As it was contrary to the rules of the Pentonville establishment that a prisoner should have any letter or anything of the kind upon him, the warders asked that the paper might be handed over to them. The note was written in pencil, and read as follows:—
“Bury me at Darnall. Good-bye. God bless you all. C. Peace.”
It appears that when a Pentonville convict has a letter sent to him, it is opened and read by one of the officials, and if there is nothing in it objectionable it is initialled and passed on to him.
The scrap of paper upon which Peace had written, and which he had kept treasured up in his pocket, was part of a letter which had been so handed over to him. Where he got the pencil from to write the note, and when he wrote it, is unknown.
From its contents it would certainly appear that his deliberate object in springing through the window when the train was going at express speed was to destroy himself; and, bad beyond description as he is, he seems to have possessed sufficient human feeling to desire that his remains might lie amongst those whom he had known in life.
At intervals during Thursday morning he seemed to suffer much mental distress, and exclaimed with great intensity of feeling, “I do wish I was dead!”
In the face of all these facts the warders, it may be readily imagined, redoubled their already vigilant watch over him, and his slightest movement did not pass unobserved.
Peace’s escape from instant death when he leaped out of the railway carriage window was a matter of surprise to everybody. His custodians never expected to see him alive after his fall.