The ordeal at length had been gone through, and I was on my return journey to the prison as a “convicted prisoner.” A prisoner after sentence consists of only two classes, the “convict” and the “convicted prisoner,” and it is marvellous how soon the difference shows itself. The “convicted prisoner” finds absolutely no change beyond being deprived of the questionable privilege of procuring his own food at an exorbitant rate. With the “convict,” however, things are very different. Immediately after sentence he is stripped of all his clothes, his hair and beard are cropped as close as scissors can do it, and he is metamorphosized by the assumption of the coarse brown and black striped convict dress. The change is so marvellous that it is difficult at first to recognize a man. One poor fellow I saw, a gentlemanly-looking man from the Post-office, that I frequently spoke to, was so changed when I saw him next morning in Chapel that I could not for the moment recognize the poor wretch who kept grinning at me with an air of levity as assumed as it was painful. I am not ashamed to admit that I thanked Providence I had escaped that fearful doom. It is not generally known that two years’ imprisonment is the limit of a sentence of hard labour, after which the next higher punishment involves five years’ penal servitude. There is a vast deal of ignorance displayed on this subject, even by those who might be supposed to know better. It is generally believed that imprisonment with hard labour is a severer punishment than penal servitude. No greater fallacy ever existed. I base my assertion, not so much on personal experience (for I was exceptionally fortunate), as on what I saw of the treatment of others; and I confidently assert—and my opinion would be corroborated by every respectable prisoner (if such an anomaly can exist)—that two years’ “hard labour” is an infinitely lighter punishment than even two years of penal servitude would be; and I can only attribute the general acceptation of this error to the fact that convicts get a little more food than convicted prisoners, and prisoners as a rule will do anything for “grub.”