Arizona republican., 1899-08-24
EvADE THE PRISONS RULES.
Convicts Communicate Despite the
 Strict Prohibition

\ former. governor of the jail q
 Armley, near Leeds. once caused a wei
 conducted prisoner, but an old jailbird
 to exhibit his powers as Q weight
 gauger in the presence of the writer
 The man gave to minute fractions ot
 an ounce the weights of various ob- jects in the office that he handled and
 in regard to prison rations, inten- i tiOnally short in weight, that were brought in his judgment was simply
 wonderful. The writer afterwards l independently tried the powers of a
 man .tOut of liConse," and he was just as clever in gauging weight where pro- visions were concerned. None but these who have to deal regularly with old prison birds know what fine pan tOmimists-using the word p2ntOmime 1 in it's better sense of dumb show are to be found among the class; in deed. the most modern and progressive
 of all our jaii governors declares that
 no class, not even the theatrical pro
 fessional one, possesses greater pow
 CTS of dumb show. than does that con-
 sisting of regular jailbirds, and he
 adds that all the accomplished habit
 ual thieves that he had met were ad-
 mirable actors. Long practice and the
 necessities of the case have no doubt
 given this power of dumb show pretty
 generally to old convicts, but there
 are many eases where man cannot on.y convey to another q few sentences
 but whole histories, given the time,
 by the minutesi signs, either during church service or working hours or at nTa f@1s c11t n this has ever been found.
 A prison chaplain of vast experience, who was consulted by the writer on this subject, says: ''Old jailbirds can defy the vigilance of all tko warders in Europe With mouths half open they can speak to companion hard by with absolute impunity, the lips and lower jaws never even being moved. If the companion fails to hear he indicates the fact by putting his fin ger into one ear as though it were itching. Their dumb alphabet is mar ve.ously complete.
 "A prisoner wants to say that some one is dead-he spells the nam2 on his fingers. then rests his head on his hands and stamps on the ground; so- and-so is dead and buried. Someone is imprisoned for so many years, and this is conveyed from one prisoner to an other by the former putting as many fingers as correspond to the years across his ear-the man has gct, say, three tear;" for months a similar sign is made on the mouth. Coughs and sneezes of different kinds indicate all of distinct things One well know cough means listen The pris- 0ner who gives it has received a let ter; he looks at the palm of one hand and pretends tC scribb,2 with the ether. If he has got 3 wspaper-prisOner i do receive such things sometimes, l can assure y0u-he pretends to be reading the palm of hand very intent 1 ". He pretends to whip to indicate that he has been fogged; he puts his hand on his stomach to denote short ! allowance; he has written a letter, So l Aa pretends to write on his hand, and i then to throw the words into the air And thus it goes on through the entire i chapter. absolutely genuine dumb | show. where ID code has been agreed | upon beforehand, telling whole his | cries.
 A large bark from Liverpool, called | -he Diomed, was in 1892, while trad | ing. wrecked on one of the smaller | stands of the Pacific. A great num- per of savages, who seemed quite i friendly, surrounded the ship-wrecked | men, but none of the latter knew a scrap of language that the natives could understand. But one of crow, a middle aged man known as Mae, the WIS a man who had turned over a new leaf-intimatad to he captain that he could make the natives understand "anything," and he succeeded in making com easy on every subject re- luired solely by means of signs and Lcting. The captain of the Diomed vas the writer's informant and he rave 2 second similar instance that vas told to him by another shipmas- er-Cassell's Journal.