"Is the jail pretty full now?"

"Chock full, hed to send a batch up ter Lenox las' week, an got em
packed bout's thick's they'll lay naow, like codfish in a bar'l. Haow
in time I'm a gonter make room fer the fellers the court'll send in
nex' week, I d'now, derned if I dew. They'd orter be three new jails
in the caounty this blamed minit."

"Do you expect a good many more this week?"

"Gosh, yes. Why, man alive, the Common Pleas never had ez much business
ez this time. I callate they's nigh onter seven hundred cases tew try."

"The devil! Has there been a riot or a rebellion in the county? What
have they all done?"

"Oh they hain't done nothin," replied the landlord, "they ain't nothin
but debtors. Dern debtors, I don' like to hev the jailin of em. They
hain't got no blood intew em like Sabbath-breakers, an blasphemers, an
rapers has. They're weakly, pulin kinder chaps, what thar ain't no
satisfaction a lockin up an a knockin roun'. They're dreffle
deskerridgin kind o' fellers tew. Ye see we never git rid on em. They
never gits let aout like other fellers as is in jail. They hez tew
stay till they pays up, an naterally they can't pay up's long ez they
stays. Genally they goes aout feet foremost, when they goes aout at
all, an they ain't long lived."

"Why don't they pay up before they get in?" queried Perez.