Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 9, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 November 1875 — The Story of a Convict. [ARTICLE]

The Story of a Convict.

A convict has just died in Sing-Sing. Prison whose history during his imprisonment possesses a peculiar interest. His name was John Parsons, and he had been an inmate of the prison for three and twenty years. He went there a young man and came out a gray-headed corpse. He was originally convicted of manslaughter in the first degree, and condemned to imprisonment for life. He was a jovial, good-natured fellow, and enjoyed. many privileges, such as running errands to the village and doing odd jobs about tlie place, and acting at times as a servant to the Wardens, and generally making himself useful. On one occasion he begged very hard to be allowed to visit J*iew York, and the permission was accorded. He went alone and was seated at a theater that same night when one of the guards of the Prison, who wife off on leave of absence, saw him there, supposed he had escaped, and had him arrested in an orchestra seat at Niblo’s Garden. He was taken back to the Prison handcuffed, despite all his protestations, and never asked to be allowed to visit New York again. By years of companionship and familiarity it seems that he grew to love the Prison where at first he was an involuntary visitor, and when all the friends and relatives he once knew had passed away he came to look upon these hard walls as his home. Three years ago he was offered a pardon by Gov. Dix; he cried like a child when told of it, and begged to be allowed to remain, saying that if he were sent away he should commit some crime to be able to get back. Under these circumstances it was thought better to let him remain where he was, particularly as he was' more useful and serviceable than anyone around the place. All liked him sincerely, and when “John” breathed his last on his prison bed there was sincere regret and sorrow in Prison. The men’s and women’s dresses are so much alike in Cochin Qhina that it is almost impossible to say which is which, and several French officers who recently proposed for the hand and fortune of natives discovered that they had proposed for the hand of the sterner sex. For the future, therefore, the men are to have thejr hair tied with a different colored ribbon from that of the ladies. »