In 1844 a gentleman named Barker was sentenced to penal servitude for life for a forgery of which he was afterward proved to have been wholly innocent. He served four years, and was then released and readmitted to practise as an attorney. In 1859, eleven years after having been “pardoned,” he was, upon the recommendation of a Select Committee of the House of Commons, voted a sum of £5,000, “as a national acknowledgment of the wrong he had suffered from an erroneous prosecution.” The famous Edlingham case will doubtless be fresh in the minds of most people. In February, 1879, the village vicarage was entered by burglars, and a determined attempt was made to murder the aged incumbent. For this outrage two men, Brannagham and Murphy, were sentenced to lifelong imprisonment. After a lapse of nine years the crime was confessed to by two well-known criminals named Richardson and Edgell, the result being that the innocent convicts were released, with an honorarium of £800 apiece. The eminent King’s Counsel, Sir George Lewis, has openly said that he will not allow himself to speak of the way in which the “Edalji” trial was conducted, and he further adds: “I have it on undoubted authority that every ‘M.P.’ connected with the legal profession believes as I do that that man is innocent. And yet a declaration from such a source is allowed by the public to pass unnoticed. As I have before stated, ‘it is not the business of the public, nor of individual citizens, to prove the innocence of any unhappy person whom the process of law selects for punishment; but it is the business of every citizen to see that the courts incontestably prove the guilt of any person accused of a crime before sentence is passed.’ Neither condition was fulfilled in the case of the prisoner. I have studied the evidence, and say, from knowledge gained by fifteen years’ association with criminals, that this unfortunate young man is _innocent_.” Surely after the disclosures of the Adolf Beck case this one, on the word of Sir George Lewis, ought to receive unbiased consideration from the Home Office. CHAPTER EIGHT Religion in Prison Life DEDICATION OF NEW CHAPEL On our arrival at Aylesbury Prison there was no chapel. Divine service was held in one of the halls, in which the prisoners assembled each morning for twenty minutes of service. This arrangement had many disadvantages, and one of the ladies on the Board of Visitors came nobly to our relief with an offer to provide the prison with a chapel. The Home Office “graciously” accepted this generous proposition, and twelve months later it was completed and dedicated by the Lord Bishop of Reading. (It was burned to the ground since my departure from Aylesbury.)