“Surely these were no light words, yet they fell light on you.

“In answer you promised us the ‘Inspector of Prisons,’ but you gave him no instructions to come to us.  You fooled away time when time was human life.  Read once more my words of warning, and then read these: 

“This morning a boy of fifteen was done to death by Mr. Hawes.  Of his death you are not guiltless.  You were implored to prevent it, you could have prevented it, and you did not prevent it.  The victim of jail cruelty and of the maladministration in government offices lies dead in his cell.

“In three days I shall commit his body to the dust; but his memory never—­until he is avenged and those who are in process of being murdered like him receive the protection of the State.

“If in the three days between this boy’s murder and his burial your direct representative and agent does not come here and examine this jail and sift the acts of those who govern it, on the fourth day I lay the whole case before her majesty the queen and the British nation, by publishing it in all the journals.  Then I shall tell her majesty that, having thrice appealed in vain to her representatives, I am driven to appeal to herself; with this I shall print the evidence I have thrice offered you of this jailer’s felonies and their sanguinary results.  That lady has a character; one of its strong, unmistakable features is a real, tender, active humanity.

“I read characters; it is a part of my business; and, believe me, this lady once informed of the crimes done in her name will repudiate and abhor alike her hireling’s cruelty and her clerks’ and secretaries’ indifference to suffering and slaughter.  Nor will the public hear unmoved the awful tale.  Shame will be showered on all connected with these black deeds, even on those who can but be charged with conniving at them.

“To be exposed to national horror on the same column with the greatest felon in England would be a cruel position, a severe punishment for a man of honor, whose only fault perhaps is that he has mistaken an itch for eminence for a capacity for business, and so serves the State without comprehending it.  But what else can I do?  I, too, serve the State, and I comprehend what I owe it, and the dignity with which it intrusts me, and the deep responsibility it lays on me.  I therefore cannot assent to future felonies any more than I have to past and present, but must stop them, and will stop them—­how I can.

“So, sir, I offer you the post of honor or a place of shame.  Choose! for three whole days you have the choice.  Choose! and may God enlighten you and forgive me for waiting these three days.

“I have the honor to be, etc., etc.,

To this letter, whose tone was more eccentric, more flesh and blood, and WITHOUT PRECEDENT, than the last, came an answer in a different hand from the others.

“—­acknowledged receipt of the chaplain’s letter.