prisoners having fat enough to
waste on such a luxury.

Saturday morning's chapel hour was devoted to general practice, which
was known as the cat's chorus. Imagine three or four hundred prisoners
all learning a new tune! Some of the loudest voices were the most
unmusical, and the warblers at the rear were generally behind in time as
well as in space. How they floundered, gasped, broke down, got up again,
and shuffled along as before till the next collapse! Sometimes they gave
it up as hopeless, a few first, and then others, until some silly fellow
was left shrilling alone, when he too would suddenly stop, as though
frightened at the sound of his own voice.

I noticed, however, that whenever an evangelical hymn was sung to an
old familiar tune, they all joined in, and rattled through it with great
satisfaction. This confirmed the notion I had acquired from previous
reading, that nine out of every ten prisoners in our English gaols
have been Sunday-school children, or attendants at church or chapel.
Scepticism has not led them to gaol, and religion has not kept them out
of it.

Parson Plaford, as I have said, never visited me after the second month.
He heard my defence on the third trial before Lord Coleridge, and sadly
confessed to Mr. Ramsey that he was afraid I was a hardened sinner. He
appears to have had some hopes of my fellow prisoner, whom he continued
to visit for another month. Mr. Ramsey encouraged him in doing so, for
a conversation with anyone and on anything is a welcome break in the
monotony of silence. But when he got books to read there was less
need of these interviews, and they soon ceased. Mr. Ramsey informs me,
however, that the chaplain called on him just before he left, and asked
whether he could offer any suggestions as to the "system." The old
gentleman admitted that he had been operating on prisoners for over
twenty years without the least success.

The chaplain often confided to us in his sermons that prisoners came to
him pretending they had derived great good from his ministrations, only
in order to gain some little privilege. I learned, also, from casual
conversations in the exercise-ground, that the old gentleman had his
favorites, who were not always held in the same esteem and affection by
their companions. They were generally regarded as spies and tell-tales,
and the men were very cautious of what they said and did in the presence
of these elect. Piety was looked upon as a species of