[Picture: Typical turnkey L. Normal expression R. Corroborative evidence] It is not the prison authorities that can be held responsible for this burlesque on justice, for more humane, honourable, and just men than the Governor and Surgeon of Coldbath Fields do not exist. It is the vile system that gives no discretionary power to these officials, and considers that a man once overtaken in a fault ought forthwith to be treated like a dog; and, not satisfied with this inhuman conclusion, deputes the carrying out of their system to a set of ignorant, cringing, underpaid warders and turnkeys—in many cases ill-conditioned by nature, and brutal, eye-serving, and untrustworthy by habit. One victim of this cruel system, that was undergoing fifteen months’ imprisonment, worn out by work, constant reports, punishment, and illness, and who was refused permission to revert to oakum-picking in preference to remaining in the laundry, went back to his solitary cell one Saturday night, and in sheer desperation hanged himself; and Sunday morning found him suspended by his bed-straps from the bell-handle, cold and stone dead. Another lad of 18, who had been reported for talking, and sentenced to bread and water, took it so much to heart that on his cell door being opened about 2 P.M. he rushed past the turnkey, and threw himself over the railings. He was picked up insensible and taken to the hospital, when, incredible as it may appear, he was found to be absolutely uninjured, although he had jumped from a fifth storey and landed on a stone floor. On his dinner tin the unhappy youth had scratched, “Dear father and mother, brothers and sisters I wish you all good-bye and have 3 days cells and 3 days bread and water and pushed about. From A. Burke.” The lad was thereupon brought before the visiting justices, and in consideration of his youth only got seven days in the punishment cells. It cannot be denied that great malingering and deception are practised by prisoners, which necessitates the greatest vigilance on the part of the officials. Nothing is commoner than for them to pretend attempted suicide; and instances are of frequent occurrence where a man, having calculated the time to a nicety, proceeds to hang himself as his door is being opened. These gentlemen are almost invariably flogged.