After a few weeks of great suffering to me, it became quite evident that my leg was not to get better under the treatment prescribed for it, but was rapidly getting worse. The knee was now so sensitive that the tread of any person's foot passing near the bed caused me excessive pain. I was afraid to sneeze for the same reason, and at last so excruciating did the pain become that I begged and prayed to have my leg cut off. The idea of losing it, so horrible to me a few months previous, was altogether overpowered by the frightful torture, which night and day it now entailed upon me. I was again inspected about this time by a stranger doctor, and immediately after he left, my leg was lanced and poulticed. But the remedy came too late, for the time had come when I must either sacrifice my life, or give life a chance by the sacrifice of my leg. My readers can imagine for themselves what it must be to have the flesh cut, and the bone sawn through at the thickest part of the thigh. I fear I cannot give a more lucid description of the surgical operation. I was put under the influence of chloroform, which had to be administered a second time before the surgeons had completed their work, and with the exception of a momentary pang in the interval between the doses, I felt no pain whatever. The operation was skilfully performed, and occupied altogether about half-an-hour. I was removed from the large ward, and placed in a small room by myself, with a prisoner to wait upon me, and for three or four days after the operation my life was despaired of by the medical officers. Strangely enough I did not feel so hopeless about my case. I felt a whispering within that seemed to tell me I should not die then. With the exception of the pain caused by the first few dressings of the wound, and a sharp violent twinge that seized the stump on my going to sleep, causing it to start some inches from the pillow on which it rested, I did not now experience anything to compare with my previous, sufferings. The head surgeon also relaxed from his customary silent, stingy, and cold hearted manner, and became generous, and even kind to me. I had been in the habit of writing to my friends that I felt comfortable enough under the circumstances, in order to keep up their spirits about me, but now I could and did express genuine feelings of gratitude, and until I wrote a letter to the late Mr. Cobden, more than a year afterwards, I believe I remained a favourite with the chiefs of the establishment. I had now become a cripple for life, and as I reflected upon all that these words involved in relation to my future history, and the circumstances which had entailed upon me a loss so irretrievable, I thought, amongst other things how easily, and still how fatally a little carelessness, negligence, or ill-temper on the part of our convict surgeons, may influence the future life and conduct of their convict patients. They are, without doubt, subjected to many