1 Address to reply to :-
C1036 James Fitzgerald, Irish Prisoner, (Wakefield). c/o Chief Postal Censor,, London Mon. night 5th June 1916 My Dearest Aunt and 'Uncle', Your
welcome letter reached me today, —
with stamps enclosed.l Before you
begin to read further just get
my letter to Patrick first and
read on after his, for I find
that to write to all I must
divide my news — or would you
rather call it experiences —
amongst you all, and you can
get all by reading the ones
I sent to Mother, Patk, Bob , and
yourselves then the one I am
just writing to yourselves. 2 Wakefield is a rather dirty,
sleepy little manufacturing town,
corresponding to practically what
Carlow is in Ireland — at least
this is what the nurse, or rather
one of the nurses who so
kindly visited me, told me. Of course
I don't know, having seen
nothing excepting perhaps the
station we alighted and
of course the edifice, which at
present holds me. This noble pile consists of
four large halls as per figure
with a large block and
tower in the centre.
Each of these halls consists
of four wards numbered 1, 2,
3, and 4. No. 1 ward is on the
ground floor, no. 2 on the next
,and so on. Each ward contains from 40 to 60 cells
. Thus I am in C Hall, no. 1 ward,
and in no 27 cell;— which
incidentally was also the number
of my cell in Cork, — thus you
can understand the 'Insignia'
C1/27 on the corner of the first page.
This is also the number on the badge
which we wear for distinguishing
purposes. Thus you can see
it is in reality a convict prison
like Kilmainham and others. We dont get black tea to
drink as mother stated — it is
black coffee and very objectionable
stuff it is, too. She guessed
right, partly, when she stated dry
bread, for they manage to give
us margarine with it for our
supper. The meat for dinner
has been easily discerned to
be horseflesh which may be 3 nice at times. One potato, two
tablespoonfuls of beans and some
soup make up the dinner proper.
The other course is dry bread again.
Still mind you it is better than
what we got in Cork, but of that
it will be sufficient to tell
you later on. For 12 days we
suffered what Dillon described
in Parliament recently. He
erred slightly in his numbers
'22' or '23'. To be strictly exact
we were 231/4 hours out of every
24 in solitary confinement without
distraction of any kind.
However, the conditions are better
now as you can see by letter to
Mother. To return to a nicer sphere; you mention
a Miss Carroll enquiring about me. Why
not ask her to write to me. I sure she
wouldn't refuse. Show her this. With remembrances
to all other kind friends, I conclude,
Dear mom & Lily, with love
from your loving nephew, Jim P.S.Remees to Mother's 4 P.S. Convey thanks to Mr. Campbell and Mr. Grogan for what they've done