Part 20

For after advancing into Oude Havelock found that constant fighting, cholera, sunstroke and illness had so reduced his numbers that to go on would risk the extermination of his force.

He therefore returned to await reinforcements. By the time these arrived, Sir James Outram had been appointed general of the forces in India; but he generously refused to accept the command till Lucknow had been relieved, saying that, Havelock having made such noble exertions, it was only right he should have the honour of leading the troops till this had been done.

So he accompanied the army as a volunteer; and again the men fought their way, this time right through the mutineers, accomplishing their object by the first relief of Lucknow.

On the evening of 28th September, the soldiers reached the Residency, where the British had been shut up for so long face to face with death. The last piece of fighting was the worst they had had to face. Fired at from roof and window by concealed foes, they marched on with unwavering courage, and those who reached the Residency had a reward such as can come to few in this life.

As the women and children frantic with joy rushed to welcome their rescuers the stern-set faces of the Highlanders changed to joy and gladness; hunger, thirst, wounds, weariness--all were forgotten as they clasped hands with those for whom they had fought and bled.

"God bless you," they exclaimed; "why, we expected to have found only your bones!"

"And the children living too!"

Women and children, civilians and soldiers, gave themselves up to pure gladness of heart, and in that meeting all thought of past woes and dangers faded away.

After a series of the most thrilling incidents the world has known, Lucknow was finally relieved by Sir Colin Campbell.

When Havelock came from the Residency to meet the troops the men flocked round him cheering, and their enthusiasm brought tears to the veteran's eyes.

On the 17th November Lucknow was relieved, and on the 24th Havelock died. "I have," he said to Outram in his last illness, "for forty years so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear."

A FRIEND OF PRISONERS.

THE STORY OF JOHN HOWARD.

In St. Paul's Cathedral there stands a monument representing a man with a key in his right hand and a scroll in his left, whilst on the pedestal from which he looks down are pictured relics of the prison life of the past. The man is John Howard, who travelled tens of thousands of miles, and spent many years in visiting gaols all over England and the Continent, and in endeavouring to render prison life less degrading and brutalising. Wherever he went prison doors were unlocked as if he possessed a magic key; and by his life and books he did more to help prisoners than any other man.

It is only just over a hundred years since John Howard died; yet in his day persons could be put to death for stealing a horse or a sheep, for robbing dwellings, for defrauding creditors, for forgery, for wounding deer, for killing or maiming cattle, for stealing goods to the value of five shillings, or even for cutting a band in a hop plantation. And many persons who were innocent of any offence would lie in dungeons for years!

At his father's death John Howard came into possession of a good property; and, marrying a lady some years older than himself, settled down on his estate and passed three years of quiet happiness.

Then a great grief came to him. His wife died, and Howard was bowed down with sorrow.

But the distress brought with it a longing to be a comfort to others; and he set out for Lisbon, which had just been visited by the great earthquake of 1755, with the hope of assisting the homeless and suffering.

France and England were then at war, and on his way thither he was captured by a French vessel and thrown into prison. He was placed in a dark, damp, filthy dungeon, and was half starved. For two months he was kept a prisoner, and as soon as he was free he set about obtaining the release of his fellow captives.

Some years later he became a sheriff of Bedford, and began visiting the prisoners in the gaol where John Bunyan wrote the Pilgrim's Progress.

From the inquiries he made during the course of his visitations he was astonished to find that the gaolers received no salary, and that they lived on what they could make out of the prisoners. As a result it often happened that those who had been acquitted at their trial were kept in prison long afterwards, because they were unable to pay the fees which the gaoler demanded.

Horrified at the state in which he found the prison and at the abuses of justice that prevailed, John Howard determined to find out what was done in other parts of the kingdom, and visited a number of gaols throughout the country. And fearful places he found them to be! Boys who were taken to gaol for the first time were put with old and hardened criminals; the prisons were dirty and ill-smelling; the dungeons were dark and unhealthy; and, unless prisoners could afford to pay for comforts, they were obliged to sleep on cold bare floors, even delicate women not being exempted from such cruel treatment.

At Exeter he found two sailors in gaol, having been fined one shilling each for some trifling offence, and owing £1 15s. 8d. for fees to the gaolers and clerk of the peace. When he visited Cardiff he heard a man had just died in prison after having been there ten years for a debt of seven pounds. At Plymouth he found that three men had been shut up in a little dark room only five and a half feet high, so that they could neither breathe freely nor stand upright.

Hundreds of cases as bad or worse than these did he discover and bring before public notice.

He gave evidence before the House of Commons of what he had seen. Then Acts of Parliament were passed, providing that gaolers should be paid out of the rates, that prisoners who were found not guilty should be set at liberty at once, that the prisons should be kept clean and healthy, and the prisoners properly clothed and attended to.

Determined that these Acts should not remain a dead letter, he went about the country seeing that what Parliament required was actually carried out.

Not contented with what he had already done, he travelled abroad, inspecting the prisons of France, Russia, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, and other countries, in order to see how they compared with those in Great Britain.

Strange to say, he discovered that in a number of cases they were in many ways better; and the prisoners, unlike their fellows in Britain, were generally employed in some useful manner.