above all we ought to keep the deserving poor from the other classes, and the regular thieves from those who have only erred once. Every man found guilty of crime who can prove that he has been working at an honest calling up to the time he committed it, should be prevented from mixing with confirmed criminals, or even from going into prison, unless for some great crime against the person for which enforced restitution would not be a sufficient atonement. CHAPTER XIV. THE NEW ARRANGEMENTS AS TO REMISSIONS--ARTIFICIAL LEGS--ANOTHER INTERVIEW WITH THE VISITING DIRECTOR--COMPOSE VERSES--HOSPITAL ONCE MORE--FENIANS--PRISONERS' LETTERS. Asking pardon of my readers for the rather serious digressions I have made in the preceding chapter, I now return to my narrative. Shortly after the new regulations were made known to the prisoners, I wrote a letter to my brother, and in this solitary instance I confess in a somewhat ironical strain, and as a matter of course the letter was suppressed. I remember one passage in it was to the following effect: "A new arrangement has lately taken place, which grants to all frequently-convicted prisoners with the same sentence as myself, two years of unexpected remission, so that if they should deal as leniently with me, I shall soon be home." This was an allusion to the repeal of an old regulation whereby convicts who had revoked a former licence were thereby disqualified for receiving any remission from a subsequent sentence. Prisoners, therefore, who had so disqualified themselves, and had been re-convicted under the old regulation, were quite unprepared for being placed on the same footing in all respects as those who had been convicted for the first time, which was actually the case under the new regulations. Prisoners conversant with the recommendation of the Royal Commissioners, anticipated quite a different policy on the part of the authorities. They expected that men who had succumbed to strong temptation and who had never been in prison before would have been more mercifully dealt with; and that increased severity would have been visited upon those who had already had several opportunities of redeeming their character, but had fully proved their determination to continue in their evil ways; but the authorities decided otherwise.