hats. Some are blind, some lame, some have lost an arm, and some a leg. The hall has a fine painted ceiling, and the walls are hung with sea-fights, and portraits of admirals. Many who go to see Green

wich expect to find the old pensioners fierce looking fellows, because they have been the thunderbolts of war in days gone by, but instead of that, the most of them look as meek as lambs. Old age fetches the fire out of a man. It is time now for them to be looking for peace, for most of them have hair on their heads as gray as mine.

There is a wake or fair held in the parks at Greenwich, and thousands and thousands of lads and lasses go there from London, to dance on the grass, to climb up and run down the hills, and to play at different games and enjoy themselves; but I am afraid that this fair, like most others of the kind, does a deal of mischief one way or other.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Parley speaks about prisons. Newgate. King's Bench. London University, and King's College.

I WISH you to know something about everything I have seen. London has a great many good people in it, but it has many bad people too, and I cannot tell what could be done without prisons. It is an easy thing to get into a prison, but oftentimes a hard matter to get out again. Prisons used to be very different places to what they are now: men and women, boys and girls were confined there all together, and they were often so crowded, and so dirty, that fevers and distempers of different kinds used to break out among them. At the present, they are managed in a better manner, being kept clean. The men and boys are in one part, and the women and girls in another. One Howard was a man famous for visiting prisons, and a great deal of good he did, not only in England, but in other countries; but he caught an infection at last in visiting one, and died, I think, in Russia. A Quaker

lady, too, of the name of Fry has done much among the prisoners.

Newgate prison is very strong; it is called Newgate on account of one of the gates of the city of London which stood near the place. The old building was made a prison in the reign of King John. It was rebuilt soon after the death of Henry V., and enlarged after the great fire of London. A jail fever once broke out within the walls, and the dead bodies of those who died were taken away by cart loads. Fifty thousand pounds were then granted to build a new prison, and that prison is the Newgate now standing. The walls are raised fifty feet, the cells for the condemned are above the ground and dry, and there is a chapel that will hold between three and four hundred people. The persons are allowed a candle at night till a certain time, and they have a prayer book and a bible to read; so that you see, bad as they may be, they are not neglected. There is another thing, too, that I ought not to forget, and that is, that fetters are not used except when the prisoners are very unruly. There is a prison called the Queen's Bench.

You

will like to know something about it. It is a place where people are confined for debt, and I expected to find every one within the high and gloomy walls very sorrowful, but how surprised was I to find it just the contrary! In one place men were drinking and smoking, in another amusing themselves at different games, laughing as loud and joking each other as if their hearts were light as a feather. In the large yard they were playing at rackets, a game which consists in striking a ball against a high wall with bats like battle-doors, and very clever at it they were. Well, thinks I, these folks, for all that I see, are as happy in prison as other folks are out of it, but a moment's reflection made me alter my opinion. To be happy, a man must be uprightly and usefully employed, and that was not the case at the Queen's Bench prison.

There are many other prisons, and at some of them the men work at the treadmill. This is a large wheel turned round by treading on the broad cogs: the prisoners look just as if they were trying to climb up it. They also pick oakum, and if any works are going on in the prison they lend a helping hand. The women

and girls work a treadmill of their own, besides which, they wash, make and mend, and knit coarse stockings for the use of the prisoners. It is better to be honest than to get into a jail; coarse food, hard work, and heavy irons are unpleasant things. But there is a worse thing than the coarse food, or the hard work, or the heavy irons either. What can that be? you will say. I will tell you. They have formed a plan, lately, in some prisons to keep all the prisoners silent: not one word will they let them speak to one another, either by day or by night. This is the way they manage it. They give some of the prisoners more food, and let them sit or walk about without working, that they may watch over the rest; the turnkeys watch too; and if any prisoner speaks a word, in a few minutes after he is shut up in a cell by himself. It would never do to put me there, I could not live long without talking. Before this silent plan was found out, there was plenty of cursing and swearing, and many prisoners came out of jail worse than than they went in, for they learned from their fellow prisoners to be more wicked than ever. It is not so now, and thieves and pickpockets will