They work out of their cells in the daytime, and on
certain occasions (Sundays, I believe) they are allowed to walk in
couples and exercise their faculty of speech.

The poor fellow I refer to, fearing that he would die, and having learnt
that I was a public man, managed to tell me something of his case. He
had been a warder in Coldbath Fields Prison, where he officiated as
master-tailor. In an evil moment he "cabbaged" some cloth, was detected,
tried, condemned, and sentenced to twenty months' imprisonment. He had
been in the army for over twenty years without a scratch of the pen
against his name, and his officers had given him excellent characters;
but the judge would hear of nothing in mitigation of sentence, although
he knew it deprived the man of a pension of thirty-six pounds a year,
which he had earned by long service in India, where the enemy's blades
had drunk deeply of his blood. His wife and children had gone to a
work-house in Leicestershire, and as they had no money for travelling,
he had never received a visit. He pined away in his miserable cell until
he became a pitiable spectacle which excited the compassion of the whole
prison. The doctor ordered him out of his cell, but the authorities
would not allow it. He told me how much he had lost round the chest and
calf, but I have forgotten the precise figures. One fact, however, I
recollect distinctly; he had lost _eight inches round the thigh_, and
his flesh was like a child's. Eventually the doctor peremptorily
ordered him into the hospital, and the Prison Commissioners and Visiting
Magistrates were reluctantly obliged to let him save the man's life.

Dreary indeed was the life in my prison cell, sitting on the
three-legged stool picking fibre, or walking up and down the twelve-foot
floor. I used frequently to stand under the window for long intervals,
resting my hand on the sloping sill. It was impossible to see through
the heavy-fluted panes, but outside was light, liberty and life.
Sometimes, especially on Saturdays, when I had been accustomed to run
down to the North, the Midlands or the West, to fulfil a lecturing
engagement, the muffled shriek of a distant railway whistle went through
me like the clash of steel.

My library, during the first three months, consisted of a Bible, a
Prayer Book and a Hymn Book. Although I was really there for knowing too
much about the "blessed book" already, I read it right through in the
first month, and again in