"'Here you are wrong. Why should you spoil them, and make them unfit for their usual life, by accustoming them to unnecessary luxuries? The utmost you should provide, as a comfort for peasant boys, is some straw, and a plain bench to sleep on. Nothing more.' I may add, that this stoic simplicity partly accounts for their bravery. "It may perhaps interest my readers to know that there is such a thirst for learning amongst our peasant children that candidates come in overwhelming numbers, and this happens to all our educational institutions--they are overcrowded to the last degree. The population increases more quickly than church and school accommodation for it. That inconvenience is also noticeable with regard to the children of our prisoners. But to people accustomed to a very hard life, would it be a punishment if, instead of suffering discomfort for their crimes, they were surrounded with what to them would appear extreme luxury? Where is one to draw the line between necessaries and luxuries? A prison ought to be a punishment, not a reward for crimes. {223} "In visiting the prisons I have heard the remark that some of the convicts would not have committed their misdeeds had they possessed at home half the comforts provided in the prisons, though, of course, the privation of every liberty is already a terrible punishment. They also know that whilst they are away, good care is taken of their children. I remember a female prisoner, who had to suffer a year's punishment for theft and smuggling, whose looks of distress and misery forcibly struck me. Knowing that she was near the end of her term, I asked how it was that she did not look happier. "'I am pining for my boy; I feel sure he is dead. I wrote to him twice, but he never replied,' answered she, sobbing. 'He was taken up as a beggar and a vagabond by the Beggars' Committee.' "'Well,' said I, 'since you can tell me where he may be found, I will go and see him at once, and you shall know the exact truth about him. Wait patiently till I come back.' "Off I went to the 'Beggars' Institution,' which is a branch of the prisons, though geographically a great distance away, and had the boy brought to me. He looked clean and healthy. "'Your mother sends you her blessing,' I began; 'she is in good health, but grieves that you never answered her letters. Have they not reached you?' "'Oh yes, they have, but I cannot write. I began learning here, and can only write O's and pothooks.' "As I always provide myself with writing materials on visiting the prisons, and am always ready in deserving cases to write letters, dictated to {224} me by illiterate prisoners, I offered my services to the little beggar boy. "He seemed radiant. 'Yes, tell her that I am very well fed here, three times every day. Food plentiful.' "'What else?' asked I. 'Would you not like to see your mother? Don't you go to church every Sunday, and don't you pray for her?'