explain, saying that he had been dazzled by my lantern, and that he had become so confused as to take it for another ship, and that if I did not obey his orders to keep the light covered on one side, he would have me put in irons. It never once occurred to me that the safety of the cattle was one with the safety of the ship, and I answered that I had signed no articles to obey captain, first mate, or any other officer, and that the ship could burn or sink, but my duty was still confined to the cattle. However, I promised to do my best not to blind the look-out by swinging my lantern, but what aggravated me most was to be called a stiff. Then there is the mission stiff. This man is also despised by Baltimore Fatty and his ilk. He is certainly a beggar, but he concentrates his mind in one direction, and if he was in any place where there was no mission-room he would be likely to starve. Most of the mission-rooms supply soup and bread during the winter months, and it is at such places that this class of stiff is to be found. He waylays members of the choir and the respectable people that attend the mission, and from these he not only gets tickets for soup, but invitations to their houses, where he receives clothes and performs a little labour for money. He attains this end by attending the mission and giving a short testimony relating the change of his soul from black to white. The mission stiff is greatly despised, for he talks of nothing else, and he knows and has worked every mission in the country. I have been called a shovel stiff, a cattle stiff, and a barrel-house stiff, but have never been called a mission stiff, although I have mixed with them. The sole occupation of a barrel-house stiff is to stand outside public-houses waiting for invitations to drink. He speaks familiarly to all men that approach, and some of them say, "Going to have one?" On which he replies, "Yes." When he is once at the bar, he seldom leaves it till the house closes at night. There is not often more than one or two barrel stiffs to one house, and that is why the landlord welcomes them; in fact he often invites the stiff to have a drink, and sends him on an errand or uses his services to collect empty glasses. A barrel-house stiff is the most despised of all stiffs, for the simple reason that he is a physical wreck and, though a swaggerer and a loud talker, is as powerless in action as a babe. He has no wind and his appearance is false, being red and fleshy. He lives on beer, and when he helps himself to the free lunch on the counter, he eats little more than a bird. He does not eat that little with appetite and relish, but takes his food as a medicine that must be taken in small quantities. The barrel-house stiff is the shortest liver of all stiffs, and the shovel stiff is after all the noblest and least deserving of reproach. VII American Prisons