His favourite device in prison, indeed, for obtaining lenient treatment was to exhibit a kind of universal “handiness,” which conciliated the officials, until, though he had once headed a mutiny, he twice obtained remissions of his sentences.
He was ingenious, too, as well as artistic. He was a mechanician of some skill, having invented and made the false arm on which he greatly relied to conceal his crimes, as no one would suspect a one-armed burglar, and if advertised, he would be described as a one-armed man.
When father told us (continued Willie) where he was stopping, we asked him if he was not afraid of the sergeant’s seeing his hand.
He said he could not see it, as he covered it up.
We asked him how he did it, and he took from his pocket the guttapercha arm you have heard about.
He told us he made it himself, and he certainly is very clever at making things.
He had got a piece of fine guttapercha, and he made it into a tube large enough to allow his arm to pass down it. Secured to the bottom of the guttapercha was a thin steel plate, in the middle of which was a hole with screw thread.
Into this hole he screwed a small hook, and at meal times he said that he took out the hook and screwed into the hole a fork which he had made for the purpose, and with it he used to eat his meals.
At the top of the guttapercha was a strap, which he used to fasten over his shoulder, and in that way keep the thing in its place.
No one who saw it could have told that it was not a false arm. He made his own tools, which were at once exceedingly simple and exceedingly effective, and once made a saw out of a piece of tin-plate.