“Nonsense,” retorted Mr. Eden.  “The discipline of this jail is comprised in these rules, of which eight out of ten are habitually broken by you.”

“He is right there so far, Mr. Hawes.  You are here to maintain, not an imaginary discipline, but an existing discipline strictly defined by printed rules, and it seems clear you have committed (through ignorance) serious breaches of these rules.  But let us hope, Mr. Eden, that no irreparable consequences have followed this unlucky breach of Rule 37.”

“Irreparable?  No!” replied Mr. Eden bitterly.  “The Home Office can call men back from the grave, can’t it?  Here is a list of five men all extinguished in this prison by breach of Rule 37.  You start.  Understand me, this is but a small portion of those who have been done to death here in various ways; but these five dropped silently like autumn leaves by breach of Rule 37.  Rule 37 is one of the safety valves which the law, more humane than the blockheads who execute it, has attached to that terrible engine separate confinement.”

“I cannot accept this without evidence.”

“I have a book here that contains ample evidence; you shall see it.  Meantime I will just ask that turnkey about Hatchett, the first name on your list of victims.  Evans, what did you find in Hatchett’s cell when he was first discovered to be dying?”

“Eighteen loaves of bread, sir, on the floor in one corner.”

“Eighteen loaves; I really don’t understand.”

“Don’t you?—­how could eighteen loaves have accumulated but by the man rejecting his food for several days?  How could they have accumulated unobserved if Rule 37 had not been habitually broken?  Alas! sir, Hatchett’s story, which I see is still dark to you, is as plain as my hand to all of us who know the fatal effects of solitary or homicidal confinement.  Thus, sir, it was:  Unsustained by rational employment, uncheered by the sound of a human voice, torn out by the roots from all healthy contact with the human race, the prisoner Hatchett’s heart and brain gave way together; being now melancholy mad he shunned the food that was jerked blindly into his cell, like a bone to a wolf, by this scientific contrivance to make brute fling food to brute, instead of man handing it with a smile to grateful man; and so his body sunk (his spirits and reason had succumbed before) and he died.  His offense was refusing to share his wages with a woman from whom he would have been divorced, but that he was too poor to buy justice at so dear a shop as the House of Lords.  The law condemned him to a short imprisonment.  The jailer, on his own authority, substituted capital punishment.”

“Is it your pleasure, sir, that I should be vilified and insulted thus to my very face, and by my inferior officer?” asked Hawes, changing color.

“You have nothing to apprehend except from facts,” was the somewhat cold reply.  “You are aware I do not share this gentleman’s prejudices.”