A JBURNI&& BRA&D* 459
became acquainted with the poor wretch referred to in the beginning
of my talk, Jack Hunt, the writer of the letter which I am going to
read. You will see that the acquaintanceship bore fruit for Hunt.
When Hunt's time was out, he wandered to St. Louis; and from
that place he wrote his letter to Williams. The letter got no
further than the office of the prison warden, of course; prisoners are
not often allowed to receive letters from outside. The prison authori-
ties read this letter, but did not destroy it. They had not the heart
to do it. They read it to several persons, and eventually it fell into
the hands of those ladies of whom I spoke a while ago. The other
day I came across an old friend of mine—a clergyman—who had
seen this letter, and was full of it The mere remembrance of it so
moved him that he could not talk of it without his voice breaking.
He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it is—an exact
copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved. It has
many slang expressions in it—thieves' argot—but their meaning has
been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities'—
8r. Lotus, June 9th, 1874.
MB. W-----friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised
to get a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to yon*
i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i was m
prison—it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you thought i did
not can* for what you said, & at the first go off I didn't, but i noed you was
a man who had don big work with good men & want no sucker, nor want
gasing & all the boys knod it.
I used to t.hinlr at nite what you said, & ibr it i nocked off swearing fi
months before my time was up, for i saw it want no good, nohow—the day
my time was up you told me if i would shake the cross (qx*t stea&ng) &
live on the square for 3 months, it would be the best job i ever done in my
life. The state agent give me a ticket to here, & on the car i thought more
of what you said to me, but didn't make up my mind. When we got to
Chicago on the cars from there to here, I pulled off an old woman's leather;
(robbed her of her pocketbook) i hadn't no more than got it off when i wished
i hadn't done it, for awhile before that i made up my mind to be a sqitaxa
bloke, for 3 months on your word, but forgot it when i saw the leather was
a grip (easy to get) —but i kept doe to her & whan she got out of the cars
at a way place i said, marm have you lost anything ? & she tumbled (£*»
covered) her leather was off (gone)— is this H says i, giving H to Jw—weR
if you aint honest, says she, but i hadn't got eheak enough to stmod thmt soft
of talk, so i left her in a hurry. When i got here i had #1 and 25 coats kft