mountain of flesh that I was once on terms of intimacy with was also present, panting with excitement, but, like the Levite of old, “he passed over on the other side.” I will not weary the reader with details that repeat themselves almost daily in the police reports; suffice it to say that I was again remanded for another week, and then formally committed for trial at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court. On my two previous remands to the House of Detention I had always managed to remain at Bow Street till the 5 o’clock van took its load of victims. It was, at all events, a change, and infinitely more agreeable than the depressing atmosphere of Clerkenwell. On the day, however, of my committal to Newgate I was informed that I could not, as before, wait till 5 P.M., but must be ready to start at 2. The rope was clearly getting “tauter”; discipline was gradually assuming its sway, the circles around me smaller and smaller. The other occupants of the “Black Maria” were, like myself, all committed for trial; and as we drove along I was much surprised at the marvellous knowledge they appeared to have gained of me and my affairs. I was, as before, standing in the passage and not in a compartment, and consequently could hear all that passed between the various passengers. My case was the sole subject of conversation; occasionally I was the object of a little mirthful sally. Thus, a man who had been sentenced to three months’ imprisonment in default of paying a fine, said, “Ah, Capting, you might give us two of them quids to pay my fine”—referring to some money that had been alluded to in the court as having been in my possession at the time of my arrest. Another hinted that I “Best take a good look at the streets, ’cos all wud be changed like afore I cum out agin.” Another assured me that the warm baths in Newgate “wus fine but ’ot.” A lady, too, graced our party; she was tawdry, I admit, and lived in the Dials. Her misfortune was that she had mistaken someone’s purse for her own. She was howling over her ill-luck for the first part of the journey, but before we arrived at our destination had quite recovered her usual spirits. She told me she was an actress—an assertion I am not in a position to dispute, though I found her conversation quite as intellectual as that of the usual ballet-girl class; and as she was the last “lady” I was likely to see or hear for some time, I paid great respect to her conversation. All these familiarities were terribly grating to me; they were more difficult to bear than any of my previous humiliations. They were, as it were, the first instalments of being addressed as an equal by inferiors who had hitherto recognised me as a superior; and as we drove along, past objects as familiar to me as my own face, I felt the lump rising in my throat, and I dread to think what weakness I might have been guilty of had not a sharp turn brought us in front of Newgate, and the opening of a huge gate