Along the felon’s aisle-in the malarious cells where “poor” murderers and burglars are chained to die of the poisonous atmosphere, the same cry tells its mournful tale.  Look into the dark vista of this little passage, and you will see the gleaming of flabby arms and shrunken hands.  Glance into the apertures out of which they protrude so appealingly, you will hear the dull clank of chains, see the glare of vacant eyes, and shudder at the pale, cadaverous faces of beings tortured with starvation.  A low, hoarse whisper, asks you for bread; a listless countenance quickens at your footfall.  Oh! could you but feel the emotion that has touched that shrunken form which so despondingly waits the coming of a messenger of mercy.  That system of cruelty to prisoners which so disgraced England during the last century, and which for her name she would were erased from her history, we preserve here in all its hideousness.  The Governor knows nothing, and cares nothing about the prison; the Attorney-General never darkens its doors; the public scarce give a thought for those within its walls-and to one man, Mr. Hardscrabble, is the fate of these wretched beings entrusted.  And so prone has become the appetite of man to speculate on the misfortunes of his fellow-man, that this good man, as we shall call him, tortures thus the miserable beings entrusted to his keeping, and makes it a means of getting rich.  Pardon, reader, this digression.

George, elated with the idea of setting Tom at liberty, found the young theologian at the prison, and revealed to him the fact that he had got the much-desired order.  To the latter this seemed strange-not that such a person as George could have succeeded in what he had tried in vain to effect, but that there was a mystery about it.  It is but justice to say that the young theologian had for six months used every exertion in his power, without avail, to procure an order of release.  He had appealed to the Attorney-General, who declared himself powerless, but referred him to the Governor.  The Governor could take no action in the premises, and referred him to the Judge of the Sessions.  The Judge of the Sessions doubted his capacity to interfere, and advised a petition to the Clerk of the Court.  The Clerk of the Court, who invariably took it upon himself to correct the judge’s dictum, decided that the judge could not interfere, the case being a committal by a Justice of the Peace, and not having been before the sessions.  And against these high functionaries-the Governor, Attorney-General, Judge of the Sessions, and Clerk of the Court, was Mr. Soloman and Mrs. Swiggs all-powerful.  There was, however, another power superior to all, and that we have described in the previous chapter.

Accompanied by the brusque old jailer, George and the young theologian make their way to the cell in which Tom is confined.