stone with which society daily struck its prisoners to draw sparks from them. The sparks which such stones draw from such flints often kindle conflagrations. In a short time Sam found the prison air natural to him, and appeared to have forgotten every thing; a certain severe serenity, which belonged to his character, had resumed its mastery. In about the same time he had acquired a singular ascendency over all his companions, as if by a sort of silent agreement, and without any one knowing wherefore, not even himself. All these men consulted him, listened to him, admired and imitated him, (the last point to which admiration can mount.) It was no slight glory to be obeyed by all these lawless natures; the empire had come to him without his own seeking--it was a consequence of the respect with which they beheld him. The eye of a man is a window, through which may be seen the thoughts which enter into and issue from his heart. Place an individual who possesses ideas among those who do not, at the end of a given time, and by a law of irresistible attraction, all their misty minds shall draw together with humility and reverence round his illuminated one. There are men who are iron, and there are men who are loadstone. Sam Needy was loadstone. In less than three months he had become the soul, the law, the order of the work-room; he was the dial, concentrating all rays; he must even himself have sometimes doubted whether he were king or prisoner--it was the captivity of a pope among his cardinals. By as natural a reaction, accomplished step by step, as he was loved by the prisoners, so was he detested by the jailers. It is always thus, popularity cannot exist without disfavor--the love of the slaves is always exceeded one degree by the hate of their masters. Sam Needy was, by his particular organization, a great eater; his stomach was so formed, that food enough for two common men would hardly have sufficed for his nourishment. Lord Slickborough had one of these large appetites, and laughed at it; but that which is a cause of gayety for a British peer, with a rent-roll of fifty-thousand pounds a year, is a heavy charge to an artisan, and a misfortune to a prisoner. Sam Needy, free in his own loft, worked all day, earned his four pounds of bread, and ate it; Sam Needy, in prison, worked all day, and, for his pains, received invariably one pound and a half of bread, and four ounces of meat; the ration admits of no change. Sam was therefore constantly hungry whilst in the House of Correction; he was hungry, and no more--he did not speak of it because it was not his nature so to do.