scales to the dinner as actually served out. He found the biscuit green, mouldy, and maggoty, the meat tainted, the water impure. Taking from his pocket the biscuit given him by the captain, he held it up before the convicts, in the captain's presence, and reproached him with the fraud he was practising upon the men, and the falsehood with which he had endeavored to conceal it. He went below, where he found large numbers of sick men lying on the floor, with not so much as straw under them, to whom were given only the loathsome and poisonous provisions which had caused their sickness. He was not surprised to learn that one-third of the convicts die before leaving the country to begin the fulfilment of their sentence; and he told the government that, unless the system were changed, there would be no need of transporting prisoners to Botany Bay, for they would all die in the Thames. It was a horrid aggravation of this infernal cruelty, that the long detention on board those hulks- from four to eight months - did not expunge a day from the term of their sentence; it was so much added to their legal punishment. Howard at once reported what he had seen to the Committee of the House of Commons, and the worst of these outrages were abolished within a week. The health and appearance of the men changed for the better immediately.

In the spring of 1778, while all the liberal world was rejoicing over the alliance just concluded between France and the United States, and reading in the newspapers the details of Dr. Franklin's presentation to Louis XVI. and Maria Antoinette, John Howard crossed the channel once more on his godlike errand, and arrived safely in Holland. At Amsterdam he met with the only serious accident that befell him on his numerous journeys. A horse, running away with a dray, threw the vehicle against him with such violence, that he was a month in recovering from his injuries, during which he suffered very severely. To give the reader a nearer insight into the mind of this singular man, I will here copy a few sentences from the diary kept by him during this illness:

"May 11, 1778.- Do me good, O God, by this painful

affliction; may I see the great uncertainty of health, ease, and comfort; that all my springs are in thee. Oh, the painful and wearisome nights I possess! May I be more thankful if restored to health, more compassionate to others, more absolutely devoted to God.

"May 13. In pain and anguish all night, my very life a burthen to me. Help, Lord: vain is the help of man. In thee do I put my trust, let me not be confounded.

"May 14.-This night my fever abated, my pains less; I thank God I had two hours' sleep; prior to which, for eighteen days and nights, not four hours' sleep. Righteous art thou in all thy ways, and holy in all thy works, sanctify this affliction, and show me wherefore thou contendest with me; bring me out of the furnace as silver purified seven times.

-

"May 16.A more quiet night and less fever, yet much pain until the morning. If God should please to restore me to days of prosperity, may I remember the days of sorrow, to make me habitually serious and humble: may I learn from this affliction more than I have learned before, and have reason to bless God for it."

These brief passages will suffice to make the reader acquainted with Howard's habit of thought and feeling; for all that part of his diary which relates to himself is precisely in the strain of the extracts given. The whole struggle of his life was to do the work to which he felt himself called, and to extinguish in himself all human foibles and frailties that might hinder him, or render his motives less pure and single.

As soon as he had recovered his health, he was again at work, visiting prisons, descending into dungeons, penetrating torture-chambers, distributing alms to prisoners, discharging the debts of imprisoned debtors, conversing with magistrates, judges, princes, and monarchs upon his darling theme, and endeavoring to enlist their sympathy and co-operation.

At the court of the Emperor of Austria, he was entertained with distinction, both by the enlightened emperor, Joseph, and by his mother, the renowned Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary. He dined with the emperor, and conversed with him for

two hours, laying before him all the horrors of the Austrian dungeons, but duly commending so much of the Austrian prison-system as he found praiseworthy. Dining, a few days after, at the house of the English ambassador, Sir Robert Murray Keith, where a large company of Austrian princes and nobles were assembled, the conversation turned upon the absurd iniquity of the torture; when one of the Austrians observed, that the glory of abolishing the torture in the Austrian dominions belonged to his present Imperial Majesty Joseph II." "Pardon me," said Howard; "his Imperial Majesty has only abolished one species of torture to establish another in its place more cruel; for the torture which he abolished lasted at the most only a few hours; but that which he has appointed lasts many weeks, nay, sometimes years. The poor wretches are plunged into a noisome dungeon, as black as the Black Hole of Calcutta, from which they are taken only if they confess what is laid to their charge."

"Hush!" said the ambassador; "your words will be reported to his majesty."

"What!" cried Howard; "shall my tongue be tied from speaking truth by any king or emperor in the world? I repeat what I asserted, and maintain its veracity."

The company appeared awestruck at his boldness, and admired it; but no one ventured to make any observation whatever, and a dead silence ensued. They were not, perhaps, aware that he had said the same thing to the emperor himself.

After a journey of nine months, during which he travelled four thousand six hundred and thirty-six miles, and visited the prisons of France, Holland, Prussia, Austria, Italy, and Switzerland, he returned once more to his native land, with his notebooks overflowing with facts and suggestions with which to aid his government in their design to construct a model prison, and to reform the county jails already existing. These notes were, in due time, digested and published in the form of an appendix to his previous work.

Having once begun his labors on behalf of the prisoner and the outcast, Howard ended them only with his life. His tour in Denmark, Sweden, Russia, and Poland, was quickly followed

by another journey in England, and that was succeeded by a tour of nearly four thousand miles in Portugal, Spain, Italy, and Austria; during which he passed from dungeons and hospitals to the palaces of monarchs, conveying to royal ears the cry of the despairing victims of their indifference. We cannot follow him in these extensive journeys. A few incidents, however, that varied the monotony of horror, we may glean from the records he has left us.

In the debtors' prison at Sheffield, Howard found a cutler plying his trade, who was in jail for a debt of thirty cents. The fees of the court which had consigned him to prison amounted to nearly five dollars, and this sum he had been for several weeks trying to earn in prison. In another jail there was a man, with a wife and five children, confined for court fees of about one dollar, and jailer's fee of eighty cents. This man was confined in the same apartment with robbers and murderers, and had little hope of being able to raise the money for his discharge. All such debtors- and they were numerous then in England Howard released by paying their debts.

A very striking occurrence came under his notice in Spain, which, I am sure, a romance-writer, could employ as the basis of a thrilling tale. In Portugal and Spain, a cruel custom prevailed of keeping accused persons in jail for months, and even years, before bringing them to trial, and of deferring the execution of capital punishment for periods equally long. Such was the fidelity of the people of those countries to their plighted word, that jailers were accustomed to let out such prisoners on their parole. A man who had been sentenced to death seven years before, and had been for a long time out on parole, was suddenly ordered for execution. At that time he was in the country, living with his family and working industriously at his trade. On receiving the summons to come to Lisbon and meet his doom, he bade farewell to his family and friends, and promptly presented himself at the jail. The facts, however, were made known to the government, and his admirable fidelity was rewarded with a pardon. Howard remonstrated vigorously against these cruel delays, both in conversation with the grandees and in his published narrative.

Nowhere in Europe was the torture more frequently applied, or more excruciating, than in Hanover, then under the dominion of the royal family of England. In an interview with the Duke of York, one of the princes of that family, he described the tortures inflicted there, when the prince promised that as soon as he was of age he would abolish the practice. In his book, therefore, Howard alluded to the peculiarly cruel tortures employed in Hanover, and added that the system would not be of long continuance. When the Duke of York had reached his legal majority, Howard sent him a copy of his work with a ribbon inserted to call attention to the passage. The delicate hint was taken, and the torture-chambers were forever closed in that kingdom.

No man, perhaps, has ever had such power over criminals as John Howard. There was a terrible rebellion in one of the London prisons, when two hundred ruffians, driven mad by cruelty, were gathered in the prison-yard, threatening death to any man who should approach them. Howard insisted on going in among them, and did so, in spite of the advice of the jailers and the entreaties of his friends. His very appearance disarmed them, and they listened to his quiet and reasonable remonstrances in respectful silence. He listened patiently in his turn to a recital of their grievances, after which he pointed out the folly of their attempting to resist the authorities, advised them at once to submit, and promised to make their complaints known. They took his advice at length, and went peacefully to their cells.

He was once, however, frightened by a woman. The lady in question, who was shown to his apartment in London, was of such amazingly tall stature, and so masculine in appearance, that he thought her a man in disguise, a jailer, perhaps,. whose cruelties he had exposed, and who had come to assassinate him. He darted to the bell, and, summoning his servant, gave him a sign to remain in the room till the fearful visitor was gone. It soon appeared that the lady had conceived a profound veneration for his character, and had come only to testify to him in person her gratitude and admiration. After detaining him with a long and pompous eulogy she took her leave, saying that now she had seen Mr. Howard she could die in peace.