The naive surprise expressed in some local quarters outside the penitentiary went to show how unexpected and almost incredible my statements appeared to be--or, from another point of view, how successfully hitherto the truth had been suppressed. The truth being once unshackled, I was anxious to get the widest possible circulation for it, and therefore arranged for its publication in various newspapers distributed over the country; but I was not altogether sanguine that my plan of public enlightenment would prove an unqualified success. The System, as I have indicated, had several guns which it might bring to bear, and it was conceivable that some of the editors who had subscribed to the syndicate might find reason to regard the articles as not adapted to the taste of their readers, and decline to risk offending them any further. If other guns of the System should prove inadequate, there was always the great gun to be depended upon, known as the Law for Libel. I took what precautions I could with respect to this formidable and most respectable weapon; I stipulated that a competent lawyer should read each article before it was offered for publication, and inform me of any passage in any of them which might be obnoxious to the provisions of this law, in order that such passages might be modified or expunged. He carefully discharged his function; and if any reader should detect a lack of continuity or explicitness in any of my statements, he may charitably ascribe it to the consequences of the lawyer's advice; since, even in this free country, the proprieties must be observed. If I were fortunate enough to escape the missiles of the Libel gun, I had still to be on my guard against more obscure and personal weapons; I am an ex-convict, and any lenity of treatment which I had hitherto enjoyed is not to be looked for in the future. If I were sent back to prison, my shrift was likely to be short; and I could only hope, in that event, to have been able to say enough to afford my entertainers ample provocation for giving me, as my comrades would say, the limit.