citizen body. The same contrasts were remarkable amongst the visitors to
the prisoners, who were nearly all women. The prisoners generally appear
less downcast than the visitors, for, strange and sad to say, yet proved
by experience, there is but little sorrow or shame left after the
experience of three or four days spent in prison in society. Those who
most dreaded this hideous community habituate themselves to it quickly;
the contagion gains upon them. Surrounded by degraded beings, hearing
only the language of infamy, a kind of ferocious rivalry excites them;
and, either to emulate their companions in the struggle for brutalism,
or to make themselves giddy by the usual drunkenness, the newcomers
almost invariably display as much depravity and recklessness as the
_habitues_ of the prison.

Let us return to the reception-room. Notwithstanding the noisy hum of a
great many conversations carried on in undertones on each side of the
divisions, prisoners and visitors, after some experience, are able to
converse with each other without being for a moment disturbed by, or
attentive to, the conversation of their neighbours, which creates a kind
of secrecy in the midst of this noisy interchange of words, each being
compelled to hear the individual who addressed him, but not to hear a
word of what was said around him.

Amongst the prisoners called into the reception-room by visitors, the
one the farthest off from the turnkey was Nicholas Martial. To the
extreme depression with which he was seized on his apprehension, had
succeeded the most brazen assurance. Already the detestable and
contagious influence of a prison in common bore its fruits. No doubt,
had he been at once conveyed to a solitary cell, this wretch, still
under the influence of his first terror, and alone with the thought of
his crimes, fearful of impending punishment, might have experienced, if
not repentance, at least that wholesome dread from which nothing would
have distracted him.

And who knows what incessant, compulsory meditation may produce on a
guilty mind, reflecting on the crimes committed and the punishment that
is to follow? Far from this, thrown into the midst of a horde of
bandits, in whose eyes the least sign of repentance is cowardice,--or,
rather, treason,--which they make him dearly expiate; for, in their
savage obduracy, their senseless bravado, they consider every man as a
spy on them, who, sad and disconsolate, regretting his fault, does