The North-Eastern Weekly Gazette. — 1883-05-26 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

FROM A BOOT-BLACK UP. On a bright spring morning, in the year 1867,  said, " Ah ! sir, :ion reeald.nott like the smell if ,you had had as Much of it as I have, and twenty years more before yea, at my age." .4 Yes, but you'll get your tiehet-of•lerve." To shortzn this story, lot us make it dramatie dialogue; dram. perd. being, A., the visitor; the convict; W. the warder. B.—" Not I, air. Inapexter 4 has marked me, and I shall never he free again. / forgive him f'rn-ivtlic bottom of my heart fox taking me, :Lc he did it clever, and I like talent ; l,nt, se help me—, if my revolver had been at hibrtel I woald haveshot him as dead ass nail ill knew what he was going to say at my trial." A.—" Bat that would have been a hanging matter'?" B.—" What do I care for hanging? I shall be dead long before my sentence is out." (The man was delicate.) "It is no fault, of mine— society made me a thief. I was sent to prison as a child, on the charge of breaking windows (of which I Wa3 innocent), for a few days, and I went into prison an honest boy, and came cut • thief, and have been one ever since, and would , be one again iii was free. A convict never can 'do right; and, as I stand before God, sir, I tried again and again to get honest bread, and, wherever I was, the police or some old ' split on me, and I lost my employment." W.—" You were in that job at—, where the warder was murdered, weren't yea?" was there, thongh I had no hand in it, and was examined before the coroner; and the coroner asked ine how it was that I, a strong man, stood by and saw a man murdered..? And I told hiss that ones in prison I disclosed  to thgovernera plot-for murdering a warder, and he told me to mind my own business, a:ld not meddle. Because I was a convict the govennii could not imagine that I could have the heart ta save a man from being killed in cold blooi and I toad the coroner that now I would not lift a little finger to save his life, or any othei man's in the gaol, unless he had been kind tc me. No, take zqy word for it, once a convict always a convict. If Mr —" the warder) will let you read this letter, you will see hxe the police treat us." It was from a woman rightly or wrouglj supposed to be the convict's wife—a woman doubtless ae deep in crime as he was--but it was written with the heartfelt pailvis of loving affection. The letter ran, as .) as I can remember, in these words:— " The polica have given me back my wedding ring, which I em very glad of, and I will keep it as long as I live, and the shawl what you gave me at Birmingham, which proves that what Inspector said -fit the trial about that shawl robbery was false." B.—" Just read those words scout the shawl, sir. Dialects were these :—When the judge was goingtoliass sentence on me I knew it would he a hot one, sal was wanted for dozens of things over and over again, and this was .‘ very big burglary involving property to . the Amount of eral thousand pound.; sad Inspector suggested that probably I was in the great shawl sobbery at Birmingham; sad I begged for time to prove that I bought the shawl over the counter and paid for it, as I did, and was never within a hundred miles of Birmingham at any time long before the burglary. But no; Inspector wanted to make himself out a very clever officer, and to know everything— and here I am." , A.—" Well, this cell is a deal more comfort.  Witantrb.  3IANAGER WANTED for Middlesbrough .and District, by s Public Company salary £l5O per annum. Address, with references, Munger," care of Hollings and Brock, 22, Paternoster-row, London, E.C.