tem flourished in ----
gaol, and the local justices entirely approved the system. In the view
of Hawes and the justices severe punishment of mind and body was the
essential object of a gaol.

Now Tom Robinson had not been in gaol these four years, and though he
had heard much of the changes in gaol treatment, they had not yet come
home to him. When, therefore, instead of being greeted with the
boisterous acclamations of other spirits as bad as himself, he was
ushered into a cell white as driven snow, and his duties explained to
him, the heavy penalty he was under should a speck of dirt ever be
discovered on the walls or floor, Thomas looked blank and had a
misgiving. To his dismay he found that the silent cellular system was
even carried out in the chapel, where each prisoner had a sort of
sentry-box to himself, and that the hour's promenade for exercise
conversation was equally impossible.

The turnkeys were surly and forbidding, and the hours dragged wearily to
this active-minded prisoner. Robinson was driven to appeal to the
governor to put him on hard labour.

"We'll choose the time for that," said the governor, with a knowing
smile. "You'll be worse before you are better, my man."

On the tenth day Robinson tried to exchange a word with a prisoner in
chapel, and for this he was taken to the black-hole.

Now Robinson was a man of rare capacity, full of talent and the courage
and energy that show in action, but not rich in the fortitude that bears
much. When they took him out of the black-hole, after six hours'
confinement, he was observed to be white as a sheet, and to tremble
violently all over.

The day after this the doctor reported No. 19--this was Robinson--to be
sinking, and on this Hawes put him to garden work. The man's life and
reason were saved by that little bit of labour. Then for a day or two he
was employed in washing the corridors, and in making brushes; after
that, came the crank. This was a machine consisting of a vertical post
with an iron handle, and it was worked as villagers draw a bucket up
from a well.

"Eighteen hundred revolutions per hour, and two hours before dinner,"
was the order given to No. 19, a touch of fever a few days later made it
impossible for him to get through his task, and Hawes brutally had the
unfortunate prisoner placed in the jacket.

This horrible form of torture consisted of a stout waistcoat, with a
rough-edged collar. Robinson knew resistance was useless. He