ruggle to the bitter end--the murderer; cheerful and
complacent over the verdict of manslaughter; the professional garotter,
in whose estimation human life is of no value, troubled only at being
so foolish as to be caught; the polished thief and the skilled
housebreaker, every one of them sound in wind and limb, intent only on
their schemes and "dodges" to extract the sting from their punishment,
or in planning new and more heinous crimes, and all longing for the
time when they and society could cry "quits," and they be at liberty to
pursue their career of villainy. With these, the vilest of the vile,
and also with the hoary criminal who knew no home save the prison, who
preferred it to the poorhouse, and to whom its comforts were luxuries
and its privations but trifles of no account, I was condemned to
mingle. Repentant for what I had done in the past, capable and resolved
to make amends in the future, having already suffered for my crime loss
of friends, character, everything almost that is dear to man, I was
also condemned to lose my health, my limb, to be deprived of my only
means of future subsistence, and to endure more years of degradation
and suffering in prison than many of my wretched companions, who had
committed heinous crimes and to whom penal servitude was no punishment!

Such were some of the bitter reflections upon our criminal laws and
prison regulations in which, under the pressure of severe mental and
bodily suffering, I then indulged. Writing now, in a calmer and less
indignant mood, I still commend them, and my subsequent experiences to
the consideration of thoughtful men, and I leave it with them to decide
whether the system maintained in our "model prisons," of putting all
prisoners, whatever their character and antecedents, who have similar
sentences, on a footing of perfect equality, and in constant
association with each other, is fitted to serve the purposes of even
human justice; and whether it is not more likely to promote than to
prevent the growth of crime.

I had now been about a month in the hospital when the order came for my
removal to a regular Government Convict Establishment, in Surrey. I was
in a very unfit state for such a journey; I could not walk a single
yard, even with assistance. My knee was so swollen that no trouser
would go over it, but yet the journey had to be made, and on my arrival
in Surrey I had to be carried by two prisoners to the hospital.

CHAPTER V.

SU