At one time, while officering it in a prison not one thousand miles—as the penny papers say—from the State of New-York, we received into our hands about as degraded a specimen of the genus 'murderer,' as it was ever my lot to see. He had killed a woman in a most cowardly and cruel manner, and was, to my way of thinking, (and I was used to such fellows,) about as brutal-looking a human beast as one need look at. However, we had hardly got him into a cell, before a carriage drove up to the door, and a splendidly-dressed lady, with a basket of oranges and a five-dollar camellia bouquet, asked to see the prisoner.
'Do let me see him!' she cried, 'I read of him in the newspaper, and, guilty as he is, I would fain contribute my mite to soothe him.'
'He is a rough customer, marm,' said my assistant.
'Yes, but you know what the poet says:
"Bring flowers to the captive's lonely cell."
So she went in. She took but small notice of the prisoner, however, arranged her bouquet, left her oranges, and departed. It occurred to me to promptly search the bouquet for a concealed note or file, so I entered the cell as she went out. I found Shocky, as we called him, sucking away at an orange, and staring at the flowers in great amazement. Finally, he spoke.
'Wat in ——'s the use a sendin' them things to a feller fur, unless they give him the rum with 'em?'
'What do you suppose they are meant for?' I replied.
'Why, to make bitters with, in course. An't them come-a-mile flowers?'
The second is something of the same sort. Not long since, a lot of us—I am an H. P., 'high private,' now—were quartered in several wooden tenements, and in the inner room of one lay the corpus of a young Secesh officer, awaiting burial. The news soon spread to a village not far off. Down came tearing a sentimental and not bad-looking specimen of a Virginny dame.