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