One young man, with a heavy face and a leering kind of a look, came to me, and informed me that he had asked permission to see me, because he wanted my help in a fortnight's time, when he would be at liberty. Clad in khaki and marked with broad arrows, there was nothing to differentiate him from the ordinary prisoner, excepting, perhaps, that his face was duller and less intelligent than the majority. I asked him how long he had been in prison. "Six months." "What are you in for?" "Forgery." "How much money did you get by it?" "Five hundred pounds." "You were a bank clerk, then?" "Yes." "Is your father alive?" "No." "Have you a mother?" "Yes, and two sisters." "In what way do you want me to help you?" "I want to go to Canada." I looked at him closely and said, "Tell me what you did with the five hundred pounds." For the first time I saw brightness in his eyes and face, and he promptly replied, "Oh, I had a high old time." I saw sensual enjoyment written very largely about his lips and eyes; but I repeated his words, "A high old time?" "Yes; a good time, you know." So I enumerated drink, gambling, women, and to each of them he replied, "Yes." He evidently looked back to that wicked period with great pleasure. I felt that he was far beyond my prentice hand, for I thought of his mother and sisters, of the employer he had so ruthlessly robbed, and of his own certain future. So I said to him, "My son, I cannot help you; no one can help you. It is no use wasting money in sending you to Canada. Canada is no place for you, for you cannot get away from yourself." He said, "I shall be away from temptation in Canada." "No," I said; "that is impossible: the devil is always to hand, even in Canada." "Won't you help me to get away from London?" "No," I said. "Stop in London, where you have been a wicked rogue; face life where you are known; show yourself a man by living decently and working honestly at anything you can get. Try and win back your mother's and sisters' respect. Write to your employer and ask his forgiveness; tell him that at some time in life you will endeavour to repay him. Feel ashamed that you have been a disgusting rogue; don't rejoice in having a 'high old time.'" He did not blush, or appear in any way concerned, but said: "If you won't help me, others will." It needs no great knowledge of life to forecast that young man's future. I often feel dismayed when I consider some of the present-day tendencies. There is such a feverish and manifest desire among thousands of people to stand between a prisoner and the law, and to relieve him at any cost from the legal consequence of his wrong-doing.