Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
of the Paris House--A Famous L6,000 Draft. 206
CHAPTER XXII.
Last Call at the Bank of England--Noyes Arrives in London--An
Artful Plot--Introduce Noyes--Plan Now Complete--Our Wise
Forefathers--No Change in a Century--Our Paper Is Discounted--Prepare
for Flight--Thou Shalt Not. 214
CHAPTER XXIII.
Fifty Thousand Dollars a Day--The Golden Shower Continues to
Fall--Operations Shrouded in Midnight Darkness--No Possibility
of Discovery--Finish and Begin Again--Amazing Oversight--Pitcher
Goes Once Too Often--Noyes Arrested--Unparalleled
Excitement on the Stock Exchange. 224
CHAPTER XXIV.
Consternation--A Mob of Bankers--The Financial World Shaken--Noyes
Taken to Newgate--Mac Cables Irving--His Flight to
France--Sails from Havre on Board Thuringia--Arrested at
Quarantine--The Pinkertons on Trail. 236
CHAPTER XXV.
Hunted Through Ireland--$2,500 Reward for My Capture--Detectives
"Spot" Me at the Cork Railway Station--Obliged to
Abandon Taking Passage by the Ill-Fated Atlantic--A Game
of "Hare and Hounds"--Eluding a Detective "Trap"--English
Misrule in Ireland--Am Taken for a Priest--A Typographical
Thunderbolt at Lismore--An Early Morning Walk--A Ride on
an Irish Jaunting Car--"On the Road to Clonmel"--Shelter in
a "Shebeen"--How Thirsty Souls Get the "Craythur" In Ireland--A
Good Old Irish Lady--Pursuit and Refuge in a Ruined
Cottage at Cahir. 248
CHAPTER XXVI.
An Unceremonious Call--"I am a Fenian Leader"--A "Story" Told
in the Dark--Maloy Helps My Escape on an Irish Jaunting
Car--Eggs--A Policeman Anxious to Obtain the Five Hundred
Pounds Reward--Dublin Again--A Jewess' Blessing--I Turn
Russian, and Later Become a Frenchman--Belfast Detectives--Escape
into Scotland--The Other Side of the Story--A Bow
Street Detective's Adventures While Hunting Me Through Ireland
--Cross-Questioning--My Jaunting Car Driver--"A Cold
Water Cure"--Hot on the Trail--Not in the Fort--A Fruitless
Hunt--Many Innocents Arrested--Maloy Becomes a "Know-Nothing." 261
CHAPTER XXVII.
A Marriage at the American Embassy in Paris--Anxious Moments
at Versailles--Off for Spain--Crossing the Pyrenees--Gunshots--Train
off the Track--Captured by Carlist Bandits--Released--Through
the Pass on Ox Carts--A Mountain Blizzard--Camp
in a Snowstorm--Mutiny--A Morning Dream. 275
CHAPTER XXVIII.
A Carlist Officer--A Picturesque Caravan--Arrival at Burgos--Startling
Telegrams--Revolution at Madrid--The Railway
Seized--My Party in a Trap--Madrid Cathedral and a Bull
Fight--A Special Train Proves a Slow Train--No News Good
News. 292
CHAPTER XXIX.
Arrival in Santander--Gloomy Forebodings--Sail for Cuba--Watch
the Pyrenees Sink in the Sea--Two Sisters of Charity, Innocents
on a Voyage--Circus at St. Thomas--Sunset Gun in Havana--Thirty
Seconds Change My Destiny. 301
CHAPTER XXX.
Slavery in Cuba--Life in Havana--The Million-Pound Forgery
Discovered--My Opinion Asked--Trip to the Isle of Pines--The
Cuban Rebels--A Battle Field--A Slave Cook--The Missionary
and the Cannibal--Going into the Interior. 312
CHAPTER XXXI.
On the Caribbean--A Motley Cargo--Turning Turtles and Shark
Fishing--A Dinner Party in Havana Proves a Surprise Party--Capt.
John Curtin of the Pinkertons Appears on the Scene--Consternation
Among the Diners--Offer the Captain $50,000 for
Ten Minutes' Start--No--I Shoot Him--Struggle and Capture--In
the Arsenal. 327
CHAPTER XXXII.
Friendly Spanish Officials--Plots to Escape--Leap for Liberty--Escape
out of Havana--Travel the Beach Nights--Refuge in
the Jungle Days--Construct a Raft--Food and Water Gone,
but Pluck at the Fore--I Will Join the Rebels And Win Military
Laurels--Man Proposes, but---- 338
CHAPTER XXXIII.
Creeping Across a Bridge--Sentries Discover Me--They Challenge:
"Quien Va?"--They Fire--Flight and Escape on the Raft--A
Tropical Night Swim--Sharks Everywhere--Knife Between My
Teeth--Regain the Shore--Nearing the Rebel Camp--The Black
Soldiers Surprise and Capture Me--I Strike the Captain--He
Dashes at Me with a Bayonet--Stopped by a Woman--Desperation. 355
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Back in Havana--Curtin's Story--Extradited--Spain Delivers Me
to England--Pinkertons Escort Me on Board Steamer--Arrival
at Plymouth--Newgate at Last--When Time is Old and
Hath Forgotten Himself. 372
CHAPTER XXXV.
Life in Newgate--Legal Sharks--A Pattern Solicitor--A Lame Defense
--Before Lord Mayor Waterlow--Trial at the Old Bailey--Thronging
Crowds--Days of Mental Torture--Jury Retires--Suspense--Guilty. 383
CHAPTER XXXVI.
A Modern Jeffreys--Penal Servitude for Life--End of the Primrose
Way--A Resolve--Will Fortune Ever Smile Again?--Newgate to
Chatham Prison--A Cocky Little Major--You Were Sent Here
to Work--In the Mud--Night and Silence. 387
CHAPTER XXXVII.
Events of the First Day--Hopeless Outlook--Lack of Mental and
Physical Food--A Shakespeare Won and Hope Dawns--In the
Infirmary--Effects of Prolonged Imprisonment. 401
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
Prison Management--Warders Under Military Discipline--Their
Long Hours and Small Pay--Their Character and Antecedents--English
Prison System Not Reformatory--Turns Out Murderers--Prison
Pets--Rats, Mice and Beetles. 404
CHAPTER XXXIX.
A Genius--Strange Story of Arthur Heep--Unwise Parents--Driven
from Home--Temptation and Fall--In a Lunatic Asylum--Escapes
Naked in a Storm--Clothes Secured from a Scarecrow--Rearrested--Serves
Five Years--To America and Return--Again
Behind the Bars. 417
CHAPTER XL.
English Prisons Schools for Crime--Two Prison Aid Societies--United
States Laws Evaded--Snug Berths for Reverend Barnacles--Contributions
Go for Salaries--No Benefit to ex-Prisoners--How
Discharged Prisoners Are Hustled to the United
States. 426
CHAPTER XLI.
Rev. Mr. Whiteley--How to Stop Influx of Foreign Criminals--Foster
an Example--Whiteley, Secretary of Aid Society, Sends
Foster to Sea--His Arrival in Chicago--Meets an Old Prison
Chum--Turns Detective--Chicago Justices--Foster's Story--Human
Tigers--A Plot and $20,000--A Letter and Diamond Pin--In
the Toils Again. 430
CHAPTER XLII.
A Gettysburg Veteran--In the Wethersfield, Ct., State Prison--Makes
and Conceals a Set of Burglar's Tools--Liberated--Returns
and Burglarizes the Prison--Boat Load of Plunder--Captured--Sixteen
Years More in Prison--Then Goes to England--Gets
Twenty Years--Joins Me at Chatham. 436
CHAPTER XLIII.
The Fenians at Chatham--Dr. Gallagher--McCarty, O'Brien and
Others--We Become Friends--Excavating the Chatham Ship
Basin--Starvation and Despair--Self-Mutilation of an Arm or
Leg to Reach the Hospital--Release and Death of McCarty--Gallagher
Breaks Down--Speedy Release or Death for Him. 443
CHAPTER XLIV.
Fenian Prisoners in English Prisons--McCarthy, O'Brien--A Plan
Miscarried--In the Tolls--Severe Punishments--Curtin, Daly,
Egan--Poor Dr. Gallagher. 447
CHAPTER XLV.
A Dictionary and Life of the Prophet Jeremiah vs. a Shakespeare--Prison
Hospital Proves a Paradise--Nature's Compensations--Reality
Not So Terrible as Imagined--Human Nature Unchangeable. 453
CHAPTER XLVI.
Public Opinion Within Says the Same as Outside--A Sensible Fellow--Pluck
Wins--Roses Scarce, Thorns Plenty--Woe to Mutineers
for "More Bread"--Sentiment Banished--Resistance
Crushed--English Judges Are Autocrats--No Appeal. 459
CHAPTER XLVII.
Hard Lines--A Boaster--A Veneered Flunkey--Billy Treacle's Aunt
Dies Again--Frederic Barton and His Vain Petitions--I Give
Him a Pointer--His Inherited Fortune Fake--Surreptitious Mail
Route--Warders as Letter Carriers. 463
CHAPTER XLVIII.
Sixteen-Thousand-Acre Tea Plantation in India and Sixty Thousand
Pounds Imaginary Inheritance--Barton Becomes a Great
Man--The Plot Thickens--Letters from London--Smith Discharged--Petition
for Barton--Smith Presents It at Home Office--Home
Secretary Swallows the Bait--Barton's Triumphant
Release--His Imaginary Fortune Does Not Materialize. 466
CHAPTER XLIX.
Tantalizing the Home Secretary--Refused a Letter Sheet--Petition
the Home Office for One--Sarcasm About Barton's Release on
My Sub-Rosa Petition--Good Conduct Fails--Feigned Wealth
Wins Freedom for Barton--Apropos Quotation from Goethe--Sir
Vernon Harcourt and His Opinion--I Tread Dangerous
Ground. 471
CHAPTER L.
Niblo Clark--The Mysterious Three R's--His Characteristic Verses--My
Tenth Anniversary at Chatham--All Efforts Fail and
Fifteen Years Gone Forever--Despairing When Good News
Comes--My Sister in England--George Freed--Hope Returns
and Abides--George Gets James G. Blaine, J. Russell and
Others to Intercede--Fresh Failures--Home Secretary Matthews
Won't--George and My Sister Will--Which Will Wear
the Other Out--George and Sister Win--Night and Gloom in
My Cell--These Walls Have Frowned on Me for Twenty Years--Warder's
Tramps on Stone Corridor Arouse Me--Door Opens--"You
Are Free"--First Sight of Stars in Twenty Years--I
Shout, 'Twas Like a Prayer: "God Is Good." 478
NOTE TO THE PUBLIC
The Hon. Lyman J. Gage, Dr. Funk and hundreds of others have said
that my book should be put at a price which would place it within
the reach of every young man, etc.
Hitherto, it has been sold by subscription at $3.50, $5 and $10 per
copy--the five editions printed having been easily sold at those
prices.
Notwithstanding the thousands of friends their circulation has
made, I did not care to have my family name go any further in this
connection than financial needs required in working for the release
of the men still undergoing life sentences in English prisons.
At last, however, certain influence causes me to let it go in the
revised and improved form here presented, and may it prove as
valuable and engrossing to the general public as it has to 20,000
subscribers to former editions. GEORGE BIDWELL.
CHAPTER I.
HAD THERE BEEN WISDOM THERE?
We lived in South Brooklyn, near to old No. 13, the Degraw Street Public
School. To that I was sent, and there got all the education I was ever
fated to have at any school, except the school of life and experience.
I attended for some years, and even now I cannot recall without a smile
the absurd incompetency of every one connected with the institution and
their utter ignorance of the art of imparting knowledge to children.
At home I had picked up that grand art of reading, and went to school to