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.