would ruin both mind and body, and hence may be most potent punishments; but they dare not have them unbroken; and hence, with fixed periods for exercise out of their cells, and with the bible, which many of them have committed to memory from end to end, employment is found for both body and mind, and the punishment is reduced to the least possible amount. Thus a man commits a great crime, and is sentenced to three years' imprisonment with hard labour, is fed, housed, and clad well, educated, and taught to know the bible by heart, as a punishment for his offence! How much further could lenity be carried? only, we believe, to one degree-that of giving a pecuniary reward for good behaviour under these trying circumstances! as is effected in the Bedford and some other gaols, but with this difference that there other punishments are awarded.

On the other hand, at Wakefield and Durham, all the prisoners are constantly employed in rug and mat making, or similar employments, whereby the aim is to make their labour productive. At Leicester they work the tread-wheel, at Wandsworth the crank, at Flint gaol they break stones, and at the Coldbath-Fields and many other prisons, the tread-wheel, the shot drill, oakum picking, or working at trades are adopted indifferently.

But upon this point we will quote from a report made by Dr. Edward Smith, containing the answers given by the governors of more than sixty gaols, and ask our readers to say if such diversity of punishment in different parts of the kingdom is not a disgrace to our legislature, and a great wrong even to our criminal class.

"From this table [the tabular return of the number of prisoners and their employments] it appears that out of sixty-four prisons, eight enforce treadwheel labour as the sole mode of punishment. These are Northallerton, Warwick, Rutland, Walsingham, Spilsby, Canterbury, Huntingdon, and Cornwall. Thirty-five others conjoin some other punishment with it; so that in two-thirds of the whole number there is tread-wheel labour. In thirteen only is it stated to be productive. The crank is used alone in two prisons, and as a pump in a third; but in twenty prisons there is pumping apart from tread-wheel labour; fourteen in which the crank is employed, and three in which there are hand grinding-mills. All these are of the nature of crank labour; and from the returns I am unable to associate them in a more correct manner. In the Carlisle Gaol women are put to the crank. The shot drill is found only in two prisons. Thus, whilst there is so great a diversity in the instrument employed, there is this amount of uniformityviz., that in fifty-six out of sixty-four prisons, some kind of instrument of punishment is retained.

"Oakum-picking, and the exercise of various trades must be classed apart from the foregoing, and we find that in twenty-seven prisons the former, and in forty the latter is adopted. The two are associated together in twenty-three prisons. The trades selected are such as are useful in the repairs of the prison fabric and the prisoners' and officers' clothing, in addition to the manufacture of mats, hearth-rugs, and cocoa-matting, of ropemaking and tarring, shoemaking, tailoring, weaving of linen, and hair-picking. Stone-breaking is adopted exclusively in Flint Gaol, and with other occupations in Pembroke, Montgomery, Swansea, Cardigan, Brecon, Stafford, Somerset, Monmouth, Kirkton in Lindsay, and Cumberland Gaols, and pounding of gypsum, with pepper and rice-grinding, in the gaol at Abingdon. Some of these occupations constitute the sole employments, or nearly so, in Durham, Tynemouth, Ipswich, Wakefield, Anglesey, and Flint Gaols, and attention is given to make the labour as remunerative as possible-as, for example, in the Durham and Wakefield Gaols. In all other instances these employments are associated with others of a more

laborious kind. In a very few gaols, as the Reading Gaol, the sentence of hard labour is carried out almost entirely by giving mental instruction.

"In reference to the plan pursued in selecting the punishment for the prisoners in each gaol, the letters prove that in some prisons the treadwheel and crank in various forms are selected for short sentences, whilst manufactures are reserved for the longer ones. This is the case at Bedford; with stone-breaking at Derby, at Northampton, and Lewes. In the Wor cester, Salford, and Chester Gaols, all the prisoners work the tread-wheel or crank at first, and afterwards are engaged in trades. All who are ablebodied work the tread-wheel or crank, and only others pursue trades in Dorset, Maidstone, Louth, Spalding, Southwell, Salop, Somerset, Bury St. Edmunds, Beccles, Beverley, Cardiff, Montgomery, and Pembroke Gaols. At Taunton the tread-wheel is reserved for prison offences and incorrigible offenders, and even women are made, for prison offences, to work 'a light but wearying pump.' At Stafford the crank is allotted to second and third offences, to refractory paupers, and for assaults; and at Southwell there are three or four crank-machines, for the use of vagrants chiefly. At Dorset Castle, those are placed at the grinding-mill who are unfit to work the tread-mill. In the Horseley and Cardiff Gaols oakum-picking is not regarded as hard labour; at Spalding it is the employment of invalids; at Taunton it is the employment of all prisoners for one hour before breakfast; and at Ipswich it is allotted to old offenders, whilst their trade employments are given to first convictions. At the Maidstone Gaol those only who have gained a good character are employed in the repairs of the prison. In the Salop Gaol oakum-picking and trades are the employment of all prisoners during one part of the day. In the Cardigan Gaol oakum-picking and stonebreaking are allotted to those who are reduced in strength from long continuance at the tread-wheel and from other causes. At the Beccles Gaol those employed in shoemaking and tailoring are only such as have previously learnt those trades.

·

"The number of hours during which the various kinds of labour are performed, is not given in many of the replies. In the Exeter Gaol the statement is simply all the available hours.' At Springfield the prisoners work the tread-wheel and the crank one hour at a time, and have three hours' work daily, but they give the tread-wheel and crank labour as exercise. At the Coldbath-Fields they work a quarter of an hour on and a quarter of an hour off during nearly eight hours. At the New Bailey, at Salford, they work twelve minutes on and four minutes off. At Canterbury it varies from six minutes on and six off, to sixteen on and six off. At Falkingham they work twenty minutes and rest ten minutes during ten hours. At Northallerton the tread-wheel is worked five minutes on and ten minutes off, from eight to nine a.m. and ten to a quarter to one, and from two to a quarter to six in the afternoon, or seven and a half hours' labour per day. At Beverley those working at trades in separate cells have two hours' more work than those engaged on the treadwheel. At the Salop Gaol they work the pumps four hours daily, with five minutes' rest after each half-hour. At the Somerset County House of Correction all the prisoners pick oakum from half-past six to half-past seven in the morning, then labour at the tread-wheel and other employments from nine to one and two to six, and all again pick oakum from seven to eight p.m.

"In a few instances, the governors of prisons have given additional remarks, which it may not be inappropriate to mention here. The governor of Bedford remarks that they have no uniform system, and that they grant a good-conduct badge, which entitles the prisoner to a small sum on leaving the prison. At Abingdon the tread-wheel has been dis

continued fourteen years; at Brecon it has just been discontinued; at Morpeth they have discontinued the use of one of two tread-wheels; at Coldbath-Fields they have taken down the tread-wheels, which were unprofitable, and are erecting, or have erected, others of larger size, to grind corn. At Leicester they are well satisfied with that instrument; and the governor of Pembroke Gaol expresses his opinion that the treadwheel is the very best system of hard labour that can be adopted.' The governor of Preston Gaol writes, "I am no advocate for useless crank labour, but for low dietary and stoppages of food for all prison offences; these, combined with education, are, I humbly believe, better for all purposes, than that horrid, associated, and villanous 'getting up stairs."

A TRIP TO WINDSOR.

BY GEORGE MARKHAM TWEDDELL, P.G.
Author of "Shakspere: his Times and Contemporaries," etc.

"Here hills and vales, the woodland and the plain,
Here earth and water seem to strive again;
Not, chaos-like, together crushed and bruised,
But, as the world, harmoniously confused;
Where order in variety we see,

And where, though all things differ, all agree.
Here waving groves a chequer'd scene display,
And part admit, and part exclude the day;
As some coy nymph her lover's warm address,
Nor quite indulges, nor can quite suppress.
There, interspersed in lawns and opening glades,
Thin trees arise that shun each other's shades.
Here in full light the russet plains extend:
There, wrapped in clouds, the blueish hills ascend.
E'en the wild heath displays her purple dyes,
And 'midst the desert fruitful fields arise,
That, crown'd with tufted trees and springing corn,
Like verdant isles the sable waste adorn."

Pope's Windsor Forest.

"Windsor Castle enjoyeth a most delightfull prospect round about; for right in front it overlooketh a vale, lying out far and wide, garnished with corn-fields, flourishing with meadows, decked with groves on either side, and watered from the most mild and calm river Thames; behind it arise hills everywhere, neither rough or over high, attired as it were by nature for hunting and games."-Camden's Britannia.

Ir was during my visit to London, like all the world, to see the great exhibition of 1851, that, walking along Holborn one evening towards my lodgings in Fetter Lane, a small hand-bill was placed in my hand by a billdistributer, advertising a succession of cheap trips to various delightful places in the vicinity of the metropolis. My exchequer, never too full, was at that time particularly limited, so that I had to guard my expenditure with a miser's care; but finding that I could be taken between London and Windsor and back for eighteen-pence, I determined to visit that truly poetic and historic site, on Sunday, August 10th, 1851. My good cousin by marriage (and, what is more, by affection), Brother John Cole, a good Oddfellow, then a painter and gilder, in London, and now a farmer, in New

Zealand, at once agreed to accompany me, and volunteered to act as a guide, for he "had been there, and still would go ;" and his cousin, Miss C., my sister-in-law, who had been my travelling companion from Cleveland to London, was also to be one of the party.

Honest old Izaak Walton, in that glorious book of his, The Complete Angler, makes Piscator walk seventeen miles before calling to "drink his morning's draught at the Thatched House in Hodsden." For myself, I have a sort of conscientious objection to long journies before breakfast: a cup of good Mocha or Jamaica coffee before starting, with a few thin slices of homemade bread and sweet butter, I firmly believe in; and if the good woman of the house will fry a collop of Yorkshire ham, or boil a couple of new-laid eggs, why, I always think that it is a pity to prevent her. Accordingly, Brother Cole and I pay some slight attention to the wants of our frail human nature before we sally forth from our lodgings in Blewitt's Buildings, Fetter Lane, to call for our lady companion, who is staying with some female relatives in High Holborn. Finding that she, too, has breakfasted, and has only her bonnet to put on, we are soon wending our way to the Waterloo Station, from whence the train is advertised to start. Well, we arrive in time at the by-no-means handsome station, ascend the high flight of dirty wooden steps, leading to the shabby platform, and secure three tickets, though not without some squeezing in the crowd, and an imminent danger of having our eyes knocked out with the rectangular corners of an ironbound wooden box, which a woman just before us is dancing about with on her head. It is evident that we shall be more comfortable if we take our seats in the carriages, which is no sooner said than done; and really "the cars," as our American friends call them, are not amiss. We are elevated above the roofs of the neighbouring houses, and can see the smoke ascending from the chimnies below us; what is not so nice-we feel it too.

Ring-a-ting, ting-a-ting-ting! that's the bell for starting. Hurrah, what a scramble for seats! Puff-puff-puff! now we're off, and do not travel far before we leave the smoke, and feel as if we were altogether in another clime. It is a glorious day, thank God for it-thank Him also for railroads, and for a Sabbath. To-day I will worship in the forest.

Past the stations of Vauxhall, Wandsworth, Putney, Barnes, and Mortlake, and we reach Richmond, in Surrey, the scenery around which is truly beautiful, once the residence of the poet Thompson, and where he lies buried. A mile and a half more, and we are at Twickenham; and now what a crowd of associations does that name force upon the brain. It was at Twickenham that our great English philosopher, Lord Bacon, then plain Mr. Francis Bacon, was presented with an estate worth two thousand pounds-a great sum in that day-by the unfortunate Earl of Essex; an act of munificence which the mean-spirited Bacon repaid with the grossest ingratitude: for when Essex was brought to trial for conspiracy against the queen (Elizabeth), Bacon, who with all his genius was a lick-spittle all his life, appeared as counsel against him, and used every means in his power to magnify the crimes of his benefactor. It was at Twickenham that the polished poet, Alexander Pope, spent the last twenty-eight years of his life, and where he chose to be buried, rather than in Westminster Abbey; but the house in which he resided, after passing through several hands into the possession of the Baroness Howe, was ruthlessly pulled down, and even the monument which the poet had erected to his mother, on an hillock at the further extremity of his neat little grounds-for he had only five acres-has been removed with a barbarism worthy of the Goths and Vandals. Nor are Bacon and Pope the only illustrious names connected with Twickenham; for it has been the residence of William Lenthall, speaker of the House of Commons

during the stormy strife between the king and parliament; of Robert Boyle, the philosopher; of Henry Fielding, the celebrated novelist; of Lady Mary Montague; and of Alfred Tennyson, our greatest living poet; to say nothing of such poet-laurets as Paul Whitehead, whose like may England never see again. At a distance of about half a mile from the village of Twickenham is Strawberry Hill, once the famous residence of that literary fop, Horace Walpole.

Twickenham, Feltham, Ashford, Staines, and Wraysbury stations left behind, and anon we arrive at that of Datchet, only two miles from Windsor. The towers of Windsor Castle have peered forth upon us for some distance. As a reader of the Merry Wives of Windsor, I need hardly say, that no sooner did I find myself at Datchet, than I involuntarily began to look for the Datchet Mead of Shakspere's comedy, almost expecting to see Mrs. Ford's two men-servants bearing shoulder-high jovial old Sir John Falstaff, in a buck-basket, with "foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking;" and whilst the fat knight "was more than half stewed in grease, like a Dutch dish," as he himself has it, to see him "thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe." But this pleasant revery was cut short by the stoppage of the train, and the announcement that we had reached-WINDSOR !

"Windsor the next, where Mars with Venus dwells,

Beauty with Strength, above the valley swells,

With such an easy and unforced ascent,

That no stupendous precipice denies

Access, no horror turns away our eyes:

But such arise as does at once invite

A pleasure, and a reverence from the sight.
Thy mighty master's emblem, in whose face
Sat meekness, heighten'd with majestic grace :
Such seems thy gentle height, made only proud
To be the basis of that pompous load,
Than which a nobler weight no mountain bears,
Save Atlas ouly, which supports the spheres."

Sir John Denham.

Having left the neat railway-station, Brother Cole conducted us by a "short cut" to the Castle, which, (though certainly "no stupendous precipice, denies access,") by the flight of steps we ascended, as well as by the magnificent prospects from the terraces, convinced us at once that the noblest home of our English monarchs stands on no mean eminence. St. James's Palace is absolutely unsightly in its exterior appearance, and Buckingham Palace has never appeared to me half so beautiful as many of our country manses and halls of the nobility and gentry; but Windsor Castle is the fitting residence of our beloved Queen, and is worth all the treasure it has cost. I only regret that we ever had other than noblehearted kings to inhabit so noble a palace. A mean monarch in such a place appears as loathsome to me as a filthy reptile on a golden plate: I therefore feel sorry that George the Fourth was ever a resident of Windsor Castle.

It is necessary for the reader to understand, that when he finds it stated that Edward the Confessor occasionally kept his Court at Windsor, the manor of which he afterwards gave to the abbot and convent of Westminster, and that William the Conqueror obtained it back again by exchange, it is old Windsor that is meant, two miles south-east by south from the town now known as Windsor. The exact site of the palace of the kings of England at old Windsor is now a matter for the antiquary to guess at.