"What have you got this time?"
"Ten years."
"What do you intend to do when you get out this time?"
"Why, it's no use trying to get work; I am not able for anything very hard now, and I think I shall make snyde half-crowns."
"You'll get caught again if you commence that game."
"No I won't. I did that when I was out last, and several times before, and I have never been caught yet for that job. I can go and buy silver spoons, and get tools that I can destroy in a few minutes."
"But why not go to the workhouse?"
"The workhouse! why, the workhouse in our country is as bad, if not worse than this, and this is bad enough. No; I will never enter a workhouse as long as I can get anything to steal. Some workhouses are better than this; but then when you steal you are not always caught, and you have yourself to blame if you're 'copt.' I will steal the very first chance I get, as soon as I get out at the gates. They won't give me work I can make a living at, and I'll not starve nor want a single meal. I'll have better mutton the day I get out than we have here, perhaps, and it will cost me nothing."
This prisoner was a thorough jail-bird, quiet and civil to his officers, growling at his food, slow at work, but always doing a little—a very good example of the type "civil and lazy." He received his ten years' sentence about four years ago, when it was customary for those who had revoked a licence to be refused a remission of sentence a second time. But, in September, 1864, he was credited with two-and-a-half years' remission, and in the summer of 1865 he was credited with another three months, unasked, unexpected, and in the latter case, quite inexplicable consistently with justice to others. Indeed, the only explanation which can be given of this undeserved and unexpected leniency is to suppose that the prison officials, like shopkeepers, treat their "regular" customers best, and that they do not see any reason why their business should not be encouraged, and the prisons kept as full and quiet as possible by the same methods as other men adopt who have to make an honest living by their trade. We have seen the effects of cotton famine, and I am sure matters would have come to a sad pass if we were to witness a convict famine, and to be compelled to open our workhouse gates to the starving families of our convict guardians.
It is very natural, and in a sense, laudable, that these latter should seek by such means as are available to them to prevent the occurrence of any such calamity. Hence, civil quiet ruffians, like the prisoner I have referred to, are encouraged. They are an article with which they have little trouble, and out of which they can make both profit and capital.