Having finished inspecting the building, I was unfortunately moved by I know not what national pride and knowledge of institutions superior to this at home, to say,

“This is a pleasant jail, but it doesn’t look much like our great prisons; we have as many as a thousand to twelve hundred men in some of our institutions.”

“Ay, ay, I have heard tell,” said the jailer, shaking his head in pity, “it’s an awfu’ place, an awfu’ place,—­the United States.  I suppose it’s the wickedest country that ever was in the world.  I don’t know,—­I don’t know what is to become of it.  It’s worse than Sodom.  There was that dreadful war on the South; and I hear now it’s very unsafe, full of murders and robberies and corruption.”

I did not attempt to correct this impression concerning my native land, for I saw it was a comfort to the simple jailer, but I tried to put a thorn into him by saying,

“Yes, we have a good many criminals, but the majority of them, the majority of those in jails, are foreigners; they come from Ireland, England, and the Provinces.”

But the old man only shook his head more solemnly, and persisted, “It’s an awfu’ wicked country.”

Before I came away I was permitted to have an interview with the sole prisoner, a very pleasant and talkative man, who was glad to see company, especially intelligent company who understood about things, he was pleased to say.  I have seldom met a more agreeable rogue, or one so philosophical, a man of travel and varied experiences.  He was a lively, robust Provincial of middle age, bullet-headed, with a mass of curly black hair, and small, round black eyes, that danced and sparkled with good humor.  He was by trade a carpenter, and had a work-bench in his cell, at which he worked on week-days.  He had been put in jail on suspicion of stealing a buffalo-robe, and he lay in jail eight months, waiting for the judge to come to Baddeck on his yearly circuit.  He did not steal the robe, as he assured me, but it was found in his house, and the judge gave him four months in jail, making a year in all,—­a month of which was still to serve.  But he was not at all anxious for the end of his term; for his wife was outside.

Jock, for he was familiarly so called, asked me where I was from.  As I had not found it very profitable to hail from the United States, and had found, in fact, that the name United States did not convey any definite impression to the average Cape Breton mind, I ventured upon the bold assertion, for which I hope Bostonians will forgive me, that I was from Boston.  For Boston is known in the eastern Provinces.

“Are you?” cried the man, delighted.  “I’ve lived in Boston, myself.  There’s just been an awful fire near there.”

“Indeed!” I said; “I heard nothing of it.’  And I was startled with the possibility that Boston had burned up again while we were crawling along through Nova Scotia.

“Yes, here it is, in the last paper.”  The man bustled away and found his late paper, and thrust it through the grating, with the inquiry, “Can you read?”