I have already referred to the chapel music, in which the schoolmaster played such a distinguished part. A few more notes on this subject may not be out of place. There was a choir of a dozen or so prisoners, most of whom were long-term men in some position of trust. Short-timers are not, I believe, eligible for membership; indeed, the whole public opinion of the establishment is against these unfortunates, who have committed no crime worth speaking of; and I still remember with what a look of disgust the worthy schoolmaster once described them to me as "Mere parasites, here to-day and gone to-morrow." Having a bit of a voice, I was invited to join the sweet psalmists of Holloway; but I explained that I was only a spectator of the chapel performances, and could not possibly become an assistant. The privileges enjoyed by the choristers are not, however, to be despised. They drop their work two or three times a week for practice, and they have an advantage in matters which are trifling enough outside, but very important in prison. In chapel they sit together on the front benches, and if they smile and whisper they are not so sharply reprimanded as the common herd behind them. Another privileged class were the cooks, who occupied the last bench, and rested their backs against the wall. They were easily distinguished by their hair being greased, no other prisoners having fat enough to waste on such a luxury. Saturday morning's chapel hour was devoted to general practice, which was known as the cat's chorus. Imagine three or four hundred prisoners all learning a new tune! Some of the loudest voices were the most unmusical, and the warblers at the rear were generally behind in time as well as in space. How they floundered, gasped, broke down, got up again, and shuffled along as before till the next collapse! Sometimes they gave it up as hopeless, a few first, and then others, until some silly fellow was left shrilling alone, when he too would suddenly stop, as though frightened at the sound of his own voice. I noticed, however, that whenever an evangelical hymn was sung to an old familiar tune, they all joined in, and rattled through it with great satisfaction. This confirmed the notion I had acquired from previous reading, that nine out of every ten prisoners in our English gaols have been Sunday-school children, or attendants at church or chapel. Scepticism has not led them to gaol, and religion has not kept them out of it.