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.”]