at the performance. The doctor never troubled
to attend it.

The prisoners were supposed to cross their hands in front while in
chapel. Several unsuccessful attempts were made to induce me to conform
to the regulation. I declined to strike prescribed attitudes. Another
rule, pretty rigorously enforced, was that the prisoners should look
straight before them. If a head was turned aside, an officer bawled
out "Look to your front." I once heard the injunction ludicrously
interpolated in the service. "Dearly beloved brethren," said the
chaplain. "Look to your front," growled the officer. It was text and
comment.

Only once did I see a prisoner impressed. The man sat next to me; his
face was red, and he stared at the chaplain with a pair of goggle
eyes. Surely, I thought, the parson is producing an effect. As we were
marching back to our cells I heard a sigh. Turning round, I saw my
harvest-moon-faced friend in an ecstacy. It was Sunday morning, and near
dinner time. Raising his hands, while his goggle eyes gleamed like wet
pebbles, the fellow ejaculated--"Pudden next."

I have already referred to the chapel music, in which the schoolmaster
played such a distinguished part. A few more notes on this subject may
not be out of place. There was a choir of a dozen or so prisoners, most
of whom were long-term men in some position of trust. Short-timers
are not, I believe, eligible for membership; indeed, the whole public
opinion of the establishment is against these unfortunates, who have
committed no crime worth speaking of; and I still remember with what
a look of disgust the worthy schoolmaster once described them to me
as "Mere parasites, here to-day and gone to-morrow." Having a bit of
a voice, I was invited to join the sweet psalmists of Holloway; but I
explained that I was only a spectator of the chapel performances, and
could not possibly become an assistant. The privileges enjoyed by the
choristers are not, however, to be despised. They drop their work two or
three times a week for practice, and they have an advantage in matters
which are trifling enough outside, but very important in prison. In
chapel they sit together on the front benches, and if they smile and
whisper they are not so sharply reprimanded as the common herd behind
them.

Another privileged class were the cooks, who occupied the last bench,
and rested their backs against the wall. They were easily distinguished
by their hair being greased, no other