Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.ne SIX YEARS IN THE PRISONS OF ENGLAND. BY A MERCHANT. EDITED BY FRANK HENDERSON. REPRINTED FROM "THE TEMPLE BAR MAGAZINE." LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty. 1869. TO A KIND AND DEVOTED BROTHER, WHO CHEERED ME WITH WORDS OF CHRISTIAN SYMPATHY AND BROTHERLY LOVE DURING THE DARKEST AND MOST DESOLATE HOURS OF MY PAST UNHAPPY CAREER, THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED BY THE AUTHOR. Transcriber's Note: In this text the use of an underline (_) indicates italics, an equal sign (=) indicates a word in bold type, and a caret (^) indicates that the following letters are superscripted. Also, British pounds are shown as _l._ rather than the fancy L. CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE 1.--My Commercial Antecedents--How I got into Prison 1 2.--My Feelings on First Entering a Prison--Treatment and Employment before Trial--My Trial and Sentence 10 3.--Three Months in a Scottish Prison--Begin my Study of the Convict and his Surroundings--An Old Jail Bird--A Soldier--An Innocent Convict--My First Cracksman Acquaintance--Conspiracy to Murder an Officer, and Escape--My Removal to England 21 4.--My Arrival at the Yorkshire Prison--In Simpliciter Naturalibus--Get Animal Food--Medical Treatment--Statuesque Christianity--Removed to the Hospital--Death of a Prisoner--My Leg gets Much Worse--Removal to Surrey Prison 34 5.--Surrey Prison--Daily Routine of Hospital Life--Set a Thief to Catch a Thief--My Leg gets Worse--Amputation--Life Despaired of--Prison Doctors--Want of Periodical Hospital Inspection 44 6.--I Petition the Home Secretary--Doctor pronounces me "Quite Well"--"Schemers," their Treatment and Fate--Death-Bed Scenes 55 7.--Thiefology--What the uninitiated Convict may Learn in Prison 65 8.--Another Companion--A Career of Crime--His Opinions about Religion and Church Rates--An Incurable: His Opinion about Flogging 79 9.--Another Prisoner--Happy as a King--Cure of a Doctor--The Tobacco and Food Exchange--Another Jail Bird--Civil and Lazy--Undeserved Remission--Prison Directors, and How they Discharge their Duties--I Petition to Go Abroad on "Insufficient Grounds" 93 10.--The Prison--Daily Routine--Readings in Prison--Quarrels among the Prisoners--Protestants _versus_ Catholics--School--Sundays in Prison--"Sacrament Blokes"--Turning Point in Prisoners' Career 107