who had also been sentenced to fifteen years transportation.
"What are you in for?" I inquired, when he first landed on Spike Island.
"For stealing seventeen gold watches."
"Seventeen gold watches! Why, you do buisness in the wholesale line."
"It is the first business of the kind I ever did," he replied, with a smile.
"How did you get that out over your eye?"
"This?"—putting up his hand to an ugly scar—"from a musket-ball in the Crimea."
"You were in the Crimean war, then?"
"Yes, I ran away from home and enlisted, when about eighteen."
"How did you get out?"
"I was purchased out."
"Well, what about these watches?"
"I got a situation in Dublin, at Messrs. ———. I was out rather late one night, when the foreman of my department, who owed me a grudge, abused me like a dog, and told me I might consider myself dismissed, and that I should be paid my wages in the morning. I don't know how I kept my hands off him, for my monkey was up; but in going to my own room, I passed by the jewellery department, when the thought struck me, like lightning, to revenge myself by robbing it, and leaving the house that night."
"And you did so?"
"I did; for I knew where the key was kept."
"Did you take anything else besides the watches?"
"Nothing else."
"What did you do with them?"
"I did not know what to do with them, for they were burning my pocket; so I walked up to the canal, intending to throw thein in."
"To cool them, or your conscience—which?"
"Well, I suppose my conscience—though I don't know that it was conscience, either."
"What, then—fear?"
"Oh, no; there is not much of that about me."
"What was it, then?"
"Shame—I was ashamed of myself. I felt I had done a regular dirty job, to revenge myself."
"But what did you do with the watches?"
"Well, I knew it would never do for the stolen property to be found on me, so I pledged them for a small sum—about what was due to me by the house—resolving to send back the tickets, that they might be released."
"Well?"
"I had scarcely returned from pledging them, when the police were in on me, and found the tickets in my possession."
"And for this you got a transportation sentence of fifteen years?"
"Yes; it was considered such a serious breach of trust."
I have reason to believe there was truth in this young man's statement; and it would appear as if his employers believed it, for they used their best efforts to get his sentence shortened. I also did my utmost to promote the same object; and in the end we succeeded in getting the sentence of fifteen years transportation reduced to six years and nine months of penal servitude. For my efforts on his behalf he was sincerely grateful, and endeavoured to show his gratitude to me in the only way in which he could show it—by curbing his unruly temper, and keeping out of trouble and the "punishment cells," and by exhibiting an attentive and becoming religious deportment. I really think he wished to be religious, for my sake, though it was sorely against his nature; but in his zeal to please me, he overdid the thing.
The prisoners have the privilege of writing periodically to their friends, and I have no doubt that a correspondence of this kind, when properly conducted and superintended, produces a humanizing, moral, and happy effect on the convict's mind. These letters are read, and if approved of, initialed by the chaplain. The first letter brought to me by this young man was written with wonderful ability, and great care, and breathed a spirit of piety throughout. It was addressed to his father, in the style of a prodigal son. I read it, wrote on the top, "Too pious" and handed it back to him. He read the words of condemnation and blushed up to the eyes, but seemed as much astonished as he was ashamed. I laid my hand on his shoulder and said, "Be natural, especially in writing to your father. Try your best to be good and pious, but don't say too much about it. Go now, destroy that letter, and write another, and only say what you think and feel." He took my advice, and wrote a simple and proper letter, to which I placed my initials.
He was liberated in Dublin about twelve months ago, but there he was too well known to have any chance of procuring employment; so, after the lapse of a few weeks, he migrated to Liverpool, by no means an exceptional practice with Irish convicts, as we have no doubt the prison roll of the borough jail of Liverpool could testify.
He remained in Liverpool for three or four months, where I heard from him and of him, through his relatives and friends; but even