At Castel Nuovo, a penal settlement of Naples, we held conversation with a man sentenced to the galleys, and wearing, accordingly, a _yellow_ jacket; but yellow is not here, as at Leghorn, the deepest dye. Here, it is _red cloth_ and manacles that go together. We asked him his crime. "Un _piccolo_ omicidio." "A small homicide, provoked by a dispute for a single ducat! I quarrelled with a man _now in paradise_. I killed him at one stab, but the devil possessed me to give him another _colpo di coltello_ after he had fallen; and as the judges asked me _why_ I did this, and I could not perfectly satisfy them, they concluded I was a sanguinary fellow, and gave me eighteen years galleys--but, as you see, I have no chains; nor ever had--_mai! mai_!" and he extended his hands in somewhat of the attitude of Raphael's _Paul before Festus_, to suit the action to the word. "No! he was of a very different order of criminals to a boatful of _birboni_ in red jackets, all _bad cases_ of homicide and _robbery!_" "What do you call _bad_ cases?" "Why, I call it a bad case to kill a man for NOTHING." "Well, but _theft_ to any amount is not so bad as taking away _life_." "Oh! as to that, the police are _quite right!_ A decent and a devout man does not commit homicides every day: but he that steals at all, steals always!" So that our culprit reasoned, like _Paley_, on the _tendency_ of crimes. It was his _Chapter of the Silver Spoon_, with a new exposition from the mouth of a Galeote! And they pluck men at Cambridge for _not_ getting up their Paley! Our philosophical criminal seemed satisfied with his lot. "We are not so badly off after all: we walk out with an obliging escort, who let us do pretty much as we like; and all our work is confined to sweeping the courts in front of the king's palace. We are free of the castle, and allowed to conduct strangers over it, as in your case. Oh! for the fellows at _St Stefano_, it is quite another matter; as a part of their punishment, they are _compelled to be idle!_"