The daily routine is somewhat different to that of the “House of Detention.” One official only counts the prisoners of a morning, and asks you at the time if you wish to see the doctor during the day. I was once tempted to express this wish with a view of procuring a sleeping draught. He questioned me as to my symptoms in an apparently interested manner, and eventually ordered me a dose of “No. 2.” No. 2, I may here state, is a ready-made article, and is baled out of a huge jar into a dirty tin cup. I took my dose, and, without further detailing the result, am extremely grateful I had not been prescribed No. 1. If I had, it is very doubtful whether this narrative would ever have been written. The first day is occupied with details to which considerable importance appear to be attached—namely, your description—every particular of which is carefully booked by the head of each department, and a more senseless, harassing ordeal can hardly be conceived. Surely one inspection and general description (this was my third within ten days) ought to suffice, and might without much trouble be forwarded from one prison to another. It is idle to deny that half the questions put to you are absolutely unnecessary, and the conviction is forced on you that you are being pumped from sheer curiosity. Thus the Chaplain, in the blandest manner, only to be acquired by constant attendance on murderers previous to execution, asked me questions that appeared most impertinent—as to where I lived, and if I had any relatives, and where they lived. I at once told him I considered all this quite unnecessary, and declined to enlighten him. Immediately after breakfast on the first morning the prisoners are taken in packs of about twenty before the Governor. This man is what is known in the army as a “Ranker”—that is, one who by merit has raised himself from the rank and file to his present position—and had apparently brought with him many of those habits which, however commendable in a turnkey, are beneath the dignity of a Governor and lower the position he ought to occupy. Acting on the habits associated with his youth, this Governor commenced a minute examination of one’s physiognomy. Seizing you by the nose or ear (I forget which), and scowling hard, he began, “Eyes grey, complexion fresh, mole on neck, &c.;” and having further personally superintended your being measured and weighed, you were filtered through, as it were, into the presence of the Chaplain, who tried to pump you as before described, and who, in his turn, passed you on to the doctor, who appeared to have a kind of roving commission to endeavour to extract any crumbs of information omitted by his two _confrères_. [Picture: A Cheerful Group]