spark of shame or womanly modesty in her
nature, and who came at last to be called the
Beast by the better class of women; good
natured and good tempered in her way; by no
means a wild cat; only a perfectly shameless
and blasphemous, laughing, singing, and dancing
animal. The refractories were bad enough to
manage, but the Prison Matron says that they
would all far rather have had the worst of the
refractory class in their wards than Amelia
Mott, the tramping dwarf, with her shrill laugh,
her hideous songs, her incessant shuffling and
dancing, and her total want of ordinary human
decency.

Then there was Margaret Crofts, a quiet
stolid machine, who was an animal in another
sense, a creature as thoroughly mindless as it
is possible for a human being to be; a creature
who could not understand the simplest elemental
truths of religion or morality, and who would
sit for hours silent, motionless, and impassive,
with no more thought or feeling than if she had
been a ship's figure-head set in the corner of
her cell for show.

Mary Ann Evans was a refractory of the
wildest kind, an incorrigible who "fought against
her own life, won the battle, and died." She
killed herself by her violence as distinctly as if
she had put a knife to her throat; but one can
make small lamentation for the loss of such
creatures as she. Of what good their present?
of what hope their future? Devoid of conscience
and affection alike, there is no seed-place
of good in them. Death, whenever it
comes, finds them still the same half-fiendish
travesties of womanhood they are to-day, and
were yesterday, and would be to-morrow; and
it is only an affectation of humanity to lament
the decease, even though untimely, of beings so
unsatisfactory and hopeless. The impossibility
of reforming certain criminals is one of the
hardest trials to the philanthropist earnest for
the welfare of the criminal class; but though
here and there are some who can be reformed
and set in the better way, the great mass of the
prison population is a certain, not an uncertain
quantity, and this year's release is only the
prelude to next year's return.

Of the practical suggestions mixed up with
these photographs, those most insisted on are
the appointment of more matrons, an increase
of salary, shorter hours of duty, and a more
careful selection. There is good sense in these
suggestions; and if they would not bring with
them quite a prison millennium, they would
lighten the labours and strengthen the infiuence of
the officers, who, as matters stand now, have but a
hard and dreary time of it, as the Prison Matron
shows: undergoing all the horrors of imprisonment
without deserving the sentence. But
the real core of prison discipline has yet to be
reached; and until men agree on the best
way of inducing repentance and reformation—
indeed, until they agree that legal forfeiture
for crimes shall mean reformation (if possible)
and not mere punishment—we shall get little
done by these mere bit-by-bit changes, which
touch no principle, and spring from no central
point of action. In the mean time, it is good
moral exercise to study the sad phases of criminal
life admirably presented to us in these prison
characters: remembering, as we read, that
wonderfully deep and humble word of a good man
and a true Christian— "There, but for the grace
of God, goes Richard Baxter!"

WITH OPIUM TO HONG-KONG.

IN the Indian cold season—that is, from the
1st of December to the 1st of March—the voyage
from Calcutta to Hong-Kong is delightful as
far as Singapore. Looking down one calm cool
morning over the ship's side into the streaks
and eddies of the transparent sea, I was
startled during a voyage thither by the sudden
appearance of a dead Chinaman's face, as the
body floated with the ebb tide, slowly turning,
along the vessel's counter. It was the face of a
man in the prime of life and the best of health.
An old salt who had had much experience
amongst Chinamen, and who was standing by
my side, observed thoughtfully: "He's been a
winning at the dice, ye see, and when they
got him to the water-side, they fetched him
handsome over the afterpart of his skull with
a thick stick, and took his money, and hove
him in, and that makes no marks, ye see."
And in this way many a gambler meets with
his end, without detection of the murderers,
against whom their countrymen will not, when
they can, give evidence. The police force
at Pinang would be no match for the Chinese
in any very serious affray, but the magistrate
can easily and promptly procure the aid of any
number of Malays from Wellesley province, and
these people would eagerly obey an order to
kill every Celestial in the country.

It is scarcely possible to conceive anything
more beautiful than this entrance to Singapore
harbour. The ship glides in between islets and
little hills clothed in verdant forest, fringed by
a clean pebbly or white sandy beach. The water
is perfectly calm, or moved gently by long lazy
undulations, and so transparent, that the fishes,
some of gorgeous hues and fantastic shapes,
which infest such localities, are plainly to be
seen gliding about far below in the shadow of
the hull. Cheerful-looking villas and prettily
painted houses are scattered along the summits
of these islands, and increase in number as the
ship advances into a basin connected with the
outer harbour, in which are the mooring wharfs
and coal-sheds of the opium China steamers
and of the Peninsular and Oriental Company's
vessels. Hardly is the ship fast when she is
assailed by a fleet of canoes, manned by Malay
men and boys. The boys come to dive for sixpences
or eight-ana pieces which the passengers
throw over for them, and the men bring pineapples,
shells, paraquets and other birds, and
animals, such as tiger cats, civet cats, monkeys,
&c., for sale. The shell boats are really
beautiful, being filled to the uttermost nook and