NEXT morning after breakfast we were drafted to our various localities, and, incredible as it may appear, and to show how efficient is the isolation system, men with whom I parted company that morning I never saw again, though I knew they were in the same building. Our various destinations were indicated in a somewhat primitive style—a huge chalk-mark on our backs. As I threaded my way through various wards with a C scrawled on my back, a smell of tar indicated our approach to what might under altered circumstances have been presumed to be a ship-chandler’s; it was, however, only the oakum district. We were here received by the warder in command, and I was assigned to the fifth storey. I was further presented with my official number—594, on a brass plate. I now discovered the benefit of “light labour and bed.” This particular ward, together with the two in its immediate vicinity, is principally devoted to fresh arrivals; bed is the exception and oakum is the rule. It is absolutely impossible for any accident to exempt you from commencing your career for one month in these wards; it rests, however, with yourself whether you pick oakum or find a substitute. I decided on the latter course. The system of prison life is such a contemptible one, and the espionage, jealousy, currying favour, and tale-bearing so general between the officials from the highest to the lowest, that this portion of my task is a very delicate one. Whatever I write will be carefully sifted; and if I give the slightest clue capable of being followed up, I should probably injure some warder, assistant warder, or prisoner who did me incalculable services at great personal risk; and as this is the last thing I have the smallest intention of doing, I wish to state, once for all, that all names and dates I give are intentionally altered, and that any official who ever befriended me has nothing to fear from my revelations. [Picture: A Cell. 8 A.M.]