way of a permanent reformation of the prisoner.

I recollect the first Sunday I spent in this prison. I was very nearly
getting reported to the governor for a very unintentional violation of
the prison rules. In accordance with these rules, convicts were not
allowed to turn their heads in any direction in chapel, and if they did
so they were taken by the attendant officer before the governor, who
punished them for disobedience. I cannot but suppose that those who
framed these rules had some good end in view, in being so stringent in
the matter of posture in the religious services. The difficulty with me
was to discover whether the spiritual welfare of the prisoners, or the
preservation of a more than military discipline amongst them, even in
matters of religion, had appeared to them to be of the greater
importance.

It is probable, however, that neither of these considerations decided
the question, but that the principal object of these regulations was to
preserve in the convict mind, even in the act of worship, the idea of
punishment in a perfectly lively and healthy condition. Be that as it
may, on my first Sunday in chapel, with my English prayer-book before
me, which was then quite new to me, I found myself quite unable to
follow the chaplain in the services in which he was engaged, and to
which I was also a perfect stranger. Turning over the leaves of the
prayer-book, in the vain attempt to find out the proper place, and
happening to cast my eyes over the shoulder of the prisoner in front of
me in order to find it, the movement caught the eye of the officer, who
sat watching every face, and I saw from his stare, and the frown which
gathered under it, that I had committed a grave offence. Immediately I
resumed my proper attitude and sat out the service as rigid as my
neighbours, and so escaped the threatened punishment. Only on one other
occasion did I transgress the prison rules: while at work I felt the
pain in my leg become almost insupportable, and in order to relieve it
I took rest, although still continuing to sew. For doing so I received
a short reprimand. The state of my leg now became a cause of great
anxiety to me, and rendered my out-door exercise a source of pain,
instead of a means of relief from the monotony of my prison occupation.
This exercise was taken in a circle, keeping a certain number of yards
distant from another prisoner, and we were forbidden to speak or even
to look round. Once or twice