ch reading aloud, as I was obliged to do on a
somewhat poor diet, I was compelled to enter the hospital a second
time, suffering from severe general debility accompanied by a cough,
after having been about thirteen months in the prison. On my admission
I received a change of diet and tonic medicines. For some weeks I was
confined to bed, and not till six months had elapsed was I discharged.

An event took place during my second sojourn in the hospital which
caused much excitement among the prisoners. This was the stabbing of a
Scripture-reader by one of the patients. The case was afterwards
disposed of at the Assizes, and the culprit was sentenced to five
years' penal servitude. As his former sentence had as much to run, this
was considered as a triumph on the part of the prisoner. He committed
the crime not with intent to kill, but for the purpose of bringing his
case before the public, and of being removed to another prison. He had
committed a similar crime before, but the directors had disposed of it
privately, so that the particulars of it should not reach the
newspapers. In this case to which I refer, the prisoner alleged on his
trial that the doctor would not give him treatment for his complaint;
he found that it was of no use complaining to a higher authority, that
he could not get removed to another prison, nor procure the treatment
he had been accustomed to receive for his disease. He was much beyond
the ordinary convict in point of ability. He defended himself,
cross-examined the authorities, and made some of the chiefs cut very
sorry figures under the divining rod. He at last gained his point, for
he exposed the authorities and obtained his removal to another prison,
where he would have what he considered proper medical treatment--good
food being an essential item in the prescription.

After this case occurred the governor was allowed to retire on a
pension; or, in the language of the convicts, "he got the 'sack' in a
genteel way," but in reality the doctor was the man on whom the
responsibility rested, and it was him the prisoner wished to stab and
not the Scripture-reader, but he never could get the opportunity. I
notice this case chiefly to show that our present law is inoperative in
the case of a class of prisoners of which this one was a fair type. He
was a sad cripple, walking with the assistance of two crutches, and
dragging his legs behind him; he was afflicted with spinal disease and
heart complaint