To follow this man on his reception and through his treatment will give a good idea of prison life in Burmah. His clothing was first issued to him; a loin cloth of coarse brown stuff and a strip of sacking to serve as his bed. His hair was close cut and his head was as smooth as the palm of his hand, save for one small tuft left on the crown; his name was registered in the great book, and he was led to the blacksmith’s shop, where his leg irons were riveted on him, anklets in the form of a heavy ring to which a connecting ring with two straight iron bars was attached. At the same time a neck ring of iron as thick as a lead pencil was welded on, with a plate attached, nine inches by five, on which a paper recording the personal description of the individual was pasted. This was called the _thimbone_, and its adoption became necessary through the frauds practised by the convicts. At one time every new arrival was given a tin medal stamped with his number, which was hung round his neck with a string. But it was found that these records were frequently exchanged among the prisoners. A prisoner sentenced to a long term often assumed the identity of a short term convict, who accepted the more irksome penalty for a money consideration. At the present time, with the irremovable _thimbone_, these exchanges are rendered impossible. It is strange that such a simple process of preserving identities is not enforced in Siberia, where Russian convicts have long made a practice of fraudulent exchanges.