Marcus Clarke

“ Ah-h-h-!"
"Wot's the matter," roared the silencer of the riot, jumping from his berth, and scattering the Crow and his companions right and left. "Let him be, can't yer?"
"H'air!" cried the poor devil—"h'air; I'm fainting!"
Just then there came another groan from the man in the opposite bunk. "Well, I'm blessed!" said the giant, as he held the gasping tailor by the collar and glared round him. "Here's a pretty go! All the blessed chickens ha' got the croup!"
The groaning of the man in the bunk redoubled.
"Pass the word to the sentry," says someone more humane than the rest. ”

“ What would he do fishin'?—special in the middle o' the night."
"That 'ud be like old Dovery, eh?" says a fifth, alluding to an old grey-headed fellow, who—a returned convict—was again under sentence for body-snatching.
"Ay," put in a young man, who had the reputation of being the smartest "crow" (the "look-out" man of a burglars' gang) in London—"'fishers of men,' as the parson says." ”

“ These berths were twenty-eight in number, each containing six men. They ran in a double tier round three sides of the prison, twenty at each side, and eight affixed to that portion of the forward barricade opposite the door. Each berth was presumed to be five feet six inches square, but the necessities of stowage had deprived them of six inches, and even under that pressure twelve men were compelled to sleep on the deck. Pine did not exaggerate when he spoke of the custom of overcrowding convict ships ”

“ Only fools were honest, only cowards kissed the rod, and failed to meditate revenge on that world of respectability which had wronged them. Each new-comer was one more recruit to the ranks of ruffianism, and not a man penned in that reeking den of infamy but became a sworn hater of law, order, and "free-men." ”