Mr. Davitt found a book at Newgate with "Good-bye, Lucy dear," written throughout it, and at the end--
"Good-bye, Lucy dear, I'm parted from you for seven long year. ALF. JONES."
A poet of a more caustic school had added beneath this--
"If Lucy dear is like most gals, She'll give few sighs or moans, But soon will find among your pals Another Alfred Jones."
Remarks against women are by no means rare, as the following given by Lombroso--
"La donna è un essere inutile; io la stima soltanto quando la ch...
"He is a poor deluded fool who believes in the love and honour of women."
But the women reciprocate this sentiment, and in an Italian illustrated magazine a woman writes--
"In this stormy sea which is called the world I have only found fleeting pleasures and cruel disillusions. And if I felt any happiness I had to pay for it with bitter tears. Never believe in the love of men: for them love is a pastime. When you have sacrificed for them honour, family, religion, interest, youth, they will turn their shoulders to you with contempt, in search of other loves. That is the kind of thing that man is."
But the same woman writes passionately to her accomplice in murder, robbery, and adultery--
"Questo foglio dal cuor ti mando, L'ho scritto ieri sera lacrimando, L'ho scritto avante cena, Senza inchiostro e senza penna. La punta del mio cuore era la penna, Il sangue delle mia vene era l' inchiostro, Se penna e calamaio poco ti costa, Se merito pietà ti prego d' una riposta. Addio, Addio, Addio, mio bene, Addio, mio amore, Tu sei il mio cuore, Per ti morirò. 1886."
Another woman's inscription is a pathetic recollection of an old ballad--
"I wish to God my baby was born, And smiling on its father's knee, And I, poor girl, lay in my grave, The green grass growing over me."
Beneath a design of a funeral monument a thief wrote this inscription (translated from Lombroso)--
"Here lies the body of poor Tulac Who, tired of stealing in this world, Goes to steal in another. His happy relatives have erected this memorial."
Very significant of mental vacuity in solitude are some inscriptions given by Mr. Horsley:--
"21,000 times have I walked round this cell in a week."
"131 black tiles, 150 red tiles in this cell."