undoubtedly severe punishment to him; but no punishment could frighten
him into honesty. He knew no honest trade by which he could support
himself, but if he had been taught one in prison such as suited his
strength and talents, and had been taught only the _policy_ of
honesty, and been then sent to a country far removed from his old
haunts, where his newly-organized trade would be more profitable than
thieving, the possibility is he would have become a useful man in the
world. On the expiration of his sentence, which was three years, he
went home and wrote back to one of his "pals" in prison, under an
assumed name, that he had been to the Prisoners' Aid Society, and had
obtained as much of his gratuity as he could, to buy a barrow and some
fruit, as he meant to turn costermonger. He added, however, that he did
not like fruit-selling, and returned to his old trade of "gunsmith,"
gunning being the slang term for thieving, or going on the cross. The
real fact was, that he never intended anything else than being a
"gunsmith," but only used the deception in order to obtain a little
more money from the Aid Society than he otherwise could. As soon as he
got his barrow and stock he sold all off, and in a very few months I
had him for a companion again, with a seven years' sentence. I remember
asking whether he preferred a sentence of seven years' penal servitude,
or three years in Coldbath Fields?

"Three years in Coldbath Fields! why that would kill me. I would as
soon have fifteen years here."

The only good trait discoverable in his character was his ardent
affection for his mother. When he has completed about five years and
three months he will be liberated again, if he is alive, and again he
will return to crime; and it is almost impossible that such a man can
do otherwise; and as long as our prison authorities regard convicts as
mere living automatons, all modelled after the same fashion in
iniquity, our convict and county prisons, viewed as reformatories, will
remain quite inoperative for good, but very potent for evil.

CHAPTER XII.

HOW REBELS AGAINST SOCIETY ARE MADE--I AM REMOVED TO A SMALL ROOM
AMONGST MURDERERS--THE "HIGHFLYER" AGAIN--HOW A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WAS
MADE A WARNING TO OTHERS.

A certain class of criminals--it would be very wrong to say all--may be
looked upon as rebels against society, and assuming that they are so,
it would be difficult to conceive a more effective method of promoting
an