the vicious courses of the headstrong youth had brought on confirmed insanity. In this forlorn condition he survived his father about nine years. He was buried near his mother at Cardington. 7. We then read of other journeys to the Continent, but no sign as yet appears of the great work which was to make his name immortal. 8. In 1773 Howard was appointed High Sheriff' of the county of Bedford. By the duties of his office he was brought much into contact with the prisoners. To his surprise and grief he found that several persons who were declared "not guilty" were taken back to prison, and detained there for months until they could pay certain fees to gaolers and other officials. This awakened the slumbering sympathies of the Sheriff. In November, 1773, he set out to inspect some of the largest gaols in England, and for four months, when travelling was no easy matter, he pursued this journey. Everywhere he found the same abuse, gaolers living out of the fees extorted from prisoners whether innocent or guilty. In some small places he found a public-house was used as a gaol, and the landlord was the gaoler, who thus turned the criminals into profitable customers. 9. Then other questions suggested themselves to his active mind. He began to inquire into the state of these gaols. He found gaol-fever was spread far and wide. In 1730 this disease was brought by the prisoners into the court at Taunton, and the Judge, the High Sheriff, and some hundreds besides died of the distemper, which was 8 produced entirely by the filth and foul air of the gaols. 10. The results of this inquiry were truly appalling. The country was aroused, and not only were Bills passed by Parliament to put an end to such a disgraceful state of affairs, but in March, 1774, John Howard was summoned to the bar of the House of Commons to receive the public thanks of the House for his services. 11. The Parliament had done something, but not enough. Laws were passed to prevent gaolers from extorting fees from their victims and to secure better prison arrangements, but no one was entrusted with the duty of seeing these improvements carried out. Again, before the end of the year 1774, we find him busy in his dreary, and often dangerous work of prison inspection. 12. One passage will suffice to reveal the state of things a hundred years ago. At Plymouth' gaol there was "a place called the Chink, seventeen feet long, eight feet wide, and five and a half feet high. No light could struggle inside, no air could penetrate the den except through an opening five inches by seven. Three people had once been shut up within this receptacle for two months, preparatory to transportation. By turns they took their stand at the opening to catch what light and air could by this method be obtained. The door had not been unfastened for five weeks before Howard paid his visit. He insisted upon entering, and there found, amidst intolerable filth and stench, a human being who had been confined in it for no less than seventy days. The unhappy creature confessed he would rather have been hanged at once than endure a lingering death in this fearful grave." 13. At Exeter10 the medical man assured Howard that he was excused by his contract from attending those prisoners who had caught gaol fever! The walls of the cells and the clothes of the prisoner were completely saturated with the poisonous infection. Howard had constantly to change his own clothes, and to spread his memorandum book before the fire for an hour or two before he could use it. 14. In 1774 we find Howard in Wales, and in Scotland in 1775 and often afterwards, and in Ireland in 1779. In all, with very rare exceptions, the same story of cruelty and wretchedness was repeated. But the limits of the three kingdoms of England, Ireland, and Scotland were no longer wide enough for his determined energy and expanding sympathy. 4. Brest.-A seaport of France, on the North side of the Bay of Biscay. 5. Royal Society, founded in the reign of Charles II. In 1662 it received a charter from Charles. 6. Meteorological observations, that is, observations of all kinds of changes of the atmosphere. 7. High Sheriff is appointed every year to each county. It is his duty to see the sentences of the Judges at the Assizes carried out. 8. Taunton, in Somersetshire. 9. Plymouth.-A seaport in Devonshire. 10. Exeter.-Chief town of Devonshire. It is a cathedral city. LESSON XV. THE UPRIGHT MAN. The man of life upright, whose guiltless heart is free The horrors of the deep and terrors of the skies. Thus, scorning all the care that fate or fortune brings, things, Good thoughts his only friends, his wealth a well-spent age; The earth his sober inn,1-a quiet pilgrimage. Francis Bacon (1561-1626), commonly, but incorrectly, called Lord Bacon. 1. The earth is not his home, but simply an inn, where he rests during his pilgrimage or wandering to heaven, his real and eternal home. LESSON XVI. LIFE OF JOHN HOWARD.-Part II. 1. The home journeys, extending from 1773 to 1780, to which we have referred, were interrupted by journeys abroad; now no longer for health or pleasure, but in pursuit of one great purpose—that of examining the state of the prisons in other countries. At 2. In April, 1775, he started for France. that time the terrible and mysterious prison-fortress of the Bastille1 was standing in Paris-a huge building into which few who entered ever came out again, and of which every stone, if it could speak, would reveal some tale of injustice and tyranny. Into this dread fortress, Howard tried to penetrate. He passed through one gate, and through the guard, but was denied any further entrance, being perhaps the only person who ever left those gloomy walls with regret. 2 At 3. From France he proceeded to Belgium, thence to Holland. Generally he found a much better state of things than in England, and in Holland he found much to encourage and delight him. Hamburg, however, he was horrified. He found there a frightful instrument of torture, kept and used in a deep cellar. It ought, he says, to be buried ten thousand fathoms deeper. It is said the inventor was the first to suffer by it. At 4. In 1776 we find him in Switzerland. Berne3 great changes were made in consequence of Howard's earnest representations. It is impossible to give a complete record of all his foreign journeys. He suffered nothing to turn him from his one overmastering purpose. Many things he found that urgently needed improvement, but he found more hopeful signs of good than at that time existed in England. The instruments of torture, however, that he met with abroad seemed more cruel than those tolerated at that time in this country. 4 5. In 1781 he set out for Denmark, Sweden, and Russia. On arriving at Petersburg, he was invited by the Empress Catherine to dinner; he replied, saying that he had come to visit prisons, not palaces. The instruments of torture in Russia, and |