THE FENIAN PRISONERS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 203, 23 February 1877, Page 15

THE FENIAN PRISONERS.

Two patriotic Irishmen of London, Messrs. Collins and Ryan, succeeded in obtaining an interview with Sergeant McCarthy in Chatham prison. A " visit" excludes so much as the clasp of a hand, were it even a brother's. Nothing but the claim of kinship is allowed as a reason to admit a visitor within hearing of the condemned. As a consequence of those harsh rules most of the Fenians in prison have never been cheered by one friendly voice from the beginning of their terrible doom to the present day. All efforts to see Chambers (supposed to be in Portland with O'Meagher Condon) have proved unavailing. Messrs. Collins and Ryan found themselves at last, after passing through many iron gates and courts, in the fenced and sub-divided kind of cage which is the visitingroom of Chatham prison. A few minutes more and a single fi«mre in convict dress, but without chains, appeared between guards, who entered the cage. It was Sergeant McCarthy, penned up in a compartment or human horse-box, barricaded with wood and wire tellis-work. Between him and his visitors was stationed a warder in the presence of whom every word must pass across that listening warder. The semi-shaving of poor McCarthy s head, by which the hair has hardly time to grow when it is again cropped close gives almost a skull-like aspect to the wan man's appearance. As he looked out wistfully from behind the gratings of his ca<»e at the friends who would have brought him comfort if they could, what could be said in twenty minutes in such a place ? McCarthy spoke of his wife and family, of the love he bore them, of the desire to have the education of his children provided for. Again and again he thanked his visitors. He took the sight of their faces as a glimpse of paradise. There was deep horror in every allusion to the frightful companionship to which he was condemned. The repulsive, scoundrelly yoke-mates were, as doubtless the government intended! the worst portion of the mental and moral torture to be inflicted "as long as life shall last" upon the Irish rebel. There could only be half allusions on such a subject, but his visitors understood them. They learned that O'Brien, who is confined in Chatham, having protested against being coupled with some desperate ruffian, was punished for refusal by being put into the chain-gang. Poor McCarthy cannot sleep at night except in a half-sitting position, on account of heart disease; his food was coarse, and destitute of the nourishment he ought, under his condition, to hare. He had heard of the escape of the Australian prisoners. The warder again interposed. McCarthy said there was a scare in Chatham, too, and the warders came around several times in the night, -waking him up to see if he had or had not escaped through a three foot wall. The warder said he must stop that sort of talk. McCarthy is a practical Catholic, and bears a good character with all the prison authorities, from the Governor down. O'Brien, for an attempt to pick a hole through bis cell wall, was kept in chains in a dark cell for some six months. Such is the prison life of two of the Fenian prisoners.— Trans-Atlttrtic ia tne • Irish World/