In the corner of the yard where I daily exercised stood an unpretending looking shed, with slate roof and large folding doors, and resembling a coach-house more than anything I can compare it to. This building always puzzled me, and I enquired of my friend and fellow-lodger, Mr. Mike Rose, what it was. I then discovered it was the scaffold, that grim limb of the law on which so many wretches have periodically suffered within three weeks of their sentence at the Old Bailey Sessions, or, as they are familiarly known, “The C. C. C.” I was most anxious to have a minute examination of this masterpiece of Marwood’s, for it is admitted that that eminent manipulator of the carotid artery has brought his genius to bear on the grim subject with such success that drop, knot, and platform have all arrived at the highest possible degree of perfection. It was the custom to utilise the services of certain prisoners every day in general cleaning and helping about the prison, and as I was convinced that “the scaffold” would, like every other prison institution, require a periodical clean up, I suggested to my turnkey that if the chance occurred he should select me to assist in this cheerful and instructive duty. He laughed at the idea of my doing such work, and added that they only selected men whose antecedents had habituated them to scrubbing and cleaning; but I explained to him that if Mike and I were selected, that Mike would do all the washing, and that I would exercise a sort of moral effect and general supervision that could not possibly make the slightest difference to him, and was based on an agreement between Mike and myself, whereby for a consideration of bread and butter, and my leavings generally, he was to clean out my cell daily and make himself useful to me, and on my behalf. This warder was a very good sort—indeed, about the only one that had not that offensive “bad drainage” expression I had noticed in the others. So he promised compliance, and one day after dinner I found myself in company with Mike, crossing the yard—I with a duster and he with a mop and pail en route to the scaffold. There is something horrible in this idea, and many readers will probably consider my act and desire to participate in such a task as in the worst possible taste, but I felt I should never have such a chance again, and being, moreover, a philosopher, and actuated, even at that early stage, with a determination of some day writing my experiences, I lost no opportunity from the first day of my incarceration to the last to see everything by hook or by crook. I can fairly say I attained my object, and saw more than any other man has ever done before, and that too under such favourable circumstances as something more than chance enabled me to. It may not here be out of place to say that I have read every book, sensational or realistic, that purports to describe prison life, and have invariably come to the conclusion that the writers never really wrote from personal observation, or, if they did, had failed signally in giving a correct description of what actually exists. Many were well-written books, but they were NOT prison life. This narrative (to use an advertising phrase) supplies a want long felt, and if it abounds with faults of composition—as I readily confess it does—it compensates in a measure for its shortcomings by the accuracy of its details. It is written in a vein, moreover, more likely—as I hope—to meet public approval than that snivelling, sanctimonious style adopted by its predecessors, and which, even if sincere, would nevertheless be palling, but where indulged in by some scheming, anonymous, rascally jail-bird, is as impertinent as it is nauseous. I have no faith in converted burglars. The entire scaffold is a most unpretending construction, and situated in any other yard but Old Bailey might pass observation as a highly-polished and tidy out-house. The floor is level with the outer yard, so that the chief actor is spared the painful necessity of trying to ascend a flight of steps with quaking knees and an air of assumed levity. A few steps, quite unobservable whilst standing on the “drop,” lead down from the back of the flooring into a bricked pit below, and a long bolt, worked by a wheel, enables this apparently solid flooring to split from the centre and to launch the victim in mid-air into the centre of this truly “bottomless pit.” I minutely examined all this, and (as its thorough dusting necessitated) rubbed and burnished every portion I could think of. My confrÈre, meanwhile, was on his hands and knees, scrubbing away like grim death, and preparing the floor for the ceremony that was to take place a few days hence. Mike all this time was giving me the benefit of his vast experience; and as he appeared to hear everything that was going on, he led me to understand that eight A.M. on Monday next would witness one of those dreadful private executions that periodically take place, witnessed by none but prison officials, and associated, I verily believe, in many instances by circumstances of brutality that would not admit of publicity. He added that we might by luck get a view of the procession, or at least hear a little, for, as he considerately pointed out, our cells actually overlooked the yard. I was most anxious to hear how we might attain to this unusual excitement, and listened attentively whilst Mike enlightened me in something of the following style:—“Yer see, they’ll begin to fake the cove about eight—ah, afore that, and none of us, see, will be allowed out that morning, you bet; so if we can get a bit of glass out of the windey—see—and plug it round wi’ bread, why none on ’em wud be none the wiser, and we might see a rare lot; never you mind, leave it to me, and to-morrow when I cleans your cell, I’ll fix it for yer.” This was indeed something to look forward to, and next morning when Mike appeared he led me to understand, by the most hideous grimaces, that he had succeeded on his own window, and prepared to do the same by mine; so leaving him to himself, I withdrew into another cell, for it is a peculiarity of prison system that if two men are together, or even near one another, they are invariably watched, but if alone they are comparatively unobserved, and free to prosecute any undertaking without the least risk of detection. Mike’s gestures, accompanied by a rolling of his eyes in the direction of the window, convinced me on my return that he had succeeded in his undertaking, and having the highest opinion of his constructive and destructive capabilities, I determined not to approach the window nor to test his work till the supreme moment arrived. Mike was one of those individuals who undergo imprisonment as a matter of course, and with considerably greater advantage than most men. I do not here include myself, for mine was an exceptional case; he had benefited by the experience of years, and though only a young man, appeared to be intimate with every prison in the kingdom; he was, moreover, a most willing and respectful man and a capital worker, and, as such, a favourite with the warders, who knew they could always depend on a job being well done by him; he was, consequently, all day employed on odd jobs, which carried with them privileges that enabled him to roam about and give the uninitiated—such as myself—the benefit of his profound and varied experience. Mike, I fear, was a terrible ruffian; he was now awaiting his trial for burglary and personal violence, and though he assured me it was a mere nothing, and a grossly exaggerated and trumped-up charge, I gleaned from the facts that came out at his trial that he had rifled the contents of a small shop in the City Road, and that when the old woman who lived on the premises had ventured to remonstrate, that Mike had marked his sense of such an unjustifiable proceeding by half throttling her, and eventually making away “for a little season.” He assured me, however, it was “nothing,” adding, however, that as it was his fourth conviction, he quite expected penal servitude. He informed me also that he had written an elaborate defence, which he proposed reading to the judge and jury. This defence he insisted on showing me, and I am bound to say that a more damning document, or one more capable of hanging a man, I never saw; but luck and circumstances happily (for him) prevented him carrying out his intention of reading it, and Mike by the omission got off with two years’ hard labour. Mr. Rose, who was about four-feet-four in his stockings, communicated to me, amongst other interesting facts, that he was a volunteer, and I could not help realising on various occasions after he had been performing violent exercise in my cell, that there was some truth in the adage that “a Rose by any name would smell as sweet.” Mike, in short, was a character, and whether in chapel, where he apparently led the choir and knew every response by heart, or in the prison, where he appeared au courant with everything and everybody, I found him a most useful neighbour, invariably obliging and respectful, and willing to turn his hand to anything.