468

ON THE MISSISSIPPI.

a rule, the town was on a spacious grin for a while, but there were
places in it where the grin did not appear, and where it was danger-
ous to refer to the ex-convict's letter.

A word of explanation. ' Jack Hunt,' the professed writer of the
letter, was an imaginary person. The burglar Williams—Harvard
graduate, son of a minister—wrote the letter himself, to "himself; gofe
it smuggled out of the prison ; got it conveyed to persons who Lad
supported and encouraged him in his conversion—where he knew two

things would happen:
the genuineness of the
letter would not be
doubted or inquired
into ; and the nub of
it would be noticed,
and would have valu-
able effect—tbe effect,
indeed, of starting a
movement to get Mr.
Williams pardoned
out of prison.

That <nub' is so
ingeniously, so casu-
ally, flung in, and im-
mediately left therein
the tail of the letter,
nndwelt upon, that
an indifferent reader
would never suspect
that it was the heart

and core of the epistle, if he even took note of it at all. This is the
<nuV—

*i hope the warm weather is doing your lungs good—i was afraid wheet
you was bleeding you would die—give my respects/ etc.

That is all there is of it—simply touch and go—no dwelling upon
it. Nevertheless it was intended for an eye that would be swift to
see it; and it was meant to move a kind heart to try to effect the

WILLIAMS.