made himself
easy, and ordered the hut to be pulled down. 'The poor prisoner,' we
are told, 'being in an ill state of health, and the night rainy, was
put to great distress.'

In another instance, a prisoner had been committed to a cell so damp,
as the witnesses described it, that they could sweep the water from
the wall like dew from the grass. A feather-bed happened by some odd
accident to be in the place, and the prisoner tore it up, and, for
warmth, buried himself in the contents. Being covered with cutaneous
sores, the feathers stuck to him, as if he had been subject to the
operation of tarring and feathering. One Sunday, the door of the cell
being left open, he rushed out, and entered the prison chapel during
divine service--a horribly ludicrous figure. The committee, on the
conclusion of the incident, say, 'he was immediately seized and
carried back into the sad dungeon; where, through the cold, and the
restraint, and for want of food, he lost his senses, languished, and
perished.'

Such were the features of the system of mistreatment pursued in the
London prisons, thirty years after the general liberties of the
subject had been secured by the Revolution. We may in a subsequent
paper advert to some of the particular cases which came under the
attention of courts of justice.

LIFE-ASSURANCE OFFICES OF RECENT DATE.

The remarkable prosperity of life-assurance business in these
realms--where alone it is a flourishing business--has naturally had
the effect of causing 'offices' to multiply very fast. In the last
eight years, 241 were projected, being at the rate of one for every
twelve days nearly. Two or three bustling persons thereby obtain
situations; there is a show of business for a time; but such concerns
are often exceedingly weak, and the interests of the public are much
imperiled by them. In consequence of an order of parliament, returns
of the accounts of a large proportion of the recent offices have been
made and published; so that the public may now form some opinion of
the stability of these institutions. The general fact resulting is,
that the greater number appear to have been started with small means,
and are not now in hopeful circumstances. The business they have
obtained is generally small in proportion to the expenses incurred; so
that many of them are much behind the point at which they started.

Mr Robert Christie, of Edinburgh, has done the public the good service
of publishing a