It contained at
that time about two hundred prisoners. A spot was shown me in the
sleeping ward, where a watchman was murdered some years since in
the dead of night, in a desperate attempt to escape, made by a
prisoner who had broken from his cell. A woman, too, was pointed
out to me, who, for the murder of her husband, had been a close
prisoner for sixteen years.
'Do you think,' I asked of my conductor, 'that after so very long
an imprisonment, she has any thought or hope of ever regaining her
liberty?'
'Oh dear yes,' he answered. 'To be sure she has.'
'She has no chance of obtaining it, I suppose?'
'Well, I don't know:' which, by-the-bye, is a national answer.
'Her friends mistrust her.'
'What have THEY to do with it?' I naturally inquired.
'Well, they won't petition.'
'But if they did, they couldn't get her out, I suppose?'
'Well, not the first time, perhaps, nor yet the second, but tiring
and wearying for a few years might do it.'
'Does that ever do it?'
'Why yes, that'll do it sometimes. Political friends'll do it
sometimes. It's pretty often done, one way or another.'
I shall always entertain a very pleasant and grateful recollection
of Hartford.
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