MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—Many thanks for your kind letter. I am anxiously waiting for another note from you to say that you have quite recovered from the indisposition you speak of.
I was in hopes that time would pass mote slowly in prison than outside, but it seems to pass quite as quickly as anywhere else except those hours at Eltham.—Yours always, C. S. P.
October 28, 1881.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—Not having heard from you this week, I write this to say that I hope you are better, and that the absence of a letter from you is not to be attributed to any increase in the indisposition of which you spoke in your last.
I am glad to be able to tell you that I am exceedingly well. Health and spirits never better.—Yours very truly, CHAS. S. PARNELL.
November 1, 1881.
MY DEAR MRS. O'SHEA,—Thanks very much for your letters and telegram.
I was rather indisposed yesterday, but am very much better to-day. I am told that everybody gets a turn after they have been here for three or four weeks, but that they then become all right. I write you this lest you and other friends should be troubled by exaggerated reports in the newspapers.
My esteemed friend Mr. Forster has become very disagreeable lately. He refuses to allow me to see my solicitor except in presence and hearing of two warders, so I have declined to see him at all. He also refuses to allow me to see visitors except in the cage, which I have also declined to do, but probably things may be relaxed again after a time.—Yours very truly, C. S. P.
Parnell had a certain visitor who was permitted to see him in Kilmainham on his "necessary and private" business, though not alone, and this gentleman was able to take his letters out, and bring them to him, unobserved, and after putting them into another outer envelope address them to "Mrs. Carpenter" at an address in London, whence I fetched them. Or sometimes he would send a formal letter to me at Eltham enclosing one addressed to some political or other personage. If Willie were at Eltham I would show him this note asking me to post enclosure on a certain date. The enclosure was, of course, to me—sent thus to keep me from the fatigue of going to town so often. The Governor of Kilmainham for some reason became suspicious of Parnell's visitor, and forbade his interviews except in the close proximity of two warders selected by himself, and Parnell refused to see him at all under these restrictions. He wrote me a friendly letter then, telling me this, and other little news of his prison life, as to an ordinary acquaintance, and addressed it direct to Eltham, sending it to be approved by the Governor and posted in the ordinary way. In this letter, that anyone might have seen, there was a message by a private sign to go to the house in town for a letter within a few days. On doing so, I found my letter as usual, posted by a friendly warder, and contained in it was a recipe for invisible ink, and this ink could only be "developed" by one particular formula, a combination known only to one chemist. We were saved an infinity of trouble and anxiety, as we could now write between the lines of an ordinary or typewritten letter without detection, and it was no longer essential to get a third person to direct the envelopes. In time the Governor again became suspicious, and the friendly warder was dismissed—or Parnell was told so. However, this was only a temporary inconvenience, as Parnell was able in a couple of days to reorganize his communications with me, and this time they were not broken.