country gentleman of a retiring disposition mi naturally be expected to be. Accordingly, at first Assize he was called upon to attend, it wa great shock to him to discover that a number prisoners who were acquitted were neverthe carried back to prison and once more confir there, simply on the ground that they had paid the customary fees due to the gaoler and "the tipstaff for being taken into custody"; strange and almost incredible as it may seem us, if through some stupid mistake of a blunder constable or justice's clerk, a person was unlu enough to be arrested, however innocent he mi be, it was impossible for him to regain his libe without first having paid the bill presented to b for the privilege of being taken up, conductec gaol, and lodged there.

John Bunyan's publisher, Francis Smith, left us an account of his experiences when thro into gaol, for "having a hand in printing and co piling dangerous books," in which he says, “I locked up in a room where I had neither chair stool to rest upon, and yet ten shillings per we must be the price, and before I had been th three nights £7, 15s. was demanded for pres fees. That is to say, £5 to excuse me for wear irons, ten shillings for my entrance week lodgi five shillings for sheets, five shillings for "garnis etter. Thus, at the county gaol of Howard's cown of Bedford, there was a printed notice d by the gaoler

All persons that come to this place, either by nt, committment, or verbally, must pay, before arged, fifteen shillings and four pence to the r, and two shillings to the turnkey." sewhere, as in the table of rates and fees to ken by the gaoler for the county of Salop, ed by the justices of the peace for the said cy, such a notice as this appearedTo the gaoler, for the discharge of every person red with felony, or other crime, or as an acy thereto, against whom no bill of indictshall be found by the Grand Jury, or who on her trial shall be acquitted, or who shall be arged by proclamation for want of prosecu

compenea to languish in prison until somenow other he had satisfied the demands made up him by the officials. Instances of this are quently recorded by Howard, and he tells us furt that "many young creatures, when their term expired, are detained in prison; others stript remaining handkerchief, apron, or pettico Such necessaries have I seen left with keepers till they could bring their fees."1

Such were the evils which first attracted attention; and here is the account which himself has left us in the Introduction to his be on Prisons of his discovery, and of the endeavo which he made to remove the hardship.

"The distress of prisoners, of which there few who have not some imperfect idea, ca more immediately under my notice when I Sheriff of the county of Bedford; and the circu stance which so excited me to activity in th behalf was, the seeing some-who by the verd of juries were declared not guilty; some-on wh the grand jury did not find such an appearanc guilt as subjected them to trial; and som whose prosecutors did not appear against the -after having been confined for months, drag back to gaol, and locked up again till they sho pay sundry fees to the gaoler, the clerk of assize,

The State of Prisons, p. 40.

erly affected with the grievance, and willing -ant the relief desired; but they wanted a edent for charging the county with the nse. I therefore rode into several neighng counties in search of one; but I soon. t that the same injustice was practised in ; and, looking into the prisons, I beheld es of calamity, which I grew daily more and anxious to alleviate. In order, therefore, to a more perfect knowledge of the particulars extent of it by various and accurate observa

I visited most of the county gaols in and." 1

Le effect of the discoveries which Howard made, and of the sights and scenes which ow saw for the first time, was to start him on eer of benevolence which was only terminated 3 death. His whole course of life was changed. this time onwards he was constantly in the e. Journey succeeded to journey with bering rapidity. He was hardly ever at home nore than a few weeks at a time. Ocnally, especially during his boy's holidays, a time of rest was spent at Cardington; but oner were the holidays over than he was off

in England, or carrying on his researches Scotland and Ireland, and extending them beyond the borders of his own country, so that the course of his seventeen years of untiri exertions, in the noble words of Burke's famo panegyric, he "visited all Europe-not to surv the sumptuousness of palaces or the stateliness temples; nor to make accurate measurements the remains of ancient grandeur; nor to form scale of the curiosity of modern art; nor to colle medals, or collate manuscripts but to dive ir the depths of dungeons, to plunge into the fection of hospitals, to survey the mansions sorrow and pain, to take the gauge and dimensic of misery, depression, and contempt ; to rememl the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to vi the forsaken, and compare and collate the d tresses of all men in all countries. His plan original: it is as full of genius as it is of humani It was a voyage of discovery, a circumnavigati of charity. Already the benefit of his labour felt more or less in every country; I hope he w anticipate his final reward by seeing all its effe fully realised in his own." 1

The speech, containing this fine passage, w delivered in the year 1781, and in the same ye 1 Speech at Bristol, see Burke's Works (1852), vol. iii. p. 4