obliged to leave home on some business, but would very shortly return. The woman then entered the house to await the return of the lady, but finding she did not make her appearance, she proceeded to her own home, where she found one of the children murdered. It afterwards transpired that the mother had watched the house till the woman had left it, when she had entered and perpetrated the crime. On being arrested, she acknowledged, without hesitation, that she had killed the child (to whom she was tenderly attached) under an impulse she could not control. She was tried for the murder, and the jury putting a merciful interpretation ou her conduct, acquitted her on the ground of insanity, and she became an inmate of a Convict Lunatic Asylum. Had the same system been adopted with her that was used in the last-mentioned case, how different might have been the result.

Although at the commencement of the attack religion appears to exercise an immense curative power, that power diminishes in strength the longer recourse to it is delayed, till, as in the case referred to of the criminal in the Fisherton Asylum, its efficacy is utterly lost-so debased and degraded may the mind of man become by long continued wickedness. With women, on the contrary, even in the worst cases, religion appears to exercise occasionally a most salutary effect, and it is extremely common for female prisoners, whose whole lives appear to have been but one tissue of vice and crime, to soften under the appeals of the minister of religion, or the ladies appointed by Government as visitors; although perhaps the immediate effects of their teaching may pass away. The religious ministrations of ladies appear, however, to be on the whole far more efficacious with female prisoners, than those of the clergy.

assembled, the lady, with great kindness of tone, spoke to them, as "poor misguided wanderers from the fold." She had hardly uttered the words, when with one accord the whole of the prisoners present flew into such an uncontrollable fit of fury, that the lady had to be hurried out of the ward to save her from personal injury. But the anger of the prisoners did not subside with the lady's disappearance. They all screamed at the top of their voices, and this being heard by those in the other wards, in a short time all the prisoners in the building (numbering some hundreds) took up the cry with such energy, that the noise could be heard at a considerable distance from the prison walls. So intense was the fury of the women, that the warders, both male and female, were utterly powerless in their attempts to restore order, and they were obliged to wait helplessly till the storm had raged itself out. Some ladies, too, have the tact of exercising, by means of religion, an immense power over the degraded of their own sex. As a counterpart to the anecdote given above, I may quote the case of a person, formerly a Bible woman, who now devotes her whole time and energy to the reformation of criminals of her own sex, especially to those whose term of imprisonment has expired. Through her means, many of those who otherwise would have returned to their old depraved habits, are now leading a life of respectability. Of the singular power possessed by this Bible woman, one anecdote must suffice. The lady-superintendent of a Home for Liberated Female Convicts told me that a young woman who had been released from prison, was sent there until employment could be found for her. A letter was also sent to the lady, advising that a strict watch should be kept over the girl, as from some words she had let fall before leaving the prison, it was evident she intended to return to her former degraded course of life. The girl, the form of whose head indicated the lowest type of intelligence, had, before her conviction, been on the streets, from which she had been taken by a benevolent lady, whose bounty she repaid by purposely setting fire to her house while under anger at some imaginary affront. The lady-superintendent having been informed by the girl that her friends resided in a village about twelve miles from Shrewsbury, wrote to the clergyman of the parish to ask if he could reconcile the girl with her family. In a short time she received for answer, that her father and mother were quite willing to receive her again. The lady now requested the Bible woman to accompany the girl (to whom she had given a few shillings as pocket-money) to the Euston Square Station, and to pay her fare to Shrewsbury, but not to lose sight of her till the train started. About three hours afterwards, the Bible woman returned to the Home alone, for further instructions from the lady.

We may remark here, although not directly connected with our subject, that ladies are less likely to be imposed upon by hypocrites than men. As the mind of the female convict becomes debased, she appears to increase in cunning. She has tears in command for men, and often shows great tact in choosing the proper time to use them. Not unfrequently the minister of religion (especially if he be inexperienced in prison duty) is congratulating himself on the effect he believes he has produced on the mind of a prisoner, while she, far from being penitent, is laughing in her sleeve at the deception she has practised on him. This is of very common Occurrence with old offenders. Again, amongst ladies, a vast difference exists in their capability to engage the attention of female prisoners. Some exercise the most wondrous power over them; while others are not only unable to claim their attention, but their kind offices frequently appear only to irritate and annoy. of the kind lately occurred in B- Prison for Female Convicts. A lady and gentleman, under an order from the Secretary of State, were visiting the "No train," she said, "will start before the mail building, and on passing through one of the wards train, which arrives at Shrewsbury at a late hour; in which a number of female prisoners were and I hardly thought it advisable that the girl

A case

should arrive in the night without anyone to take charge of her."

“But surely," said the lady, "you have not left her by herself at the station. If you have, we certainly shall not see her again.”

"Oh! there is no fear of that, ma'am," the Bible woman replied. "I talked to her very seriously on the road to the station. I feel I have perfect control over her, and that she will remain quietly till I return."

"Pray go back immediately to the station and bring her here. She had better not go to Shrewsbury | till to-morrow."

After the Bible woman's departure, the ladysuperintendent remained at the Home in a state of great anxiety, fearing that the girl might have escaped; but, to her great relief, at nine o'clock in the evening she returned.

**I am very pleased to see you,” said the lady. | "You are quite right to return here, although I did not expect you to come alone."

"Oh, ma'am," said the girl, "I couldn't have done otherwise, had I wished it, when M told me I was to go back. I felt I must come home whether I would or no.”

It should be stated that the girl reached her father's house in safety, where she has since remained, and is leading a respectable life.

no fewer than nineteen times since she was seven. teen."

"For what crimes has she been punished?" I inquired.

"For excessive violence of temper and outrageous assaults on unoffending persons-generally without the slightest provocation. And yet nothing can be brought against her moral character. She is neither a thief nor a drunkard; in fact, the state of utter poverty she was always in (inhabiting alternately the workhouse and the prison) precluded the possibility of obtaining spirits even if she had desired it. Neither kindness nor punishment seemed to have the slightest effect upon her. Once, when her term of imprisonment was over, I took her into my own house, and by extreme kindness, tried to see if I could not work a reformation in her. But it was useless. After a few days I was obliged to send her away. A lady of fortune who visited the prison also determined to see what kindness would do, and took her home with her, where she was treated with the greatest kindness and affection; but before a week had expired she also was obliged to send her away."

I expressed a strong desire to see the girl.

"She is not here now," said the chaplain, "but when she returns, I will inform you; and I have no doubt the governor will allow you to see her. She is seldom out of prison a fortnight together."

But to return from this long digression. There are many proofs extant, apart from Scriptural testimony, to show that the ancient Hebrews fully believed in demoniacal possession. The Rabbis | even encouraged the belief to such an extent as to give names to the individual demons who were supposed to exercise particular influences over different classes of men. They frequently even gave the same names both to the demons and to the diseases or vices over which the demons presided, and also to the persons habitually addicted to the particular form of wickedness. Without for one moment holding such nomenclature as anything better than an absurdity, one of these demons might almost be said to exist in the present day. Hugh Farmer,sent for, and he said to the girl: 'i quoting Lightfoot's Hor. Hebr. says, "Kordicus, they believe, is a demon who rules over him who drinks too much new (i.e., alcoholic) wine; and by this they did not mean that the man was a drunkard in the ordinary sense of the word, or a lunatic, but that he was under the power of a demon whose wishes he was compelled to obey."

The following week I received a note from the chaplain, informing me that the girl was again in prison, and that, if I wished it, I should be allowed to see her. The next day, about noon, I called at the chaplain's house. He told me it was a pity I had not arrived earlier, for I might then have seen the prisoner in one of her attacks. She had been walking in the airing ground, and when the other prisoners were leaving it, she put her arm round an iron column, and declared that she would not go in. The female warder kindly endeavoured to persuade her to leave the ground, but the only answer she received was a flat refusal. The governor was

My attention was first called to the similarity between the Jewish ideas on the subject of demoniacal possession, and certain effects which the abuse of strong liquors is apt to produce on persons in our own times. One day I was conversing with the chaplain of one of our Metropolitan prisons on the subject of demoniacal possession, when his wife, who happened to be present, said, "If demoniacal possession does exist among us, a prisoner who was here about a month since might, I believe, be held forward as a proof. Although barely twenty years of age, she has been in prison

"Why will you behave in this foolish manner? Now do go in, like a good girl. If you do not, I must punish you, and I have no wish to do that."

"I won't go in," was the only reply she made.

The governor then sent for three male warders to remove her, but so powerful was the clutch of her arms on the iron column, that at last they were obliged to desist, fearing they might injure her if they used greater force. After she had remained in that position about an hour, of her own accord she loosened her grasp and quietly went to her cell.

I was now introduced to the governor, who, accompanied by the chaplain, conducted me to her cell. On entering it we found the prisoner (a young girl with a by no means powerful form, and with a tolerably good expression of countenance) quietly standing with her back against the wall and her eyes cast upon the ground.

"She will go on in that manner for hours," said night the lady paid a visit to a friend, and, on the governor.

last she was arrested on a charge of robbing the whose ante-nuptial respectability he began to enhouse, was convicted, and again imprisoned.

The power of this demon (assuming it to be one) seems to be fully as great over men as over women. Not a session passes without cases of the kind coming under the notice of the public. Indeed, so frequent are they, that it would be useless to speak further of them, were it not to point out to the reader more distinctly the particular class of cases I allude to. A boy about fifteen years of age, who resided with his parents (both habitual drunkards) in a court in the neighbourhood of St. Giles', was a confirmed tippler, young as he was. He possessed a keen ear for music, a good voice, and a clear enunciation; and his principal occupation was singing songs in the evening at the various gin-shops and public-houses in the vicinity, | for which he generally received either gin or pence | from the bystanders. The money he earned in this detestable manner he took home to his parents, who not only offered no objection to his method of life, but positively encouraged him in it, as it enabled them to indulge more frequently in ardent spirits. By constant practice, the gin the lad took lost a considerable deal of its intoxicating power; but he became somewhat eccentric in his manner, though without showing the slightest symptoms of insanity. With only one exception he seemed to have no affection for his family; and that was for his little sister, a child between two and three years of age, of whom he appeared very fond: One afternoon, before commencing his habitual occupation of singing in the public-house, he amused himself with playing with this child. Suddenly he left off, and, taking the child kindly by the hand, he led her into a back yard, and from thence through a small trap door into a coal cellar. He then took a piece of cord a few feet long, with a loop on one end of it (which it was afterwards proved he had himself prepared), and placing the loop on his foot, he passed the cord round the child's neck, and palling the other end tightly, deliberately strangled her. He was afterwards tried for the murder, and acquitted on the ground of insanity-a view of the case which was evidently taken by the jury from compassionate feelings, rather than from any facts in the evidence to prove it.

Another and still more terrible case in point, was that of the man Jeffries, who was lately hanged at the Old Bailey for the murder of his son. The history of this man is altogether a most singular one, as showing the conflict between good and evil within him. It appears that he had been well brought up by honest parents. In his early youth and manhood he had lived a wild and irregular course of life. He afterwards became both ashamed and tired of this, and resolved to marry, considering that in the society of a virtuous woman he would be better able to shun bad companions and the gin-shop. His marriage seems to have been a most unfortunate one, and after the birth of his child, he separated from his wife, of

tertain great doubts, resolving to bring up the infant at his own cost. After the separation, Jeffries appears to have led a very unsettled life, alternating between fits of drunkenness and dissipation and strong religious feeling. At last he made a desperate effort and took the pledge; and then, joining the congregation of an eminent Baptist minister, conducted himself for some time in an orderly pious manner. He regularly paid the expenses incurred by his child, of whom he appeared to be excessively fond, and conducted himself in every way in an honest and respectable manner.

Jeffries appears to have been seduced by some of his companions again to enter a public house, which he left in a state of intoxication. His old drunken habits now returned, and he led a more dissipated life than ever. A fit of remorse then came over him, and once more he took the pledge, and again joined the Baptist congregation. He now appeared to have determined to lead a moral and religious life, and for some time kept to his resolution with singular courage. He likewise became a member of a Religious Tract Society held in connection with the chapel. So great had his zeal for religion become, that at the execution of the five pirates at the Old Bailey, he stood under the gallows distributing tracts to the spectators.

But Jeffries once more succumbed to the temptation to drink, feeling at the same time fully aware of his degraded conduct. Indeed he appears to have entered into a compact with the devil, so that he might drink and be pious at the same time; and not unfrequently was he found holding forth to strangers on religious matters when he was threeparts drunk. At this time, the impulse to kill his child-of whom he was still exceedingly fond, and in whose moral and worldly good he certainly took considerable interest-first entered his mind. The thought shocked him, and he attempted to relieve himself by prayer; but, unfortunately, he was always partially intoxicated, or, at any rate, under the influence of alcohol, and his prayers remained unanswered. The impulse to kill his child, even while loving it tenderly, impelled him onward, till he committed what the newspapers justly termed a most diabolical murder. He took the child into a secluded place, where he deliberately hanged him; and, as he afterwards acknowledged, stood by and watched the dying convulsions of the child, knowing full well the sin he was committing, and dreading the punishment for it, which he felt would be his reward both here and hereafter.

One of the most singular features attending this case of Jeffries remains to be told. After the murder he quitted London; and so cunningly did he conduct his movements, that there is little doubt he would have succeeded in escaping altogether from justice, had it not been (according to his own statement) that the same impulse which had impelled

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