Francis Colburn Adams

“ One by one the imprisoned men grasp him by the hand, and shower upon him the warmest, the heartiest congratulations. A once fallen brother has risen to a knowledge of his own happiness. Hands that raised him from that mat of straw, when the mental man seemed lost, now welcome him restored, a purer being.
"Ah, Spunyarn," says Tom, greeting the old sailor with childlike fondness, as the tears are seen gushing into the eyes, and coursing down the browned face of the old mariner, "I owe you a debt I fear I never can pay. ”

“ The sting of disappointment may pain your feelings; hope deferred may torture you here in a prison; the persecutions of enemies may madden your very soul; but when a mother turns coldly from you—No, I will not say it, for I love her still—" he hesitates, as the old sailor says, with touching simplicity, he never knew what it was to have a mother or father. ”

“ We regard our state of civilization as extremely enviable. To-day we made a lion of the notorious Hines, the forger. Hines, fashioning after our hapless chivalry, boasts that South Carolina is his State—his political mother. He has, nevertheless, graced with his presence no few penitentiaries. We feasted him in that same prison where we degrade and starve the honest poor; we knew him guilty of an heinous crime—yet we carried him jubilantly to the "halls of justice." ”