says--“A farm-labourer has told me frequently that he worked far harder for his eleven shillings a week than ever he had at stone-quarrying or anything else in prison. When at home he seldom, if ever, had meat of any sort, and his bed was but a poor affair compared to his prison couch. Here in prison, comparatively speaking, he fared sumptuously every day, and I can assure the reader he considered the living luxurious compared to what he had at home.” “There can be no doubt,” as Beltrani-Scalia remarks, “that the life of a prison is superior, from a material point of view, to that which most prisoners are accustomed to lead in liberty.” To the habitual criminal that is everything. The perpetration of offences for the purpose of obtaining admission to prison is far from uncommon, and the criminal slang of various nations with its friendly synonyms for the prison is very significant on this point. There is a popular Sicilian song which says: “He who speaks evil of the Vicaria [prison of Palermo] ought to have his face cut. He who says that prison punishes, how he is deceived, poor devil!”[102] And again: “Here only will you find your brothers and friends, money, good cheer, and a peaceful time; outside you are always in the midst of your enemies, and if you cannot work you will die of hunger.”[103] Reinach mentions a mason who at the beginning of winter committed a small offence in order to spend the winter comfortably in a warm prison. The prison of Vienne (Isère) has, it is said, long been a favourite place of resort during the winter. Several of the hundred prisoners studied by Rossi had sought in prison a winter refuge. One who had frequently been in prison before for short terms, said--“Now I’ve had the good luck to get six months.” A German criminal, who had just been released from prison, attempted rape. He received a sentence of eight years’ imprisonment. He rose, thanked the court for the sentence, regretting, however, that it was not for a longer period, and adding that he had only committed the offence as an agreeable way of returning to prison, where alone he found pleasant society and a life free from care. Manduca speaks of a man, advanced in years, who had just completed a long term of hard labour, and finding himself without means of subsistence, killed without any cause an old friend of his childhood. Bretignères de Courtelles found that 17 out of 115 prisoners entered prison in order to restore their health.