doubt—for he went home and told his friends that he had been the object of the most remarkable providence that ever befell a human being. Quoth he, after telling the first part of the story, the woman took some dirty water and put it into a pot, and, by the blessing of God, it came out a pudding!” There is certainly one mode of preparing oatmeal which all Englishmen relish—namely, when the finer qualities of the meal are baked into those thin cakes, which are obtained in perfection only in the north of Scotland; and with regard to the gruel at which Mr. Bright and other members of “the bloated aristocracy,” turn up their noses, it is, even in its simplest form, not to be despised by hungering men; while, by the addition of some cheap condiment, it can always be made agreeable to the taste. The prisoners, at all events, partake of it heartily; and a little butter, milk, or treacle, helps it wonderfully. The conclusion which is drawn from all this is, that prisoners are well fed, that the diet provided is beyond the means of many poor families and that there must be something wrong if criminals are so much better off than the honest artisan who is starving with his family on a pittance of 20_s._ a week. That there is something wrong it is not necessary to deny. But the question may be raised, whether the wrong lies in our system of prison discipline. If the fare which is provided for our criminals is good and ample, is even generous, there is this also to be remembered, at the same time, that it is dirt-cheap. It is so cheap that when the cost of it is mentioned, everybody will at once admit that the idea of lowering the price still further would be a ridiculous meanness. At the Clerkenwell House of Correction the diet which we have described is provided to each prisoner at the cost of certainly not more than 4_d._ a day. The average cost of feeding all the prisoners in that gaol during the year 1859 was 2_s._ a week for each man; but as this average is struck so as to include the second and third-class prisoners, there will be a difference in the calculation if we take account only of the first-class prisoners receiving first-class fare. That difference, however, must be very slight, as, among the 1,200 daily inmates of the prison, there is but a sprinkling of the second and third-class criminals. We are clearly within the mark if we put down 4_d._ a day for each man. At the Ely House of Correction the charge is 3¼_d._ for each. At the Salford New Bailey the daily cost of food is 2¾_d._ a head. For the whole of England the average cost of each prisoner’s diet is 3¾_d._ a day. There is a very curious and instructive table in one of our blue-books, which shows the total average cost per annum of each prisoner; and when people talk of the luxury of prisons, we may ask them to read this table, and then to say what they think:—