an officer,' and
refused to release him.

Oh, hapless fate!--truly the 'way of transgressors is hard.' The learned
and eloquent Dr. Sinclair--the idol of his aristocratic and fashionable
congregation--whose words of piety and holiness were listened to with
attention by admiring thousands every Sabbath day--was incarcerated in
the watch-house! Yes--thrust into a filthy cell, among a swarm of
felons, vile negroes, vagabonds and loafers--the scum of the city!

The cell was about twenty feet square; one half of it was occupied by a
platform, at a height of four feet from the floor. This platform was
called the '_bunk_,' and it was covered with the prostate forms of about
twenty men, including the ragged beggar, the raving drunkard, and the
well-dressed thief--all huddled together, and shivering with the cold,
which was intense. The stone floor of the cell was damp and covered with
filth; yet upon it, and beneath the _bunk_, several wretched beings were
stretched, some cursing each other and themselves, others making the
place resound with hideous laughter, while one was singing, in drunken
tones, a shockingly obscene song.

Into this den of horrors was Dr. Sinclair rudely thrust; for no one
believed his statement that he was a clergyman, and indeed his
appearance, when undergoing the examination of the Captain of the Watch,
was anything but clerical. His face was covered with blood, his clothes
soiled and disordered, his hat crushed, and his manner wild and
incoherent. It is more than probable that, had the Captain known who he
was, he would have ordered his immediate discharge.

Groping his way along the damp, cold walls of his cell, which was in
profound darkness, the Doctor stumbled over a person who was lying upon
the floor, writhing in the agonies of _delirium tremens_. In frantic
rage, this miserable creature seized the rector's leg, and bit it
horribly, causing him to utter a cry of agony, which was responded to by
roars of laughter from the hellish crew. Extricating himself with
difficulty from the fierce clutch of the maniac, the unhappy gentleman
seated himself upon a large iron pipe which ran through the cell, and
prayed for death.

Slowly passed the dreadful night away; and the first faint rays of
morning, struggling through the narrow aperture in the wall, revealed an
appalling sight. Men made hideous and inhuman by vice and wretchedness
lay stretched amid the filth and dampness of that dungeon, glaring a