Читать книгу Charles Peace, or The Adventures of a Notorious Burglar онлайн

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This is why prison discipline falls with such unequal force upon different classes of culprits. To a navigator, excavator, or labourer of any description, the treadwheel is a mere trifle in comparison to the effect upon those who have never been used to manual labour.

Every morning Peace had to go on his hands and knees and polish his cell floor, as well as wash and scrub the table, stool, basin, and every article in the room.

This was not a particularly hard task to him, while to others it would have been one of infinite labour.

When the brief interview with his gaolers was over, his breakfast was served through the little trap in the door. It consisted of a pint of gruel and a slice of bread.

A starving man will eat anything, it is said; but I expect many of my readers would have turned aside in disgust at the breakfast.

Peace devoured it with something like a relish.

There can be no possible reason for denying unconvicted prisoners the luxury of a cup of tea or coffee for their morning’s meal.