was, however, a reserve library for the special benefit of the
+“serious” minded, and men of education with strict Episcopalian
+proclivities.  This issue, and its attendant patronage, is vested
+entirely in the hands of the chaplain—a custom it is high time to
+alter—and considering I had never been confirmed, it is a marvel how I
+was ever included in its favoured ranks.  The blessing was not, however,
+an entirely unmitigated one; and “Locke’s Essay on the Mind,” “The Theory
+of Sturm,” and such light reading usually fell to my share.  Happily I
+was independent of it all, although an amusing and undignified squabble
+some months later deprived me of even this modified clerical patronage.
+
+I must mention one incident connected with my “three card” acquaintance
+before leaving the oakum district.  It was after chapel, and he was in my
+cell, when, after sundry enquiries as to how I liked the service, etc.,
+he said—
+
+“I calls it bad, very bad taste, the way they goes on, even in chapel, at
+a chap about his work.  Didn’t you hear this morning about the oakum?”
+
+“Oakum,” I said; “I don’t remember any allusion to it.”
+
+“O yes you do,” he replied.  “D’you mind my nudging you?” and then I
+recollected receiving a dig in the ribs, which I failed to understand at
+the time, as they began to sing, “O Come, let us sing,” etc.  The racing
+man had made a mistake in the spelling, and very properly resented the
+allusion.
+
+My transfer from this hateful district was, however, nearer than I
+supposed, and an unexpected occurrence a few days after my arrival
+brought about this welcome change.  My door was one day suddenly opened,
+and my friend the turnkey appeared in breathless agitation.
+
+“Summat’s up,” he jerked out; “mind you tells em nothink.  You’re going
+to be transferred at once.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+THE VISITING JUSTICES.
+
+
+SOMETHING was indeed up; a letter, in fact, that I had clandestinely
+written had been intercepted.  Personally I was indifferent to the
+result; the worst had been done to me when I found myself in prison.
+Degrees of punishment had no terrors for me, and I was equally callous as
+to whether employed in a “situation of trust” or languishing in a
+punishment cell.  To me all appeared tarred with the same brush, and I
+loathed the privileges and punishments, the indulgences and deprivations,
+the spiritual comforts, and every other contingency with the same
+intensity.  As regards the turnkey, however, my sympathy was enlisted.
+Here was a poor man, with a wife and family, liable to dismissal, and
+even imprisonment, if convicted of carrying letters.  At the time I was
+at a loss to understand how the traffic could possibly have been
+discovered.  I was confident I had not been observed writing, and had
+seen the letters securely secreted in the warder’s pouch.  Unless, then,
+he had been guilty of some indiscretion, the discovery seemed impossible.
+Such a contingency as foul play from without never entered my head, and
+yet, alas, such a thing had actually occurred.  A servant in the family
+of one of my correspondents had lately been detected in a series of
+systematic thefts from her employers, extending over many months.  The
+discovery naturally involved her immediate dismissal, and by way of
+gratitude for their refraining from prosecuting her, she purloined my
+letter, and assuming a position of authority, called at the prison and
+produced the document.  Her motive was clearly revenge, but the truth (as
+it always does) eventually came out, and the mystery that shrouded the
+transaction for months has happily been dispelled, and the temporary
+doubt (almost excusable) that associated the act with very dear friends
+has given way to a regret that I could ever have doubted their honour.
+As to the thieving, sneaking wretch, she decamped with her spoils; and
+though her photograph has been freely distributed in the “three ball”
+quarter, she has hitherto evaded discovery.  For my part I would gladly
+subscribe a trifle for the present address of Mrs. Smith.  With the
+mystery that surrounded everything that occurred in the place, I tried in
+vain to ascertain whether anything had really been discovered, but day
+after day passed, and the affair had apparently blown over.  This,
+however, was an erroneous impression; it was only the lull that precedes
+the storm, and not a stone was being left unturned to sift the matter.
+The turnkey, at the time only suspected of complicity in the matter, was
+carefully watched.  When he left of an evening his every footstep was
+dogged, and a nightly report of his rambles duly made.  A letter, too,
+that he foolishly posted in a neighbouring pillar-box pointed indirectly
+to his connivance, and subsequent inquiries at the district receiving
+office made matters possibly clearer.  A close relationship exists
+between such Government institutions as post-offices, prisons, and
+police-stations, which affords greater facilities to constituted
+authorities for unearthing mysteries than to ordinary mortals.  I was
+ignorant in those days of this affinity, and an easy prey to such
+trumpery contingencies; but I eventually reduced the trafficking to a
+science impossible of detection, and unfailing in its results.  Can it be
+wondered at—surrounded as one is by underpaid officials, who begin at
+twenty-one shillings and twenty-three shillings a week, with a gradual
+increase, after years of toil, to a possible twenty-eight shillings, and
+with a prospect, after twenty years’ service, of receiving a pension of
+ten shillings a week—can it be wondered at, I ask, that these worthy men
+are unable to resist a bribe?  I should regret to have to prove my words,
+but if I was in the position again, I think I could undertake to be in
+daily communication with the outer world, despite bolts and bars and the
+“special” observation I was always subject to.  This is no idle boast, as
+subsequent events will prove; and the authorities have only themselves to
+thank for exercising no discretionary power in their treatment of
+prisoners, when the facts I mention prove conclusively that a great
+difference does exist and always will between the vagrant and the
+gentleman, even in prison, in more ways than one.  The underpaid turnkey
+is still more unfairly handicapped, and it resolves itself into his
+choosing between my £5 and the Government £1.  What more natural than
+that he should elect the former, when the most ordinary precaution will
+guard against detection.  I don’t think the authorities ought to begrudge
+the so-called gentleman this solitary advantage.  No one can deny that
+six months to a man of education is an infinitely severer trial than
+eighteen to a costermonger.  The one has to battle with the mind,
+conscience, remorse, shattered prospects, loss of caste, a blighted
+future, food, clothing, surroundings, all inferior to what he has been
+accustomed to; to submit, moreover, to be addressed by inferiors in a
+tone of authority, besides a hundred-and-one other humiliations
+impossible to remember: the other finds himself amongst friends, loses
+nothing by his incarceration, is better clothed, fed, and housed than if
+he were at home, and, in the case of an artizan, reverts to his every-day
+employment; and yet this is seldom taken into consideration, and justice
+is ladled out to gentleman and vagrant alike.  I cannot assert this as my
+own experience, for justice was indeed tempered with mercy to me, and I
+am fully sensible of the consideration I received, both at my trial and
+hereafter.  Under ordinary circumstances one would be accused of
+ingratitude for breaking rules and deceiving those in authority who had
+treated one well, but I never took this personal view of it.  I was
+fighting a system that I despised, not individuals that I respected.  So
+I looked on it as a game of “brag,” a kind of “French and English,” a
+question of bolts and bars _versus_ brains, where the latter had
+apparently the worst of it, where undue importance was attached to
+watching and spying, and nothing left to one’s parole.  About a week
+after my transfer (I was now in the needlework ward, and being initiated
+into the mysteries of darning stockings) I received a summons to appear
+before the Governor.  I knew now that the letter-writing had been
+discovered, or, as my friend the turnkey had expressed it, “Summat was
+up.”  He told me, in a few words, that it had come to his knowledge that
+I had been sending out clandestine letters, and requested me to inform
+him if that was the case, and who had been my channel of communication,
+adding that he was prepared to take down any statements I might feel
+disposed to make.  The idea of denying it never entered my head—I was
+perfectly indifferent as to what might happen; I thereupon informed him
+that I had written, as he alleged, three letters, and that I was quite
+prepared to bear the consequences.  I, however, respectfully declined to
+give him any information as to my _employé_.  I was then requested to
+wait outside, and the order was given to send for Mr. B—.  “Well,” I
+thought, “if poor old B— tells them as much as I have he need not fear
+being identified as my brother conspirator.”  A moment later, and I was
+recalled: a glance at the unhappy B— convinced me that fear had robbed
+him of his self-possession, and that he had not observed the salutary
+advice he had given me as to “telling ’em nothink.”  His face was the
+colour of a boiled turkey, and the keys at his side (a sorry burlesque on
+authority) were rattling from tremour.  The Governor then said, “Mr. B—
+has admitted that he took a letter for you, so I presume you have now no
+objection to admit it.”  In courtesy to the nervous donkey I asked him if
+that was correct, and on his replying in the affirmative, I at once made
+a clean breast of it.  The poor man was thereupon suspended from duty,
+and a week later summarily dismissed.  I tried to make him every
+reparation in my power, and shortly after I procured him a billet at
+thirty shillings a week, but when I sent to his lodgings I found he had
+left.  I heard afterwards he had gone into the country, where I hope by
+this time he has recovered his position.  My case had yet to be dealt
+with, and as the Governor was not qualified to adjudicate on such a
+serious offence as this is considered, I was remanded to appear before
+the Visiting Justices.  I heard terrible rumours of these avenging
+Solons, and of the floggings, solitary confinements, and other
+barbarities that followed in the wake of their fortnightly visits, and
+was prepared—but perfectly indifferent—for the worst.  My information for
+the most part was derived from brother malefactors, and consequently
+likely to be considerably exaggerated.  I found, indeed, that this was
+the case, and when the eventful day—Black Wednesday—arrived, I discovered
+that the dreaded justices were a full bench of Middlesex magistrates, my
+old friends who had smashed, pulverized, and otherwise annihilated
+Barnabas Amos on my representations, and who I hoped and believed were
+gentlemen capable of weighing the pros and cons of my peculiar case.  My
+expectations were more than verified.  The punishment cells, as I had had
+them described, and of which I hereafter got a bird’s-eye view—_from
+outside_—were not inviting abodes.  There are twelve of them, fitted with
+double doors, warranted to preclude all sound from penetrating beyond.
+They contain no furniture, except a plank and a stool, both fixed to the
+floor, and the two blankets and rug that constitute the entire bed and
+bedding are issued every night and removed every morning.  Water is
+supplied three times a day, and the food is stirabout and dry bread,
+administered on homoeopathic principles.  Books there are none—indeed,
+the subdued light would make them superfluous; the occupants, moreover,
+have no employment, the distraction of oakum-picking even being
+fiendishly denied them.  Men who had undergone this punishment told me
+that the effect was indescribable, this combination of gloom, idleness,
+and profound silence, and their wasted appearance after a fortnight’s
+incarceration fully confirmed their assertions.  The penalty, as I was
+credibly informed, for sending a letter out was ten days at least in the
+punishment cells; and a preliminary I underwent of being carefully
+weighed on the morning of the eventful day raised the betting in my
+estimation to six to four on the cells.  A kind friend expressed great
+sympathy for me, but feared I must make up my mind to this degrading
+punishment.  But he was wrong; the weighing was superfluous, and I got
+off with a reprimand.
+
+The Middlesex magistrates having heard the case, which was put before
+them in the kindest light by the Governor, and taking into consideration
+the dastardly act, whereby the offence was in a measure discovered,
+informed me through the chairman that they knew my position and were
+sorry for it, pointed out the gravity of my offence, and finished with an
+admonition—a treatment that only gentlemen could have accorded to such as
+I.  This generosity induced me to register a mental vow that I would not
+abuse their kindness.  I felt indeed as if I were on my parole; but the
+foolish act of an illiterate jailor—instigated, I suspect, by a
+vindictive snob—a few days after, armed with the authority, but incapable
+of discriminating between the treatment most likely to be deterrent to a
+man like myself and that desirable with a costermonger, turned me from my
+good resolutions.  I saw it was a question of the “best man wins,” that
+confidence was a thing that never entered their heads, and that I had
+nothing to gain by passive submission.  For the first and only time in my
+career I felt insulted, and determined henceforth to double my
+precautions, to evade every regulation, and to lose no opportunity of
+bribing everything and everybody with whom I came in contact.  The act
+that decided me in this course was being formally searched.  A few days
+after my admonition I was unexpectedly visited by two warders, and
+ordered to change everything I had on for a fresh supply, which they
+brought in.  Meanwhile my cell was turned upside down.  The salt was
+capsized into the plate; my bed minutely examined; the table and stool
+tapped and shaken; and matches struck and poked down the ventilators; and
+when they discovered I had neither pencil nor paper, I was left to
+readjust my apartment.  As I said to them at the time, nobody in his
+senses would have supposed that a man who had so lately escaped a severe
+punishment would be such a fool as to incur the risk of possessing
+contraband articles.  As a fact, I had got rid of all my combustibles a
+few days before; and if any of the officials can remember a stoppage in a
+certain drain about that time, they can make a pretty shrewd guess at
+what became of them.  The above incident may, I hope, attract the notice
+of someone in authority, and be the means of giving a discretionary power
+to governors of prisons as regards the treatment of a certain class of
+prisoners.  Sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander, and
+it’s for the authorities to decide whether certain results cannot be
+attained by tact that can never be assured by brutality.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+PRISON TRADES.
+
+
+A GREAT variety of trades are represented in Coldbath Fields—such as
+tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, worsted-workers, laundrymen,
+bakers, needlemen, basket-makers, mat-makers, printers, bookbinders,
+carpenters, plumbers, and glaziers.  Of these mat-making and laundry-work
+are considered the hardest.  The men selected for following any of the
+above vocations are looked upon as privileged individuals, and infinitely
+better off than the ordinary oakum-picker—a task that everyone has to
+submit to for one month, although many never get beyond it and its
+accompanying isolation during the two years of their imprisonment.  A
+good deal of the comfort or otherwise with which these trades are
+followed depends on the warders in charge.  If the warder is a brute, the
+prisoners become demoralized, crime is rampant, and reports and
+punishment the natural consequence.  If he happens to be reasonable and
+just in his dealings, contentment reigns, the work is well done, and
+insubordination is unknown.  I saw and heard a great deal in support of
+this assertion, and during my few months’ retirement managed to poke my
+nose into a good many queer corners.  The laundry bears an unenviable
+notoriety, both on account of the excessive hard labour and the brutality
+with which it is enforced.  There are about sixty men employed in this
+department, who have severally to wash one or other of the following
+quantities daily:—30 shirts, 80 sheets, 200 towels, 500
+pocket-handkerchiefs, 18 blankets, 250 pairs of socks.  Such quantities
+would tax the capacity of an expert washerwoman; but when a
+novice—probably a clerk or respectable tradesman—is put to the task, its
+magnitude is at first insurmountable.  Instead of 30 shirts, the poor
+wretch finds he cannot manage more than 5, which next day he succeeds in
+bringing up to 15.  Meanwhile his hands become chafed and sore, and he
+sees the doctor in hopes of getting relief; but the doctor is powerless.
+A cut finger is not a serious complaint though probably a very painful
+one; and he has no alternative but to send him back.  This in itself is
+considered as malingering; and the poor devil is brought before the
+Governor for idleness and feigning sickness, and is sentenced to one
+day’s bread and water as a first offence.  Should this “crime” be
+repeated, he gets an increased punishment, and is either flogged or sent
+to the punishment cells.  This is no overcoloured description.  A
+prisoner in such a case has neither justice nor any means of proving the
+injustice.  Any report, however garbled, is necessarily believed; and if
+corroboration is necessary, a dozen turnkeys, from every part of the
+prison, will come forward, and emphatically endorse their comrade’s
+charge.  The prisoner meanwhile is not allowed to speak, and if he did
+would not be believed, and, as often happens with the lower classes, is
+actuated by fear, which only increases his apparent guilt.
+
+    [Picture: Typical turnkey L.  Normal expression R.  Corroborative
+                                evidence]
+
+It is not the prison authorities that can be held responsible for this
+burlesque on justice, for more humane, honourable, and just men than the
+Governor and Surgeon of Coldbath Fields do not exist.  It is the vile
+system that gives no discretionary power to these officials, and
+considers that a man once overtaken in a fault ought forthwith to be
+treated like a dog; and, not satisfied with this inhuman conclusion,
+deputes the carrying out of their system to a set of ignorant, cringing,
+underpaid warders and turnkeys—in many cases ill-conditioned by nature,
+and brutal, eye-serving, and untrustworthy by habit.
+
+One victim of this cruel system, that was undergoing fifteen months’
+imprisonment, worn out by work, constant reports, punishment, and
+illness, and who was refused permission to revert to oakum-picking in
+preference to remaining in the laundry, went back to his solitary cell
+one Saturday night, and in sheer desperation hanged himself; and Sunday
+morning found him suspended by his bed-straps from the bell-handle, cold
+and stone dead.  Another lad of 18, who had been reported for talking,
+and sentenced to bread and water, took it so much to heart that on his
+cell door being opened about 2 P.M. he rushed past the turnkey, and threw
+himself over the railings.  He was picked up insensible and taken to the
+hospital, when, incredible as it may appear, he was found to be
+absolutely uninjured, although he had jumped from a fifth storey and
+landed on a stone floor.  On his dinner tin the unhappy youth had
+scratched, “Dear father and mother, brothers and sisters I wish you all
+good-bye and have 3 days cells and 3 days bread and water and pushed
+about.  From A. Burke.”  The lad was thereupon brought before the
+visiting justices, and in consideration of his youth only got seven days
+in the punishment cells.
+
+It cannot be denied that great malingering and deception are practised by
+prisoners, which necessitates the greatest vigilance on the part of the
+officials.  Nothing is commoner than for them to pretend attempted
+suicide; and instances are of frequent occurrence where a man, having
+calculated the time to a nicety, proceeds to hang himself as his door is
+being opened.  These gentlemen are almost invariably flogged.
+
+On the other hand, it is equally certain that justice is not meted out in
+the disposal of everyday offences.  Discipline demands that the warders
+must be supported; and even if they are known to be lying or grossly
+exaggerating, “the system” necessitates their being believed.  If,
+therefore, this humble stratum of humanity is supposed to be entitled to
+a particle of fair play, it calls for the immediate attention of Sir
+Edmund Du Cane.  I would suggest the advisability of an experienced _ex
+parte_ official being daily present at these orderly-room farces, who
+could watch the cases and weigh the evidence.  Until this is done a
+prisoner has about as much prospect of justice as had Arabi before the
+arrival of Mr. Broadley.  In this _résumé_ of justice as administered at
+Coldbath Fields I must be permitted to disown all reflections on the
+Governor, for whom I have the profoundest respect.  It is the system that
+I blame, and sympathize with a conscientious man being compelled by
+regulation to conform to its usages.
+
+About eighty men are employed as tailors; of these the best workmen are
+employed in the shop, the remainder doing piecework in their respective
+cells.  They make the entire clothing for officers and prisoners for this
+and many other prisons.  The work is exceptionally good—a fact not to be
+wondered at, considering they count amongst their ranks journeymen and
+cutters from many of the principal West-end houses.  The basket-making is
+exceptionally good, and to a great extent made to the order of the
+leading shops; and the specimens of neat work I have seen quite surprised
+me.  Mat-making is a severe type of hard labour.  The daily task is one
+yard, and men who have been employed at it have assured me that it is
+very hard work.  The mat-room is fitted with twelve looms for the make of
+the best doormats.  The Government has a contract with Treloar, a
+shopkeeper in Ludgate; and as he is supposed to have a large connection,
+it may be assumed that reputedly honest feet are constantly being brought
+into contact with the work of dishonest hands.
+
+The bakery is worth a visit, if only to see the mountains of bread in
+course of preparation.  In this place about twenty-four men are
+constantly employed putting in or taking out loaves from two huge ovens.
+All the bread, whether white or brown, is made in separate loaves of the
+average size of a penny roll; and when it is added that some 4000 of
+these are consumed daily, representing a gross weight of over half a ton,
+in Coldbath Fields alone (to say nothing of Holloway Gaol and the House
+of Detention, which are also supplied from here), some idea of the
+proportions of “our bakery” may be arrived at.  The kitchen is, if
+anything, still more interesting.  I have never seen anything to approach
+the size of the vats and utensils, unless, perhaps, in a pantomime scene
+representing Gorgeybuster the giant’s _cuisine_.  Everything is here
+cooked by steam, and excellent the cookery is.  The soup, which is
+supplied three times a week, is exceptionally good.  It finds its way
+from the kitchen in enormous tubs, and on arrival at the various wards is
+transferred into greasy, half-washed tins; still it does not lose its
+excellence, and I invariably enjoyed the soup.  The usual amount made on
+soup days is about 200 gallons, and the daily quantity of potatoes
+consumed about 7 cwt.  As may be supposed, certain farces and abuses have
+crept into this department.  Specimens of the cookery are daily laid out
+for the inspection of the surgeon and Governor.  If they should, however,
+omit this essential form, it is amply compensated for by the voracity of
+some of the head warders, who frequently sacrifice inclination at the
+shrine of duty and make a substantial meal during the tasting process.
+Beef-tea for the use of the patients is also made here—a brew that would
+be considerably strengthened by being doctored in the hospital kitchen
+instead of where it is.  A pound of beef is the liberal allowance for
+each pint of beef-tea.  The usual custom that prevails, however, is for
+the beef to be eaten, by those who ought to know better, and for Colonial
+meat to be substituted for it.  I assert this advisedly, and offer it as
+the possible solution of the knotty problem of why complaints are of such
+frequent occurrence.  Home Office papers, please copy!  Despite all the
+assertions to the contrary, I freely confess I never found fault with the
+prison fare; and if one could keep one’s thoughts from wandering to
+“Bignon’s” or the “Café Helder,” one could thoroughly enjoy the liberal
+fare.  I experienced this dietary, pure and simple, for two or three
+months, so may be fairly considered capable of forming an opinion.
+
+The carpenters’ and smiths’ shops call for no special notice beyond the
+custom in vogue, whereby all men are carefully searched before returning
+to their cells.  This is, no doubt, an essential ceremony, as turnkeys’
+scalping-knives, in the shape of chisels, might occasionally go astray,
+not forgetting the modest pencil, the most treasured possession of Her
+Majesty’s prisoners.
+
+The oakum shed finds employment for about a dozen men.  In it piles of
+old rope are being continually chopped up, weighed, and tied into bundles
+varying from one to three pounds in weight.  I have often seen van loads
+of this apparently worthless rope discharging cargo at this shed, and was
+surprised to see the same though quite unrecognisable rope leaving the
+prison a week or two after converted into the finest oakum, to be again
+utilized for the manufacture of rope.
+
+The paper room is the most original and interesting of the various
+institutions in this original and interesting place.  I do not know if it
+lies in the route through which visitors are conducted, but if it does it
+will repay a minute inspection.  Into this room the sweepings of the
+Houses of Parliament and the various Government Offices in the United
+Kingdom find their way.  All old telegrams, after being kept six months
+at the General Post Office, are sent here to be destroyed, to say nothing
+of old ledgers, directories, blue books, almanacks, etc.; in short, a
+heterogeneous mass of things useful and things useless, all
+higgle-de-piggledy, to be sorted and torn into small pieces, and
+eventually converted into paper by Alderman Waterlow and his sons (these
+last named individuals do their share of the work at home).  Amongst this
+pile the most valuable discoveries are of daily occurrence; and articles
+priceless in the estimation of a prisoner, such as pen-knives, boxes of
+cigarettes, butt-ends of cigars, writing paper, envelopes, novels, coins,
+pencils, and postage stamps, are hourly exhumed.  About 200 men are
+employed in this department, whose duty is to tear up into small atoms a
+certain amount of waste paper daily.  Of the above number some 20 of the
+most trustworthy (_i.e._, those who are the greatest adepts in the art of
+secreting property about their persons) are employed in overhauling the
+supply, and delivering up contraband goods—that they may not
+require—before passing it to be manipulated by their less trustworthy
+_confrères_.  Great precautions are supposed to be taken against the
+possibility of a prisoner appropriating any of this “treasure trove,” and
+they are each and all subjected to a minute examination before returning
+to their cells.  That this search meets all the requirements of the case
+may be gleaned from the quantities of things that find their way into the
+prison.  I was never without a capital pen-knife, and when I lost mine
+(or when it was stolen), as I did on more than one occasion, I never had
+any difficulty in procuring another.  The stationery that I used for my
+“private” correspondence was invariably House of Commons paper, and,
+excepting perhaps being almost imperceptibly soiled, was as good as new.
+The traffic in tobacco through this agency is by no means inconsiderable,
+and before I had made my personal arrangements for a weekly supply I have
+frequently exchanged food for cigarettes; but they were far from
+satisfactory, and I found them infinitely better adapted for choking than
+chewing.  Butt-ends of cigars, too, find a ready market; but at this
+point I invariably drew the line, and preferred—inveterate smoker though
+I am—to forego the luxury of chewing a cigar that had been
+half-masticated by some scorbutic quill-driver.  The special trade that I
+was put to was worsted work.  I was officially described as a
+“needleman,” a title I had more claim to than may appear at first sight.
+Needlemen are employed either in knitting stockings, making shirts, or
+darning blankets, shirts, or socks.  I had the choice of any of these
+delectable pursuits, and selected the latter as the most easy of evasion.
+Darning burglars’ stockings, I admit, sounds a humble and unsavoury
+vocation; but considering they are boiled for about three days before
+passing into the needlemen’s hands, any antipathy on the subject must be
+attributed to sheer prejudice.  Other motives also influenced me; it was
+far the lightest and most elastic job, and a reserve bundle I always kept
+in stock did me good service on the thimble rig principle.  The allotted
+task was 15 pair a day _at least_, but thanks to my “reserve” (a far
+greater success than Mr. Cardwell’s), and “auxiliaries” of other kinds, I
+found that two pair and sometimes three a day met all the “requirements
+of the service.”  The nature of my work amusingly exemplified Locke’s
+theory of the “Association of Ideas,” and I never took up a stocking
+without having vividly presented to my mind the scene in “Faust,” where
+Marguerite is bound to lame the wearer.  I speak from personal knowledge,
+for one afternoon I experimentalized with one of my specimen repairs and
+blistered my foot for a month.  I often had qualms of conscience as I saw
+the numerous men that were limping round at exercise—the number of whom
+appeared to increase in proportion to the quantity of stockings I
+darned—and I could not help feeling that I was the unintentional cause of
+all this misery.  My deplorable incapacity in the Berlin wool and fancy
+line was once nearly getting me into a terrible scrape.  Amongst the
+pedestrians that exercised at the same time as myself was an ex-convict
+and desperado, who prided himself on the recital of his past experiences,
+and who had undergone penal servitude in Australia and England almost
+without interruption during the past 20 years.  He was a Hercules in
+appearance, addicted to the use of his fists on the slightest
+provocation, and about the last man whose susceptibilities one would care
+to offend.  On his arrival some twelve months previously he had laid down
+some wholesome rules for the guidance of those whom it might concern.  “I
+don’t wants any ’umbug as long as I’m ’ere”—this was the burthen of his
+instructions.  “I’ll do my work as well as I’m able, and you’ll allus
+find me willing and respec’ful-like; but if any of you attempts to bully
+or ’umbug me I’ll cut your throats from ear to ear.”  Conceive, then, my
+feelings on seeing this amiable creature one morning struggling with his
+stocking.  A glance convinced me it was my handiwork.  With a terrible
+oath, and livid with rage, he expressed a wish that he only knew the chap
+that had “fixed” his stocking.  With an equally fervent but inaudible
+prayer I sincerely hoped he never would.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+“THE OUTER WORLD.”
+
+
+THE unfortunate _contretemps_ that had indirectly associated me with the
+dismissal of a warder caused me to be looked upon for some time by his
+_confrères_ with considerable distrust; it was generally understood,
+however, that I was not a man that could be bullied with impunity, and
+would unhesitatingly have reported any attempt of the kind.  I attribute
+this diagnosis of my character to my bearing from the first.  I made it a
+rule to be scrupulously courteous to the humblest turnkey if he showed an
+inclination to treat me civilly, whilst I ignored the position of those
+who attempted to hector over me, and convinced them by my manner that I
+looked on them as my inferiors.  When I reflect on the bearing of the
+various officials towards other prisoners, I am at a loss to understand
+how I was permitted the latitude I was.  I can only attribute it to that
+moral and indefinable effect certain men of birth and education, and
+naturally arrogant in disposition, do and always will exercise, no matter
+how temporarily circumstanced, over their inferiors.  This bearing
+asserted itself without my knowledge, and I had my likes and dislikes
+from the highest to the lowest.  Thus I liked and respected the Governor,
+and ignored his deputy; I liked one chaplain, and cordially despised the
+other; I liked and venerated the kind old surgeon, which would be
+exaggerating my feelings regarding his assistant.  None of my antipathies
+could probably instance any absolute case against me, yet they were
+respectively aware of my estimate of their merits.  To remove this
+feeling of distrust amongst the turnkeys was by no means easy.  I had to
+watch my opportunity to get into conversation, and then carefully to
+smuggle in “a word in season.”  This necessary formula was not unattended
+with risk, and I had to discover the disposition of my man and not say
+the wrong word in the wrong place.  My knowledge of human nature gave me
+a considerable advantage in these negotiations; it was like playing
+blind-man’s-buff with one eye exposed, and I soon had the measure of
+every official in the prison.  Some nuts I admit to have found very
+difficult to crack, but they eventually yielded to treatment; others were
+hopeless cases, and some I labelled “dangerous” and carefully avoided.  I
+had, however, attained my object; and wherever I went, or wherever I was
+located, I was always within “measurable distance” of one ministering
+angel, and often two.  The principal cause of my unbroken success may be
+attributed to my having no confidants—my right hand literally knew not
+what my left was doing; and Jones, the turnkey, who lived in fear and
+trembling that Brown would suspect his trafficking with me, was a source
+of hourly anxiety to Brown, who dreaded Jones getting wind of his kindly
+interest in my affairs.  I always assured these respective worthies that
+they had nothing to fear from me if they would only exercise ordinary
+discretion on their own parts, and as I was above the weakness of
+carrying about a fagot of pencils or cigars, it is hardly to be wondered
+at that diplomacy triumphed.  Through one channel or another I heard
+everything that was going on, and was on more than one occasion amused by
+having repeated to me the special cautions that were issued regarding me.
+The Deputy Governor was no friend of mine; indeed I should be doing him
+an injustice if I omitted to state that he disliked me as cordially as I
+did him.  He was of that pronounced military type associated in my mind
+with the Fifth West Indian Regiment, and suggested the idea of having
+been promoted from the adjutantcy of that distinguished corps to a
+company in a non-purchase regiment during the Cardwellite era.  A switch,
+and an almost brimless pot hat, worn on one side, completed the picture
+of this typical sabreur.  He apparently took a considerable interest in
+my affairs, and frequently asked questions, and gave wholesome advice to
+the turnkeys regarding their intercourse with me.  “Have nothing to do
+with that man” was the burthen of his song, all of which was invariably
+repeated to me.  His duties assimilated very much with those of a
+garrison Quarter-master, and he was supposed to poke about and discover
+dirt in impossible places; occasionally, however, they resembled those of
+a boatswain in H.M. navy; as, for example, at the flogging of garrotters,
+and the birching of little boys, when he counted the strokes.  I had to
+be careful of this individual, for I am confident he had his suspicions
+about my little games; but it was the old story of the ironclad charging
+the outrigger, and with all the facilities at his disposal he was no
+match for me in a matter of finesse.  To such a state of perfection had I
+now brought my arrangements, that everything of interest was at once
+known to me; and the hanging of Dr. Lamson, Prince Leopold’s wedding, and
+the bombardment of Alexandria, all assisted in their turn to relieve the
+monotony of my existence.  Nor was my system confined to gloomy
+Clerkenwell; but penetrated into the sanctity of the more fashionable
+Belgravia; and conversations of peculiar interest to me, that took place
+at table or in the privacy of the closet, and that I had a motive for
+hearing, were repeated to me within a day with a minuteness of detail
+that would astonish the gossipers.  This is no idle boast, as documents
+and dates in my possession can and may testify.  In short I was in
+telephonic communication with the outer world (registered number 594).
+But a master hand was required to keep this huge machinery in order,
+which, no sooner was it removed, than it crumbled to pieces.  Within a
+week after my final departure, papers began to be picked up, and a
+scientific elaboration, incapable of detection, was degraded to the level
+and shared the same fate as the commonest pickpocket’s ruse.  The moral
+that is to be gleaned from all this is: If you wish a thing done _well_,
+do it yourself.  I trust the sequel to my departure above narrated may
+afford a melancholy satisfaction to those interested, and convince them
+that no extra precautions are necessary to prevent the repetition of
+these innovations; the rules in force are amply sufficient for the
+ordinary prisoner.  But my constitution, suffering from this severe
+strain, and assisted considerably by fever and ague, began to give way,
+and led to a change in my everyday life.  In short I was ill, and
+admitted into hospital.  As I ascended the stairs that led from the
+worsted wards I had the consolation of feeling I should not be forgotten.
+I had indeed left my mark; I had crippled half the prison.
+
+There are many abuses that might be changed with advantage, and which I
+cannot do better than point out, in hopes that somebody in authority will
+read, mark, and inwardly digest them.  On each cell door is a card
+setting forth your name, sentence, and full particulars.  This placarding
+of one’s name is surely useless, as one is never called by it, and the
+only object it appears to serve is to enable prisoners to discover all
+about one another.  My cell was once situated on the high road to the
+chapel, and every malefactor _en route_ to worship made it his business
+to master my history.  This surely is unfair, and hardly contemplated by
+the authorities.  If it is absolutely essential that one’s name is to be
+placarded, why not inside instead of outside the door, as was the custom
+before the Government took over the prisons?
+
+Too much at present is left to the turnkeys.  They are, indeed, the
+channel of communication and the only official with whom the ordinary
+prisoner comes in contact.  The chief warder deputes details to the
+principal warders of divisions, who in their turn confide them to the
+warders of wards, who again leave the carrying out to the turnkeys of
+flights.  It is not fair that so much should be left to these
+assistants—which, despite any assertion to the contrary, is the case—and
+who, though counting in their ranks many highly respectable men, have
+also some desperate rascals—vindictive, deceitful, and utterly unfit for
+any discretionary powers, and who would stick at no degree of brutality
+if capable of being indulged in with impunity.
+
+The use of the same baths by prisoners and men previous to medical
+examination cannot be too strongly deprecated.  That a clean man should
+be compelled to risk contagion with one suffering from itch or covered
+with vermin is as filthy as it is disgraceful.  With all the space at
+their disposal the wonder is a swimming bath has never commended itself.
+
+Every warder in charge of a ward has a prisoner allotted to him, who
+performs such necessary duties as cleaning his office and assisting him
+in his multifarious returns.  These men are generally selected from the
+clerk or tradesman class, and have great facilities for knowing
+everything that passes through the office.  I have found, indeed, that
+they know and hear a great deal too much.
+
+Thus a descriptive return containing every particular about one from
+one’s youth up, and supposed to be a confidential document, is carefully
+studied by these cleaners, and facts likely to be of general
+interest—especially about “celebrities”—go the round of the prison.
+These documents should either _not_ be in the warders’ charge, or if so,
+should be carefully locked up.  In my opinion they would be more
+appropriately assigned to the care of the principal warders of divisions.
+These cleaners, if dishonestly or greedily inclined, appropriate
+considerably more than their share of the daily rations.  In one ward I
+seldom, or ever, got my supply of Monday bacon, which had either been
+filched or bitten in half; and as the original supply does not exceed the
+proportions of a postage stamp, it can ill afford this wholesale
+reduction.
+
+I cannot leave the subject of “warders” without bearing my testimony to
+their excellency as a class—I specially refer to those in charge of
+wards, and not to their washerwomen and plumbers and glaziers
+_confrères_.  The multiplicity of returns they have to render daily, the
+alterations, however trivial, that are constantly occurring and have to
+be noted, and the serious consequences attending the slightest error or
+omission, all combine to make their duties and responsibilities more
+arduous than any class of men I have seen.  Their pay for this, moreover,
+is so small—29s. a week, with a gradual rise—that many otherwise
+excellent men shrink from accepting promotion.  The colour-sergeants of
+the army might learn a lesson from these warders, and if the “descriptive
+return” in use, and which supplies every information, was substituted for
+the ponderous ledgers, small books, defaulter sheets, etc., as used in
+the army, it would come like the Waverley pen—
+
+    As a blessing and boon to sergeants and men.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+“THE CONVALESCENT WARD.”
+
+
+ON my admission into hospital I was at first sent to the convalescent
+ward, a huge room devoted to light and unpronounced cases.  It
+accommodates 40 patients, and the entire furniture may be roughly
+estimated as consisting of 40 beds, 40 tables, 40 chairs, one shovel and
+tongs, and one thermometer.  The beds are ranged round the entire room,
+the tables and chairs a yard apart forming two rows down the centre; the
+thermometer is suspended from a beam, the shovel is chained to one
+fire-place, and the tongs to the other.  A high desk and a still higher
+stool complete the furniture of this singular room.  The fixtures are of
+a more unique kind; at one end are the cabinets, at the other the
+lavatories.  These are simply boarded partitions, extending only about
+three feet from the ground—so constructed as to make it absolutely
+impossible to conceal more than one-third of the body, however engaged;
+thus admirably adapted for observation, but utterly regardless of privacy
+or decency, and revolting in their proximity to a room devoted to
+convalescents.  Along the walls here and there are chains hanging.  These
+are the alarm bells for communicating with the outer yard in case of
+fire, mutiny, or other emergency.  At each corner are the padded
+cells—grim, sombre constructions—admirably adapted for deadening sound,
+and fitted with every appliance for the restraint of violent and demented
+criminals.  The proximity of these cells is very awful, and the shrieks
+that occasionally emanate from them, and the sights I have seen, would
+have filled me with horror six months previously.  The treatment of
+convalescents is as original as can well be conceived.  The day is mapped
+out into the following portions, which are observed with a punctuality
+seldom attained except by chronometers:—
+
+6 A.M.          Rise, and roll up your bed.
+6.30 ,,         Breakfast.
+11 ,,           Visit by surgeon.
+12 (noon)       Dinner.
+3 to 4 P.M.     Exercise.
+5 ,,            Supper.
+6 ,,            Bed.
+
+The dietary is the simple prison fare, although many (I amongst others)
+are on what is known as ordinary diet—_i.e._, cocoa, mutton broth, and a
+chop—and others on low diet, consisting of tea, bread-and-butter,
+beef-tea, rice pudding, etc.  Discipline is little or nothing relaxed
+here; indeed the general system is evidently based on what is considered
+applicable to confirmed patients not suffering from any acute disease,
+and lunatics real and pretended.  Shortly after rising a shout of
+“Physic!” causes a rush to get the first pull at one’s respective
+medicines; and as the same mug does duty for everything, and as time is
+an object, it has been found that a dose of hop mixture is not improved
+if augmented by the dregs of the black draught left by one’s predecessor.
+Being always up and washed whilst my brother-reprobates were still
+dozing, I was invariably the first to benefit by a clean mug, and devoted
+the next few minutes to watching the frowsy cluster of depravity, half
+dressed, half awake, and just out of bed, drink or throw away their doses
+as opportunity permitted.  Although strictly prohibited, many of these
+wretches usually turned in with their stockings on, and in some instances
+with their trowsers; and on rising, having previously assumed boots and
+vest, proceeded to wash.  I minutely watched this ceremony, and seldom
+detected the slightest desire to do more than make clean the extreme
+outer rim of their cups and platters, extending—humanly speaking—from the
+hand to the elbow, and from the chin to the ear.  Although in many
+respects preferable to the prison proper, this convalescent ward was one
+of the severest ordeals I had to undergo.  I would not have missed it for
+the world, nevertheless, to sleep, live, move, and have one’s being
+amongst thirty or forty pickpockets, idiots, burglars, and lunatics,
+implies an experience that baffles description.  At 6.30 the advent of
+two wash-tubs, containing respectively cocoa and gruel, announces
+breakfast, which, being carefully measured into tins, is consumed in an
+incredibly short time, and devoured with the voracity never to be seen
+except in menageries or prisons.  It must be remembered that the room
+contains specimens of some of the sharpest pickpockets in London, and
+experts at every dodge for the deceiving of their fellows, compelled by
+circumstances to be huddled together, and relieved from the isolation of
+separate cells that makes them comparatively powerless for mischief.  It
+cannot be wondered at, then, that the rules require, if anything, to be
+more stringent; but all the vigilance of the sharpest warder is
+powerless, and no two eyes capable of seeing or preventing the wholesale
+exchange of food that now begins.  If the warder is looking this way, a
+loaf will change hands for a mug of gruel in the twinkling of an eye; if
+he suddenly turns round, advantage is taken of it to swap something on
+the other side; and at dinner hour especially, I have seen bread,
+potatoes, and lumps of meat flying about with a rapidity, precision of
+aim, and a profound silence, only disturbed by the “flop, flop,” as they
+reached the various hands, that would have done credit to the most expert
+Oriental-Whitechapel juggler.  After breakfast everyone is supposed to
+remain at his table without interruption the entire day, except during
+exercise, and time is only to be beguiled by reading such wholesome
+literature as “The Converted Burglar, and how he did it,” as the chaplain
+may be graciously pleased to supply.  At the side of each table is
+considerately placed a handful of fibre, which is purely optional whether
+picked or no.  I attribute its presence indeed to the association that
+invariably exists in official minds between hospitals, chapels, and
+mortuaries, and only capable of being dealt with on the principle that a
+certain old gentleman “finds some mischief still for convalescent hands
+to do.”
+
+Happily no one really is ill in the convalescent ward (he would then be
+removed to the hospital), or it would be absolutely impossible to bear
+the incessant fuss from officials and filth from the prisoners that never
+cease day or night.  Not twenty minutes elapse during the twenty-four
+hours that someone is not passing through; and as every approach is
+barricaded and double locked, the rattle of keys, the hobnailed boots of
+head warders pounding over the floor, and the shouting and yelling, and
+the necessity of “sitting up” to your table as they pass through, make it
+almost unbearable for even a convalescent.  In addition to this is the
+absolute necessity of keeping one’s eye on one’s next-tabled neighbour.
+If you turn round during a meal, a piece of food disappears, and any
+trifle you may happen to possess cannot be considered your own from one
+moment to another.  I had a worsted needle that I prized considerably; it
+fulfilled the duties of a toothpick, and had been my constant companion
+and comforter for weeks.  It was, indeed, my most cherished possession.
+I usually kept it inside my cap, and my cap outside my head; here at
+least it was safe, but one day, in a fit of absence, I crossed over the
+room.  On my return I discovered that my cap had been rifled and the
+needle gone.
+
+An old man (though only one of many) added considerably to my burthen.
+He took a great fancy to me—or my food—and seldom lost a chance of
+persecuting me.  He was never without a pocket-handkerchief stuffed full
+of crusts, chop bones, suet pudding, or any garbage he could find, firmly
+clutched by day, and placed under his pillow at night.  He was by way of
+being a gentleman, and said, with some degree of truth, that he was a
+general officer (he was at present undergoing three months’ retirement
+for stealing a sovereign from a sixpenny lodging-house keeper).  He
+approached one with the blandest smile, hoped you were not seriously ill,
+and asked how your appetite was.  This, indeed, was the burthen of his
+song:—If you told him it was bad, he begged you to kindly reserve your
+fragments for him; if you said it was good, he stole what he could.  The
+result was consequently the same; and so to get rid of him I promised to
+help him when I could.  This nasty old man slept two beds from me, and
+often during the night, “when everything was still,” I have watched him
+unpack his treasure, and, selecting certain of the stalest pieces for
+immediate use, carefully tie up and restore the bundle to beneath his
+pillow or mattress.
+
+This hoarding and stealing of food was by no means confined to the
+“General”; it was, indeed, so much in vogue that periodical raids were
+made on the beds, and even inside the shirts men were wearing, which
+invariably resulted in the exhumation of sundry delicacies.  So strong
+was the ruling passion that one wretch with half a lung, who was allowed
+extras which he never consumed, rather than part with a crumb, would hide
+chops and even rice pudding in his pocket-handkerchief and towel, or
+secrete them in his bedding or about his person.
+
+That food was a drug in the market may be reasonably assumed; and if
+further proof was wanting, the reckless waste that took place after meals
+would amply provide it.  The supplies of soup, porridge, cocoa, and gruel
+were invariably in excess of the regulation personal allowance.
+Discipline, however, demanded that so much and no more should be given to
+each man; and I have seen gallons of capital soup and cocoa thrown down
+the sink daily that many a starving wretch outside would gratefully have
+devoured.  I do not blame the hospital warders for this custom so much as
+the kitchen officials for either sending too much or adding too much
+water, for experience had taught them that it was equally dangerous to
+give more or less than the regulation allowance, and that they would
+probably be reported by one thief, if another thief got more than
+himself; and it was a common occurrence for vagrants who had never heard
+of arrowroot before coming to Coldbath to complain of the thinness of
+their nightly allowance as “unfit to be eaten.”  I once suggested to the
+head hospital warder (but my proposal was never carried out) that the
+staple food of discontented vagrant invalids should be treacle and
+brimstone, and that if they complained of their diet, the treacle should
+be omitted by way of variety.
+
+I don’t know what is the annual expense of food, fuel, and gas in the
+various prisons, but I confidently assert that an immense saving would
+result if the coal at present issued _ad lib._ for the use of the warders
+was as carefully weighed as the prisoners’ various allowances.  These
+turnkeys, whose supply of coal at home is probably limited to half a
+hundred a week, cannot here do without fires banked up a foot high night
+and day in the various corridors; and I have often been awakened in
+various parts of the prison by the shovelling and piling on of coals on
+even temperate nights.  I should like no better billet than to be
+appointed contractor for the coal and potatoes used and wasted in Her
+Majesty’s prisons.
+
+Another means of keeping down the present excessive expenses connected
+with prisoners’ keep and warders’ coals would be the adoption of the
+sensible course pursued in France, whereby the clothes of murdered men
+and the instruments with which the murders have been committed, if not
+claimed within three months, are sold by public auction.  This might be
+supplemented by the sale of the articles found in cabs and elsewhere,
+often comprising objects of considerable value, and at present taken to
+Scotland Yard and never claimed.  It will possibly be urged that all this
+would be opposed to English tastes and ideas; and yet it is an
+incontrovertible fact that the principal purchasers at these “art” sales
+in Paris are English and Americans, that the price of articles which have
+belonged to notorious criminals generally rules very high, and that the
+ghastly relics for the most part find their way to England.
+
+Exercise was a most ridiculous ceremony; the tables were pushed back, and
+everyone proceeded round and round in two rings.  A scene I once saw at
+some theatre, representing the “casual ward” of a workhouse, more nearly
+resembles it than anything I can think of.
+
+Amongst my numerous companions in this delectable sport was a celebrated
+pickpocket; who was good enough on my invitation to show me “how it’s
+done.”  My request, indeed, appeared to flatter his vanity so much that
+on more than one occasion, when I was not thinking of his particular
+talent, he has removed my pocket-handkerchief, and politely returned it
+as if pretending to pick it up.  I once saw him bring his science to bear
+on a thoughtless warder, who, through ignorance probably of his special
+talent, had asked him to brush him down.  A wink from the thief drew my
+attention to his movements, and I watched him with profound interest.
+For some seconds he confined himself to the legitimate brushing, but as
+he worked round and the arm of his victim was slightly raised, with the
+unemployed hand he deliberately opened the warder’s pouch, took out a
+piece of tobacco, and then quietly re-buttoned it; with another smudge of
+the brush and “I think that’ll do, sir,” he resumed his place.  I
+wouldn’t have betrayed him for the world; indeed, I gave him some bread
+for the exhibition.
+
+It was pretty generally known that I was very green, and that I was
+anxious to see everything; indeed, I never lost an opportunity of
+conversing with everyone capable of telling me an adventure; so that one
+way and another I heard a lot, much of which I shall hereafter narrate.
+
+Another oddity with whom I was associated was a kleptomaniac.  Nothing
+was safe from him, and his eye was as quick as his hand.  He might be
+seen at all hours sneaking about, thrusting his arm between mattresses
+and occasionally into people’s pockets.  He was undergoing two years’
+imprisonment for stealing _two ounces of tobacco_.  So impossible was it
+for him to keep his hands from picking and stealing that it was
+frequently necessary to lock him into a separate cell for weeks at a
+time, only to be released after piteous appeals and promises not to
+offend again, which were invariably broken on the first opportunity.  He
+was as nimble as a cat, and occasionally gave an acrobatic performance on
+the sly.  The poor wretch was admittedly an imbecile, and it seems
+inexplicable how he ever incurred the punishment he received, though he
+was probably happier at Coldbath than he was ever likely to be elsewhere.
+One day he could not be found, and after the hue-and-cry had been raised
+and the prison and grounds scoured, he was found concealed in a tank on a
+portion of the roof.  What he could have wanted there is beyond
+comprehension, for he dreaded the water and never washed unless
+compelled.
+
+I’ve heard a great deal of prisoners escaping, and from the penal
+establishments it is unquestionably practicable.  At a prison conducted,
+however, on the Coldbath Fields’ principle such an idea is simply absurd.
+I do not refer to the impediments of locks and doors so much as to the
+full blaze of light system along the corridors.  The constant countings,
+too, and patrols night and day would at once discover the truant, to say
+nothing of the 20-feet wall that surrounds the building.  I have
+occasionally read descriptions of escapes from the Bastille, where
+prisoners with a yard of rope, a spare shirt, and an oyster knife, have
+burrowed and scaled and got clean off.  I am not in a position to dispute
+these assertions, but I will willingly undertake to provide the most
+expert acrobat with a sack full of ropes, crowbars, and linen, _in_ his
+cell, and stake my existence that he does not proceed five feet beyond
+his premises without detection.  The escape of a notorious burglar from
+Millbank Convict Prison last year gave rise at the time to considerable
+discussion amongst the officials at Coldbath Fields.  That a man should
+be able to break through the roof of a cell during the early hours of
+morning without creating a disturbance seems incredible, and had the
+corridors had the same acoustic properties as those at Coldbath, would
+have been simply impossible without collusion.
+
+                           [Picture: Counting]
+
+So extraordinarily is sound conveyed in these vast and barren tunnels
+that every word spoken during the night at the other end of the passage
+is distinctly audible, whereas conversation close by is almost
+unintelligible, so great is the echo.  I think Mr. Burglar Lovell may
+congratulate himself that he had not been relegated to Coldbath Fields,
+for he would most assuredly have derived less benefit there from his
+sixty feet of rope than he appears to have done at Millbank.  A prisoner
+attempting to escape forfeits all the time he may have completed of his
+sentence—a sufficient deterrent for a sane man!  A very disgusting
+adjunct to the convalescent ward is “Itch Bay,” and though comparatively
+distinct, is actually next door, and leads from it.  It is devoted to
+those filthy creatures who, on admission, are found to abound in vermin,
+or who, after months in prison—as can be verified—have caught the disease
+(according to my theory) by using the universal bath.  The treatment of
+this complaint can hardly be said to be a pleasant, although undoubtedly
+a very effectual one.  A man is taken to “the bay,” made to strip off all
+his clothes, put into a separate cell, and smeared with a thick coating
+of mercurial ointment, and left to soak for three days at least, and
+often longer.  His bedding may best be described as an ointment mattress,
+with “blankets to match,” so saturated is everything in this fearful
+quarter, the stench from which pervades the passage, and works into the
+convalescent ward.  I used almost daily to see these loathsome objects,
+either before admission or after three days’ retirement, and it is
+difficult to say which is the most revolting.  On admission, and previous
+to treatment, I have seen three or four of these unclean things waiting
+to be admitted.  During this time—often an hour and more—they sit in the
+convalescent ward, use the furniture, and circulate with the others.
+This surely is wrong, and may justly be laid to the charge of negligent
+warders!  On leaving they are again taken through the ward, devoid of all
+covering but the saturated blanket, and conducted to a bath.  This bath
+is a fixture in the hospital kitchen.  YES, the _itch bath_ in the
+principal prison of civilized London _is in the hospital kitchen_!  I
+have seen these social pariahs splashing about within a few feet of the
+kitchen fire, whilst a rice pudding was being made—an appetizing
+accompaniment to the preparation of human food.  This gross outrage on
+cleanliness must fairly be charged to the Home Office people; and as the
+kitchen is situated in the main thoroughfare, and passed through almost
+daily by visiting justices or prison commissioners, it is clearly no
+official’s business to point it out—and if a surgeon represented it he
+would probably be told to mind his own business.  This is in conformity
+with prison usage, and anyone mentioning, or taking apparent interest in
+a trifle not actually connected with his special department, is at once
+suspected of some sinister motive.  I have heard officials regret this
+disgusting institution, and their inability to remedy it.
+
+I have more horrors connected with this kitchen to mention when I
+describe the hospital, and hope some one whose business it is will
+redress this crying shame.  As a set-off to the many discomforts
+attending the convalescent ward, were the facilities it offered for the
+uninterrupted working of the telephone, and so multifarious were the
+opportunities, and so utterly impossible detection, that I omitted the
+commonest precautions as absolutely superfluous.  My favourite time for
+correspondence was between two and four in the morning.  I noticed that
+nature usually asserted itself on turnkey humanity, and that the most
+watchful became drowsy about this time.  It must be remembered that a
+night warder is in the room all night, and that the gas, though turned
+down, is alight.  I frequently wrote for two hours at a time, and as my
+bed was next the fire-place I had the advantage of poking it into a blaze
+as circumstances required.  I often wondered whether these watch-dogs
+were really dozing.  That they had not the faintest suspicion I am
+confident; the very possibility of such coolness may possibly have
+disarmed them, for I have written for hours under their very noses.  One
+night I had a considerable scare.  I had been carried away by the
+interest of my letter, and whether I had thought aloud and some word had
+escaped me I cannot say, but on peeping round the mantelpiece I saw one
+of the most ferocious of the tribe—who was on duty that night—leaning
+forward and peering in my direction.  His eyes glistened like a cheetah’s
+as he cautiously approached the fire-place—the mantelpiece and one bed
+alone separated our respective positions, the rattle of a paper, or a
+hurried motion, would have been fatal; so, proceeding to mutter in my
+sleep, I slid my arm over a very damning pile.  For some moments he stood
+intently watching me, and then happily began to poke the fire.  Had he
+delayed much longer I should inevitably have betrayed myself; as it was,
+the noise “justified” my being disturbed, and I rolled round, “papers
+under,” as _Bell’s Life_ would once have described a pugilistic round.
+The danger was now past, but I had quite determined, if he had asked me
+any unpleasant questions, to have made a dash at the fire-place and
+destroyed the evidence.  There is a curious invention that exists in
+various parts of the prison.  Detector-clocks are intended to show that a
+warder must have been alert every half-hour, by being required to press
+down a pin.  This pin is so constructed that it cannot be let down except
+at the exact time, or unless the clock is unlocked.  These various clocks
+undergo a minute inspection the following morning, and if all the pins
+are not down the delinquent is fined a shilling, or even more, for each
+omission.  I could tell some curious stories about these detector clocks,
+but their narration might be interpreted as pointing in directions I have
+no intention of indicating.  I may, however, without compromising anyone,
+state that if the authorities conceive they are aware of the exact number
+of keys that open these clocks, they are considerably out of their
+reckoning.
+
+“My eye, old man,” I one morning said to an acquaintance, “you’ve missed
+two or three pins.”
+
+“Never mind,” he replied; “I’ve got a pal outside that’ll make it all
+right before I’m relieved.”
+
+At 6.30, when my friend was, I hope, comfortably in bed, I saw the
+Detector inspected and found “correct.”
+
+On one occasion a friend kindly supplemented the rubbishy literature
+provided by the chaplain by lending me to read the book of “Rules for the
+Guidance of Warders and Assistant-Warders.”  They can hardly be said to
+be as interesting as those lately published by Howard Vincent for the
+guidance of the police, although, situated as I was, they were to me
+vastly more important.  I had intended to have produced them verbatim,
+but they are not of sufficient general interest.  They, however, deal
+with the various duties of warders in that absurd style which attempts to
+impress on them the responsibility and general respectability of what, if
+carried out in its integrity, is a contemptible system of espionage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+CRIMINAL LUNATICS.
+
+
+IN one of the padded cells was a dangerous lunatic.  For weeks and months
+he had kept up an incessant conversation with himself, occasionally
+diversified by shrieks and yells.  At first it was believed the man was
+shamming, and he was taken before the visiting justices and sentenced to
+be flogged, but this usually infallible cure had not the desired effect.
+Clothes were converted into rags in an incredibly short space of time.
+He was handcuffed in front, and still they were destroyed.  He was
+handcuffed behind with the same result.  On his door being opened he
+would be found naked, the handcuffs on the floor, and his clothes in
+shreds.  Canvas sacks, with slits for the head and hands, were suggested,
+and, first clothed, then handcuffed with his hands behind him, and
+finally covered with the huge sack, he was again consigned to the cell.
+The same result, however, invariably followed, and the kind-hearted
+doctor, despairing of cure, and though inwardly convinced it was an
+artfully contrived sham, yet loth to persist in the stringent remedies
+that alone were effectual, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and
+consigned him to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell.  I have
+frequently seen this maniac fed.  His door was opened and he was brought
+out, and, half-naked and handcuffed, bleared, filthy, and bleeding from
+self-inflicted injuries, with dishevelled hair, and glaring like a
+panther, this wild beast in human form would open his mouth, and gruel
+and bread be shovelled in bounteously.  Attempts would occasionally be
+made to induce him to wash, but at best they were qualified successes,
+and the assistance of four or five turnkeys had eventually to be resorted
+to.  It was impossible to believe this being was sane and capable of
+keeping up the deception for such a time.  Sleep was out of the question,
+for night was made hideous by the muffled shouts and blasphemies that
+forced themselves through the padded cell.  But a reprieve at length
+came, and it was with a sense of relief that I one morning saw him taken
+off to Hanwell.  The lull, however, was not of long duration; and he was
+eventually sent back as “cured.”  The cure showed itself in a curious
+way.  On finding himself again in his old quarters, and smarting under a
+pretended sense of breach of faith, he raved that the doctor at Hanwell
+had promised to release him if he withdrew his claim to the crown of
+Ireland.  And now a reign of terror began in earnest, and shouting for
+Parnell, his secretary, the Empress Eugenie, and Old Ireland, he raved
+and roared day and night.  How human nature could bear such a strain
+appeared marvellous.  One night all was calm.  “Thank goodness!” I
+thought, “he’s collapsed.”  Had he?  The wish, alas! was father to the
+thought, and the lull was only the precursor of the storm.  Whilst we
+were sleeping the maniac was maturing his plans, and a shout of “Fire!”
+one night reminded us of his proximity.  Smoke was now issuing from the
+padded cell.  To draw back the ponderous bolts was the work of a second.
+To distinguish anything was absolutely impossible.  Blinding smoke filled
+the cell, and as it poured out a terrible sight presented itself.  On the
+floor was the charred mattress, the horse-hair alight, and the plank bed
+smouldering, and peacefully lying beside it was the madman.  The first
+idea was that he was dead, but the smoke that would have killed a sane
+man had but temporarily stupefied him.  In an instant he was on his feet,
+and, his arms being free, made a desperate attack with pieces of glass on
+the two men who had humanely approached him.  Further help was now sent
+for, during which time he kicked, struck, and bit everything within
+reach, and it required sixteen men to secure and remove this wild beast
+in human form.  The extent of his mischief now made itself apparent.  How
+he had removed the handcuffs remains a mystery, but with the cunning and
+dexterity only to be found in maniacs, he had succeeded in reaching the
+gas, which, situated ten feet from the ground, and protected by a strong
+glass, must have taxed his ingenuity, not only to reach, but eventually
+to open, and yet this had been done so quietly that forty men and a
+watchful warder in the adjoining room heard nothing.  With the fire now
+at his disposal, he had burnt the straps that were lashed round his body
+to secure the sack, but finding the effect not sufficiently expeditious,
+had proceeded to pull out the bed-stuffing, and lying down naked,
+bruised, and bleeding, beside the smouldering mass, calmly awaited the
+conflagration that was to free him.  The cell presented an extraordinary
+appearance.  On the floor were broken glass, burning wood, and his
+clothes torn to shreds; here the handcuffs, there the charred straps: the
+walls were smeared with filth and dabbed with porridge; the plank bed was
+torn up, and plaster and brickwork removed: a terrible wreck, an
+incredible performance, and all the work of two hands, handcuffed behind
+and strapped, and surrounded by every precaution that official ingenuity
+could suggest.
+
+This final escapade materially assisted the magisterial finding as to the
+extent of the maniac’s “cure,” and he was again consigned to Hanwell.
+
+Another lunatic of a different type was an inmate of the convalescent
+ward, a harmless, inoffensive creature, that had been flogged out of his
+senses.  His physique proclaimed him incapable of doing bodily harm to a
+calf.  He was not more than five feet high, with a fore-arm like a
+robin’s thigh, and the receding forehead, sunken eye, and conical skull
+associated with imbecility; but he had once “threatened” a warder, a
+hulking, round-shouldered old woman, that might have squeezed the life
+out of him without turning a hair, and discipline demanded he should be
+reported, and the visiting justices sentenced him to be flogged.  From
+that day he never spoke, and would sit for hours without moving; suddenly
+he would break out into an immoderate fit of laughter, to be immediately
+followed by a paroxysm of grief, and, laying his head on the table, would
+sob like a child.  Nothing appeared likely to restore his naturally
+limited intellect, and the country will be at the expense of keeping this
+“dangerous criminal” for another twelvemonth, who would be infinitely
+more at home at Earlswood Asylum for Idiots.  A perfect child occupied
+another of these hospital cells, an incorrigible young scamp of about
+fourteen, that nothing seemed capable of taming.  Everything within reach
+he proceeded to destroy, and clothes supplied him in the morning were in
+shreds at night.  He, too, was constantly handcuffed; he refused to eat,
+and for a week nothing passed his lips.  One day, on his door being
+opened, he was found suspended by a bed-strap from the bell-handle:
+another second, and life would have been extinct.  For this he was taken
+before the visiting justices and birched.  It had, however, no deterrent
+effect, and up to the time of his release he remained the same
+incorrigible young ruffian.  There is no hope for such a lad; his future
+is bound to be a repetition of many instances I saw amongst the adults,
+who had commenced a career of crime with birchings, followed by three and
+five years in a reformatory, and ending with imprisonment and eventually
+penal servitude.  Another companion that was the source of occasional
+anxiety, had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and though usually
+quiet, was subject to extraordinary fits.  The first intimation of one
+coming on was a demoniacal groan, and in an incredibly short time a space
+was cleared round him.  It had been found, indeed, that nothing could
+arrest the first paroxysm, and on the “band beginning to play,” a
+stampede invariably ensued: and not without cause, for everything within
+reach became an instant wreck, and tables, chairs, books, and (when
+procurable) arms and noses, were ruthlessly attacked by hands, feet, and
+teeth.  When comparatively restored it took six or eight men to remove
+him into a cell, and the only thing that appeared to rouse him was the
+presence of the priest.  So efficacious was this remedy that when
+everything else failed, the Roman Catholic chaplain was invariably sent
+for, and in a moment oil appeared to be thrown on the troubled waters,
+and the maniac arose subdued, and clothed in his right mind.  Here was a
+religion that appeared to appeal to the feelings, and to produce results
+never attained by brow-beating and personality—a lesson to be laid to
+heart, and worthy of imitation, though in the quarter it was most needed
+it was, I fear, utterly thrown away.  Personally this influence did not
+surprise me, for though debarred, by being a Protestant, from coming into
+actual contact with the priest, I was considerably struck, and almost
+fascinated, by the kind smile and friendly salutation he had for all his
+co-religionists.  An Italian by nationality, with all the refinement of
+manner habitual to his countrymen, this polished gentleman was a
+pronounced contrast to the fire-and-brimstone snob occasionally met with
+in the “Established” ranks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+PRISON CELEBRITIES.
+
+
+I WAS surprised at the number of respectable men—such as solicitors, an
+ex-officer of Guards, a bank manager, a man of title, stockbrokers,
+cashiers, ex-officers of the army and navy, clerks, clergymen, etc.—in
+Coldbath Fields.  Some of these had quite lost (supposing they ever had
+any) their pristine semblance of respectability; others, again, retained
+the appearance of persons of education, and spoke and deported themselves
+as such.  A lamentable instance of the fatal effect of associating with
+the scum, and the ease with which a young man of good position can
+acquire the style and appearance of a vagrant, was exemplified in young
+B—.  He was not more than 25 or 26, had been a subaltern in the — Guards,
+and came, moreover, of a good county stock; and yet in six short months
+he had so far degenerated as to be punished on the day his sentence
+expired for stealing a loaf from a fellow prisoner.
+
+A worthy old man with grey hair and venerable appearance, and who might
+have passed for the chairman of a board of directors, appeared every
+morning at mine and other cells in the passage with a dust-pan, and with
+methodical precision removed the sweepings.  He told me he had been a
+solicitor with a large connection, with chambers in — Street, and had a
+wife and grown-up family in a comfortable house in a well-known suburb.
+His imprisonment was perceptibly telling on him, and his hair and beard
+grew whiter every day.
+
+A bustling, business-like man, one day attracted my attention.  He was
+connected with the stores, and brought me a new pair of boots.  He had
+been the manager of a London bank, and undergoing retirement for six
+months for some error regarding the ownership of £300.
+
+A tall, smart-looking man that was pointed out to me, was, I was
+informed, an individual who attained notoriety some two years ago over a
+mining scheme.  He was suffering two years’ incarceration for a
+miscalculation of over £7000.
+
+A man who called himself Count H—, and an ex-convict to boot, was
+languishing for a year, because certain noblemen had had the bad taste to
+object to his having obtained money from them by false pretences.  This
+nobleman! had a mania for petitioning the Home Office (I will give a
+specimen of his style hereafter).
+
+In addition to these, numerous individuals who had been gentlemen in
+their day were known to me by sight.  Conspicuous amongst them, was an
+old jail bird and ex-convict, who had 20 years ago been a captain in the
+army, and ever since had existed (and still is) in prison, for terms of
+seven, five, five, two, and one years.  All the starch had been
+thoroughly wrung out of him, though he occasionally stood on a
+dilapidated kind of dignity.  I once asked him where a friend of his had
+gone.  He replied, “I don’t know; we don’t speak now; he’s no gentleman.
+Will you believe it, he had the impertinence to doubt my word.”  As his
+word had been doubted a good many times during the past 20 years, I was
+considerably amused by this assumption of dignity.
+
+Many prisoners are under the impression that they have only to petition
+the Home Office to procure a remission of their sentence.  It seems
+perfectly immaterial to them, whether they have the slightest grounds for
+this assumption or not, and it frequently happens that, instead of
+mitigating their offence, they put matters in a more unfavourable light
+by airing their grievances, whilst others make a rambling statement
+referring to every subject but the one particularly concerning
+themselves.
+
+Count H— was a specimen of this class.  He was undergoing a well-merited
+12 months’ imprisonment for defrauding the Dukes of S— and M— and other
+noblemen of sums of money, by representing himself as the son of some
+individual, which he certainly was not.  It is, of course, possible that
+he may (to use a vulgar expression) have been “changed at nuss,” though
+the fact that he had previously undergone five years’ penal servitude for
+a similar offence minimizes the probability that he was acting under a
+misapprehension.  The Count! had no sooner taken up his quarters than he
+expressed a desire to petition the Home Secretary.  A “form” being
+supplied him, which he retained four days, eventually reappeared so
+blurred and smeared with blots and erasures that its transmission was
+impossible.  A second attempt was more successful, and the following
+exhaustive specimen of penmanship and veracity struggled up to the Home
+Office, and eventually struggled back:—“That your petitioner, on being
+discharged from Pentonville Convict Prison, at the expiration of five
+years’ penal servitude, found that certain moneys and property, valued at
+several hundred pounds, had been stolen by his agent, who collected his
+rent on his estates in Italy; that being at that time without funds to go
+abroad, he had written to the Duke of S— and Duke of M— and others,
+asking for a loan until he received his rents.  That his father really
+was Count H— and a friend of these noblemen, and that the charge of false
+pretences was consequently incorrect.  That he had held diplomatic
+appointments, and been decorated for gallant service, and that he
+possesses a coronet with S.P.Q.R., all of which clearly proves his
+identity.  In conclusion, your petitioner appeals to you with confidence
+as a lawyer of renown, and a scion of the noble house of Vernon.—Signed,
+H—.”
+
+I have corrected “the Count’s” spelling as far as possible; the logic and
+composition were, however, past redemption.  The rogue evidently knew the
+Home Secretary’s claim to “Royal descent,” as delicately hinted at in the
+concluding paragraph.
+
+Another individual petitioned against his hair and beard being cut, on
+religious grounds, and quoted the Law of Moses as forbidding these
+formalities.  This specimen did not, I believe, leave the establishment.
+
+I was frequently struck by the vast difference in the sentences awarded
+in what appeared to me to be parallel cases, and tried in vain to
+discover any system that might be supposed to regulate them.  It cannot
+be denied that a great difference of opinion exists apparently amongst
+judges on the subject of crimes and their punishment, and that whereas
+one judge will administer justice with harshness, another will attain the
+same desirable end with a regard to humanity.  With these respective
+characteristics, the criminal classes are thoroughly conversant, and it
+would astonish the Bench if they heard how accurately their respective
+peculiarities are summed up.  Thus one judge is credited with being very
+severe on conspiracy and long firm cases, whilst another is supposed to
+be “down” on burglars, whilst it is generally conceded that a plea of
+guilty will invariably fare better than one of not guilty.  For my own
+part I fancied I had noticed that conspiracy is considered the most
+serious offence, and that two men conspiring to defraud another of £50
+will run the risk of a severer punishment than the individual who unaided
+steals £500.
+
+I will quote a few first offences which, apparently similar, differ
+considerably as regards their sentences:—
+
+(_a_) A solicitor for passing a forged cheque for £18 that had been paid
+to him: 18 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_a_) A bank manager for appropriating £300: six months’ imprisonment
+with hard labour.
+
+(_b_) A wine merchant for complicity in a forged cheque, £52: sentence,
+18 months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_b_) A commission agent for forging a £600 bill of exchange: 12 months’
+imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_c_) A clerk (with twenty years’ good character and recommended to
+mercy), for forging £50 and stealing employer’s cheque: sentence, twenty
+months’ imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_c_) A City man, for a fraudulent mining scheme and forgery, whereby he
+obtained £7000: sentence, two years’ imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_d_) A shopman, for robbing his employer of £50: sentence, three months’
+imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+(_d_) A beggar boy, for stealing 1s. 6d.: sentence, three months’
+imprisonment with hard labour.
+
+There are men in Coldbath whose cards show upwards of seventy previous
+convictions, varying from a year to seven days; nor is it to be wondered
+at, considering the starvation that confronts them outside and the
+comfort that is accorded them in prison.  One of these habitual vagrants
+on his periodical appearance was usually accosted with an official joke,
+“Same address, I suppose?”  “Yes, please,” was the invariable reply; “no
+change since last time.”
+
+One old man in the convalescent ward, suffering from rheumatism and
+asthma, who was supplied with dainties he could never have heard of
+before, confessed to me that he should have preferred six to the three
+months’ imprisonment he was undergoing.  Another old vagrant (a City man)
+told me that he always made it a rule to sleep on a doorstep a day or so
+before Christmas Day to insure the Christmas meal of a loaf of bread,
+beef, pudding, and a pint of ale, stood by the Lord Mayor to every
+prisoner in Newgate.  He was bewailing the loss of that charming
+residence, and telling me how, having foolishly omitted to make himself
+acquainted with the change of system, had subsisted last Christmas Day in
+“Coldbath” on dry bread and stirabout.
+
+Foreigners of every description find their way into Coldbath, though the
+majority consists of Germans, mostly Jews.  There is an advantage in
+belonging to this faith, as I was led to understand by a gourmand.  It
+consists in receiving meat on Mondays in lieu of the usual bacon and
+beans.  Circumstances, however, render the temporary embracing of this
+faith more difficult than they do that of Romanism, which is much in
+vogue; and as certain punishment would follow the certain detection,
+Judaism has not as many followers as the Australian meat would otherwise
+command.
+
+Flogging is usually administered for insubordination and malingering.
+For less serious offences the punishment cells and short commons usually
+have the desired effect.  There are two descriptions of corporal
+punishment—the cat and the birch, usually reserved for youths.  In the
+former case the culprit is lashed to a triangle; in the latter he is
+hoisted on what is euphoniously called a donkey.  As a punishment, the
+cat, as applied in prisons, is not to be compared to its defunct namesake
+in the army or navy.  It is sufficiently severe, however, to necessitate
+certain after-treatment—an item in the programme regulated rather by the
+“system” than humanity.  A soldier was invariably admitted into hospital
+after undergoing corporal punishment; a prisoner is, however, flogged and
+then conducted to his cell.
+
+These floggings are usually administered in the forenoon in presence of a
+surgeon, and before evening a zinc plaster—perhaps two—is applied to the
+recipient’s back.  The performance takes place in a room off the main
+passage, and is not unattended with a certain amount of ceremony.  The
+traffic is stopped, and no particulars transpire but the howls of the
+victim, which can be heard all over the building.  Since the abolition of
+Newgate, Coldbath has risen in retributive importance, and garrotters
+sentenced to the lash here receive their punishment.
+
+A one-legged garrotter was lately flogged; his leg, which had been
+amputated at the thigh, prevented his being securely tied, and his
+abortive struggles procured him a flogging infinitely severer than
+ordinarily experienced.  Every blow fell on a different place, and the
+twenty lashes left twenty wheals, breaking the skin in a dozen different
+places.  Sympathy with a garrotter would be out of place, and no one can
+doubt that he richly deserved his punishment; yet one’s bowels of
+compassion are instinctively moved by the description given to me by an
+eye-witness, of a lump of bleeding humanity alone and sobbing in a cell,
+and receiving at five in the afternoon a zinc plaster to apply to the
+back that had been torn and lacerated in the morning.
+
+This treatment in no way reflects on the prison officials, who simply
+carry out the regulations; it is the system that is to blame, and is
+capable, like the dispensation of justice before described, of
+considerable improvement on the score of humanity.
+
+Floggings and birchings appear to have no effect on these hardened
+criminals, and though they shriek and bellow during the infliction, they
+invariably revert to the same offence, and qualify for a second edition.
+Shamming madness is a favourite form of malingering indulged in by
+prisoners.  The uneducated mind, however, invariably resorts to the same
+tactics—a combination between the symptoms of idiocy and hydrophobia that
+generally fails in its objects, and invariably yields to treatment by the
+cat.
+
+The boys that find their way into Coldbath are the most hardened young
+scamps I ever saw.  They are supposed to be isolated, as required by
+recent agitation on the subject of juvenile offenders.  That the
+isolation is a farce need hardly be said.  At chapel they certainly
+occupy benches to themselves, but so do the various wards and trades; the
+tasks they are put to are similar to those done by adults; and the pains
+and penalties they undergo are identical in time and circumstance to
+those of the full-blown criminal.  I have seen these urchins on arrival,
+with their knuckles in their eyes, blubbering in chapel, and a week later
+winking and making signs as if determined to assert their qualification
+to be clothed and treated like their adult fellow-prisoners.
+
+Tearing up their clothes is the favourite pastime of these promising
+youths.  I have frequently seen these children marched along a passage,
+handcuffed behind, and preceded by a warder carrying a bundle of rags
+three inches square, that formerly represented their linen and clothes.
+The treatment they receive puts this crime at a premium.  Boys are
+admittedly vain, and desirous of appearing as men to their older
+associates, what more natural then, that a child (one of the instances I
+refer to could not have been fourteen) should aspire to the honour of
+appearing as a hero; marching through a crowded passage with his manly
+work conspicuously displayed, treated, moreover, like a real man,
+manacled, and eventually birched, and receiving the approbation
+invariably accorded by the criminal classes to the perpetrators of wanton
+mischief.  One would suppose that in a huge building like Coldbath Fields
+these urchins might be absolutely isolated, and if their offences were
+punished without the publicity that at present attends them, they would
+soon be given up as not worth the consequence.  That the treatment of
+this hardened class of boys is a difficult problem, cannot be denied, and
+the cunning and ingenuity they display is almost incredible.  Fully aware
+that the visiting Justices only visit the prison once a fortnight, and
+that without their order a birching is impossible, it frequently happens
+that on the day of their discharge every article of their clothing is
+made into mincemeat.  For this mischief they are absolutely free from any
+consequence, it being an offence against the prison, and not against the
+law.  If a remedy was applied to this crime, similar to the Article of
+War that provides against the destruction of Government property, the
+delinquent might be handed over to a policeman, and this would
+effectually stop the practice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+THE TREAD-WHEEL.
+
+
+BY Act of Parliament, all prisoners, till quite recently, were
+photographed after admission to the various prisons.  This universal
+system is now abolished, and since January, 1882, it is only reserved for
+habitual criminals and prisoners sentenced to police supervision.  I had
+the good fortune to add to my experiences and my desire to see
+everything, by coming under the universal system, I having become a
+Government ward exactly eleven days before the expiration of the Act.
+One morning, whilst at exercise, my name was called amongst some
+half-a-dozen others.  I could not conceive what new atrocity I had
+perpetrated, and what could have occurred to disturb the even tenor of my
+ways.  A few of my more experienced comrades, however, enlightened me by
+remarking I was “a-goin’ to be tuk,” and I found myself on the road to
+the studio.
+
+                       [Picture: “Negatives kept.”]
+
+Photography such as this can hardly be considered artistic, though I have
+seen worse, but not much.  It probably, however, answers all the
+requirements it is intended for.  These works of art are only produced in
+duplicate, and though I offered a fabulous price to the seedy artist for
+an extra copy, no business was done; for though negatives are kept, they
+are kept under lock and key.  Of the copies usually printed one was
+presented to the Governor of Newgate (this individual being lately
+abolished, I do not know who is now the recipient), the other finds its
+way into the Coldbath album, and no doubt affords pleasure and
+instruction at such jubilant gatherings as prison lawn tennis parties, or
+warders’ beanfeasts, which I was informed (though never invited) are
+occasionally indulged in.  Prisoners are taken in their own clothes, and
+it is a matter of regret that the ones I then wore have gone the way of
+all old clothes, for, like their owner, they did not improve by their
+incarceration, and their huge proportions made them worthless without
+alteration.  Pose or position is a secondary consideration, a good
+out-and-out resemblance is the thing to be attained; a deformed ear, or a
+fly-blown nose, would at once be seized upon, and the lens directed point
+blank at such fortunate distinctions.  In my case there was nothing to
+merit special reproduction, so with a smirk that would have hanged me
+fifty years ago (for even here the “artist” could not resist the
+conventional request) I qualified for the Government album.  On one side
+one’s number is pinned to one’s coat, on the other is a slate with one’s
+name in full, thus supplying an index simple but complete, and in
+proportion to the intellects of such probable students as the motley crew
+one periodically saw at Newgate.  To me the ordeal had neither terror nor
+charms, though to some of my companions it was evidently not agreeable.
+One rogue caused considerable trouble by persistently protruding his chin
+or distorting some feature; these antics were not indulged in in a spirit
+of levity, but resorted to gradually as the cap was being taken off.  He
+evidently objected to an accurate likeness, and so he might.  I never
+could find out particulars, but not long after he disappeared from
+Coldbath, and whether hanged or a “lifer,” I never heard.  _That_
+photograph had fulfilled its mission.
+
+Visits to Coldbath cannot under ordinary circumstances be undertaken by
+any but the most robust.  The accommodation is clearly intended for the
+scum of London, and it is unfair to expect any respectable person to come
+unless smell-proof and provided with a box of Keating’s insect powder.  I
+received one visit under these revolting conditions, though my subsequent
+ones left nothing to be desired.  Conceive, then, a cell eighteen feet by
+twelve, fitted with four partitions on either side, divided by a narrow
+passage, with a warder walking up and down.  Into one of these cages the
+visitor is conducted and locked in.  Immediately opposite, and similarly
+enclosed, is the object of his visit.  In appearance they resemble a
+Cochin China hen-coop; in size they about equal the den of the untameable
+hyæna in a travelling menagerie.  Conversation of a private nature is out
+of the question, as, indeed, is intended; topical subjects are tabooed,
+and but for the sake of adding to my experiences I should never have
+subjected myself or my friend to such nasty conditions.  Within a foot of
+one, and flanked on both sides, was either a costermonger talking to his
+missus and her frowsy, unvaccinated-looking offspring, or a pickpocket
+hearing the latest news from the Seven Dials; the Babel consequent being
+such as to leave no alternative but to say nothing, or shout at the top
+of one’s voice.  There is a snobbishness about this custom that went far
+to determine me in my course of telephoning as the only way to retaliate
+effectually on official inconsideration.  No one would be foolish enough
+to expect that a gentleman should be better treated than a costermonger
+under such painful circumstances, although it would be an act of
+consideration, involving neither inconvenience nor relaxation of
+discipline, if some little discretion were exercised, as at Newgate,
+regarding the visitors.
+
+The tread-wheel occupies a prominent position in prison life.  There was
+none at Coldbath on my arrival, the old one having been burnt down a
+short time previously.  There is a delightful interpretation to the three
+magic letters, C. B. F. (Cold Bath Fields), that long puzzled me, and
+which takes its origin—as I heard—from the ancient structure.  I had
+frequently heard this cheerful place referred to as “The Farm,” and on
+enquiry it was explained that it was facetiously known as “Charley
+Bates’s Farm.”  “Charley,” it appears, was a peculiarly ferocious turnkey
+that some years ago superintended the tread-wheel, but whether burnt,
+like his toy, or still burning, or alive, I have not the remotest idea.
+Its successor was now being rapidly built, and all the artisan talent
+procurable was laid on, in order to complete without delay this necessary
+adjunct to hard labour.
+
+A reference to the “system of progressive stages” will obviate my
+repeating many details as to the particular men put to this punishment,
+etc.
+
+I had never seen a tread-wheel except from the stalls of the Adelphi
+Theatre, and was particularly anxious to gratify my curiosity.  I
+cudgelled my brains as to how it was to be managed, with such success
+that I eventually found myself on the “works.”  As I have the misfortune
+to be neither a mechanic nor an artisan, and incapable of driving in a
+nail without hammering my finger, and being a perfect infant in the use
+of a shovel, I was at a loss to conceive how I could possibly be
+employed; but this difficulty was at length surmounted, and armed with a
+brush I was put on a roving job.  I had the run of the building, with a
+kind of general instruction to brush everything and everybody, up stairs
+and down stairs, and in the warder’s chamber.  The warder in charge of
+this building in course of construction, was a worthy man, incapable of
+being tampered with, though I never tried him (why should I?), but withal
+courteous, respectful, and considerate—one of those men whose bringing up
+had thrown him amongst gentlemen, and who knew how to maintain his own
+position without offending the susceptibilities of others.  The artisans
+under him worked with a will, and reports and rows were things unknown,
+except on scrubbing days, when some ill-conditioned hound happened to be
+temporarily employed.  My duties consisted in sitting about in sheltered
+nooks with the broom between my knees, and on the approach of a spy, with
+which the place was infested, to rise and make furious lunges at
+imaginary spiders.  These sweeps into space were very effective, and,
+fatal as they would have been to any insect had I seen one, were equally
+gratifying to their human prototypes, whose desire was to see one working
+hard.  During my employment in this building it was, I verily believe,
+the object of more inspection than it had ever been before.  I had been
+informed by telephone that my antipathy had given a hint that I was to be
+looked after, and if he was satisfied with the result I certainly was.
+Not twenty minutes elapsed between the various inspections, and
+occasionally they swarmed like horse-flies in summer round a lump of
+sugar.  These frequent visits involved an immense loss of energy, and the
+casualties amongst the spiders must have been enormous.  When all had
+been destroyed I constructed a pile of dirt—one pound of dust to four of
+shavings—which I placed in a conspicuous position.  This was violently
+propelled from me during a visit, and gently restored when the intruder
+had passed.
+
+I had the opportunity of inspecting this huge instrument of torture, and
+was considerably disappointed that I could not try its effect.  I had the
+gratification, however, of putting some paint on one panel and a piece of
+putty into a hole, thereby having assisted at the making of the wheel.
+Putting putty into a hole is not so easy as it may sound.  At the
+inspection of work next day I had the mortification of seeing my lump
+condemned, and cruelly removed.  The tread-wheel is moved by elaborate
+machinery worked by powerful engines, which, in addition to setting the
+wheel in motion, grinds corn in an adjoining building for the use of the
+prison.  It is entirely different from the Adelphi one, and may be
+described as four long cylindrical wheels extending the length of the
+building on either side and along the gallery.  Partitions, of sufficient
+dimensions to enable a man to stand up, run the entire length of the
+various wheels, thereby precluding all communication between the several
+occupants.  Two hundred and sixty men can be “on” at once, and the
+punishment is carried out on the principle of ten minutes “off” and
+twenty minutes “on.”  The victims are marched down at 7.30 A.M., and
+beguile the time thus pleasantly till 11.30.  They return at 1.30 p.m.,
+and continue the enjoyment till 5.
+
+I am told this is considered an easy wheel, and men who have experienced
+the working of others assured me that this one was mere child’s play.  A
+great deal depends on the worker, and the experienced jail-bird rises—or,
+as it was termed to me, “waits for”—the step with little or no exertion.
+With the novice, however, it is severe labour, and the exertion involved
+bathes him in perspiration.  A supply of warm water is given them on
+returning to their cells of an evening, to obliterate in a degree the
+unpleasant consequences of the wheel.  But the discomfort—can one
+estimate it?  A poor wretch bathed in perspiration, and having to sleep
+in the same shirt and work in it for a week!  Only prisoners fit for hard
+labour are put to the wheel, and no man is ever so employed unless passed
+by the surgeon.  The doctor’s work is considerably augmented by the
+reconstruction of the wheel, and besides having to visit the yard
+frequently during the day, he is persecuted by strings of schemers trying
+by every conceivable subterfuge to evade the punishment.  Some go the
+length of tumbling off, and occasionally succeed in temporarily
+disqualifying themselves by a sprained ankle or wrist.  I was much amused
+during my employment at its construction at the interest that the various
+officials took in every detail connected with its progress.  They
+revelled at the prospect of the treat in store for them, and seemed to
+gloat over the exquisite misery awaiting some of their lambs.  Bunches of
+these warders would occasionally meet, and discuss the intricacies of the
+machinery with a gusto only to be acquired by prison contagion.  It would
+not have surprised me to have heard that the opening ceremony had been
+attended by some kind of _fête_, to which the warders and “their ladies”
+had been invited, and condiments—made on the premises—distributed
+wholesale.
+
+My worst enemies, and those I had to fear most, were the prisoners.  They
+were all jealous of me, and had got an absurd notion into their heads
+that I could do as I liked, and, though there was no truth in such an
+impression, never lost an opportunity of “rounding” on me.  A one-eyed
+scoundrel, who was one day checked and eventually punished for idleness,
+complained to the Governor that he didn’t see why he should work all day
+and another man (me) sit down and do nothing.  This had the effect of
+causing me to be transferred elsewhere, and I next added to my
+experiences by becoming a gardener.  I was not sorry to leave the
+wheelhouse, for it had a depressing effect on me, which the hum of the
+traffic just outside did not assist in allaying.  As a wag said to me one
+day, “This will be a nice place when it’s finished.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+GARDENING.
+
+
+I HAD at last indeed tumbled on my legs.  My new duties offered a
+combination of advantages—such as variety, fresh air, newspapers,
+tobacco, etc.—far in excess of my fondest dreams.  There are six
+so-called gardeners, who are constantly employed in the grounds.  At 7.30
+they go out, and rarely return before dinner; and again at 2, remaining
+out till 5.  In fine weather this is a great relief, and I enjoyed many
+an afternoon basking in the sun on a grassy bank.
+
+             [Picture: Gardening.  “Something approaching.”]
+
+The general duties of a so-called gardener are a combination of the
+qualifications necessary for a dustman, carpet-beater, and agricultural
+labourer.  They are, in fact, the scavengers of the establishment, and
+poke about all day under a curiosity of the turnkey species, and overhaul
+everything and everybody.  Their duties are absolutely legion, and
+carpet-beating, mowing, weeding, and raking the walks are only a moiety
+of their accomplishments.  I was appointed to this favoured team through
+the kindly recommendation of the assistant surgeon after my recent
+temporary discharge from hospital; and the master gardener, not having
+been consulted, as I fancy he usually was, was not by any means
+predisposed in my favour.  That, however, wore off; and though I found
+him the most crotchety, three-cornered eccentricity I had ever met, I
+soon discovered his weak point, and did pretty much as I pleased.  I must
+here repudiate any insinuation that by this I mean to imply he was to be
+squared.  I might as well have tried to square the Marble Arch.  Besides
+which, I did not require to, my supply being greater than my demand.
+
+Our first duty was to proceed to the tool-house, and, armed with shovels,
+wheelbarrows, baskets, etc., to commence grubbing about.  As a newcomer I
+was selected for the “barrer,” and a heavier “barrer” I never felt; but
+having knocked some paint off a gate, and rolled it over a sacred grass
+plot, my incapacity was so manifest that I was disrated to a shovel.
+Here, too, I was lamentably ignorant, and out of every spoonful I
+collected a third went into the “barrer” and the remainder everywhere
+else.  I was, in fact, trying to emulate the scavengers one sees ladling
+mud on wet days.  The long shots they make have always inspired me with
+admiration; their revels in the oceans of mud exercised a fascination
+over me, causing me till now to overlook the science that is required to
+produce such apparently simple efforts.
+
+I have often driven up the hill that runs outside the front of the prison
+and fancied it was steep; that fancy has since been confirmed, and I am
+now in a position to assert positively that it is very steep, especially
+between the shafts of a “barrer.”
+
+A duty we were about to undertake one day was the weekly overhaul of the
+head warder’s quarters.  I was spared a share in this revolting
+exercise—I never knew how—but was simply told I should not be required.
+
+I had often sympathized with these gardeners long before I joined them,
+when seeing them shaking the frowsy rugs and rags, carpet slippers, and
+other gimcracks, and dusting Mrs. Head Warder’s best Sunday
+willow-pattern teapot.  My general ignorance, too, in the various
+branches of scavengering had become so apparent that I felt convinced I
+should be informed that I “didn’t suit”; but, thanks to the consideration
+of the Governor and assistant surgeon, I was retained, though otherwise
+employed.  I was henceforth entirely detached, and turned out into
+various portions of the grounds, and told to do the best I could.  My
+special instructions were to annihilate a certain weed, for which purpose
+I was armed with a knife, though I seldom used it for that particular
+purpose.  The effect of this weed on the funny head gardener was very
+strange, and he would grind his teeth and mutter at the very sight of
+one.  I at once took the cue, and feeling it would please him, besides
+showing my zeal, used the strongest language I could lay tongue to
+whenever I detected one.  My zeal, I fear, often led me into mistakes,
+and valuable clover and priceless dandelions were ruthlessly sacrificed
+to my want of discrimination.  These errors in uprooting the wrong plants
+generally elicited a gentle rebuke, but the “cussing” at the hated fungus
+condoned my offence.  “It was zeal, sir, zeal,” and he began to “like
+that chap—he was willing, anxious like.”  But the way I won the old boy’s
+heart was my love for old coins (as a fact, I know nothing about them,
+and prefer the more modern specimens).  It happened one day he picked up
+a rusty coin—whether a button or an obsolete farthing I cannot say.  I
+boldly, however, pronounced it to be a Henry the Seventh, said I would
+gladly pay five shillings for one like it, rattled along about Museum
+Street, my collection, etc., till he recognized a brother-collector, and
+a bond of sympathy was established; and as he dropped the Henry the
+Seventh into his pocket, he led me to understand he had many like it at
+home.  Whether he undertook a pilgrimage to Museum Street I cannot say,
+but about a month later a coolness showed itself in his manner towards
+me, which rather led me to suspect he had.
+
+I now found myself my own master.  No one was specially interested in my
+movements.  I was on my own hook, and so long as I appeared to be
+occupied when certain individuals were going their rounds, I was never
+interfered with; and as these rounds took place at about the same hours
+daily, I mapped out my occupation accordingly.
+
+                 [Picture: Gardening.  “The Line Clear.”]
+
+At 7.30 I was turned into a large lawn, with sloping banks on three sides
+and railings on the fourth; between these and the outer wall was a gravel
+walk that circumvented the prison.  A turnkey patrolled this walk day and
+night, armed with a cutlass.  I asked one of them one day what he should
+do if he found anyone scaling the wall.  “Do?” he said.  “If it was you,
+I should say, ‘Don’t be a fool; you’ll sprain your ankle dropping down
+t’other side.’”  “And suppose it was some other chap?” I inquired.  “Ah!
+then,” he added, “I should carve him about a foot below the waist.”
+
+Between 8 and 9 parties of men were constantly passing to and fro to
+their various work.  I usually, therefore, devoted that hour to
+contemplation, the selection of some half-a-dozen weeds for future
+decapitation, and a general look round.  When things had settled down a
+bit, my knife came into requisition, and proceeding to one of my
+hiding-places I selected one piece of tobacco for immediate use, and
+sliced enough for my day’s consumption.  I had some of these holes in
+various parts of the grounds, constructed of a slate floor about three
+inches square, with bricks for the roof and sides.  I found them
+admirably adapted to resist rain, and many I daresay are still in
+existence.  This enjoyment lasted till 11, when it became dangerous.  (I
+was nearly choked on one occasion by foolishly having a lump of tobacco
+in my mouth when suddenly confronted by an official.)  After dinner I had
+a good hour’s reading (the papers don’t arrive before; indeed, the postal
+arrangements are capable of considerable improvement), and so the
+afternoon passed comparatively pleasantly, between the daily paper,
+’baccy, and the sloping bank.  I often felt amused at the thought of how
+different all this was to what some people believed; and a conversation I
+“overheard” in the previous January, when one cad was explaining to his
+inebriated companion that imprisonment with hard labour was worse than
+penal servitude, came vividly to my recollection.  On one of these sunny
+days I was much amused by an outline of the day’s telegrams as given me
+by a friendly turnkey.  It was the day on which the news of young Vyse’s
+death whilst reconnoitring Arabi’s position reached England.  “Them
+Arabians are rum chaps; ah, and can shoot too, I tell yer: that officer
+as was recognisizing—look at that!”
+
+Chewing was an accomplishment I did not acquire in a day; indeed, it took
+me weeks.  At first it made me absolutely poorly, but I persevered, and
+eventually found it as agreeable as smoking.  I could not, however,
+manage the twist, and invariably used the honey-dew or negro-head.  This
+daintiness was not unattended with inconvenience, as no shop in the
+neighbourhood kept such a thing, and involved journeys to the Strand or
+Oxford Street.  I was never so foolish as to keep the tobacco about me,
+and my cell was as free of it as any hermit’s.  In the grounds, however,
+it was perfectly safe; tobacco under a stone might belong to anybody, and
+though the suspicion would probably have cost me my staff appointment,
+absolute conviction would have been impossible.  To say that I was free
+from some sort of suspicion would be hardly correct, for although I was
+never searched myself—except on the one occasion before mentioned—my
+next-door neighbour was “turned over” about twice a week.  The reason
+that led to this was as follows:—I had found this man specially useful—he
+was quite a second Mike to me; anything I required he did, and in return
+I gave him portions of my superfluous food, and occasionally a piece of
+tobacco.  This traffic had not passed unnoticed, and had been
+communicated to a warder by another prisoner, who felt himself aggrieved
+at the preference shown by me for his fellow prisoner.  These sneakings
+are universally practised, and through my entire experience I had to be
+careful of these wretches; they watched me and hated me, and if they got
+the chance, always rounded on “The Swell.”  Swell indeed!  The swelling
+had long ago subsided.  I only weighed, thank heavens! about fourteen
+stone.  These sneakings never affected me, and one of these individuals
+was once considerably astonished at getting three days bread and water
+for a privileged communication about me.  A circumstance that occurred
+one day impressed me very much on the matter of destiny, and the
+accidents that sometimes combine to form a link between two individuals
+that a month or two previously would never have been dreamed of.  It was
+the day on which (the late) Dr. Lamson had been sentenced to death.  I
+was standing not far from the prison van, which had lately returned after
+depositing him at the House of Detention, and watching two prisoners
+cleaning it out.  The partition that he had occupied contained three or
+four pillows, and I was informed it was a delicate attention on the part
+of the Government to prevent condemned men intentionally injuring
+themselves.  “What are those pillows for?” I asked of a turnkey.  “Oh,
+they’re only Dr. Lamson’s,” was the facetious reply; “he was sentenced
+to-day, so we just put them in for fear he should chafe himself, poor
+fellow.”  When the cleaning was over my brother reprobate led me to
+understand he had made a discovery.  Beneath the pillows he had found
+three cigars; he considerately gave me one, as indeed prison etiquette
+demanded, it being an axiom that an uncompromised holder of a secret is
+never to be trusted.  I certainly should not have rounded on my
+_confrère_, but was nevertheless very glad to be the recipient of a
+specimen of this “Marwood” brand.  It was a sin to chew them, but there
+was no alternative, as smoking was out of the question.  Half-an-hour
+later, as I bit off a piece, the thought forced itself upon me, “Three
+months ago, he at Bournemouth, and I at Brighton, had never heard of one
+another, and here I am chewing the condemned man’s tobacco.”  Funny
+thing, destiny!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+THE CHURCH MILITANT IN PRISON.
+
+
+RELIGIOUS ceremonial plays an important part at Coldbath Fields.  The
+quantity, indeed, is lamentably in excess of the quality, and leavened
+with a degree of barbaric hypocrisy incapable of engendering any feeling
+but that of nausea.  Language fails me in trying to describe it in its
+proper light; and though reluctant to appear as scoffing at
+religion—which I emphatically repudiate—what I saw and heard makes it a
+hopeless task to allude to the subject and yet divest it of its component
+parts.  This cure of some 1400 (criminal) souls was vested in two
+chaplains, of whom one had the misfortune to be a gentleman.  I say
+“misfortune” advisedly, for unless incapable of contamination the most
+charitably inclined and refined is bound to deteriorate.  Their duties,
+in addition to those usually associated with clergymen, embraced a
+_soupçon_ of the schoolmaster with a dash of the district visitor, and if
+they were disposed (which all were not) to throw in a slice of detective
+work, it was not considered a disqualification for further preferment.
+The spiritual welfare of the Protestant portion of the prisoners was
+divided between them, all fresh arrivals during this month being
+specially assigned to the one, and all coming in the next devolving on
+the other.  The etiquette and punctilio that regulated this division when
+once made, was as marked as that usually found amongst country medical
+practitioners.  Thus, if Sykes the burglar, who happened to be one of the
+Rev. Smith’s lambs, unfortunately cracked his skull, and was in immediate
+want of spiritual consolation, he would in all probability be requested
+to defer his departure till the arrival of the Rev. Robinson.  I mention
+this in regard to the system, and not as referring to anyone in
+particular, although the way I was ignored (very much to my delight) some
+weeks later, when my particular pastor was on leave, fortifies me in the
+conviction that my theory is correct.
+
+A portion of the prisoners are visited daily by their respective
+chaplains, and day after day, between ten and twelve, is devoted to this
+solemn pilgrimage.  That religion may be administered in various forms
+was apparent from the method pursued respectively by the two chaplains.
+The one seemed to think that a kind word and a pleasant smile might
+safely be addressed to the vilest criminal without detracting from his
+spiritual dignity; the other relied implicitly on scowls and frowns, and
+a recitation of the terrors of judgment and hell as the proper
+ministration for miserable sinners.
+
+I have special cause to be grateful for the accident that assigned me to
+whom it did, as, being a Presbyterian, and never having benefited to the
+extent of “confirmation,” I should most assuredly have found my spiritual
+lines cast in harder places under an uncompromising bigot of Episcopacy,
+than under one who was willing to admit, that the kingdom of Heaven was
+not specially reserved for members of the Church of England.  The
+multifarious calls on his time prevented my chaplain from seeing me more
+frequently than once or sometimes twice in a fortnight; but even these
+occasional visits did not pass unnoticed, and I gleaned, from a casual
+remark he once made, that his spiritual superior considered a visit every
+two months ample for the requirements of the most depraved outcasts.  I
+can only attribute this conclusion to the potency of his peculiar
+ministration, which, unless taken in homoeopathic doses, might possibly
+have been injurious to both body and soul.
+
+I never came much in contact with the chief pillar of the chapel, though
+I was made acquainted with his usual routine by many of his flock:—“What
+are you here for?  Do you say your prayers?” were the soothing conundrums
+he rapped out on his periodical visits; and if the answer was in the
+negative, it was followed by “D’you know where you’re going to?” and then
+the door was slammed with a reverence suitable to the occasion.  The
+relief that followed his exodus was, however, only momentary; and again
+the key rattled in the door, and a head, with eyes flashing, was once
+more thrust in, and yelled out, “To hell!”  For of such is the kingdom of
+Heaven!
+
+Chapel was an infliction one was subjected to four times a week.  The
+service in its entirety was conducted with a strict regard to official
+etiquette, and the degrees of relative rank were as clearly defined by
+the Bibles and prayer-books as by the seats, hassocks, reading desks,
+etc., allotted to the officials.  Thus, the Governor’s Bibles and
+prayer-books were gilt-bound, with gilt clasps; the deputy Governor’s,
+Scripture-reader’s, and schoolmaster’s, gilt bindings without the clasps;
+the principal warders’, clasps without the gilt binding; and those of the
+rank-and-file of warders destitute of either gilt binding or clasps.
+Prisoners had to content themselves with thumbed, dog-eared, leafless
+specimens, and so the united hallelujahs ascended to Heaven—let us hope
+equally acceptable, whether dog-eared or gilded.  The interior of this
+sacred edifice resembled a barn, the nave being fitted up with rows of
+backless benches capable of accommodating some 600 knaves, a yard apart.
+
+A bird’s-eye view of this congregation was one that challenged
+reflection, comprising as it did young men and old, dark and fair, short
+and stout, tall and thin, lads with fluff, and hoary-headed sinners, all
+stamped with the same mark of Cain—hang-dog faces and protruding jowls,
+conical heads with hair extending down the nape, bullet pates and
+cadaverous faces, cripples and blind men, one-legged and one-armed, yet
+all, with few exceptions, marked with the same indescribable jail-bird
+brand never to be mistaken, and once seen never to be forgotten.
+
+The floor was tesselated (of the alms-house period), and one of the
+hardest floors with which I had ever come in contact.  I realized this
+from a regulation that necessitated one’s grovelling on the slightest
+provocation.  The walls of this portion of the building were of a
+bilious-official mud colour, the monotony of which was occasionally
+relieved by scrolls and texts of a personal nature.  Beyond were a few
+steps leading to the pulpits and pews for the higher officials; here the
+mural decorations assumed a brighter form—indeed, paint seemed to have
+been laid on regardless of expense, and with a degree of vulgarity I had
+never seen equalled, except perhaps in Albert Grant’s lately pulled-down
+house at South Kensington.  The mania for smearing the walls with texts
+was by no means confined to the chapel, but was to be found everywhere
+that propriety and extreme religious fervour seemed to suggest.  Thus
+over the surgery, as a reminder to possible schemers, “lying lips” were
+very properly condemned; near the stores advice as to “picking and
+stealing” was conspicuously displayed, with about as much effect as if it
+had been placed in the oakum-picking wards; and everywhere, conspicuous
+_by its absence_, was the wholesome admonition, “If any man among you
+seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, this man’s religion is
+vain.”
+
+The chapel, moreover, boasted of an organ—a serious infliction, involving
+a temptation for the encouragement of singing; and nobody that has not
+heard 600 malefactors without an “h” in their composition bellowing
+“’Oly, ’oly, ’oly,” can sympathize to the extent the occasion merits.  I
+was peculiarly unfortunate in my usual seat, which happened to be amongst
+the trades, and was flanked by the blacksmiths.  I never heard them
+yelling without thinking that Handel’s “Harmonious Blacksmith” must have
+been a different sort, which in its turn gave way to the “four-and-twenty
+blackbirds that were baked in a pie,” and then I was recalled to the
+proximity of the four-and-twenty blacksmiths by “’Oly, ’oly, ’oly.”  I
+could have wept from sheer sympathy when I heard that glorious “Te Deum”
+so brutally massacred, and pitied the organist—an excellent musician—for
+having to play on such an instrument to such an accompaniment.
+
+The entrance of the prisoners was not conducted on the principle
+customary in places of worship (though I suppose no one really associated
+this specimen with any attributes of the kind), but was accompanied by
+the blowing of whistles, and shouts of “Move higher up!” “Come on,
+there!” “D’you know where you are?” “This ain’t a music-hall!” and
+such-like appropriate exclamations.  Music-hall indeed!  The Middlesex
+magistrates would never licence such an exhibition; indeed, it only
+required a few handfuls of orange-peel to have made it a formidable rival
+of “The Vic.” in its palmiest days.
+
+The chief cause of most of this indecent behaviour was one of the head
+warders, and when this man superintended the chapel parade the scene was
+disgraceful; and “Take that man’s name down!” “I’ll send you to your
+cell, sir!” and bully, bully, bully, was the preparation for the service.
+This is no exaggeration, and hundreds of officials and prisoners will
+recognize the description.  At the same time it is only right to add that
+the Governor and chaplains have no means of knowing of these daily
+outrages, for custom regulates their entrance after the chapel is full,
+and when a toadying, eye-serving, make-believe reverence has succeeded
+the state of things I have described.  The service was happily not a long
+one, and twenty minutes was the average duration from find to finish.  It
+was conducted, I should say, with a tendency to High Church formula on
+the part of the clergy and a portion of the congregation.  Thus, the
+ministers, the laundrymen, and the blacksmiths invariably turned to the
+east during certain portions of the service, whilst the Governor (an old
+man-of-war’s man, who could box the compass as well as ever), myself (I
+could see the weathercock from my window), the needle-men, who followed
+me to a man, and here and there a tailor, as persistently faced due
+north.
+
+The habit of trying to sing “second” was a very severe trial to listen
+to, and I remonstrated with one old man that I looked on as a kind of
+ringleader, at the pain his efforts caused me.  His voice was by way of
+being a tenor, and his disregard of all harmony induced me to christen
+him “Wagner.”  One day poor old Wagner appeared with his neck painted
+with iodine, and the feeble croaks that he emitted, however painful to
+himself, were a considerable relief to me.  Remembering, too, that when
+the Devil is sick he is supposed to be most susceptible of good
+impressions, and not wishing to lose the opportunity of working on his
+feelings, I determined to let him have it.  I impressed on him the
+brittleness of tenor voices in general; how susceptible their
+metempsychosis was to disorganisation; how the epidermis of the carotid
+artery was peculiarly sensitive; and, with a casual glance at his neck,
+implored him for his own sake, if not for mine, to give his voice a rest.
+With beads of perspiration and iodine trickling down his back, he gasped
+compliance; and thus I reduced my “crosses” by one.  Another horrid old
+man never failed to irritate me.  He was undergoing twelve months’
+imprisonment for inciting little boys to steal, but was now on the
+religious tack.  So religious, indeed, had he become, that in a portion
+of “The Creed” he could not say “hell,” but invariably substituted “the
+grave.”  I had never heard this impertinent innovation before, and could
+have kicked him and his hypocrisy into Wagner’s lap.  Instantaneous
+conversions, such as took place years ago during the so-called Revivals,
+were of occasional occurrence, brought about, as I take it, by the
+thrilling discourses we were sometimes treated to, and the “awakened one”
+would stand up and hold forth.  But very short work was made of these
+converts, and a couple of matter-of-fact warders soon trundled them out,
+to be brought up later on and punished for disturbing the service.  I
+made a careful study of the two chaplains and their respective
+peculiarities in conducting the service.  With the one I never had cause
+for annoyance, and though his sermons could not be said to bristle with
+eloquence, he was evidently in earnest, and mindful of the fact that the
+word Protestant embraced more denominations than one, and seemed
+particularly careful not to outrage the feelings of the many
+Presbyterians, Wesleyans, and other Nonconformists that formed a portion
+of the congregation.  The other reverend individual had a partiality for
+the declamatory style, and whenever circumstances, or the calendar, gave
+him the option of selecting a psalm, never failed to declaim how “Moab is
+my washpot, over Edom will I cast out my shoe” (Ps. cviii.).  I verily
+believe he used to think he was talking of his own household effects, and
+the expressions of admiration on the faces of the blacksmiths generally
+leave little or no doubt in my mind that they were thoroughly convinced
+he was appraising the contents of his charming little suburban retreat.
+But what he revelled in were the commandments: “Thou shalt” and “Thou
+shalt not” were balm to the holy man, and I was always pleased to see him
+enjoying himself.  A favourite dodge amongst prisoners, now pretty well
+played out, is to petition for a remission of sentence on the plea of
+conversion and regeneration.  That such a circumstance should be
+flattering to the vanity of a man who is morally convinced of his
+incapacity for converting anything, is not to be wondered at, but the
+marvel is, how men with the varied experience of prison chaplains (I
+speak generally) should be gulled by such shallow artifices.  That they
+are, however, is beyond dispute.  I have met and conversed with many of
+these brands plucked from the burning, and my experience accords with
+that of many capable of forming an opinion, that they are matchless both
+in cunning and rascality.  They are invariably tale-bearers, or what are
+known in the comprehensive criminal vocabulary as “creepers,” for they do
+creep up the back of any one foolish enough to confide in them, and as
+surely creep down the next official’s who is mean enough to encourage
+their tattle.  These gentlemen are pretty well labelled, and I made it a
+practice to always preface my conversation with any of them by letting
+them understand they might tell “Gehazi,” or any one they pleased, all
+and everything I might happen to say.  One glaring instance of the
+converted type that I often led into conversation told me that he was
+very sanguine on the subject of a remission of the remainder of his
+sentence; that one of the chaplains was “working it” for him; and,
+indeed, that he and many other likely to be well informed individuals,
+such as assistant-turnkeys and fellow-prisoners may be presumed to be,
+had assured him that his success was a foregone conclusion.  I asked him
+how he succeeded in getting such “powerful” advocacy, and although at
+first he assumed the fervent style, he very soon relapsed into his normal
+condition on seeing that I looked on him as a humbug.  He then proceeded
+to explain that he began by expressing a desire to see his chaplain in
+private, in hopes of satiating the thirst for peace of mind that gave him
+no rest; that this led to salutary advice and a fagot of tracts, and had
+ended in his partaking of the Holy Communion—I almost hesitate to repeat
+this rank blasphemy, and my only justification is its unexaggerated
+truth; indeed, I would not dare to write such horrors unless fortified by
+my veracity.  He went on to add that it was awfully jolly, and that he
+generally received any surplus that might remain of the consecrated bread
+or wine.
+
+I am indebted to him for the following details of the custom that
+prevailed on these solemn occasions, which, retailed in a bantering
+style, may be briefly summed up as follows:—That the ceremony was usually
+attended by one official of each grade—such as the deputy governor, one
+chief warder, one warder, and a turnkey—to whom it was administered
+according to seniority; that the prisoners’ turn came next, and that by a
+judicious foresight he usually managed to secure the first place.  He
+went on to add that he confidently expected some cozy billet in the
+prison suitable to his serious tendencies, and that his chaplain had
+promised to interest himself in procuring him some situation on
+discharge.  As we became more intimate, he confided to me that he could
+never undergo poverty and privation again, and was determined to attain
+affluence, honestly if possible, but otherwise by one bold dash that
+should attain his end, or qualify him for penal servitude.  This hopeful
+convert had been convicted of a till robbery, and had moreover committed
+forgery, which had not been preferred against him on condition that he
+restored the stolen money.  It was this last spontaneous (!) honourable
+act that formed the basis of his petition, proving his instantaneous
+remorse for the error of a moment—a remorse that had since ripened into
+sincere and heartfelt repentance.  He concluded by informing me that his
+chaplain had led him to understand he should probably give him a few
+pounds on his discharge, but that he had been deceived so often by
+“converts” he had assisted eventually becoming “convicts,” that he
+hesitated to help any of whose sincerity he was not perfectly satisfied.
+Let us hope he has not again been a victim of misplaced confidence!  I
+have on more than one occasion found it difficult to maintain my gravity
+when hearing this rogue and his victim discussing Bible questions, and
+whining at the ridicule he had to submit to on account of his
+convictions, and receiving consolation by the quotation of the case of
+Mary Magdalene.  I have no scruple in giving this account, as the
+principal actor has long since been discharged (but not on his petition,
+which was naturally refused), and because it is an ungarnished,
+indisputable proof of the deceptions practised by criminals, and goes a
+long way to justify the apparently harsh treatment frequently accorded
+them.  That the chaplains are a conscientiously disposed class may be
+gleaned from the circumstance that on one occasion, when a converted
+sinner after his discharge sent a _souvenir_ in the shape of an
+eighteen-penny _papier mâché_ inkstand, the reverend recipient declined
+to accept it till he had first obtained the sanction of the visiting
+Justices.
+
+    “_Tantum religio potuit suadere_.”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV
+THE HOSPITAL DEAD-HOUSE.
+
+
+DURING my career as a gardener I became very unwell.  I attribute this in
+a measure to a recurrence of a malady contracted in the tropics, and a
+chill I caught from lying on damp grass in a draughty yard.  Another
+cause of my serious and probably life-long illness may possibly be traced
+to an insane and spontaneous act—an over-taxation of nature—many months
+previously.  I had fined down in the ordinary course of events to the
+weight and bulk (according to my theory) that nature clearly intended;
+but not content with this satisfactory result, I determined to attain
+still slimmer proportions.  Many indications convinced me I had found “my
+bearings,” and common sense ought to have suggested, _enough_; but vanity
+prevailed, and perseverance attained the further desired reduction,
+though at a more serious price than I had contemplated.  My theory on the
+reduction of fat is based on my own case, and had I stopped as I
+recommend others, when I had found “my bearings,” I should have retained
+my usual health; as it was I went on and on, and like those enthusiasts
+who sacrifice health and life to the perfecting of a principle, so I,
+regardless of my own convictions, acted in direct opposition to my advice
+to others, and may be congratulated on having probed a theory to the very
+bottom at considerable personal sacrifice.  If any sceptic is disposed to
+disparage my system, I ask him to blame me and not it.  The latter
+consists of a dietary in itself harmless, and certain to produce
+diminution.  When a certain point is attained it says STOP; and if it is
+asked why, I reply because beyond that point it is rash, and if persisted
+in, the theory is clearly not to blame.  I am aware that many will seize
+the opportunity to disparage the system, and endeavour to deter others
+from following it.  Such a course would be as logical as to condemn a
+glass of sherry, because someone had died from _delirium tremens_; or to
+abstain from eels because Henry I. had died from a surfeit of lampreys;
+or, to carry the absurdity a degree further, to avoid (like the old
+woman) apple-tart, because her husband had died of apple-plexy.  It was
+in the spring that I commenced my campaign against nature, and though I
+had ample proof that I had arrived at my “natural bearings,” I determined
+(never dreaming of the danger) to persevere a little more.  I was then
+about 15 stone in weight, and knowing it was a stone in excess of the
+average for men of my build, I thought if I could reduce just one stone
+more I would rest satisfied.  I found, however, that my ordinary daily
+diet of mutton broth, a chop, potatoes, bread, and cocoa failed to reduce
+me as it had hitherto done, and that, try as I would, I recorded the same
+weight a fortnight hence.  The remedy that most naturally suggested
+itself was to reduce the quantity, and I proceeded to divest my
+consumption, of the broth, the fat from the chops, and a portion of the
+potatoes and cocoa; but nature still continued to warn me, and I as
+persistently ignored her, and, losing all patience, I entered on a course
+little short of starvation.  I took a solemn oath that I would for one
+week confine myself to six ounces of bread and six mouthfuls of water a
+day (six ounces of bread will be found to be synonymous to six mouthfuls,
+and no more).  During the first 48 hours my appetite became ravenous, and
+on the third and fourth days the pains of hell did indeed get hold of me;
+and it was as much as I could do to resist the temptation of taking one
+mouthful of the savoury broth and mutton that was lying untouched on my
+table.  The trial now became almost more than I could bear, and more than
+once I approached the table, where the food would have to remain for an
+hour, but at the last moment drew back.  So acute, indeed, did I find
+this agony that, to avoid temptation and to put it out of my power, I
+used to throw the food into the slop-pail.  After a few days, the
+cravings of appetite began to cease, and I congratulated myself that I
+was getting accustomed to it.  An accidental circumstance also prevented
+my testing the result at the end of the seven days, and I continued in my
+madness for another week.  On being weighed I then found I had lost nine
+or ten pounds.  My appetite meanwhile had entirely forsaken me; the smell
+and even the sight of meat produced nausea, my eyes seemed to be
+affected, my head began to swim, I became giddy without cause.  I was now
+really ill, and I endeavoured to remedy the evil, but my stomach refused
+nourishment, and if I ate I was immediately sick.  The possibility of
+having fatally injured myself so alarmed me that I saw the surgeon, who
+prescribed tonics and a change of diet; and, as all failed in restoring
+outraged nature, I was admitted into hospital.  During this time Dr.
+Tanner and his starvation exhibition were constantly in my mind, and the
+man I had once associated with the performance of a wonderful feat of
+self-denial descended in my mind to the level of a poor sick man like
+myself, absolutely incapable of taking food.  Starvation has an ugly
+sound, and in its first stages is unquestionably painful; but in a very
+few days (three or four at the most) the sensation passes away, and is
+succeeded by an absolute aversion to food.  When I have seen a
+half-starved man in the streets who has told me he has not tasted food
+for a week and was “so ’ungry,” my bowels of compassion have always been
+moved.  If any mendicant was to tell me so now, I should know he was
+lying and refuse to assist him; but if he said he had not eaten for two
+days and was in agony, I should pity him and give him sixpence if I had
+it.  I shall give a detailed account of my life in hospital, and the
+incredible kindness and consideration I received, later on.  Meanwhile I
+will confine myself to the assertion, that to such an extent had I
+injured myself that in six weeks I had lost two stone.  On one’s
+admission into hospital one is at once put to bed, and one’s clothes
+removed.  This latter custom is intended to insure a proper compliance
+with the regulation, until the doctor’s sanction is obtained to the
+contrary.  “Sitting up” has, however, been found to be half way to “going
+down”; and, as hospital is the goal to which all prisoners aspire, it
+does not require much inducement to commend their observance of this
+particular rule.  The hospital consists of a large airy ward, fitted up
+with twenty beds.  Through this, and communicating with a glass door, is
+a smaller room with three large windows, which gave a clear view of the
+outer world from Holborn Town Hall to St. Pancras Station.  It was my
+good fortune to be located here, detached and alone, and yet sufficiently
+near to see and hear all that was going on.  The menial duties of the
+hospital are performed by three prisoners selected for good behaviour.
+These billets are specially prized, and though associated with the most
+unpleasant duties, offer facilities for eating and drinking which, in the
+estimation of prisoners, cover a multitude of drawbacks.  These cleaners
+eat up everything; indeed, so fat do they often become that it is a kind
+of unwritten rule that when they have increased a stone in weight they
+revert to prison life.  The voracity they display is incredible, and
+until they become too dainty to care for anything but the best, they may
+daily be seen finishing eggs, tea, mutton, milk, beef tea, pudding, and
+arrowroot promiscuously, as they pass from patient to patient.  The
+opportunity for this gluttony is unlimited, and a glance at the fare I
+subsisted on for over five months will convince the most sceptical that
+kindness and liberality can exist even in a prison; indeed, I attribute
+my being alive now to the tender care and medical skill I received, and
+can never adequately express my gratitude to the surgeons and the entire
+hospital staff.
+
+My dietary consisted of—
+
+6 A.M.      —Half-a-tumbler of rum and new milk.
+7 ,,        —A pint of tea, bread-and-butter, and an egg or two.
+11 ,,       —A pint of new milk.
+12 noon     —Beef-tea, rice-pudding, and two glasses of sherry.
+
+(I was offered, when I wished it, to substitute a chop, fish, chicken,
+rabbit, or _anything_ I might fancy.)
+
+5 P.M.     —A pint of tea, bread-and-butter, and an egg.
+7 ,,       —A pint of new milk.  (This milk was so excellent, that
+           often when I left it for the night, I skimmed off a thick
+           coating of cream that would have shamed many dairies.)
+8 ,,       —A pint of arrowroot.
+
+Every item was the best that money could procure, and unlimited in the
+supply, nor could I have lived better at a West-End hotel at thirty
+shillings a day; but my health precluded my enjoying it, and I could not
+summon the appetite for one-tenth of the dainties.  Everything I left was
+devoured by the cleaners, and I have seen these cormorants gorging as if
+determined to burst rather than waste a scrap.  Mine was by no means an
+isolated case, for every one was equally cared for, and it seemed as if a
+man had only to be really ill to be made to forget that he had fallen
+amongst thieves, and was now under the care of the good Samaritan.  Sick
+men are proverbially impressionable; but now, months after, in a genial
+climate, surrounded by every comfort that a kind mother can think of, and
+gradually regaining my strength, I cannot look back on the past without
+feelings amounting almost to veneration, as I remember the kind friend
+and skilful hand that saved me from the jaws of death.  The hospital is
+unquestionably the best managed of the various departments in Coldbath.
+I attribute this to the excellent staff of experienced warders, and the
+supervision of the medical officers.  Where all seem actuated by the same
+desire, it would be invidious to draw comparisons; but the authorities
+little know what hard-working, efficient, and trustworthy men they have
+in their two night-warders, who week by week relieve each other, and
+perform their multifarious duties through the livelong night in a quiet,
+unostentatious way, and all for a pittance of an extra shilling a night
+beyond that paid to an ordinary turnkey.  The many sleepless nights I
+passed gave me ample time to study their habits, which never varied, nor
+seemed regulated by eye-service; and from 6 in the evening, when they
+appeared neatly attired in white jacket and apron, till 6 in the morning,
+these living automatons neither slumbered nor slept, but were engaged,
+without intermission, in dispensing medicines, preparing plasters and
+poultices, and keeping up the fires, without fuss or noise, and with the
+regularity of a chronometer.  At first my utter prostration prevented me
+leaving my bed, but as time wore on, I began to get about and observe
+what was going on.  The day was a long and dreary one, though it was
+optional when one got up, nor could it be divested of the many annoyances
+that officialism—spiritual and temporal—seemed unable to forego even in a
+hospital.  The chief culprit was the Scripture reader (as I understood
+was his official designation, though I never saw or heard him so
+engaged), who appeared regularly at 2 o’clock, and read a monotonous
+harangue, with a religious tendency evidently intended to be
+entertaining.  I should be sorry to misjudge the worthy man, whom I am
+disposed rather to sympathize with, as the passive instrument of an
+irreverent exhibition; indeed, he conveyed to me the notion of a man
+actuated by a strong desire to fulfil a duty conscientiously which he
+felt was contemptible, and that deceived neither himself nor his
+audience.  This farce and its surroundings were all sprinkled with the
+same reverential ceremony, and as he strutted up the passage with his
+billycock under his arm, a subdued tone pervaded the room and heads were
+uncovered as became the solemn farce.  “The subject for our study and
+meditation,” began the unhappy man, “is entitled, ‘Jonas, or the bilious
+whale,’ or, ‘Cain, the naughty man,’” as the case might be; and then
+followed twenty minutes of twaddle, senseless and monotonous, and as
+incapable of removing moral stains as would be “Thorley’s Food for
+Cattle,” if substituted in things temporal (and seedy) for “Benzine
+Collas.”  A fervent “Amen” always followed these effusions, loudly joined
+in by the cleaners, who felt it might be considered a recommendation for
+continued hospital employment, and those patients approaching
+convalescence, who hoped it might turn the scale in favour of a few more
+days in hospital.  By opening the door I could see and hear everything,
+and I often caught poor “Bubbling Bill” casting sheep’s eyes in my
+direction.  Meals were always preceded by a grace (?) said by a turnkey:
+“Bless O lor’ th’ things touruse for crysake, Amen!” a refreshing and
+commendable adjunct.
+
+It seems peculiarly unfair on religion that it should so often be
+presented in a hideous or ridiculous light, and if the same stipulations
+were enforced as to quality as at present exist as to quantity, more
+things than time might possibly be saved.
+
+At 11, and again at night, the surgeons visited the hospital, when every
+case was carefully gone into.  The care that prisoners receive in this
+hospital puts crime almost at a premium, and though I may indirectly be
+accusing those eminent and otherwise irreproachable physicians of
+unintentionally aiding and abetting law-breaking, veracity compels me to
+say what I think.  A case I met goes far to prove it.  In the hospital
+with me was a broken-down old gardener who had seen better days, and was
+in receipt of a pension of five shillings a week from a former employer.
+This pittance, however conclusive it might be of his comparative honesty,
+was wholly inadequate to procure medical comforts for rheumatic gout, to
+which he was a martyr.  He next appears at a police court for having a
+pig in his yard, which he had driven in from the street, and then
+informed the police.  There can be only one solution of this act, for he
+was a man of sixty, beyond absolute want, and had never seen the inside
+of a prison before.  He had now attained his object, and was undergoing
+three months’ imprisonment, during all which time he was in hospital.  I
+saw him on admission, a cripple, crumpled up and half-starved, and I saw
+him every day swaddled in cotton wool, his limbs frequently fomented, and
+fed on the daintiest luxuries.  This man was one of the few I met who was
+grateful for the care bestowed on him, and honest enough to wish he had
+had six instead of three months’ imprisonment.  I saw him on the day of
+his discharge, comparatively cured, and wondered how long it would be
+before he again caught the right sow by the ear.  A disadvantage that
+patients have to suffer from is the architectural construction of the
+ward: it unites the two angles of the prison, and necessitates its being
+traversed in its entire length by every official going his rounds.  On
+these occasions great inconsideration is shown, the orange-peel
+delinquent of chapel notoriety being peculiarly offensive in the
+unnecessary noise he made.  I heard him on one occasion complain to the
+warder, that a patient, who was almost _in extremis_ at the time, was
+“too lazy to look up.”
+
+During my retirement I saw more than one painful death-scene; the one
+that made the most unpleasant impression on me was that of a living
+skeleton, who seemed incapable of dying, although too weak to do anything
+but blaspheme dreadfully, and keep up one incessant groan.  He was a man
+of sixty, and had been in his time the best known and expertest of
+swell-mobsmen.  He had not a relation in the world, and although offered
+his discharge months before, had nowhere or no one to whom he could go.
+I saw this man dying for weeks, and eventually stood at his bedside when
+he took his last gasp.  This man had been either a convict or undergoing
+imprisonment for the last twenty years, and the crime that led to his
+death in Coldbath was the sacrilege of putting a counterfeit half-crown
+into a collection plate, and taking out as change a genuine florin.  One
+of the cleaners—an unmitigated thief, but sufficiently good to have
+qualified for staff employ—had told the warder the day before his death
+that he knew him to be acquainted with certain persons he named; and with
+the consideration that characterizes the treatment of prisoners in
+hospital, no pains were spared to discover the creatures.  I saw them
+next day (two females, known to every policeman in London, the one as the
+keeper of a thieves’ lodging-house, the other as a “decoy”), actuated by
+no motive but curiosity and the intimation they had received, standing at
+the dying man’s bed in their tawdry finery, in company with the priest as
+attired in chasuble and stole he pronounced the extreme unction for dying
+sinners.  The dying man, the kindly priest, the tawdry females, and the
+surroundings, formed a picture truly awful, and baffling description.
+But the end had not yet come; and as the room was again left to its
+normal condition, banter reassumed its sway, and bets began to be made as
+to the probable hour of his death.  Pots of tea and bread-and-butter were
+freely wagered, and yet through the livelong night the dying groans,
+getting feebler and feebler, told how the swell-mobsman was still
+tussling with death.  At five in the morning the end was evidently at
+hand, and slipping on my clothes, I joined the knot of men attracted to
+the bedside.  The man was happily unconscious; and as the excitement of
+the sweepstake increased, I can only compare it to the game of roulette,
+when the ball almost rolls into one compartment and then topples into the
+next; and “He’s dead now,” “No, he isn’t,” “That’s his last,” followed
+gasp after gasp, till at a few minutes to six a profound silence
+announced that the swell-mobsman was gone.  (It is only fair to state
+that much of this occurred unknown to the solitary warder, for what was
+one amongst so many?)  By this time the prison bell was ringing, and the
+place was astir as day and night warders relieved one another.  To
+stretch, strip, and carry him out of bed were the work of a moment; and
+what had been a living man a few seconds before had been washed, laid
+out, rolled in a blanket, and carried to the dead-house in less time than
+I have taken to write it.
+
+The washing and laying out of a corpse is too dreadful to pass unnoticed.
+This necessary but revolting ceremony is performed in the kitchen.  I saw
+the corpse divested of all clothing, lying on the top of the bath, in the
+centre of the kitchen, with the kettle boiling within a yard of it, and
+surrounded by pots and pans and other paraphernalia in daily use.  The
+stench that pervaded the kitchen after this ceremony was so apparent (nor
+could it be got rid of for days) that I was absolutely unable to eat
+anything that had passed through it, and for days subsisted on the
+insides of loaves and eggs, as the only places where the flavour of
+potted pickpocket did not appear to have penetrated.  This washing of
+corpses and the “itch bath” in a hospital kitchen is as great a scandal
+as ever was perpetrated by any Government.
+
+The dead-house is a primitive establishment, and cannot even be divested
+of superfluous officialism.  Its entire contents consist of a slab and a
+wooden block for the head of the corpse, and yet it boasted of an
+inventory board.  This latter absurdity is conspicuously displayed, and
+reads—
+
+                                 “ONE TABLE.”
+
+                                 “ONE BLOCK.”
+
+Another death I saw was even more awful in its suddenness.  It was during
+dinner when some five or six patients were devouring their chops.  One
+man, that was conspicuous for his habitual voracity, had left the table
+whilst waiting for the pudding.  As he passed his bed he toppled over and
+was dead.  The cook, with the characteristic officiousness of the
+criminal class, rushed out of the kitchen with a saucepan full of rice
+pudding in his hand, and began to assist at the ghastly manipulation.  I
+was within a foot of him, and saw the wretch brush off a tear from the
+dead man’s eye, which he then proceeded to close; he then resumed his
+culinary duties, and gave the saucepan a stir.  Rice pudding, I
+understand, is liable to “stick” to the pot; for my part, I made a vow to
+“stick” to dry bread; indeed, I never see one now without being reminded
+of this disgusting scene.
+
+I was now beginning to yearn for tobacco.  For some days past my illness
+had indisposed me for it; besides, my arrangements had been upset by my
+sudden admission into hospital.  To communicate with one of my agents,
+although by no means difficult, was a question of opportunity.  I was
+particularly anxious, too, not to be suspected of breaking a rule, for
+though it could only have been interpreted as a breach of discipline to
+be dealt with by the Executive, I found it difficult to divest myself of
+the notion it would appear ungracious towards my kind physicians if I
+transgressed any rule whilst in hospital.  But my craving increased, and
+as I could not eat, and to smoke I was afraid, and consoling myself with
+the assurance that what the eye does not see, the heart does not feel, I
+decided, in the burning words of Bishop Heber, to “mind my eye and blaze
+away.”
+
+My position necessitated my breaking a fundamental rule of my principle,
+and I confided in a rascally cleaner.  I had, indeed, no alternative,
+for, though by the confidence I increased the chances of detection, I
+minimized and almost precluded the possibility of the ownership being
+brought home to me.  My first anxiety was to find a place, for between my
+mattresses was out of the question, and I at length decided on the
+flooring; but selecting a plank and removing the nails are two different
+things, and I should have been defeated at the very outset.  Chance,
+however, favoured me; and one day, to my great delight, a ram was caught
+in the thicket, in the shape of a carpenter, come to repair a window.  As
+opportunity offered, I pointed out to him a short plank, and leaving the
+room, said, “I shall be back in ten minutes; meanwhile, if you remove
+those nails, and replace the plank so as not to be observable, I’ll give
+you as much grub as you can carry away.”  These instructions would have
+been ample, but fearing his zeal to earn the food might outrun his
+discretion, I popped my head in and added, “If you’re caught messing
+about, kindly remember I know nothing about it.”  This will hardly be
+deemed chivalrous, though strictly in accordance with etiquette in giddy
+Clerkenwell.  Being satisfied with his work, but dreading to explore my
+secret cave, I told a cleaner to collect all the spare bread-and-butter
+he could find.  So well did he carry out my request that he shortly
+appeared with thirty-eight slices, but so bulky was the quantity that it
+was necessary to smuggle it in, and the coal-scuttle was pressed into the
+service; but my carpenter did not object, and, removing the lump that
+concealed it from the vulgar (turnkey) gaze, proceeded to devour it.
+With his mouth full of one slice and shoving in another, he occasionally
+gargled out, “This is a treat!” “This is jam!” until sixteen slices had
+disappeared.  He now began to show signs of distress, and secreted the
+rest inside his shirt; but what between the sixteen slices inside and the
+twenty-two outside, his dimensions had so increased that detection was a
+certainty.  I therefore refused to let him leave unless he swallowed
+eight more—just to make an even two dozen—and the unhappy man again
+began.  I can see him now, sitting on the window-sill, pretending to
+hammer, his eyes starting out of his head, imploring me to “let it be;”
+but I was firm, and had not the remotest intention of jeopardising my
+position by any such weakness.  As the last piece disappeared, he was
+speechless, and I almost feared he was choked; but my mind was
+considerably relieved by his asking me, for mercy’s sake, to give him a
+drop of water.  But there was none in the room, and, telling him it was
+all nonsense, and that the walk downstairs would make it all right, saw
+him leave the room with considerable satisfaction.
+
+That evening I explored my cavern, which surpassed my fondest
+expectations; the architect must have put it there on purpose, so
+admirably was it adapted.  Lifting up the eighteen-inch plank, I
+discovered a hollow place about six inches deep and two feet square.  I
+now lost no time in getting my supplies, and, making a bag, at once
+filled it with paper, envelopes, a knife, pencil, and a cake of tobacco.
+From 6 to 7 A.M. was my favourite hour for writing and other business.  I
+then carefully replaced my treasures, and sent off my letters, leaving
+nothing criminating about me except five or six atoms of tobacco, which I
+would have swallowed rather than that they should have been discovered.
+There were several advantages connected with a choice of this hour.  In
+it one was perfectly safe from interference; so busy, indeed, was
+everybody, that the orange-peel man, who was busy counting and
+inspecting, and the other officials sending off night reports, would
+never have dreamt of anyone devoting this particular hour to the breach
+of a dozen rules.
+
+As time wore on, I began to dread the detection of my hiding-place; so
+conspicuous, too, did it appear to my guilty conscience that I determined
+to abandon it.  The light seemed to pour on its well-worn crevices, the
+Governor stood on it twice or thrice a week, the surgeons crossed it a
+dozen times a day, warders absolutely hovered over it all day long; so I
+communicated with the cleaner, and entered into an arrangement whereby,
+for a consideration of food and a piece of tobacco daily, he was to
+secrete my bag elsewhere.  I felt it was madness to trust a confirmed
+thief, but there was no alternative; and within a week I discovered the
+fallacy of there being any honour amongst thieves, and the brute I had
+treated with the greatest liberality stole my bag, and came to me with a
+whining tale of how it had been discovered and taken away.  It never
+alarmed me, as it would had I really believed him; and shortly after the
+whole conspiracy was revealed to me by about the only reliable prisoner
+amongst them, and I had undoubted proof of the complicity of every
+cleaner in the place.
+
+ [Picture: “Whence comest thou, Gehazi?” (An exhortation to repentance)]
+
+My weary afternoons I usually beguiled by pantomimic love-passages with a
+frowsy damsel in a neighbouring house.  Our acquaintance began as I
+watched a portion of her graceful form bulging over a window-sill she was
+cleaning at the time, which ripened into such an intimacy, that day by
+day we looked out for each other, and exchanged such protestations of
+devotion as might be conveyed by her holding up to me portions of her
+employer’s eatables, such as eggs and once a steak, which I gracefully
+reciprocated by exposing Government property, such as a medicine bottle
+and occasionally bread-and-butter.  Graceful Selina! may my successor
+have been more worthy of your innocent virgin heart!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+BURGLARS “I HAVE MET.”
+
+
+THE number of admissions into hospital about this time necessitated my
+having a companion billeted on me, an unfortunate Frenchman, utterly
+oblivious of any language but his own; and as it turned out that his
+attainments in English were exactly of the same extent as that of the
+warders in French, there seemed to be an impassable gulf fixed between
+all communication of ideas, if either party had happened to possess any.
+He was complaining to me one day of the disadvantage he laboured under,
+and described the usual conversation that took place daily between
+himself and the hospital warder.
+
+“Well, are you better?”
+
+“No, sare.”
+
+“O, all right.”
+
+“_Voilà mon ami_.  What do you tink?”
+
+My companion, I was gratified to observe, was gradually mastering some of
+the idioms of our language.
+
+Not long after, an extraordinary creature was admitted as a patient, and
+I cannot to this day say what his nationality was, although I am inclined
+to believe his language was some kind of Russian _patois_.  Nobody could
+make head or tail of him, and a distracted warder, in this dilemma
+recollecting my success with the “other foreigner” and doubtless giving
+me credit for a knowledge of every language of the earth besides a few of
+the lunar ones, came and asked me to try and understand him.  My
+knowledge of outlandish languages is not remarkably extensive (it is
+confined, I may state, to the Hottentot word for “rice” and the Chinese
+for “smoke”), and as no one appeared to have a Russian dictionary, I
+addressed him in Hindustani, considering that in point of longitude it
+came geographically nearest the Russian.  He at once replied in a
+rambling speech, throwing his arms about and beating his chest; and
+though I am convinced he understood no more of my speech than I had of
+his, my reputation was established, the more so as he had no means of
+betraying my secret.  Having then explained to the warder that he
+complained of pains in the chest, and would prefer an egg beaten in his
+tea instead of boiled (a change I considered unlikely to materially
+affect his complaint), I retired to my apartment.
+
+I now for the first time came into personal collision with the chaplain.
+For weeks and months circumstances, and possibly choice, had kept us
+apart, nor had we exchanged a word since the eventful day when he
+discovered that an “unconfirmed” sinner stood before him.  It was during
+prayers (a movable feast indulged in three mornings a week at the
+chaplain’s convenience) that I was referring to a book on the table in
+hopes of finding the particular extract he was reading.  Failing in that
+I replaced the book, and resumed my hypocritical solemnity, in blissful
+ignorance of any impropriety.  The holy man, however, thought otherwise,
+and hissed out at me—
+
+“I consider your behaviour impertinent to me, and disrespectful to God.”
+
+At first I retained my equanimity, for he was incapable of raising my
+ire; and I assured him what my object had been, and reminded him I was a
+Presbyterian.  At this his rage knew no bounds, and sneering in a manner
+unworthy of a clergyman (I won’t say a gentleman), he said—
+
+“A Presbyterian, are you?  Ah, I thought you didn’t belong to the Church
+of England!”
+
+I soon got the unhappy man’s back up.  I assured him I was indifferent to
+his opinion, and added I was proud to belong to a Church where such
+intolerant views were not expressed by its ministers.  This undignified
+scene was heartily enjoyed by twenty prisoners and warders, all of whom
+assured me I had had considerably the best of it.  I intended to have
+paraded him before the visiting Justices, but common sense prevailed, and
+I should have ignored his further existence had it not been for a petty
+spite he indulged in shortly after.  As I have before stated, the library
+books are under his special care.  During my long illness I had waded
+through this “special” catalogue till I had reached number 21, and in the
+course of events might naturally hope to receive number 22 next.  In
+this, however, I had made a miscalculation, and his Reverence decided
+that a school edition (the eighth I had read) of the History of England
+was a more wholesome dietary for a bumptious Presbyterian.  I was
+convinced the mistake was not unintentional, but, anxious to give him an
+opportunity of gracefully retracting a contemptible action, I sent the
+following day to point out his oversight.  The reply was, as I expected,
+“If he does not choose to have it let him go without.”  I reported the
+matter to the Governor, who at once offered to place the matter before
+the visiting Justices, as he had no jurisdiction in the matter; but I
+decided that the man and his book were neither worth it.  I should now,
+under ordinary circumstances, have been left entirely bookless—a
+contingency in my case that did not occur.  It also gave me the
+opportunity of reading “The General History of the Church,” a
+well-written and exhaustive work by the Abbé Daras, supplied for the use
+of Roman Catholics.  The superiority of the literature—religious and
+profane—selected and supplied by the Roman Catholic chaplain, together
+with his personal merit and gentlemanly bearing, makes Romanism a
+formidable rival to the “Established” Religion as dispensed at Coldbath.
+To judge by the jealousy that exists in a certain quarter, it is evident
+this superiority is realized elsewhere.  But the circumstance was not
+unnoticed by my lynx-eyed, ghostly comforter.  On many occasions I have
+seen him watching, as if he would have liked—had he dared—to ask me what
+I was reading; but he confined himself to discussing me with the warders,
+with such remarks as, “I see he’s got hold of something,” or “What’s that
+he’s reading?” all of which was duly reported to me.  I feel I have given
+undue importance to this contemptible squabble; but I look on it as a
+tilt between sects, a tussle between an Episcopalian divine, armed with
+authority, and a Nonconformist, placed at a considerable disadvantage,
+and where—had I been in a position to do so—I should have left the
+room—as the Governor once did the Chapel when unmeasured and ill-advised
+criticism was being lavished on Dissenters.  The guilt of schism lay
+heavily on this orthodox Churchman’s heart.  I say schism, for I call it
+such of the most culpable type that ignores the insignia of Divine
+sanction accorded to the Ministry and people of Nonconformity.  I would
+ask this bigoted Episcopalian what he thinks of Richard Baxter,
+Livingston, John Horne, Wesley, Whitfield, Chalmers, Candlish, Caird,
+Guthrie, McLeod, names only to be mentioned to inspire veneration, and
+yet these were all Nonconformists of one denomination or another.
+Surely, if Divine grace finds and fashions such men, they may be
+considered as entitled to at least respect from clergymen and gentlemen,
+who, if they do not agree in their respective tenets, may at least
+abstain from unmeasured abuse of them and their followers!  Arrogance
+anywhere is bad, but is doubly so when men who claim to be disciples of
+the meek and lowly Jesus set such an example by their narrow-minded
+remarks about Nonconformity.  The Church of England is a venerable and
+illustrious section of the true Church, and unlikely to have its fair
+fame sullied by the ravings of a nameless ranter.  But it becomes a
+question, is a chaplain with such extreme views, so uncompromising in his
+denunciations, so unguarded in his language, so ungovernable in his
+temper, the sort of person for a prison chaplain, or one likely to
+convert sinners from the error of their ways?  God forbid that my remarks
+should be mistaken.  I do not aspire to be considered either a ranter or
+a hypocrite, but I respect and never fail to detect religion, and despise
+its base counterfeit wherever and in whomsoever I find it; and if I can
+hear the “old story” ungarnished by rhetoric, I care not whether it
+emanates from Episcopalian, Presbyterian, or Nonconformist of whatever
+denomination.
+
+That this is a very small world was demonstrated to me during a
+conversation I once had with a fellow prisoner.  He was a decent,
+educated man, and had been in a pawnbroker’s establishment.  Our
+conversation one night turned on things theatrical, and he was giving me
+some interesting experiences of the “ladies” he had met at various times
+on business.  He asked me if I knew Mrs. —, and I said I had spoken to
+the old hag.  He then proceeded to tell me what a constant customer she
+had been in former days, and how her contributions had varied from
+woollen rags one week to valuable jewellery another.  It was then that a
+circumstance was brought to my mind—told me some three years ago by a
+lovely and accomplished actress, since retired from the stage—of how a
+popular burlesque artiste in the same theatre had once lost a valuable
+jewel, and how suspicion pointed at this identical old woman, who had a
+girl at the theatre.  I asked him if he recollected anything about it,
+and he at once proceeded to give me details that convinced me that the
+pendant he referred to was one and the same as that which had
+mysteriously disappeared, and that the suspicions formed a few years ago
+might have been very fully confirmed had a visit been paid to an
+establishment not a hundred miles from Tottenham Court Road.
+
+During my illness I had at different times the services of the various
+cleaners in making my bed, brushing the floor, and bringing in my meals,
+and I invariably extracted anything of interest about their previous
+careers.  My first was an unmitigated young “till thief.”  This is a
+special branch of the profession, requiring assurance rather than
+dexterity, and consists in watching your opportunity when the shop is
+empty, and then making a dash for the till or cash-box.  My valet had
+apparently been eminently fortunate, and although he had undergone a
+previous twelve months, had escaped detection a score of times.  He was
+then undergoing a lengthened seclusion for an unforeseen occurrence,
+which he in no way considered as a reflection on his prowess.  He had, it
+appears, entered a confiding lamp-dealer’s, and finding the shop
+conveniently empty, and the cashbox conspicuously displayed, had done his
+business, and proceeded to leave the premises.  A swinging glass door,
+however, unfortunately intervened between the shop and the street, which
+in the excitement he pushed the wrong way, and in some way jammed.  This
+little delay made a difference in his and the shopman’s respective
+accounts of about £45.  On another occasion he found himself in a
+corn-chandler’s—a class that is proverbially considerate in avoiding
+superfluous obstacles to a hurried exit,—and whilst helping himself to
+the till, a customer came in, who, seeing him engaged, asked for a
+pennyworth of barley; to this he obligingly served her, added the
+cumbrous coin to his other findings, and then complacently left the shop.
+This individual was a special pet with the turnkeys, and as such—combined
+with his trustworthy reputation—was invariably selected for expeditions
+to the various stores.  His special talent here stood him in good stead,
+and he never returned without having stolen three or four eggs, a handful
+of flour, or a lump of soap.  Indeed, so inherent was the spirit for
+thieving, that if all else failed, he would annex physic, and I have
+often seen him with bottles of quinine and iron mixture.  This latter
+forms a considerable article of commerce, and is much sought after and
+bartered (never mind how or where) for advantages of a more palatable
+type.  A short time before his discharge I advised him to drop the
+cash-box game, and he assured me he had quite determined to “turn it up.”
+Within a week he had been re-convicted, and is at present undergoing
+seven years’ penal servitude.  In my next valet I was considerably
+disappointed.  Although an unmitigated thief, I fancied I detected some
+redeeming features.  I talked to him frequently, and treated him with as
+much kindness as a man with my circumscribed means had probably ever been
+able to.  In return he assisted to rob me of contraband things, of which
+he always had a liberal share.  He had been a lieutenant (in burglary) of
+the late Mr. Peace, and often discussed that eminent man with evident
+regret.  He had been with him in various minor affairs, and through his
+entire career had never been “nabbed.”  His present incarceration was the
+result of treachery, where a less fortunate associate had rounded on him,
+and he was arrested a week after.  He often hoped to meet him outside,
+though an incident that occurred will necessitate a postponement of the
+pleasure.  A batch of convicts, _en route_ to penal servitude, were one
+day being medically examined by the surgeon (a new regulation lately come
+into force), amongst whom my valet recognised his _quasi_ friend, the
+informer.  The interview took place near the kitchen, where my man was
+cooking a chop, the surgery being next door, at which the convicts were
+ranged.  “And what did you say?” I enquired.  “Say!” he replied, “I
+slapped my stomach to show ’im I was all right, and then I says, ‘You
+looks ’orrid ill, you —; you’ll never do it; thank God, ’twill kill
+yer.’”
+
+A pleasant prelude to ten years’ penal servitude.
+
+I am indebted to this noble-minded creature for many hints as to how
+burglaries are concocted and how best guarded against, and I am of
+opinion that attention to them will do more to obviate their frequency
+than all the absurd warnings as to window shutters and area gates, that
+periodically emanate from Scotland Yard.  No burglary is ever attempted
+on chance; in fact, no house is ever entered except on exact and reliable
+information.  This is usually obtained through a frivolous maidservant
+(in which case a delay of weeks may be necessary for love-making), a
+rascally butler, or the local chimney-sweep.  The information chiefly
+sought after is the strength of the garrison (whether males or females),
+the class of valuables (whether plate or jewellery), their usual
+locality, and the habits of the occupants.  With this as a basis, the
+house is watched for days and weeks, in order that a confirmation of the
+information may be obtained.  The time preferred is when the night police
+are in the act of relieving the day men, and if that should be
+inconvenient (to the burglar), between the night patrols.  All this may
+appear ridiculous, but I give it as the testimony of a notorious burglar,
+imparted to me in good faith, under exceptionally favourable
+circumstances for hearing the truth, and if acted on will materially
+increase the security of householders.
+
+I asked my mentor his opinion about window shutters and door bolts, at
+which he absolutely laughed.  No burglary is ever attempted through a
+window unless considerately left open.  The front door is the invariable
+point of attack, as most favourable for ingress and a precipitate
+retreat, and under occasional circumstances the area.  The operation
+never takes more than twenty minutes, as is erroneously supposed, the
+object being to be in and out again between the periodical promenade of
+the policeman.  These nocturnal strolls are accurately calculated, and
+the precision with which they are performed, however admirable from a
+disciplinary point of view, are totally inappropriate as deterrents to
+burglaries.
+
+“But suppose,” I asked, “a person said to you, ‘I’ve only got so-and-so
+in the house—you can have that’: would you be satisfied?”
+
+“Satisfied?” he replied.  “No, we knows jolly well what there is afore we
+comes; and, for the matter of that, there’s no time for talk.  We goes
+straight for the swag, and if anyone tries to ’inder us, we’re bound to
+let ’im ’ave the jemmy right across the face.  That’s ’ow poor Peace got
+’imself into trouble fust.”  He then went on to tell me that he had a
+lovely (!) little jemmy about eighteen inches long and tipped with the
+finest tempered steel, capable of being carried up the sleeve, and so
+fine that it could be inserted into the smallest crack or hinge; “And,”
+he added, “once let me get ’is nose in, and make no mistake, I walks in
+very soon arter.”
+
+This gentleman’s testimony is worthy of consideration.  He was
+associated, as he informed me, with the butler in a well-known burglary
+of plate somewhere in Kensington, and where the butler, being knave
+enough to rob his master, was fool enough to entrust a large portion of
+the proceeds to his confederate to melt down and divide.  As I understood
+him, half only of this bargain was carried out in its integrity.
+
+The secrecy with which foolish women fancy they put away their jewels in
+secure safes let into the wall is a labour lost in vain.  Their
+hiding-place is thoroughly well known, and probably its value, and other
+useful particulars.  That they have hitherto escaped is merely an
+accident of time and opportunity; that they will ultimately be victimized
+is a foregone conclusion.  The moral to be gleaned from this is, to be
+sure of your servants, a fool being almost as dangerous as a knave, and
+to abstain from flashing your jewellery before eager eyes, only too ready
+for a clue to its whereabouts.
+
+If after this disinterested advice unprotected women are fools enough to
+barricade themselves and their treasures in defenceless houses, they have
+only themselves to thank.  They should be careful, however, not to waste
+their visitor’s time when confronted by his “bull’s-eye,” as burglars are
+proverbially children of impulse.  Houses containing little or nothing of
+value are never burglariously entered.  Men won’t risk penal servitude on
+a chance; the prize and its price have been carefully calculated.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+“JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY.”
+
+
+I HAD now been many months in hospital, though all the care and kindness
+I received seemed incapable of improving my condition.  Strengthening
+medicines, stimulants, tonics, all failed to rouse me, and the tempting
+food, that I had only to suggest to have provided, could not induce me to
+eat.  I was subjected to a minute medical examination, and my lung was
+found to be affected.  Later on a further examination proved that the
+malady was slowly progressing.  To remain in prison was certain death, so
+my case was submitted to the Home Secretary, who, with the humanity that
+has characterised his tenure of office, ordered my immediate discharge.
+I shall never forget the morning when an impulsive turnkey rushed into my
+room, and saying, “It’s come!” hurriedly disappeared, and I understood
+that her Majesty’s gracious pardon had arrived, and I was free.
+
+The preliminaries for departure were somewhat long in my case, and it was
+nearly eleven o’clock before I bade adieu to gloomy Clerkenwell.  I had,
+however, been by no means idle.  The resumption of my clothing was a
+matter of time and difficulty; and though they had, by the kindness of
+the Governor, been considerably taken in to suit my diminished
+proportions (eighteen inches in the girth and seven stone in weight),
+retained a hang-down appearance in the vicinity of the neck and
+shoulders, that involved an immense expenditure of pins and ingenuity.
+The clothes of prisoners after admission into prison are, as a rule,
+subjected to a very necessary process.  I do not know whether any
+discretionary power exists as to dispensing with the rule in certain
+cases, but it seemed incredible that mine should have undergone the usual
+formula without retaining a vestige of the fact.  Clothes are, however,
+subjected to a process of modified cremation, and placed in airtight
+lockers, and smoked in a phosphoric preparation supposed to be
+antagonistic to the respiratory organs of creeping things.  But the smell
+of fire had not passed over mine, and I can only suppose that the
+ceremony had been dispensed with as a graceful compliment to the
+executors of my deceased tailor, whose representative I last met at the
+“House of Detention.”  My hat, too, had either considerably expanded, or
+my head had considerably contracted, for it necessitated at least a yard
+of brown paper between the brim and my cranium, before being padded to
+wearable dimensions.
+
+As I passed through the office, I caught the first glimpse of myself in a
+respectably-sized looking-glass, and could hardly believe that the
+scarecrow I saw was really myself.  But what mattered it if I had half a
+lung more or less than of yore?—I was free!  I was not going to die in
+prison, and contribute in my person an additional item to the dead-house
+inventory board.
+
+With what different sensations did I again find myself in the office
+which I had not entered since my arrival some months before.  It seemed
+as if all the formula would never be completed, and I would almost have
+foregone the handsome donation of ten shillings I had earned for laming
+malefactors to have got out a moment earlier.  But business is business,
+and the labourer is worthy of his hire, and in a few moments I had
+received a rare gold coin (at least so it appeared to me at the time),
+known as half-a-sovereign.  The warder that had accompanied me from the
+hospital now sent for a cab, and as I drove through the ponderous gate a
+load appeared to fall off my mind, and though shattered in health, as I
+breathed the free air of a London fog, my lungs began to expand as they
+had not done for months.
+
+The usual hour for the jail delivery is 9 A.M., when gangs, varying from
+ten to a hundred, are daily discharged.  As they pass the wicket one by
+one, each man is presented with a breakfast order, entitling him to an
+unlimited supply of coffee and bread-and-butter at an adjoining tavern.
+This kindly act takes its origin from a private source that cannot be too
+highly commended, and though I failed in discovering its identity,
+understand it is in no way connected with the “Prisoners’ Aid Society.”
+Every detail connected with a prisoner on discharge reflects credit on
+the Government.  A vagrant enters prison hungry, filthy, and penniless.
+He again emerges with his linen washed, his clothes fumigated, money in
+his pocket, and provided with an ample breakfast.  Such treatment has not
+its parallel in any other country in Europe, and I cannot refrain from
+offering my testimony in opposition to the usually accepted and erroneous
+impression, and confidently assert that the British criminal is, if
+anything, far too generously treated in every respect.
+
+On my way I stopped at a tobacconist’s and bought the biggest cigar I
+could find.  It was, I believe, a good one, though for aught I knew it
+might have been brown paper.  My sense of taste had apparently forsaken
+me, and it was days before I lost the sensation of having sucked a
+halfpenny.  A friend I met soon after did not at first recognise me.
+“Good gracious!” he said, as he looked at my diminished circumference,
+“you’re not half the size you were.”  “My dear fellow,” I replied, “you
+forget I’ve been lately _confined_.”
+
+The sense of taste that had apparently forsaken me was for a time
+accompanied by a loss of voice; at least it seemed so, for acting on the
+force of habit, I could not bring myself to speaking above a whisper; and
+a waiter at the — Hotel seemed to think he was serving a lunatic as I
+asked him in a mysterious whisper for a pint of champagne.  But the
+events of the day were too much for my strength, and before 7 that
+evening I had fainted, and was again in bed, under the care of an eminent
+physician.  A careful examination next day confirmed the opinion of the
+prison surgeons, and I was ordered forthwith to the South of France, or
+anywhere from cruel London.  Door handles caused me considerable surprise
+for days: they appeared, indeed, as superfluous additions that I was
+totally unaccustomed to.  A morbid craving for old newspapers now seized
+me, and I again discovered the importance that seemed to attach itself to
+my late escapades.  I am happily not a vain or unreasonable being: had I
+been so I might have found ample grounds for either when called upon to
+pay sixpence for a _Daily Telegraph_, and one shilling for a _Truth_ at
+their respective offices, for copies containing references to my case.
+As it was, I merely concluded that the bump of avarice was equally
+developed in the Jew and the Gentile newsvendor.
+
+And now the time has come to close my reminiscences.  To continue them
+would be apt to lead me into drivel, an adjunct I have tried to avoid.  I
+make no attempt at justifying my work—though as a literary production it
+is beneath criticism—being quite aware that many will consider my
+resuscitating the past an act of bravado.  In this I cannot agree with
+them, for though guilty of a portion of the offence with which I was
+charged, and which I unhesitatingly admitted, I am happy to know that
+cruel circumstances prevented my refuting at the time a fraction of the
+thousand and one lies that were laid to my charge.  Not the most trivial
+incident appears to have passed unnoticed, and the omission to pay for a
+pennyworth of bloaters has been since transformed into a crime, and
+carried, as only cowards can, to quarters most likely to injure me.  And
+one scurrilous society journal, notorious for its “enterprise” rather
+than its “truth,” had the impudence to hint that I had made money at
+cards by foul play (I who have lost a fortune by gambling); but this I
+attribute to personal malice, and in return for my once publishing a
+scheme of a shady nature projected by its owner.  This precious
+prospectus is in my possession, and at the service of any one with a
+taste for the perusal of rascally documents.  I had indeed intended
+publishing it, but ultimately decided not to add to this volume of
+horrors, on the principle that “two blacks don’t make a white.”  Whether
+it sees the daylight at the next general election is another affair.  The
+marvel is I have not been associated with the “Clapham Junction Mystery,”
+or discovered to be the chief of the Russian Nihilists.  These remarks
+are not incapable of corroboration.  The link then missing has since been
+found; and more than one lawyer, and a certain high official, know the
+truth; and the only deterrent to a very thorough _résumé_ of the case is
+the pain it would cause to others.  For my own part, I should not object,
+and if any shadow of the “possibility” of the truth lurking in my
+assertion is to be extracted, it may commend itself by the publicity I
+have given to my experiences—a frankness not usually associated with
+_unmitigated_ guilt.  But after all, is it worth it?  For my part, I
+value the world’s patronage as much as I do its odium.  I’ve tested and
+accurately appraised both!
+
+My motive, too, has been to present prison life in a truer light than I
+have hitherto seen described, and, with a few trifling exceptions, and a
+necessary transposition of names and places, to give the outer world an
+insight into that mysterious community that lives and moves and has its
+being in their very midst.  The erroneous impression that exists as to
+the harsh treatment of prisoners has, I trust, in a measure been removed.
+To represent a prison as an elysium would be absurd.  It is intended as a
+deterrent, though considering the wild beasts it has to deal with, it may
+be questioned whether it is not far too considerate in the matter of
+food.  Nor can it be denied that the rules are framed, and their
+execution carried out by officials actuated as a body by humane and
+honourable principles.  That there are black sheep in every grade must
+also be conceded, and if their responsibilities were curtailed, and in
+some cases transferred, considerable advantage would, I think, ensue.  A
+man of education and worldly experience, circumstanced as I was, is
+probably capable of forming a juster estimate of things as they really
+exist than a Governor or any otherwise well-informed individual: and as
+my remarks have been suggested in no spirit of acrimony, but, on the
+contrary, under a sense of obligation, it is to be hoped that the seed
+sown in Clerkenwell may bring forth fruit in Whitehall.  That my remarks
+are disinterested nobody will be foolish enough to deny, and whether
+acted on or not is a matter of perfect indifference to me.  At the same
+time, a probe here and an inquiry there will manifest the weak points of
+the “system,” and convince the highest in authority that there are more
+things in a prison than are dreamt of in their philosophy.  My
+conclusions have been drawn in a great measure from the treatment of
+others.  For my own part, I often fancy my past experiences are a dream,
+so difficult is it to believe that the treatment I received, and immunity
+from degrading employment except in name, are compatible with
+“imprisonment with hard labour.”  And if even one of the many objects I
+have aspired to is attained, the blank that divides the past from the
+future will not have been endured in vain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+A RETROSPECT.
+
+
+I CANNOT conclude my story without asking, What constitutes honesty? and
+if anybody can give a really logical and satisfactory reply, I would ask
+him, Has he ever met a really honest man?
+
+In the conviction of being credited with a reprobate mind, I freely admit
+my inability to answer either question satisfactorily.  It is my
+experience, indeed, that no such thing as honesty—as at present
+understood—exists, and that it is simply a question of time,
+circumstance, or opportunity, although I have met many rich men who are
+credited with this undefinable attribute.  That men of means are
+proverbially the best of fellows (I was once a “best fellow” myself) need
+not be repeated, nor will I insult your common sense, virtuous reader,
+who never did a shady thing in your life, by telling you what everybody
+knows—that their goodness increases in proportion to their wealth.
+Whether they are really honest is another question, and though no one
+would credit them with theft, would they be equally exemplary in regard
+to filthier and more nameless crimes?  Why should a rich man steal?  As a
+class they are proverbially mean and selfish.  Why, then, should they
+worry themselves with such unnecessary consequences?  That the highest of
+the so-called aristocracy are not above suspicion may be remembered, when
+some well-known names were once associated with a nasty scandal not
+entirely composed of strawberry leaves; and if their better halves were
+like Cæsar’s wife, the immunity did not extend to themselves.  And a
+comparison of the men undergoing penal servitude for huge commercial
+swindles, bogus “cab companies,” and rascally prospectuses, with others
+at large, less fortunate in finding dupes, only proves that detection and
+want of opportunity have been left out of the calculation; that “not
+proven” and “guilty” are synonymous terms; and that at heart prince and
+peasant, duke and dustman, are alike desperately wicked.  It was said,
+with a great deal of truth, that when a certain projector contemplated
+another gigantic fraud on the public it was his invariable custom to
+preface the robbery by building a church—a hint that was not lost on the
+observant speculator.  In the same way, when a person thrusts himself
+into prominence as the self-constituted scourge of erring humanity, and
+is offensively blatant in his denunciations of fraud, it may be
+reasonably assumed in nine cases out of ten that the man is an
+undiscovered rogue, and fairly qualified for “Eighteen months’
+imprisonment.”
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 THE END.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+             BRADBURY, AGNEW, AND CO., PRINTERS, WHITEFRIARS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+
+ADVERTISEMENTS.
+
+
+                             _In the Press_.
+
+                             ADVICE TO STOUT
+                                 PEOPLE.
+
+                               A Pamphlet.
+
+                        SHOWING HOW I REDUCED FROM
+
+                          20 STONE TO 14 STONE.
+
+                   WITH FULL PARTICULARS AS TO DIETARY
+                                   &c.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                BY D—  S—,
+
+                         LATE CAPTAIN — REGIMENT.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                               _Price 6d._
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 LONDON:
+                        GEORGE ROUTLEDGE AND SONS,
+
+                         BROADWAY, LUDGATE HILL.
+                      NEW YORK: 9, LAFAYETTE PLACE.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+_Will shortly appear_.
+
+
+                              WHERE TO DINE
+
+                                AND WHERE
+
+                              NOT TO BORROW.
+
+                         A VERY COMPLETE LIST OF
+
+                               RESTAURANTS,
+
+                    WITH THEIR PECULIAR SPECIALITIES;
+
+                                   AND
+
+                                 USURERS,
+
+            COMPRISING BARRISTERS, SOLICITORS, TRADESMEN, AND
+                       PROFESSIONAL MONEY LENDERS.
+
+                       _FROM PRACTICAL EXPERIENCE_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                                 BY D— S—
+
+                               _Price 1s._
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+      Bread and         [Picture: W. HILL AND             To
+       Biscuit            SON ADVERTISEMENT          Her Majesty
+        Bakers           HEADING AND COAT OF          the Queen.
+                                ARMS]
+
+                              W. HILL & SON,
+
+                                MAKERS OF
+                        THE WHOLE MEAL UNFERMENTED
+                           BREAD AND BISCUITS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                   WHOLE MEAL PLAIN DIGESTIVE BISCUITS,
+
+                        At 2s. and 4s.6d. per Tin.
+
+        _Specially recommended to persons inclined to Corpulency_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                        LIST OF AGENTS FORWARDED.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                       VANS TRAVERSE LONDON DAILY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                      60, BISHOPSGATE STREET, E.C.,
+                                   AND
+                 3, ALBERT MANSIONS, VICTORIA ST., S.W.,
+                                 LONDON.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_W. HILL & SON forward 5s. worth or upwards of Biscuits_, _carriage
+paid_, _to any Railway Station in England_, _on receipt of remittance
+with order_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+BIRKBECK BANK,
+
+
+                          (_ESTABLISHED 1851_.)
+
+              29 & 30, SOUTHAMPTON BUILDINGS, CHANCERY LANE,
+
+                                 LONDON.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+THE BIRKBECK BANK opens Drawing Accounts with trading firms and private
+individuals upon the plan usually adopted by other Bankers, but with the
+important exception that it allows interest, at the rate of Two per cent.
+per annum, on the minimum monthly balances, when not drawn below £25.  No
+Commission charged for keeping Accounts, excepting under exceptional
+circumstances.
+
+Money is received at Three per cent. interest on Deposit Account,
+repayable without notice; but these Accounts cannot be drawn upon by
+Cheque.
+
+The Bank undertakes the custody of securities of customers, and the
+collection of Bills of Exchange, Dividends, and Coupons.  Annuities,
+Stocks, and Shares purchased and sold, and advances made thereon.
+
+Letters of Credit, and Circular Notes issued for all parts of the world.
+
+The utmost facilities are afforded to those keeping Accounts with the
+Bank for the receipt and payment of Annuities, and for the transmission
+of money to the Colonies, the Continent, and America.  The Bank acts also
+as Agents for receiving the Pay and Pensions of Officers of the Army and
+Navy, and their Widows and Children, at home or abroad.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+              ABSTRACT OF THIRTY-FIRST ANNUAL BALANCE SHEET—
+                               MARCH, 1882.
+
+Amount at Credit of Current and Deposit Accounts            £2,524,505
+Investments in the English Funds and other Convertible      £2,305,844
+Securities, and Cash in hand
+Permanent Guarantee Fund, invested in Consols                  £60,000
+Amount of Assets in excess of Liabilities                     £143,114
+Number of Current and Deposit Accounts                          34,065
+
+The BIRKBECK BANK accepts neither personal security for advances nor
+discounts bills for customers, except with collateral security, so that
+it enjoys an immunity from losses unknown to either joint-stock or
+private banks.
+
+The Bank has no Branches or Agents.  All Communications should be
+addressed to—
+
+                                           FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, _Manager_.
+
+_December_ 1, 1882.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+_The number of the Birkbeck Bank in connexion with the Telephone Exchange
+is_ 2508.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+The Birkbeck Building Society’s Annual Receipts
+Exceed Four Millions.
+
+
+HOW TO PURCHASE A HOUSE for TWO GUINEAS per month.  With Immediate
+Possession and no Rent to pay.—Apply at the Office of thee BIRKBECK
+BUILDING SOCIETY.
+
+HOW TO PURCHASE A PLOT OF LAND for FIVE SHILLINGS per month.  With
+Immediate Possession, either for Building or Gardening purposes.—Apply at
+the Office of the BIRKBECK FREEHOLD LAND SOCIETY.  A Pamphlet, with full
+particulars, on application.  FRANCIS RAVENSCROFT, Manager, Southampton
+Buildings, Chancery Lane.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+LORD LYTTON’S NOVELS.
+
+
+                            KNEBWORTH EDITION.
+
+    _In crown 8vo_, _cloth_, _with frontispiece_, _price 3s. 6d. each
+                                 Volume_.
+
+EUGENE ARAM.               THE CAXTONS.
+NIGHT AND MORNING.         DEVEREUX.
+PELHAM.                    THE DISOWNED.
+MY NOVEL.     VOL. I.      GODOLPHIN.
+,,   ,,       VOL. II.     A STRANGE STORY.
+ERNEST MALTRAVERS.         WHAT WILL HE DO WITH IT?   VOL. I.
+ALICE.                     Do.                        VOL. II.
+THE LAST DAYS OF           LEILA; AND THE PILGRIMS OF THE RHINE.
+POMPEII.
+HAROLD.                    KENELM CHILLINGLY.
+THE COMING RACE.           THE PARISIANS.             VOL. I.
+ZANONI.                    ,,   ,,                    VOL. II.
+PAUL CLIFFORD.             FALKLAND AND ZICCI.
+RIENZI.                    PAUSANIAS THE SPARTAN.
+THE LAST OF THE BARONS.
+LUCRETIA.
+
+             _The Complete Set_, _in 28 vols._, _£4 18s. 0d._
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                    _Also_, _uniform with the above_,
+
+                    LORD LYTTON’S MISCELLANEOUS WORKS.
+
+                            KNEBWORTH EDITION.
+
+ENGLAND AND THE ENGLISH.              SCHILLER AND HORACE.
+ATHENS: ITS RISE AND FALL.            KING ARTHUR.
+THE STUDENT; AND ASMODEUS AT LARGE.   THE NEW TIMON, ST. STEPHEN’S,
+                                      AND THE LOST TALES OF MILETUS.
+CAXTONIANA.                           DRAMATIC WORKS.     VOL. I.
+QUARTERLY ESSAYS.                        ,,   ,,          VOL. II.
+PAMPHLETS & SKETCHES.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+               LONDON & NEW YORK: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+Uniform with the “Knebworth” Edition of Lord Lytton’s Works
+
+
+                      The “Harry Lorrequer” Edition
+
+                                    OF
+
+                         CHARLES LEVER’S NOVELS.
+
+            _Price 3s. 6d. each Volume_, _with Illustrations_.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+         LIST OF THE SERIES.
+HARRY LORREQUER.
+JACK HINTON.
+CHARLES O’MALLEY.  2 vols.
+ARTHUR O’LEARY.
+TOM BURKE.  2 vols.
+THE O’DONOGHUE.
+THE KNIGHT OF GWYNNE.  2 vols.
+ROLAND CASHEL.  2 vols.
+THE DALTONS. 2 vols.
+THE DODD FAMILY ABROAD.  2 vols.
+SIR JASPER CAREW.
+MAURICE TIERNAY.
+CON CREGAN.
+THE FORTUNES OF GLENCORE.
+DAVENPORT DUNN.  2 vols.
+THE MARTINS O’ CRO MARTIN.  2 vols.
+ONE OF THEM.
+BARRINGTON.
+A DAY’S RIDE.
+LUTTRELL OF ARRAN.
+TONY BUTLER.
+SIR BROOKE FOSBROOKE.
+THE BRAMLEIGHS.
+THAT BOY OF NORCOTT’S.
+LORD KILGOBBIN.
+HORACE TEMPLETON.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+               LONDON & NEW YORK: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+_CAPTAIN MARRYAT_.
+
+
+An entirely New Edition of the Works of Captain MARRYAT, in Monthly
+Volumes, crown 8vo, bound in blue cloth, price 3_s._ 6_d._ each; printed
+from handsome New Type, with Six Original Illustrations by the best
+Artists.
+
+PETER SIMPLE.           JAPHET IN SEARCH OF A FATHER.
+THE KING’S OWN.         NEWTON FORSTER.
+FRANK MILDMAY.          OLLA PODRIDA.
+MIDSHIPMAN EASY.        THE POACHER.
+JACOB FAITHFUL.         PACHA OF MANY TALES.
+THE DOG FIEND.          VALERIE.
+RATTLIN THE REEFER.     THE PHANTOM SHIP.
+PERCIVAL KEENE.         MONSIEUR VIOLET.
+
+              The Set Complete, 16 Vols., half roan, £3 3s.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                         _FIELDING and SMOLLETT_.
+
+A New Edition of the Novels of these Standard Authors in 3_s._ 6_d._
+Volumes, printed in crown 8vo size, bound in brown cloth, each Volume
+averaging about 400 pages, and containing Eight Illustrations by PHIZ.
+
+BY HENRY FIELDING.        BY T. SMOLLETT.
+      TOM JONES.                HUMPHRY CLINKER.
+      JOSEPH ANDREWS.           PEREGRINE PICKLE.
+      AMELIA.                   RODERICK RANDOM.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+                           _SIR WALTER SCOTT_.
+
+                  A NEW EDITION OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS,
+
+Printed in crown 8vo, uniform with the Knebworth Edition of Lord Lytton’s
+Novels, containing the AUTHOR’S NOTES, and Illustrated with Steel Plates
+from designs by GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, TURNER, MACLISE, and other celebrated
+Artists.
+
+Price 3_s._ 6_d._ each Volume; or complete in 25 Vols., cloth. £4 7_s._
+6_d._
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+
+
+JAMES GRANT’S NOVELS,
+
+
+                       _2s. each_, _fancy boards_.
+
+THE ROMANCE OF WAR.                 FIRST LOVE & LAST LOVE.
+THE AIDE-DE-CAMP.                   THE GIRL HE MARRIED.
+THE SCOTTISH CAVALIER.              LADY WEDDERBURN’S WISH.
+BOTHWELL.                           JACK MANLY.
+JANE SETON; OR, THE QUEEN’S         ONLY AN ENSIGN.
+ADVOCATE.
+PHILIP ROLLO.                       ADVENTURES OF ROB ROY.
+LEGENDS OF THE BLACK WATCH.         UNDER THE RED DRAGON.
+MARY OF LORRAINE.                   THE QUEEN’S CADET.
+OLIVER ELLIS; OR, THE FUSILIERS.    SHALL I WIN HER?
+LUCY ARDEN; OR, HOLLYWOOD HALL.     FAIRER THAN A FAIRY.
+FRANK HILTON.                       ONE OF THE SIX HUNDRED.
+THE YELLOW FRIGATE.                 MORLEY ASHTON.
+HARRY OGILVIE; OR, THE BLACK        DID SHE LOVE HIM?
+DRAGOONS.
+ARTHUR BLANE.                       THE ROSS-SHIRE BUFFS.
+LAURA EVERINGHAM.                   SIX YEARS AGO.
+THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD.           VERE OF OURS.
+LETTY HYDE’S LOVERS.                THE LORD HERMITAGE.
+CAVALIERS OF FORTUNE.               THE ROYAL REGIMENT.
+SECOND TO NONE.                     THE DUKE OF ALBANY’S HIGHLANDERS.
+THE CONSTABLE OF FRANCE.            THE CAMERONIANS.
+THE PHANTOM REGIMENT.               THE SCOTS BRIGADE.
+THE KING’S OWN BORDERERS.           VIOLET JERMYN.
+THE WHITE COCKADE.                  THE DEAD TRYST.
+DICK RODNEY.
+
+                                * * * * *
+
+               LONDON & NEW YORK: GEORGE ROUTLEDGE & SONS.
+
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK EIGHTEEN MONTHS' IMPRISONMENT***
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