THE LITTLE MOUSE AND THE PRISONER.
I come now to a small event which occurred during my judgeship, and which I call my little mouse story.
I was presiding at the Old Bailey Sessions, and a case came before me of a prisoner who was undergoing a term of two years' imprisonment with hard labour for some offence against the Post Office.
The charge against him on the present occasion was attempting to murder or do grievous bodily harm to a prison warder. This officer was on duty in the prisoner's cell when the assault took place.
The facts relied on by the Crown were simple enough. The warder had gone into the cell to take the man's dinner, when suddenly the prisoner seized the knife brought for his use, and made a rush at the warder with it in his hand, at the same time uttering threats and imprecations.
Believing his life to be in danger, the warder ran to the door and got outside into the adjoining corridor, pulling the cell door to after him and closing it.
He had no sooner escaped than the prisoner struck a violent blow in the direction the warder had gone, but the door being closed, it fell harmlessly enough. It left such a mark, however, that no doubt could be entertained as to the violence with which it was delivered and the probable result had it reached the warder himself.
Thus presented, the case looked serious. Mr. Montagu Williams, who was counsel for the Crown, felt it to be, as it undoubtedly was, his duty in common fairness to present not only the bare facts necessary for his own case, but also those which might be relied upon by the prisoner as his defence, or at all events in mitigation of punishment. In performing this duty, he elicited from his witness a very touching little history of the origin and cause of the crime. It was this:—
A poor little mouse had, somehow or other, managed to get inside the prisoner's cell; and one day, while the unhappy man was eating his prison fare, he saw the mouse running timidly along the floor. At last it came to a few crumbs of bread which the prisoner had purposely spread, and ran away with one of them into its hiding-place. The next day it came again, and found more crumbs; and so on from day to day, the prisoner relieving the irksomeness and the weary solitude of his confinement by tempting it to trust him, and become his one companion and friend, till at last it became so tame that it formed a little nest, and made its home in the sleeve of the prisoner's jail clothes. During the long hours of the dreary day it was his companion and pet; played with him, fed with him, and mitigated his solitude. It even slept with him at night.
All this was, of course, against the prison rules. But the mouse had no reason to obey them.