Life in a colonial convict prison was not eventful, and yet not monotonous. Some of the more startling episodes have been recounted. The chase for tobacco constantly kept us busy. Its use is strictly tabooed in British prisons, but the forbidden weed will always find its way inside. Nothing will check its introduction, and its presence is proved by the fact that tobacco has a regular price in articles of food, the only possible circulating medium. The traffic depends upon the dishonesty of officials, who are bribed by prisoners' friends to pass it in, the safe keeping and distribution being the work of the prisoners themselves. At Gibraltar, where "free" people came and went in the quarries almost unquestioned, large transactions were constantly afoot. The new arrivals brought out cash and the "traffickers" were clever in finding hiding places in the rock for the money offered and the weed when bought. We made many searches for both the raw material and its price, and I can call to mind long watches in the night for the agents who brought in the stuff, and elaborate devices to catch the culprits in actual possession of the forbidden weed. A few months spent in this varied fashion was no bad preparation for the new career on which I was about to embark. I was called to service in the home department, and during many years was closely associated with the entire penal system of Great Britain. From small beginnings, devised under the pressure of great emergency, these experiments have grown into the present system of secondary punishment. Opinions differ as to its value and merits, but these will best be judged by independent critics on learning what measures were adopted upon the cessation of penal exile, and what grew out of them. CHAPTER X THE BRITISH SYSTEM OF PENAL SERVITUDE A substitute for transportation--Task entrusted to Colonel Jebb--Initiates Public Works' Prisons in England--Plans to assist in the construction of great breakwater at Portland--Rapid progress--Much useful work executed by the convicts--Old War Prison of Dartmoor prepared for convicts employed in the reclamation of savage moorland--New prison at Chatham for extension of the naval dockyard--Similar undertaking at Portsmouth--New system carried out conscientiously--First results satisfactory--The garroter--Insecurity of London streets--Discipline of penal servitude lax--Royal commission advocates new principles and insists upon greater severity--Strenuous industry enforced under the "mark" system--Favourable results.