M‘Pherson had, on these occasions, always something to say, some pleasant remarks to make to one or more of the men under his care. He had, of course, his favourites. Those who behaved well, and gave the least trouble, he took the greatest notice of; but he was uniformly kind and pleasant to all.
On Saturday, also, the prisoners were supplied with the regulation allowance of bath brick, cleaning rags, and every alternate Saturday a portion of soap which would suffice them for a fortnight.
Sunday was a quiet day; there was no hard work, but the convicts had to go to church twice, and to exercise in the afternoon.
The warders presented themselves in full dress, and those who had served in the army or navy displayed their medals. M‘Pherson had several, and generally cut a most respectable figure on the Sabbath—not that there was any pride or ostentation about him. He felt it a duty to show the honours he had won in the service of her Majesty, for whom he had a great reverence.
Indeed, there was not a more loyal man in the prison, or indeed anywhere else, than the “old soldier,” as he was termed.
Peace, as we have seen, was a cunning rascal; he could dissemble and “play the good boy” with the best of them, and he managed to ingratiate himself in the good graces of M‘Pherson.
Artful old soldier as the latter was, Peace was more than a match for him as far as dissimulation and hypocrisy was concerned.
In our former chapters on prison life we gave the reader a circumstantial account of a “light-fingered family.” An unexpected confirmation of the statements of O’Brian, the Clarkes, &c., with respect to girl pickpockets, was supplied by the late Mr. Thomas Wright, of Manchester.
That gentleman informed the chaplain of Preston gaol that while pursuing his benevolent labours amongst the outcast and friendless in the New Bailey, he came in contact with a little girl who had been brought over some time before from Dublin, and was apprehended for a robbery from the person of a lady under circumstances which showed great skill and long practice in the child, and at the same time that she was an instrument—an apprentice pickpocket, working for concealed employers.
A part of Flanagan’s account seemed to bear directly on this child’s case, and Mr. Wright put down in writing what he remembered of it.