You Will
See That The Acquaintanceship Bore Fruit For Hunt.
When Hunt's time was
out, he wandered to St. Louis; and from that place he wrote his letter
to Williams.
The letter got no further than the office of the prison
warden, of course; prisoners are not often allowed to receive letters
from outside. The prison authorities read this letter, but did not
destroy it. They had not the heart to do it. They read it to several
persons, and eventually it fell into the hands of those ladies of whom I
spoke a while ago. The other day I came across an old friend of mine - a
clergyman - who had seen this letter, and was full of it. The mere
remembrance of it so moved him that he could not talk of it without his
voice breaking. He promised to get a copy of it for me; and here it is
- an exact copy, with all the imperfections of the original preserved. It
has many slang expressions in it - thieves' argot - but their meaning has
been interlined, in parentheses, by the prison authorities' -
St. Louis, June 9th 1872.
Mr. W - - friend Charlie if i may call you so: i no you are surprised
to get a letter from me, but i hope you won't be mad at my writing to
you. i want to tell you my thanks for the way you talked to me when i
was in prison - it has led me to try and be a better man; i guess you
thought i did not cair for what you said, & at the first go off I
didn't, but i noed you was a man who had don big work with good men &
want no sucker, nor want gasing & all the boys knod it.
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