pore jail that he told
the story of his life as given above.

When the term of his sentence had expired, and he was about to be
discharged, he warmly thanked the Superintendent for his counsel, and
declared very positively that he intended to turn over a new leaf.

We believe that he did so; at all events, the last heard of him was that
he had signed articles as mate of a ship; and he scrupulously returned
to the Superintendent (Major McNair) the money he had advanced to him
from his private purse to make a new start in life.

* * * * *

No. 6

CONVICTS WITH A COBRA AND A CROCODILE

It is well known that the Cobra di Capello is one of the most deadly of
the snakes of India and the East. The palish yellow cobra of India is
perhaps more dangerous and surely fatal in its bite than the black
"cobra" or "kala samp," which is more frequently found in the Straits
Settlements, but neither of them is very pleasant to be in close
proximity to.

_The Cobra._--As we have noticed elsewhere, some of the convicts were
very expert in catching these reptiles and extracting their fangs. The
following personal incident is given by a public works officer:--

"When the new cantonments were in progress at Tanglin I was
placed in charge of the works by Col. G. C. Collyer, R.E., the
then Chief Engineer of the Straits Settlements, and was
permitted to occupy a part of a large house on the estate. The
bath rooms were on the ground floor, and stairs from the
bedrooms above led down to them. One morning, just as I was
sitting down to breakfast, my convict orderly came running to
me and said that a large 'cobra' had crawled up the drain
leading from the main drain at the back of the house to the
bath room. We went immediately to the bath room, and, finding
that the snake had not made his appearance inside, I stopped up
the opening into the drain with a towel, and the convict
orderly, who had gone round to the outer end of the drain,
began pushing a long bamboo up it. This drove the snake to the
upper end. The convict, then, with a pickaxe, loosened a brick
from the covering of the drain close to the wall of the house,
while I stirred up the bamboo rod. The convict then gently and
by degrees removed the brick, and in an instant the snake
emerged fully from the drain, raising its hood and hissing at
us. It then retreated back to