The Yorkshire Evening Post - Tuesday, May 14, 1895
This report was originally published in English. Machine translations may be available in other languages.
GOSSIP OF THE DAY.
THE PRISONER'S RESTAURANT.
Opposite the grim gates of Hollaway Gaol there stands a low stool. It represents an important house of business, and on it sits, or about it flits, the representative of the firm, a buxom young matron. She has a copy-book on her knees as she sits on her throne, the stool, and (says the Westminster Gazette) when you first behold her you would wonder what street trade she pursues there in the sun. But she has noticed you notwithstanding the fact that she was so intent on her pencillings, and on her lips, as she looks brightly up to you, is the question, "Would you like some food taken into the prison?" She asks that question a hundred times every day; has asked it for the nine long years that she has sat there, rain or shine, at the gates of Her Majesty's prison.
SOME CUSTOMERS.
"Then you supplied him?" (asked the interviewer)— "Yes, Wilde, and Taylor too. Jabez Balfour is our customer, and so were Wright and Hobbs."
A WARNING
This lady, the interviewer continues, is quite open to conversation, between her frequent darts across the street, when the prison gate opens and a stranger appears. But she is cautious all the same, for "it gets into the papers what Oscar Wilde had to eat while he was there, and the prison officials warned us not to tell."