The Atherstone, Nuneaton, and Warwickshire Times. — 1884-06-14 (Atherstone, Warwickshire, England)

PRISOH.—As we entered the yard 50.0 r 60 men swarmed out from the dark doorways which led into their dens, all heavily elesined, with long, coarse, matted hair, in wisps, or standing on end round their death-like faces in filthy rags, with emaciated forms, eaked with dirt, and bearing marks of the torture; and nearly all with sore eyes, swelled and !deeding lips, sklit diseases, anal putcefying sores. These tvirrounded us cheely, and as, not without a shudder, I passed through them and entered one of their dens, they proved upon us,. blocking out tae light, uttering discordant erice, and elamouring ith one voice " Ems-,he beeksheesh ; loot htg more like demons than living men, as abje,t and depraved as crime, despair, and cruelty can 'mac them. Within, the blaekness, the filth, the atemdi. overpowering even in this cool weather, the rnbltish of rags and potsherds, cannot be described. Here, in semi -at arvation and misery, with nameless cruelties practised on them without restr.iint, festering in one depraved mass, are the tried and untried, the condemned, the tent innocent ; the murderer and pirate ; the debtor and petty thief, all huddled together ; without lupe of exit, except to the adjacent juAgment seat, with its horrors of ' the question by torture," :or to " the field of blood not far away. On earth can there ls seen a spectacle more hideous than that of thcse abject wretches, with Leavy fetters eating into the flesh of their neck and ankle's lif on their asted skeletons, covered with vermin and running sores, there is any flesh left), their thick, matted, bristly, black hair—contrasting with the shaven heads of the free—the lone, broken claws of their fingers and toes, the hungry look in their emacia:ed faces, and their clamorous cry, " Kum-shit ! htos-sha !" They thronged round us clattering their chains, one man saying that they had so little rice they bad to "drink the foul water to 811 themied yea;" another shrieked, "Would I were in your prison in Hong Kong," and this waschorused by many voices saying, "In your prison at Hong Kong they have fish and vegetables and more rice tan they can eat, and baths, and beds to sleep on ; good, good is the prison of your Queen " but higher swelled the cry of "Kiss-sha :" and as we could not give alms to several hundreds, we eluded them, though with difficulty; and, as we squeezed through the narrow door, execrations followed us; and high above the clang of the fetters and the general din rose the cry, "Foreign devils" YanK‘vai% as we passed out into sunshine and liberty, mid the key was turned upon theta and their misery. We went into three ether large wards, • feni with horror and seething with misery, and into a smaller one nearly as bad, whete fifteen were incarcerated, some of them with infants devoured by cutaneous diseases. Several of them said that they are there for kidnapping, het others are hostages for criminal relatives who wile have not yet been captured. This imprison' moat of hostages is in acoordanee with a law which authorises the seizure and detention of persons and families belonging to criminals who have fled or 0 are in eeneealeneut. Such are imprisoned till the v.-linty relative is brought to j,ustice, for months. years,or even for a lifetime. 'lwo of these women. told us that they had been there for twenty years.. t —"Vie Gatlea tidersvmst toai the Wiry 7l,th,t 41 heehella I. Bea.  lit giving, a man reoeives more than the giver, and the more in proportion to the worth a the thing given. Associate with the wise, and their knemledge 'will cling to thy skirts. Though the presence of imaginary goi;ti cannot make us happy, the absence of it may usake us miserable. When any great loss or sudden pain comes unawares upon no we are apt to forget everything else for the time but our own intense suffering. The skies may be as blue and the fields as green as ever. but for us they wear a different hue. " UM.