Page:The Jail, Experiences in 1916.pdf/129

 the part of a State certainly affects an imprisoned author in a variety of ways.

If money arrived for anybody, Mr. Fiedler announced only the sum,—never the sender. Evidently also a higher regulation prompted by State cautiousness. But that at least brought about humorous situations; somebody received money which he had not expected, as a rule the amounts used to be small, and somebody else kept waiting and waiting, could not and did not wait any longer. During wartime in Austria immoderate quantities of land-sharks appeared on the scene, provisions sharks on the railways, pecuniary sharks in the jails. You may have written for money, and received the reply that it had already been sent,—day by day Mr. Fiedler came and reported arrivals, but for you nothing had come. You lodge a complaint—in vain. You ask Mr. Fiedler to have another look in the office, he had a look, there was nothing. But when you began to threaten with a statement to the examining accountant, Mr. Fiedler went once more into the office, and lo and behold: "300 crowns have just arrived for you. Just this moment" or, as Mr. Fiedler good-naturedly added, it had been carelessly entered up, and now they have discovered it.

For although Mr. Fiedler was a convict, the official duties which he fulfilled in our superintendent's office, placed him upon "their" side. And he had also the discreetness of persons belonging to the official caste; he never uttered a single word which might demean the officials, the Government and its authorities in our eyes. His "Miscellaneous News" and "Day by Day" were to a hair as innocent as the corresponding headings in any official paper.

Dušek, who was fond of coining aphorisms, said: "Nowhere in Austria does so much stealing go on as in jail." Then Papa Declich, who next to Dušek was the senior member of our room, had