generally
liked in the prison, but considered a better gentleman than the
chaplain.

My "petition" to the Home Secretary was a lengthy document. I assigned
many reasons for considering our sentence atrocious. I will not recite
them, because they will easily suggest themselves to the readers who
have followed my narrative. In conclusion I asked, if our release was
impossible, that we might be treated as first-class misdemeanants,
according to the general European custom in the case of press offenders,
or at least supplied with books and writing materials. Sir William
Harcourt sent no answer for a month. At the end of that interval the
Governor called me into his office and read out the brutal reply: "The
Home Secretary requests Colonel Milman to inform Foote and Ramsey that
he sees no reason for acceding to their request."

That was the only instruction Colonel Milman ever received from the Home
Office concerning us. Two months later, when public opinion was more
fully aroused in our favor, Sir William Harcourt allowed paragraphs to
circulate in the papers, stating that orders were given for our being
granted every indulgence consistent with our safe custody. It was a
brazen lie, which we were prevented from contradicting by the prison
rules. So carefully is every regulation contrived for shielding
officials that a prisoner is not allowed, in his quarterly letter,
to give any particulars of his treatment. Sir William Harcourt also
permitted the newspapers to announce that our health would not be
allowed to suffer. Another lie! When, after six weeks' incessant
diarrhoea, I complained that my stomach would not accommodate itself
to the prison food, and asked to be shifted to the civil side, where I
could provide my own, Sir William Harcourt did not even condescend to
reply, although he was duly informed that if Mr. Ramsey and I had been
found Guilty at the Court of Queen's Bench, on our third trial, Lord
Coleridge would not only have made his sentence concurrent with that
of Judge North, but also have removed us from the criminal-wards to the
debtors' wing. Nay, more. When Mr. Kemp had to be taken to the hospital,
where he was confined to his bed, and so weakened that he had to be
assisted to the carriage on the morning of his release, Sir William
Harcourt would not remit a day of his sentence, or take any notice of
his representations. It is well that the public should know this, and
contrast Sir William Harcourt's tre