They were easily distinguished by their hair being greased, no other prisoners having fat enough to waste on such a luxury.
Saturday morning's chapel hour was devoted to general practice, which was known as the cat's chorus.

Imagine three or four hundred prisoners all learning a new tune! Some of the loudest voices were the most unmusical, and the warblers at the rear were generally behind in time as well as in space.

How they floundered, gasped, broke down, got up again, and shuffled along as before till the next collapse! Sometimes they gave it up as hopeless, a few first, and then others, until some silly fellow was left shrilling alone, when he too would suddenly stop, as though frightened at the sound of his own voice.
I noticed, however, that whenever an evangelical hymn was sung to an old familiar tune, they all joined in, and rattled through it with great satisfaction.

This confirmed the notion I had acquired from previous reading, that nine out of every ten prisoners in our English gaols have been Sunday-school children, or attendants at church or chapel.
Scepticism has not led them to gaol, and religion has not kept them out of it.
Parson Plaford, as I have said, never visited me after the second month.
He heard my defence on the third trial before Lord Coleridge, and sadly confessed to Mr.Ramsey that he was afraid I was a hardened sinner.

He appears to have had some hopes of my fellow prisoner, whom he continued to visit for another month.