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MOUNTING PRISON COSTUME.

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toil, sickness, ignominy, death. Fate, thou art defied!"

The Government, or prison authorities, were somewhat puzzled to know how to act towards such a prisoner. The Governor, Mr. Grace,

came into his cell "with a suit of brown convict clothes in his hand, and said it was an unpleasant duty to perform, but that he must put on these clothes."

A few minutes after this, 66

came to look at him.

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This was the Governor of

Smithfield Prison, in

Dublin, "who" (writes

Mitchel)" was about to return home, and desired to attest at head-quarters that he had seen me in convict costume."

This mounting the prison costume is, to most men, and more especially to a gentleman,* —and John Mitchel was such a terrible ordeal, and

* I never saw Mr. Mitchel, but I asked one of the boatmen who rowed him to the Scourge, which carried him to Bermuda, what he was like. "He was very much the gentleman, sir," was the reply.

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TREATING CONVICTS AS GENTLEMEN.

only surpassed by the cutting the hair of convict women, so graphically described in Female Life in Prison; but Mitchel bore it manfully. "To me the whole affair is totally indifferent."

But the prison clothes were a mistake. "The important Inspector," the late Major Atkins, and

Mr. Grace, visit his cell. The latter is glad to inform him he has received directions from the Castle to treat him quite differently from a common convict, that he is to have his own clothes, and to be treated "as a person of education and a gentleman." On which John Mitchel remarks, and with some propriety :

"A person of education, and a gentleman! And if such a person has, indeed, committed a felony, is he not just all the more felonious? If a person of education commit the real crime of endeavouring to subvert social order, to break down the sanction of law, and to destroy the government under which he lives-supposing order, law, and government to exist how does his education entitle him to indulgence above other felons?

"MY TURNKEY."

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"But possibly you begin to see, Gaffer John Bull, that I am no felon at all, and have committed no crime at all, notwithstanding your new Act of Parliament in that case made and provided. Mr. Grace excuses himself for putting me into convict dress, says he had no instructions to the contrary, and did not know how they might feel towards me at the Castle, and so he was afraid to refuse when the Smithfield Jailer required to see me in felon array.

"Curious that this should have happened twice. In Dublin also, I had to put on the convict dress, and strip it off immediately. Come, my Lord Clarendon, either I am a felon, or am not a felon."

"30th.-My turnkey, who is desired never to leave me, I find to be a good, quiet sort of creature. He is some kind of dissenter; hums psalm tunes almost under his breath, and usually stays as far away from me as our bounds will allow him. There is a door in the high wall leading into another enclosure; and as I was taking

56

EDWARD WALSH.

a turn through my territory to-day, the turnkey was near that door; and he said to me, in a low voice, This way, sir, if you please.'

"He held the door open. I passed through, and immediately a tall gentleman-like person in black, but rather over-worn clothes, came up to me and grasped both my hands, with every demonstration of reverence. I knew his face, but could not at first remember who he was. He was Edward Walsh, author of 'Mo Craoibhin Cno' and other sweet songs, and of some very musical translations from old Irish ballads.

"Tears stood in his eyes as he told me he had contrived to get an opportunity of seeing and shaking hands with me before I should leave Ireland. I asked him what he was doing at Spike Island, and he told me he had accepted the office of teacher to a school they keep here for small convicts. A very wretched office, indeed, and to a shy, sensitive creature like Walsh, it must be daily torture.

"He stooped down and kissed my hands. 'Ah!'

DEPARTURE FROM IRELAND.

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he said, 'you are now the man in all Ireland most to be envied.'

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I answered that I thought there might be room for difference of opinion about that. Then, after another kind word or two, being warned by my turnkey, I bade him farewell, and retreated into my own den. Poor Walsh! He has a family of young children, and seems broken in health and spirits. Ruin has been on his trace for years, and I think has him in the wind at last."

John Mitchel's stay at Spike Island was short; but three days. He went there on the 28th May, 1848, and left on the 1st of June.

"June 1st. It was a raw, damp morning, I took my last look of Irish land. The first lieutenant of the Scourge, in full costume, with cocked hat and sword, came for me with a boat full of marines. The Scourge lay about a mile distant a long, rakish-looking steamer, with black hull and two funnels. In a few minutes, I stepped on deck, and was presented to the captain, who was walking on the quarter-deck. He

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