CONVICT LIFE.

Marlborough Daily Times, Volume II, Issue 144, 6 August 1880, Page 1 (Supplement)

CONVICT LIFE.

BY A TICKET-OF-LEAVE MAN. This is a fresh issue of a work that some time back attracted much attention. It professes to be, and wc believe really is, a naira five of the terrible gaol experiences of the writer. He tells in his introduction that having lived up to. middle life with the character of a gentleman and honourable loan, lie made One fatal step which placed him within the fangs of the Jaw, and consigned him to a prison. Whilst there he met several celebrities, such as the Claimant, ibmpeil, &e. Prison functionaries do not shine in a very enviable light, as in the writer’s opinion the majority are accessible, to bribery, and treat those .best who can -di’.rd to pay for extra indulgences, &c. Here is something on the subject.

CONVICTS AND TltKllt CI'AIiDS. "SVlien I was at I’eutonvillo I had a dear friend, since, alas, for me ! gone to anotll-r world. lie '-'. as to me faithful am ngst the faithless. My foliy did not alienage ids great heart, i’eihaps he knew, what f hope was true, that I was not all bad, and that even after so disastrous a fall, penitence would come, and conscience would he roused, and f should 1 rise again ’ into a life of purity and honour. I very soon discovered that it was possible to communicate with him and yet elude the scrutiny of the governor’s office over my letters. lam quite conscious now that in availing nivsclf of the services of corrupt oiiieirhs i was guilty of a wrongful not, and which 1. now sincerely regret ; but only those who have been deprived of communication villi all in the world that they hold dear, can understand how great is the temptation in this matter to lneak the rules whenever an opportunity' presents itself. As a result of my tirstletter by this ‘underground railway,’ niy friend called at the house of the corrupt, but, tome, useful warder. The next morning I had the daily papers with my break last; the same evening 1 had my ‘ i’all Mai! ’ witli supper; and there were break fasts and suppers, for 1 was supplied with damlus ami luxuries which | had no place in the ‘ lull, of faro ’of her Majesty’s prison This continued dining the whole of the nine mouths of my stay at Pentonviilc. On’my removal to Bristol), where l only stayed seven weeks, L could have made equally favourable arrangements, but sickness had laid hold of my friend, and before ! left Brixton ho was dead. To return to I’enlonvilla : this .Mr. Warder had, to my knowledge, haif-a-dozen other clients upon his landing, so that lie was able to double his salary at the very least. At the Christinas of 187 d my friend took him a largo turkey, a sirloin of beef, puddings, pies, dec., which iiot only fed me, but regaled his family for a fortnight. Other privileges resulted from lhe feeing. I was installed in oliiee as an ‘ orderly. ’ Instead of passing the weary hours, when l could obtain no readable book, in the solitude of my cell, I whiled away a large portion of my lime in conversation with other ‘ paying prisoners,’ the warder him? cl f keeping watch at the staircase, to give the ''(11100 ’ in ease of the approach of visitors.

s I’.WJSONS IN IMIIfjOX. Merc I made the acquaintance of turn clergymen of the Church of England, who [ were, of course, men of intelligence and 1 education, and with whom it was a pleasure 1 to converse. One of them, 1 fear, was in goal not for the first time, the. other had • been convicted of forging some stock of an insurance company of which he was a director. j Jis version of his downfall was naturally a very plausible rue, but if is very apparent to mo that he had been anxious to obtain a larger share of ‘loaves and fishes’ film he could legally claim. JT.is reverence had evidently a liking for old port, and many a bottle of that gouty beverage used to find its way from its cellar in Yorkshire to Pcntonvillo Prison. [ met b'otli these clergymen afterwards at Portland. The first-named, an Irishman, lost nearly the whole of his remission by infractions of 1 lie prison rules, trafficking in tobacco, and other peccadilloes of that sort. Thu Yoiljsliircman was more canny; he kept himself straight, made friends with the doctor, was invalided, and was transferred to Woking. I must say ho was the jolliest-looking hi valid 1 ever came across. Another of my associates on this landing was a man for wlmm J felt a very deep sympathy. Me bribed the warder, but it was for no other purpose than to obtain more frequent news of his wife, to whom ho. was devotedly attached, and who was wasting away of consumption. Me had graduated at Oxford, and had achieved some success in his profession ; but an absurd desi o for display, and an ambition to keep as libera l a table and as well-bred horses as his richer neighbours, had led him into difTh xilti from which he sought to e tricafe himso'f by forgery. His act, and the foby which led up to it could not be apologised for ; but then I was also a sinner, and f sympath sed with the man when t saw w> at agony lm suffered in the kr.owlc go that his loved uifo was dying, and that he could not. lie near to c mfort her. No doubt the conviction of her hu-band hastened the poor young wife’s end. One morning, J think it was in September, 1873, the poor fellow was summoned into the presence of the governor. I will describe the interview, because it portrays the character of the governor. J know that he had many rough dimeters to control, who require tough tr a'nmnt. At times, no doubt, lie did well to be stern ; hut there are times when even the governor of a prison should unbend, and when stormiest degenerates into brutality. .This governor was a militia or volunteer officer, ami so, of course, stood severely on his military dignity ; ho insisted on a saiiite fr< m even body, officers and prisoners, whenever he made his appearance. On this September morning, my sorrowing neighbour lmd been greatly disappointed at getting no news of his wife through the warder. At noon ho was ushered into the awful presei ce of the governor. He was in a nervous state, and not thinking much of military tactics, when the stern voice of the chief warder called out, “’Ands by your side! Plies to the front!’ Governor: ‘Ho you know a Airs. Warner ?’ Prisoner; ‘Yes. sir. ’Governor : - Whois she? a relative?’ Prisoner: ‘ She is a friend with whom my wife is staying, and she is kindly nurs ’ Governor: ‘ That will do. There is bad news for you. Tour wife is dead/’ Chief warder :

‘Right about face ! March! At Portland and at Dartmoor, if any such event occurred, it was customary fort'' the Governor to authorise the chaplain to communicate the news privately to the prisoner in his cell, and J. think it would have been more humane if the same coarse had been pursued at Poutonville. —Home Paper.

Ar. Illinois paper brags that iu the West one hundred thousand women are working .agriculturally in the liclds. Well, it is the same way here. Half of our energetic feminine population are engaged in the pursuit of husbandry. 1

In a recent Cardiff paper there was the following gem : ‘Lost, between the Loyal Hotel and two o clock yesterday, a bunch of .3 s - Lilt the drollest thing we can call to mind appeared recently in the ‘Pioneer,’a woJi-known Indian paper : * Wanted n silua'ion as snake-charmer in » s^oU s lainily. X. L.—Xo objection to look after a camel.

Sydney Smith had a maid who used to boil the eggs very well by her master’s watch • but one day lie could not lend it to her because it was under repair, so she took the tune from the kitchen clock, and the e-gs came up nearly raw.-' Why didn’t you take tko three minutes from the clock as yon do from the watch, Mary?’-‘ Well, sir,’ replied Mary, ‘I thought that would be too much, as the hands are so much larger.’ General Trochu, the G'ommander-in-Chief at Paris when that city was besieged by the 1 1 ussians in the lust hranco-German war somehow lost the confidence of the citizens' and a joke at his expense is still much enjoved,. therefore the zest with which the lollowirig on (IK is at present received: \ poor beggar named Trochu had been arrested on suspicion of having been concerned in the murder of a greengrocer in the Hue do Sevras. On the investigation of his case nothing was found against him, and he was liberated a few days ago. Before to". turning to his old haunts he thanked the turnkey for the kindness with which he had treated him during his detention. ‘O, it was nothing; be off with you, my o-ood fellow, ’ replied the turnkey; ‘I mereliTdid my duty, and, moreover, when I observed that your name was Trochu, I was perfectly sure that you had killed nobody.’