That the reader may know and perhaps become interested in the writer of this sketch of the West Virginia prison, he herewith respectfully and modestly submits to them a sketch of his life. I was born in St. Louis, Mo., in 1844. My parents, possessed of more than the ordinary education the poor people of Ireland were enabled to receive, journeyed across the American desert to California, having their troubles with the Indians and their Mormon allies. My father hoped to strike a gold mine and become rich, and in the new Eldorado build a home and surround his wife and children—a girl and boy—with all the good things of earth that money could buy. Soon after our arrival at San Francisco, the cholera made its appearance, the plague having been brought to the golden shores of California by emigrants traveling from the east by way of Central America. My father was stricken with it and died. In the Lone Mountain cemetery, of the metropolis of the Pacific coast, he has lain buried for years. The remainder of the family escaped the dread fifty-one disease. Mother was left to struggle alone in a strange land and among strangers to provide for her children. Not afraid of work, she did her duty to her children nobly, faithfully, and well. She now lies buried beside my father in Lone Mountain cemetery, twenty years gone by. The war-bugle of the Rebellion rang in my ears and woke me to the realization that I had a country to protect and to save. I enlisted in a California regiment of cavalry and served three years with some merit. Upon my discharge from the army I entered an Illinois college to perfect my neglected education, and after graduation I located in Kansas City, Mo. I began at newspaper work, and have continued in that line of work to the present time, with occasional lapses from it to engage in other and more lucrative employment. A soldier of the civil war, having been wounded, injured, and having contracted disease in the line of duty, I was prompted upon McKinley’s election as President to apply for a pension. I went to Washington, D. C., to press my claim in person with the Commissioner of Pensions. He turned me down after I had some words with him relative to his delay in granting to me that which was mine by legal right and title, expressed by the American people through their representative in Congress assembled, and in fulfillment of promises made to the men who saved the nation. Somewhat addicted to the drink habit, I became drunk at my disappointment and the next day I found to my surprise that I was in the police station charged with breaking into and entering a small grocery in Washington City, two miles from my place of dwelling. The alleged damage inflicted was small, but Justice Clabaugh, who had recently been appointed from Maryland, said to me that five years was little enough for the alleged crime. Serial No. 378. [Illustration: Penitentiary of the State of West Virginia] LETTERS FROM PRISON OFFICIALS.