It was 4:30 o’clock when the games closed, and I was compelled to return to the city without waiting to enjoy the literary exercises which were held during the evening.
I had a short conversation with Mr. McClure, however, and asked him if he did not find that it paid him to keep his workmen in good health and spirits the year round. Mr. McClure replied that he did, and that he proposed to encourage all sorts of innocent pastimes—of the kind that we had witnessed—and permit his literary and artistic hands to enjoy festivals and merrymakings at frequent intervals throughout the year.
As the train steamed out of the depot I heard the inhabitants begin their evening hymn:
“Thou art, McClure, the light, and life
Of all this wondrous world we see.”
LITERATURE BY PRISON CONTRACT LABOR.
The enforced idleness of state prison convicts has led some of the large manufacturers and dealers to seriously consider the advisability of giving employment to some of them in the different branches of their literary establishments.
Mr. Bok recently purchased a quantity of “Just Among Ourselves” goods, but found them to be inferior in quality to the samples from which they were ordered, so he refused to accept them, and they were subsequently sold at a reduced rate to Mr. Peter Parley, who is now editing the Sunday supplement of the “New York Times.” The Harpers have been more successful, having had more experience in this peculiar line. It is an open secret that the ten acres of historical and other foreign matter contracted for two or three years ago and signed with the nom de plume “Poultney Bigelow” are really the work of a gang of long-term men in the Kings County Penitentiary, while fully half their poetry comes from the same institution.