to Her Majesty’s prisons; in fact, I should say they were the only attempt (as far as I could discover) at making a distinction between an untried, and consequently innocent (vaunted English law—twaddle) person, and a convicted prisoner. My experiences at the “House of Detention” and subsequently at “Newgate” convince me that justice demands a great alteration in the rules regarding untried prisoners, who are allowed and disallowed certain newspapers at the caprice of the chaplain, and actually restricted as to the class of eatables their friends may send them. An instance of this occurred in my case. A kind friend one day brought me a hamper containing, as I was informed, a roast fowl and a tongue; the warder at the entrance-gate, however, told him that these were luxuries in the estimation of the Home-office, and therefore less suited to the palate of an untried (and consequently innocent) man than a chop or steak fried in tallow and procured from the usual eating-house; and as my friend had dragged this white elephant of a parcel about with him for some time, he gave it bodily to the turnkey, who consequently reaped the advantage of the intended kindness to me. Next morning I complained to the Governor, who assured me he should have made no objection to the “luxury” of a fowl; in short, I had been the victim of the zeal of an illiterate and astute official, who, putting two and two together, and weighing the probable effect of his veto on an inexperienced inhabitant of the outer world, had arrived at a very happy arrangement whereby I was deprived and he benefited to the extent of a well-selected hamper. I found the Governor a very good sort. His suit of dittos was a little of the “thunder and lightning” pattern; but if his clothes were loud, his manners were not—in short, he was essentially a gentleman, both in appearance and manners, a beau ideal of the heavy dragoon that existed before the Cardwellite era. I purposely refer to his manners being those of a gentleman because it does not always occur that those situated in a similar position possess the higher recommendation.