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DEEMING WRITING HIS BIO
GEAPHY.
Deeming has completely adapted himself
to his altered surroundings. The officials
of the Melbourne Gaol, so far from ex
periencing a continuance of the behaviour
which characterised his entry to the prison,
are now agreeably surprised to find that he
, is daily growing more tractable. This is
probably due to more than one reason — to
the knowledge that the governor, Mr
Shegog, and his subordinates will stand no
,. nonsense, that his chance of feigning a
madness that will be accepted as genuine
is remote, and that public opinion is unani
mously and undisguisedly hostile to him.
At first he laboured under the ludicrous
misapprehension that his imprisonment is
exciting a good deal of popular sympathy on
his behalf. It is also probable that he has
learned of the accessibility of Mr Webster,
the governor of the gaol at Hull,, where he
served a sentence in 1890, and the willing
ness of that gentleman to testify to the
dodges which made him difficult to deal
with there ; and that this knowledge has
largely helped to produce his present
Ijocility. .?-;-,.
Deeming occupies himself from day to
day in writing, the necessary material hav
ing been provided by the authorities. His
solicitor, Mr Marshall Lyle, addresses
.numerous queries to him, and these are
. responded to by carefully considered replies
in manuscript ; a fresh set of interrogations
tbeing forwarded to the gaol as soon as the
7 prisoner has disposed of one batch to his
.satisfaction. Although this labour involves
considerable strain upon his eyes, Deeming
never now complains of the absence of his
spectacles — a fact which in itself amply
shows that the request for their restitution
was only prompted by some ulterior
motive. ' '
? He occasionally makes remarks to those
who come into contact with him which lead
- to the supposition that he is also engaged
-upon his biography. Even if the narrative
fee reasonably truthful, there will be no
doubt that 'it will be sufficiently startling,
but it is feared that its value as a record
will be neutralised by the mass of untruths
which the morbid vanityof the man must
inevitably lead him to import into it.
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