LIBERTY

Western Star, Issue 983, 19 September 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

LIBERTY

Who that has not himself been once imprisoned can appreciate what liberty means ? Who that has not had to look forward with aching heart and longing soul for days, months, years, to the time when he would once again fin.d himself unfettered, free to talk to hR fellow-men —at liberty to exercise the rights of his nature’s manhood, undeterred by prison rules or the threat of warders, reports, can realise what that heaven-born word implies ! I was liberated once —unexpectedly set free after seven and a half years of close imprisonment, and lam almost inclined td say that the punishment involved peual servitude of that duration would .be worth enduring again to enjoy the wild, ecstatic, soul-filling happiness of the first day of freedom. It is a sensation of delight akin to that which A'dam must have experienced upon waking to life and consciousness in the Harden of Eden ; only Adam’s memory could recall noiliter pain nor sorrow as a contrast to the living pleasure of Paradise; while everything which meets the gaze of the liberated prisoner, every thought of the present and the future, assumes a brighter hue and wears a more blissful meaning from the terrible recollection of the felon degradation, the narrow cell, the stinted sunlight, the loathsome daily task, the brutal warder, and the weary, heart-longing expectancy for the hour of deliverance. —Leaves from a Prison Diary, by Michael Davitt.