The age-herald., 1901-11-24
Prisons Proves
 No Bar to Love

 That ''stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage" Is the moral to be gathered from some posthumous papers and sketches by Victor Hugo. Love at first sight Is not such an uncommon thing, but falling in love with a person one has never seen and likely never will see, Is something more or less unusual.
 but seems easy enough to the French character. j
 Victor Hugo in these papers say that the inmates of St. Lazarre, one of the
 women's prisons of. Paris. become at tached to and remain faithful to some male criminal who is an inmate of one or another of the numerous convict es. tablishments of Paris.
 The way these clandestine love affairs are carried on is romantic to the high est degree. In every one of the convict establishments of Paris there Is always some man among the prisoners who can draw. Now if three prisoners confer to- gether and plan to begin wooing of some of the inmates of St. Lazarre they have the artist of the prison make drawing on a handkerchief of three flow CTS, say geranium, tulip. and a rose
 
 Der of the prisoner who has selected it as his emblem.
 The drawing Is sent to St. Lazarre through the mysterious means of commu- nication between the. various prisons that the police are powerless to prevent The picture circulates through Saint La zarre, and in due time a communication Is returned to the convict prison that Fi Fi 3456 has chosen the geranium
 hnn Htaa. 4..ft. V1~ Il. A. nor the rose, and that these women have re- peated to themselves VOWS to take the convicts whose emblems they have adopt ed as their husbands.
 Never" says Hugo, lis this lugubrious handkerchief thrown Into the seraglio without being picksdy up.' 1s fx
 The women prisoners firmly convince themselves that they are married to the male convicts, and when they are re- leased go to work saving money which they send to the prison to be used in procuring comforts and dainties for the spouses they have never seen and whose names even they do not know.
 The author tells of the murder of money changer named Josepf and the in- carceration of the two murderers in St. Force penitentiary. Shortly after this boquet containing among other flowers a sprig of white lilacs was sent to Saint Lazarre. One of the women prisoners se- lected the white lilacs and repeated to herself vows taking for her husband the unknown individual who had chosen the white lilacs for his emblem.
 In a month or two the woman prisoner was released and being completely enam- ored of her unknown lord and master went desperately to work to secure funds to send to her husband In St. Force. In order to better alliance her. self to her unknown husband she se- cured a sprig of white lilacs and dividing 1t sent half to the prisoner in St. Force and put the other half at the head of her bed.
 This woman, like all Paris, had heard of the murder of the money lender, and of the two Italians, Malagutti and Rata, arrested for the crime, but she thought little about the crime and lived only in her white lilac. One bright sunny day as she was sit- ting in her room sewing she glanced up at the white lilac hanging above her | head. The clock at that moments was | striking 4, and as she gazed at the lilac | she fancied she saw an extraordinary I thing. A drop of crimson blood ooycd | from the heart of the white lilac and | dropped down on the white sheet of the 1 bed. The next day the woman learned that at 4 o'clock of the previous after | noon Malagutti and Rata had been hung. It was evident that the white | lilac was one of these men, But which l ore? 4.4t-
 l The hapless girl became violently in
 sane and was confined in La Salpetriere,