SCHOOL AND A TRADE, OR JAIL.]

CHAPTER XLIX.

I FLUSTER THE GREAT JUPITER OF MY LITTLE WORLD.

The successful issue of this little enterprise gave me great
satisfaction. There was, of course, nothing in it for me, nor did I want
anything, but it furnished me with an excellent standpoint from which to
address the Home Secretary should the occasion ever arise.

The occasion did arise some time after, and I utilized it in this way: A
friend of mine had come over from America to see me and to try if it
were not possible to obtain some reduction in the sentence. My postman
warder was away at the moment, so letter-carrier facilities were cut
off. I wanted very much indeed to communicate with my friend, and
applied to the Home Secretary explaining the position and asking him to
let me write two letters immediately. At the end of eight weeks an
answer came back that the Home Secretary had carefully considered the
application and could find no sufficient grounds for advising Her
Majesty to grant the prayer thereof. The next day I obtained a petition
sheet from the governor and wrote the following petition:

"To the Right Hon. Sir William V. Harcourt, Secretary of State for the
Home Department:

"The petition of, etc., humbly showeth: That two months ago I petitioned
the Home Secretary for permission to write two letters, explaining the
urgency of the occasion and pointing out that the request was by no
means unusual. Yesterday the answer arrived telling me, with as much
truth, I have no doubt, as kindness, the anxiety with which the right
honorable gentleman has been for eight weeks considering the petition.

"I hasten to express to the Home Secretary the regret I cannot but feel
at the thought of causing him so much concern, which I sincerely trust
has had no prejudicial effect upon his health. I regret this the more as
there was really no necessity for requiring eight whole weeks of his
time to the inevitable great neglect of the public business, for no man
who owns or who is known to be able to get a half sovereign ever has the
slightest difficulty in sending out as many clandestine letters as he
chooses. This, of course, is an infraction of the rules, and any
reasonable man would rather get along in a friendly spirit with the
prison authorities than be at war with them, but when trifling favors
which it requires but to stretch out the hand to take are refused,
rules, prison authorities and the Home Secretary