If a comrade in his range
was sick and unable to come to meals, I have constantly seen a man
secrete half of his miserable breakfast or dinner in his pocket, to be
carried up to the invalid and smuggled into his cell. It was a matter of
course, nobody remarked it. Any mistake or indiscretion committed by a
prisoner would be instantly and almost mechanically covered by the man
nearest him, though at the risk of punishment--and the punishment for
betraying human sympathy in this way is--of course it is!--especially
severe; it is conspiracy to cheat the Government.
The traditional tale of a prisoner's devotion to animals is also true; a
man next me at table--a yegg--for two weeks poured half his allowance of
milk (he was on milk diet for acute indigestion) into a surreptitious
bottle, and bore it off for the sustenance of a couple of little forlorn
kittens that he was acting as special providence for. The meditative
smile with which he perpetrated this theft upon the prison authorities
was a wonderful sight. Another convict, a hardened old timer, for
several weeks lavished cargoes of tenderness upon a rat which he had
laboriously conciliated and tamed. "What makes you so fond of that
animal?" enquired one day a sentimental and statistical old lady visitor
to the prison. After struggling with his emotions for a minute, he burst
out, "Yah! he bit the guard!" This dialogue was overheard, and enchanted
the whole penitentiary for months.
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