d thick
mattress, a bolster, white linen sheets, and a warm woollen blanket. At
the sight of these establishments, comprising all the requisites for
comfort and health, we are much surprised, in spite of ourselves, being
accustomed to suppose that prisons are miserable, dirty, unwholesome,
and dark. This is a mistake.

It is such dogholes as that occupied by Morel the lapidary, and in which
so many poor and honest workmen languish in exhaustion, compelled to
give up their truckle-bed to a sick wife, and to leave, with hopeless
despair, their wretched, famishing children, shuddering with cold in
their infected straw--that is miserable, dark, dirty, and pestilent! The
same contrast holds with respect to the physiognomy of the inhabitants
of these two abodes. Incessantly occupied with the wants of their
family, which they can scarcely supply from day to day, seeing a
destructive competition lessen their wages, the laborious artisans
become dejected, dispirited; the hour of rest does not sound for them,
and a kind of somnolent lassitude alone breaks in upon their overtasked
labour. Then, on awakening from this painful lethargy, they find
themselves face to face with the same overwhelming thoughts of the
present, and the same uneasiness for the future.

But the prisoner, indifferent to the past, happy with the life he leads,
certain of the future (for he can assure it by an offence or a crime),
regretting his liberty, doubtless, but finding much compensation in the
actual enjoyment, certain of taking with him when he quits prison a
considerable sum of money, gained by easy and moderate labour, esteemed,
or rather dreaded, by his companions, in proportion to his depravity and
perversity, the prisoner, on the contrary, will always be gay and
careless.

Again, we ask, what does he want? Does he not find in prison good
shelter, good bed, good food, high wages,[1] easy work, and, especially,
society at his choice,--a society, we repeat, which measures his
consideration by the magnitude of his crimes? A hardened convict knows
neither misery, hunger, nor cold. What is to him the horror he inspires
honest persons withal? He does not see, does not know them. His crimes
made his glory, his influence, his strength, with the ruffians in the
midst of whom he will henceforward pass his life. Why should he fear
shame? Instead of the serious and charitable remonstrances which might
compel him to blush for and repent the past, he hears th