Note 133b — Chapter VII

The authenticity of the wine slides as Norman Cross work is absolute. Mr. Vinter, who gave them to the author for presentation to the museum, affirmed that his mother had known them all her life in the house of her parents, an inn opposite the prison. Her father had purchased them in the prison market. Mr. Vinter’s mother had herself seen from a window of the house a prisoner shot by a sentinel as he was attempting to escape. Of the caddies, one is in the possession of the Countess of Lindsey at Uffington Park, twelve miles from Norman Cross (Plate VII., Fig. 2, p. 40). Mr. Bodger has the second; it is of beautiful design, but dilapidated. The third is in the collection of Miss Paull, of Truro, and is known as the work of a French prisoner at the Falmouth Depot (Plate VIII, Fig. 1, p. 46). It is possible that the three caddies were all the work of the same artist, who may have been one of the thousands of prisoners who were sent from Falmouth to Norman Cross.