Paul Clifford, Volume II by Edward Bulwer-lytton

_Common Sense._ What is the end of punishment as regards the individual punished? _Custom._ To make him better! _Common Sense._ How do you punish young offenders who are (from their youth) peculiarly alive to example, and whom it is therefore more easy either to ruin or reform than the matured? _Custom._ We send them to the House of Correction, to associate with the d -- dest rascals in the country! _Dialogue between Common Sense and Custom. -- Very scarce._

As it was rather late in the day when Paul made his first _entree_ at Bridewell, he passed that night in the "receiving-room. " The next morning, as soon as he had been examined by the surgeon and clothed in the customary uniform, he was ushered, according to his classification, among the good company who had been considered guilty of that compendious offence, "a misdemeanour. " Here a tall gentleman marched up to him, and addressed him in a certain language, which might be called the freemasonry of flash, and which Paul, though he did not comprehend _verbatim_, rightly understood to be an inquiry whether he was a thorough rogue and an entire rascal. He answered half in confusion, half in anger; and his reply was so detrimental to any favourable influence he might otherwise have exercised over the interrogator, that the latter personage, giving him a pinch in the ear, shouted out, "Ramp, ramp!"