. Bright side of prison life : experiences, in prison and out, of an involuntary sojourner in rebeldom . xpounds, clinching the matter by asserting thathe knew it to be a fact, inasmuch as he had seenit done. Then we concluded to shut the mouthof such an egregious and palpable liar. Burnbaum asked me about my friend down inBaltimore, who was such an enormous eater,and, after some persuasion, I told the followingstory: A colored man, called Eating Tom, stoppedat a dining stall kept by a widow in Marsh Mar-ket one fine morning, and asked the charge forbreakfast. The woman kept a table set fortwe
. Bright side of prison life : experiences, in prison and out, of an involuntary sojourner in rebeldom . xpounds, clinching the matter by asserting thathe knew it to be a fact, inasmuch as he had seenit done. Then we concluded to shut the mouthof such an egregious and palpable liar. Burnbaum asked me about my friend down inBaltimore, who was such an enormous eater,and, after some persuasion, I told the followingstory: A colored man, called Eating Tom, stoppedat a dining stall kept by a widow in Marsh Mar-ket one fine morning, and asked the charge forbreakfast. The woman kept a table set fortwelve, and had provisions cooked and ready fora like number. Being told that twenty-five centswas the price, Tom paid the quarter and took hisseat, calling for everything in sight, until hehad eaten all the cooked victuals the poor wo-man had, when he demanded more food or thereturn of his money, saying that he had paid forhis breakfast and had not had enough. At this,the widow began to cry, which attracted the at-tention of a fat, burly policeman, who orderedthe gluttonous brute to leave. Tom and the. CAPT. CHARLES BURNBAUM. TEE BRIGHT HIDE OF PRISON LIFE. 95 policeman soon got into a dispute as to whatconstituted a meal, and the negro offered to bethis opponent a guinea that he was yet suffi-ciently hungry to be able to eat a bundle of hayas large around as the fat policemans money was put up in my hands, the police-man procured the hay—the nastiest salt marshhay that he could find—and compressed it to therequired size by means of a strap. By this timequite a crowd had gathered. The strap was cutand the hay expanded so that it looked like awagon-load, but the negro, with a broad grinand without hesitation, commenced his taskwith apparent relish, and soon ate up every par-ticle of the hay. Being the stakeholder, and aneye-witness, I was compelled to pay over themoney to Tom. Our other two guards saw the point of thisstory and fairly roared with laughter, but theliar
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