28.
the
answer. But he cannot deny himself a retort, and he asks the prisoner if he thinks any of the officers would pick him out as specially troublesome at oakum.
Brown's
reply was doubtless in the same annoyingly suave manner, probably "Oh dear no, certainly not", or something of that kind, which Ryan describes as insolence, and this veiled sarcasm seems so to have rankled in Ryan's mind that he went back to the cell determined to pick a quarrel and give him a thrashing.
It is perhaps not for us to suggest a course, we venture however.
29.
271
however to submit that nothing would so completely deter assaults of this kind as the knowledge that each case, unless most trivial, would at once be sent before a Magistrate. That course too has great recommendation in the way of despatch, simplicity, and effectiveness. It is said to tend to raise public scandals, but on the other hand, whatever departmental punishment may be inflicted on an Offender of this kind, there is nothing, we believe, to prevent the assaulted prisoner from taking out a summons as soon as he is set at liberty.
Brown