Love in a Prison. –We have all heard that “Love rules the court, the camp, the grove” but we have rarely heard that the little god delighted to dwell in prisoned solitude ; true it is and of verity, nevertheless, that he seems, if not to have fixed his dwelling in, at least to be a very constant visitor of, our jail. It is not long since a couple, who had imbided the tender passion, were linked in the bonds of matrimony in it ; and a like consumnation, most devoutly to be wished for by another pair of inmates, would ere now have taken place, did not envious bolts and bars intervene, for a petition has been presented by two delinquents of different sexes, both under sentence of transportation, to the Magistrates, praying that they may be allowed to marry before setting out for New South Wales. The fond pair never saw each other till inclosed in the same vehicle on their way to stand trial at last Perth Circuit, for capital offences ; yet, in this situation, love–omnipotent love–took the captives captive, and rendered them in its enjoyment, even in their perilous plight, “o’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious.” But, alas! ” the course of true love never did run smooth;” and no less a personage than the Secretary of State for the Home Department has in this case crossed the path of the hapless couple, and doomed them to single blessedness for many a year, by ordering the “fair penitent” to be removed to Penitentiary at Millbank for seven years, instead of transportation for fourteen ; leaving the forlorn lover to seek consolation in the charms of some sterling or currency damsel in the land of promise, to which he must now wend his solitary way.– Fife Hld.
Citation: Scotsman (Edinburgh, United Kingdom), 07 May 1828, available at the Scissors and Paste Database, http://www.scissorsandpaste.net/207.