At the head of the letter the following was written across the page:
“Poison the moll if she will not do what’s right; by C—! I would think d—d little of doing it to save my brother! Ginger will fix her if you tell her to.”
The following was written inside the envelope of the letter:
“They must not forget about me having a sore hand; that might help me too, as it would not be very likely I could seize him by the throat and compress the same, as it is stated in my indictment. That will be a good point, I think, he being a stout man. Tell them to be sure and stick to not seeing the bloke, and that I slept in the house that night; not likely that I could hold him with one hand; they can swear that my right hand was very sore, not fit to be used anyhow, as it was, and no mistake.”
It came out in the course of the evidence that the meaning of the word “bloke” was “a man whom a woman might pick up in the street;” that “moll” was the name for a woman; and that “Ginger” was a nickname for one of the female witnesses.
To ruffians of this school, if to any, applies Lord Carnarvon’s terrible suggestion of imprisonment for life, without hope, or possibility even, of release.
“It is idle to say that the subject of so many convictions is not absolutely and hopelessly hardened: they belong to a class of persons on whom punishment is only wasted, and the only thing is to shut them up for the rest of their lives, and keep them out of the possibility of doing any harm to society. I believe that such a course is best for them and for society, and that no objection to it can be reasonably urged. The convict-establishments of this country are already paying their way, and the surplus cost is very light; on the other hand, if you look at the cost which a criminal puts the State to in his detection, trial, and other criminal proceedings, it is perfectly clear that the cheapest course for the country would be to shut him up. As far as the man himself is concerned it is also the most humane and the kindest course. He exchanges a most miserable state of life outside the prison-walls, for one of comparative cleanliness and order inside. And if you calculate the time which such a man has spent in prison—broken only by the shorter intervals during which he has been let loose and again recaptured—it will be found that the difference between the period actually spent in prison and a lifelong sentence would really be very slight in amount.”