Roll-up revelation

SIR – Prisoners have been using pages of the Bible to roll their “coffin nails” (report, January 6). One of Robert Service’s poems, “The Ballad of Salvation Bill”, places a Yukon trapper in the same situation.

Bill rescues a “gospel-plugger”and brings him back to his cabin, only to find mice have destroyed his stash of papers. Eventually Bill gets to use pages from his “pard’s” Bible on the understanding that he reads each page before smoking. The best line of poetry ever written follows in stanza 11: “I smoked and smoked from Genesis to Job”.

Some might disagree.

The poem ends well for Salvation Bill. Perhaps the prisoners would do well to follow his example. Billy Montgomery

Dunseverick, Co Antrim