this prison-yard. There were six boys—the eldest thirteen, the youngest only nine—who had been sent from up the country only that morning, convicted of murder; in fact, a quarrel with another boy—they were already fettered, and sitting in a group together—and there they are for life! The prisoners presented quantities of petitions, which Mr. Patten says they do every time he goes round the jail. Some of them beg so hard that some term may be named—if it is only one hundred years—that they may think they have a chance of getting out.
You may have read in Miss Roberts about the Thugs, a species of Burkers, but more cool-blooded. They travel for weeks with their victims, and at last contrive to strangle them and bury them: and this has been going on for centuries, and only discovered lately, since which two thousand Thugs have been taken, and either hanged or transported. There were none in the jail to-day, but Mr. Patten says he always keeps them apart from the others, and he had one there a little while ago who was six feet high, and whose hair hung down to his feet, and spread over three feet of ground besides; it
