the hours seem lengthened into days, but so
soon as the gas is lighted they run away only
too quickly, and that miserable nine o'clock
arrives, when I am locked up for nine hours,
to wish that I had committed forgery; for,
in that case, I should not be worse treated,
and my wife, at any rate, would have
something to live upon during my imprisonment.

And now that I have described faithfully
the treatment I experience because I was
idiot enough to run into debt, I should like
to be told what benefit is derived from my
incarceration. I dare say my punishment is
very well merited; men have no right to owe
money which they cannot pay; but why
should my wife suffer at the same time?
Had I been in London, the imprisonment
would have been a mere farce. I should
Have been locked up at Slomans, then removed
to Whitecross Street, or, if I preferred it, to
the Queen's Bench, sure to find jolly
companions in each remove. If I wished to be
dishonest, I could, by means of a sharp
attorney, file my schedule and bully the
commissioner out of my protection, and then
step over to France and snap my fingers at
my creditors. The punishment therefore is
unequal; because I happen to be arrested in
the country I am exposed to treatment which
only falls to the lot of the criminal in London.
Seated in my cage, visitors come to stare at
me, and shake their heads pitifully, while I
cannot venture to raise any objection, or, in
all probability, my quart of beer would be
stopped. I happened once to have a friend
in Whitecross Street, and, faith! six quarts of
beer a-day did not satisfy him. Lewworth
Gaol is under the inspection of the county
magistrates, and that fully accounts for the
difference of treatment.

I need not say more; I have tried to
describe one of the phases of imprisonment
for debt, and by no means the pleasantest,
and am striving to regulate my mind into
the conviction that I am fairly treated. But
I cannot succeed; and when I remember
that directors of public companies who have
lined their pockets at the expense of share-
holders, are walking about London at their
ease, and, at the most, have the Bankruptcy
Court to face, I consider it harsh that I
should be treated as a criminal, because I
cannot pay some eighty pounds: which I owe,
not through any fault of my own, but because
I yielded to the insane notion that a British
government could, under any circumstances,
behave fairly.

It is probable that many men will be
disposed to enter the service under the present
aspect of affairs in the East. One word of
warning to them. In any arrangement with
government let them be careful to have it
in black or white, or they may run a strong
risk of being turned off penniless when their
services are no longer required, and of
finding themselves first-class prisoners for
debt, because they have not paid for the
boots they wore out in her Majesty's
service.

CAPTAIN DOINEAU.

THE few persons astir in the streets of
Tlemcen, during the night of Thursday the
eleventh of September, eighteen hundred and
fifty-six, observed several unusual appearances.
Tlemcen is a picturesque Arabian
town in French Algeria near the frontiers
of Morocco, built upon a hill whence
bubble many springs, and surrounded by
a crumbling and broken mud wall. During
this night, several horsemen were seen
standing before the coffee-house of Bel
Kheir. Towards one o'clock in the morning,
David Nemsalem and Chaloum Roubacha,
Jews engaged in commerce, returning from
their prayers in the synagogue, remarked men
lying on their faces upon the steps of the
doors of that and another coffee-house.
Men asleep in the streets are common
enough in Algerian towns; but the Jews
noticed with astonishment that these men
were wide awake. In addition to the men
upon the terraces of the coffee-houses, others
were observed to be upon the look-out, or
watch. Abdel Kadir Lekal, a young shepherd,
also heard troop-horses leaving the
stable of the koja or interpreter of the Arabian
office (who was the confidant of its chief, the
French Captain) during that night.

Towards three o'clock in the morning, the
eight coach-horses necessary to drag the
Tlemcen diligence through a mountainous
country were attached to it. The night
was still dark, but the moon was up, and
helped the only lantern stretching out from
the left of the coupé, to reveal, by glimpses,
the appearance of the travellers who assembled
to enter the vehicle. The elderly
Arab who took the right hand seat of the
coupé was Si Mahomed Ben Abdallah, the
Agah, or great chief, of the tribe of Beni
Snouss; and the younger Arab, in the left
seat under the lantern, was his interpreter,
Hamadi Ben Chenk. Four passengers occupied
benches in the body of the diligence;—
a lady, an artillery soldier, a medical man,
and a merchant. The coachman, Aldeguer,
mounted the box of the imperiale; and the
conductor, Damien Mendes, took his seat
beside him. Both were Spaniards. The
postilion, who bestrode one of the front horses,
was a Frenchman. The diligence started at
the usual hour of three, on the Friday morning,
in the direction of Oran. Some of the
passengers were going to the races at
Mostaganem; and all were in merry humour.
After the sentinels had opened the gates at
the ramparts, the diligence advanced down
hill rapidly, ginglingly, and jovially for
about a short quarter of an hour. The
suburbs of Tlemcen—a purely Arabian town,
where Europeans are few, and those chiefly