it; but if you will allow me to go out and look after my family and property I shall be obliged to you.’ Struck with his behaviour, they called out, ‘Master Akerman, you have done bravely; it was very kind in you; by all means go and take care of your own concerns.’ He did so accordingly, while they remained and were all preserved.” Akerman received still higher praise for this, which was generally admitted to be courageous conduct. Dr. Johnson, according to Boswell, had been heard to relate the substance of the foregoing story “with high praise, in which he was joined by Mr. Edmund Burke.” Johnson also touched upon Akerman’s kindness to his prisoners, and “pronounced this eulogy upon his character. He who has long had constantly in his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of his disposition, must have had it originally in a great degree, and continued to cultivate it very carefully.” Another tribute to Akerman’s worth comes from a less distinguished but probably not less genuine source. In the letters of the wretched Hackman already referred to,[189] he speaks in terms of warm eulogy of this humane gaoler. “Let me pay a small tribute of praise,” he says. “How often have you and I complained of familiarity’s blunting the edge of every sense on which she lays her hand?... what then is the praise of that gaoler who, in the midst of misery, crimes, and death, sets familiarity at defiance and still preserves the feelings of a man? The author of the ‘Life of Savage’ gives celebrity to the Bristol gaoler, by whose humanity the latter part of that strange man’s life was rendered more comfortable. Shall no one give celebrity to the present keeper of Newgate? Mr. Akerman marks every day of his existence by more than one such deed as this. Know, ye rich and powerful, ye who might save hundreds of your fellow creatures from starving by the sweepings of your tables, know that among the various feelings of almost every wretch who quits Newgate for Tyburn, a concern neither last nor least is that which he feels upon leaving the gaol of which this man is the keeper.”[190]