6 DOTTINGS ON THE ROADSIDE. [Chap. I— B. S. 
when it Reaches your hand it may find yon as it 
Leaves me at Present. Sir, and i have just ask yon 
this favour if yon could let Me have Something if you 
Please, for i Am a Poor Stranger and i as got No 
Person to give Me Nothing at All, Sir, for I Am in 
the Chain Gang, Sir, not for stealing, for the Holy 
Bible says in the 15th Chapter of Exydos Honesty is 
the Best of Policies. 
“ I Remain your Obedient Servant, Sir, 
“ Henry Brown.” 
I asked the Superintendent of the convicts what 
was the crime committed by the interesting boy, who 
wished that his communication might find me where 
it left him—in the chain-gang, I suppose; and I 
learned that he had stolen a pair of shoes, value about 
two shillings, for which he had been condemned to 
the rather disproportionate punishment of eleven 
months of hard labour, in company with confirmed 
robbers and murderers. The man added, that he had 
two or three other Jamaica men in the gang,—one 
of' them for murder,—and if I could give them a 
trifle, it would be conferring a real boon upon them. 
Under these circumstances I complied with the “ peti¬ 
tion;” and I believe the publicity which I gave to 
it procured the boy his freedom, for I afterwards found 
him carrying on the trade of shoe-black and “shoe- 
white,”—I suppose that is the right term for a person 
who covers your canvas shoes with pipeclay. He had 
evidently a fancy for shoes. 
The reader, finding himself now in the midst of an 
abortive negro revolt, need not apprehend my ex- 
