In general, it seems, the lower the order of culture the more complete and trustworthy is the inscription as an expression of individual peculiarities. “The child loves to speak to himself,” as Dr. Corre remarks; “the negro, and especially the negress, think aloud; and if from restraint or distrust the criminal keeps silent his most intimate thoughts, he feels himself compelled to fix them wherever he may find himself, on the walls of his prison, or on the books that are lent to him. It is for himself, for himself alone, that he writes what he cannot or dare not say, and these revelations are very curious for the psychologist.” His desires and lusts, his aspirations, his coarse satires and imprecations, his bitter reflections, his judgments of life, are all recorded in these prison inscriptions on whitewashed walls, cell doors, margins of books, tin knives, and the bottoms of skilly cans and dinner tins. In Italy they have been studied in reference to their psychological significance with characteristic thoroughness by Lombroso; and in England Mr. Horsley and Mr. Davitt have recorded a considerable number.[71] The Italian inscriptions, on the whole, are marked by a greater preponderance of the sentimental, reflective, and imprecatory elements; the English are generally very practical and material, dealing with food questions, or giving a concise statement of the event which led to the individual’s incarceration, with occasional tendency to moral aspiration and didactic exhortation. Mr. Horsley notes that comparatively few inscriptions are found on the women’s side, but that these are obscene much more frequently than on the men’s side. I conclude from Lombroso’s very comprehensive collection that this remark also holds good of the Italian inscriptions. It should be added that every inscription is an infringement of prison regulations; it is “a vulgar question of bread and water to the hungry author,” and the impulse which produces it must therefore be of considerable strength. Here are a few terse English examples of exploits, probably the work of old hands, and recorded by Mr. Davitt and Mr. Horsley:-- “A burst in the City. Copped while boning the swag. 7 stretch, 1869. Roll on 1876. Cheer up, pals.” “Little Dicky from the New Cut. 10 and a ticket. Put away by a Moll” (_i.e._, sold by a prostitute). “Fullied for a clock and slang” (_i.e._, committed for trial for stealing watch and chain). “Poor old Jim, the lob crawler, fell from Racker, and got pinched” (_i.e._, James and Racker having gone out to commit till robberies, the former was apprehended, and the latter escaped). “For seven long years have I served them, And seven long years I have to stay, For meeting a bloke in our Alley, And taking his ticker away.” “The judge he seven years gave me, Transported to Van Diemen’s Land, Far away from my friends and relations, And the girl with the dark velvet band.”