while they
pollute his imagination, and he longs to be free that he might add some
daring feat of wickedness to the catalogue he has heard. There can be
no doubt that the indiscriminate association of all grades of criminals
is one of the most prolific sources from whence our convict prisons
receive their constant and foul supply. It was in one of these open-air
cribs that I was initiated into the mysteries of prison politics and
prison slang, for the convict has his "policy" as well as the
government, and also his official, or rather professional nomenclature,
in which he enshrouds its meaning. To be an adept in prison politics
is, first of all to know and understand all the prison rules and
regulations, not for purposes of obedience, but evasion; to discern the
disposition and habits of the prison officers, with the view of
conciliating or coercing them into trifling privileges or concessions;
to know the various methods of treatment, diet, and discipline at the
different prisons, and the character and disposition of their
governors; to contrive to be sent to the prison which is supposed to be
the most comfortable; and to know when and where good conduct and bad
conduct will be productive of the best results in the way of removal or
remission of sentence. In my solitude, and with the prospect before me
of a long experience of such company, these conversations with my
fellow-prisoners, possessed a certain kind of interest for me. I was
also always eager to learn as much as I could of their previous
history, and the cause of their imprisonment. One day, as I was taking
my daily outdoor exercise, I observed an old man in the convict dress
cleaning the prison windows a short distance from me, and I asked my
neighbour in the crib who he was. "O! that's a beauty," said he. "He
was walking down the street lately, along with another chum like
himself, when a gentleman noticed them and asked them into a
photographer's to get their portraits taken, and gave them a shilling
each as being the two ugliest specimens of the human race he had ever
seen!"

"How long has he been in prison?" I enquired.

"Goodness knows!" he exclaimed; "I think about eight or nine-and-twenty
years, and the longest sentence he ever had, except the first, was
sixty days!"

"What are his offences usually?"

"Oh, nothing but kicking up rows in the streets, or smashing a window.
Last time it was for a fight with a poor man with a large family. He
got