Here, it is _red cloth_ and manacles that go together. We asked
him his crime. "Un _piccolo_ omicidio." "A small homicide, provoked by
a dispute for a single ducat! I quarrelled with a man _now in
paradise_. I killed him at one stab, but the devil possessed me to
give him another _colpo di coltello_ after he had fallen; and as the
judges asked me _why_ I did this, and I could not perfectly satisfy
them, they concluded I was a sanguinary fellow, and gave me eighteen
years galleys--but, as you see, I have no chains; nor ever had--_mai!
mai_!" and he extended his hands in somewhat of the attitude of
Raphael's _Paul before Festus_, to suit the action to the word. "No!
he was of a very different order of criminals to a boatful of
_birboni_ in red jackets, all _bad cases_ of homicide and _robbery!_"

"What do you call _bad_ cases?"

"Why, I call it a bad case to kill a man for NOTHING."

"Well, but _theft_ to any amount is not so bad as taking away _life_."

"Oh! as to that, the police are _quite right!_ A decent and a devout
man does not commit homicides every day: but he that steals at all,
steals always!" So that our culprit reasoned, like _Paley_, on the
_tendency_ of crimes. It was his _Chapter of the Silver Spoon_, with a
new exposition from the mouth of a Galeote! And they pluck men at
Cambridge for _not_ getting up their Paley! Our philosophical criminal
seemed satisfied with his lot.

"We are not so badly off after all: we walk out with an obliging
escort, who let us do pretty much as we like; and all our work is
confined to sweeping the courts in front of the king's palace. We
are free of the castle, and allowed to conduct strangers over it,
as in your case. Oh! for the fellows at _St Stefano_, it is quite
another matter; as a part of their punishment, they are
_compelled to be idle!_"

Our rascal was allowed a new coat once every eighteen months, with two
pair of drawers and as many shirts, and a penny a-day for
pocket-money! These _piccoli omicidii_ at home do not get off so
cheap, but stabbing is endemic at Naples. When a queen of Naples
brings the Neapolitans a new prince--great joy of course!--all the
penal settlements _except_ St Stefano receive _three_ years'
mitigation of their sentence; but the crimes that consign to that
island are _senza grazia_--the rays of royal bounty do not reach those
dark and solitary cells. The St Stefano convicts form a body of three
hu