he always changed his name and his
localities, this fact was not known officially. He was an avowed
infidel, and seemed to delight in spreading his opinions among the
prisoners, who were generally too willing to listen to him. If he keeps
out of prison, it will be his cleverness in escaping detection and not
his principles that will save him. His prison influence was most
pernicious, and afforded another striking and painful illustration of
the evils of indiscriminate association of prisoners. I maintain that
it formed no part of any prisoner's sentence that, in addition to all
the other horrors of penal servitude, he should be placed within the
sphere of this man's influence and such as he; and the system which not
only permits but demands that his moral and religious interests should
be thus imperilled, if not altogether corrupted and destroyed,
undertakes a fearful responsibility.

The next case I will notice will illustrate the truth of what I have
advanced on this point. It was that of a young man, P----, who had been
respectably educated, and whose crime was simply the foolish frolic of
a giddy youth. He had engaged a dog-cart to drive to London, a distance
somewhere about fifty miles from where he resided. He had another youth
for his companion, and they both got on the "spree" in London. Some
shark picked them up, and bought the horse and dog-cart from them at a
merely nominal price. When they got sober they returned home, and this
youth went and told the proprietor of the dog-cart what he had done,
and (according to his own statement) offered, through his friends, to
pay for it. The proprietor was so enraged, however, that nothing but
the prosecution of the prisoner would satisfy him, and he was sentenced
to ten years' penal servitude. He had the character of a "fast" youth,
and met with a severe judge. This prisoner might have been easily led
into the path of honour and usefulness, if the attempt had been
honestly made. Whoever his judge was, if he were an Englishman and
father of a family, he would never again pass sentence of penal
servitude on such a youth for any offence against property, if he knew
as well as I do what the sentence involves. Shut up any such man for
seven years in a place where the only men of his own age are city-bred
thieves, and what can be expected of him? This young man elected the
smartest and cleverest of the London pickpockets for his companions.
They made a tool of him in prison,