ng son at
his most impressionable age, save to provide for his material wants,
and to some extent, also, his education. When with him in later years he
appears to have enjoyed his society, or at least the evidences which he
gave of implicit, unreasoning obedience, illustrated by his remark, "I
believe if I told the boy to put his hand in the fire he would obey me."

At four the boy was put into a boarding-school, and the home was broken
up. The later glimpses which we get of his career are vague,
unsatisfactory, or decidedly bad, until the end came, and "Jack" was
incarcerated in a mad-house when but twenty-two, where his unfortunate
life went out after twelve years' confinement in a darkness that
darkened also the last years of his good, if injudicious, father, with a
sorrow beside which all common bereavements should seem like blessings.

In 1769, then, we see the Cardington home broken up, the boy placed in a
boarding-school, and John Howard setting forth upon what to him was but
an aimless journey, in search of consolation, amid new scenes, for the
shattered fortunes of his home. He travelled over large portions of
Italy, and returned again to England, where in 1773 he was elected High
Sheriff of Bedford. No sooner had he entered upon the duties of his
office, than he was struck with the gross injustice of the practices,
especially as affecting those prisoners held for debt. Many heads of
families were held for months and years, not for the original debt for
which they were incarcerated, which in many cases had been forgiven or
paid, but for an accumulation of fees due to jailer and divers other
officers of the prison, who drew their salaries from this source. Much
astounded by such a state of things in a Christian land, but supposing
it to be a peculiarity of his own county, he made a journey into some of
the surrounding districts, to learn from them, if possible, some better
method. It but augmented his indignation and distress to find their
condition and methods worse even than at home, since in some he actually
found the fees wrung from these unhappy prisoners to amount to so much
that the office of jailer was sold to the highest bidder, the sum paid
for the position often amounting to as much as L40 per annum.

On this tour Howard, now thoroughly awake on the subject, could not but
observe the miseries of the prisoners from other sources, besides
extortions. This might have been borne, but for the terrible cro