One of the first cases of this kind made an extraordinary impression on me. I was entirely befooled. The play was so well acted by such finished performers that in my inexperienced innocence I was easily carried away. A convict whom I will style X came to me with tears in his eyes, evidently under the influence of the strangest emotion, and asked to speak to me alone. He desired to give himself up as the real perpetrator of a certain atrocious crime, a murder in the city of London which had hitherto baffled detection. He was a tall man with a long yellow face set in coal black, stubby hair, and with baleful black eyes, deep set under bushy black eyebrows. He was in the most agitated state of mind. Remorse most profound and agonising possessed him as he poured forth his piteous tale and enlarged upon the horrible details of the murder. It was impossible not to yield him full credit. If I had any doubt, it would have been removed when his accomplice whom he betrayed was brought in. I will call him Y. A second scene was now enacted,--a duologue with the parts in strange contrast. X denounced his companion with virtuous indignation. Y altogether repudiated the charge. The first told his story with all the realism of manifest truth. The second denied it as stoutly as he could, but I seemed to see the half-heartedness of conscious guilt. Y was a weaker vessel; a round faced, chubby looking man, smug, self-sufficient, inclined to be off-hand and jaunty as he faced me giving the lie to his accuser. For a long time he fought, but with failing force before the insistence of his opponent. Then, all at once, he threw up the sponge. Yes; it was all quite true. They had killed the poor old woman, the bank caretaker, had brained her with a knuckle-duster, and then stabbed her to the heart. My course was plain. I was bound to report the strange story to my superiors and ask for instructions. The two convicts were held strictly apart, lodged in separate cells, given writing materials and required to set forth their confessions at length, which were forwarded to England. An answer came in due course. There was not one syllable of truth in the story. Neither X nor Y had been within a hundred miles of the scene of the crime. One of them, indeed, was actually at the time in prison for another offence. They had heard of the crime, had put their heads together while on the works where they laboured in association, and had concocted the whole fraud by which I had been so completely misled. This was the first spurious confession that had come within my purview, but by no means the last. The practice is common enough among criminals, both inside and outside the prison. The reasons are generally the same. The convict, as in this case, hopes to be remanded for a new trial, and to lead an idle life while awaiting it.