PRISON-SMUGGLING AT PRETORIA.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XIX, Issue XIV, 25 September 1897, Page 429

PRISON-SMUGGLING AT PRETORIA.

During the captivity of the reformers in Pretoria Gaol, much smuggling of food was at first practised by the prisoners’ wives. Very stringent rules were enforced, and those who could not relish the “ mealie pap ” and black bread, had to depend on the greater dainties that the ingenuity of their wives contrived to smuggle into the prison. One lady, Mrs Solly Joel, visited her husband daily, the crown of her hat filled with cigars, a bottle of cream suspended from her waist, and at her back, “by way of a bustle, ” a roasted fowl or brace of ducks. Another lady wore a goodly Bologne sausage under the body of her dress, as a belt; while yet another managed to take tins of sardines and meat essences concealed in her stockings. It is intimated that the wives were sometimes compelled to resist the desire of their husbands to embrace them, for fear of serious consequences ; and the husbands did not always understand their coyness. One lady declined to be embraced “ because of the flask of coffee in her bosom.” Caresses and embraces, with ladies who are walking larders, cannot safely be indulged in. Though this reads amusingly, there is no doubt that the wives of many of these Uitlanders displayed a good deal of homely heroism, and are women whom their husbands may well be proud of.