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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman in Prison, by Caroline H. Woods
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Woman in Prison
+
+Author: Caroline H. Woods
+
+Release Date: November 24, 2013 [EBook #44273]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN IN PRISON ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Dianna Adair, Heike Leichsenring and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+Text surrounded by _ was originally marked up in italics. Obvious printer
+errors have been corrected, inconsistent hyphenation has been left as in
+the original.
+
+
+
+
+
+                            WOMAN IN PRISON.
+
+                                   BY
+
+                           CAROLINE H. WOODS.
+
+
+
+                               NEW YORK:
+                    PUBLISHED BY HURD AND HOUGHTON.
+                      Cambridge: Riverside Press.
+                                 1869.
+
+
+  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
+                           CAROLINE H. WOODS,
+  in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the District of
+  Massachusetts.
+
+                         RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
+                       STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY
+                      H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY.
+
+
+
+
+                              WHY WRITTEN.
+
+
+I was reading an evening paper. I glanced over the advertisements. One
+attracted my attention, and held it so strongly that I read it over and
+over, again and again. There was nothing unusual in it to ordinary
+observation. It read, "Wanted.--At the Penitentiary, a Matron. Inquire
+at the Institution."
+
+I turned the paper over to read the general news; but could not place my
+thoughts so as to comprehend the meaning of the words before my sight.
+Without the intention to do so, I looked again at the advertisement. It
+became a study to me.
+
+Said Thought--If you were to answer that advertisement, and obtain the
+situation, it would place you upon missionary ground, and at the same
+time give you employment which would afford you a support while you are
+teaching the ignorant. You would get knowledge in the position. A new
+phase of life would be opened to your view. You would have an
+opportunity to observe, practically, how well the present system of
+prison discipline is adapted to reform convicts, and repress crime. But
+the cost is too much. I cannot become a Matron in a Penitentiary.
+
+I laid the paper down, without reading it, because I could see nothing
+in it except that advertisement.
+
+The next day I went in town, sat down in the office of a friend, and
+took up a morning paper. No sooner had I opened it than that
+advertisement spread itself out before me. It changed the form of its
+appeal; left out what my selfishness might gain, to enlist my compassion
+and aid, entirely, in what I might accomplish for others. It called to
+me, in piteous tones, to go work for the prisoner. It was the echo of a
+voice that I long ago heard, Come into our prisons, and help us, we
+beseech you!
+
+I cannot! I have other things to do, and they are as much for the
+benefit of humanity as anything I may be able to accomplish for you. My
+spirit darkened as I made the answer; a cloud of guilt settled down upon
+it. I threw down the paper in order to dissipate it, and to avoid the
+plea.
+
+I turned and talked with my friend; but my thoughts were not in what we
+were saying. That advertisement followed them, and filled them to the
+exclusion of every other subject.
+
+In the abstraction which it caused the hour in which I was to leave the
+city passed, and I missed my train. I must remain and avail myself of
+another.
+
+While I was waiting, that advertisement returned to my reflections, and
+urged its cause imperatively as a command. It was a call, to me,
+resistless as the voice that awoke the young Israelitish Prophet from
+his slumbers. In another moment the struggle with my pride was over, and
+my spirit answered,--I will go, even to lust-besotted Sodom if thou
+leadest, Light of my path!
+
+I seated myself in a street car, went to the prison, applied for the
+place, and obtained it.
+
+Day by day I wrote down what I saw and heard, what I said and did. Why?
+In obedience to the same Voice that called me to the work.
+
+The tale is before you.
+
+May it touch the heart of every one who reads the story, and melt it
+into a compassion which will labor for the redemption of the prisoner;
+into a pity which will echo around the cry--Open the prison doors, not
+to let the prisoner go free, but to let in, to him, the light of moral
+knowledge, and the discipline of Christian charity.
+
+
+
+
+                               CONTENTS.
+
+
+                                              PAGE
+
+  WHY WRITTEN                                  iii
+
+      I. FIRST DAY IN PRISON                     1
+
+     II. AT NIGHT                               13
+
+    III. SECOND DAY IN PRISON                   23
+
+     IV. A QUARREL, AND DISCIPLINE              34
+
+      V. THE SUPERVISOR, AND THE RULES          48
+
+     VI. FIRST NIGHT ALONE IN PRISON            58
+
+    VII. THE MASTER AND THE RULES               75
+
+   VIII. MRS. HARDHACK                          79
+
+     IX. A BREAD-AND-WATER BOARDER              87
+
+      X. AN ARRIVAL                             93
+
+     XI. INSIDE MANAGEMENT                      98
+
+    XII. SUNDAY                                102
+
+   XIII. LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY                  110
+
+    XIV. INSPECTION OF PRIVATE APARTMENTS      127
+
+     XV. A DAY OF ODDS AND ENDS                138
+
+    XVI. A FRIGHT                              151
+
+   XVII. VISITING DAY                          156
+
+  XVIII. CALLAHAN AGAIN                        163
+
+    XIX. DISCOMFORTS, AND THE END              178
+
+
+
+
+                                   I.
+
+                          FIRST DAY IN PRISON.
+
+
+It was Saturday morning that I became an inmate of the Penitentiary.
+
+I was conducted to the kitchen, where I was to oversee the cooking for
+the prisoners, and to the prison adjoining it, which I was to see kept
+in order, by the Deputy Master of the institution, who gave me my keys
+and installed me in my office of Prison Matron.
+
+When we first went in he called the six women who do the work in the
+kitchen, and the three "sweeps" who keep the prison clean, to him, and
+presented their new mistress, in my person, to them.
+
+They were convicts that surrounded me at his call; but they were human
+beings. Human faces looked up to mine for sympathy and care. Some of
+them were fine looking, even in their coarse uniform, some were pretty
+as I picked them out one by one. They all looked at me earnestly, for a
+few moments, as though they were reading their sentence of harshness or
+kindly treatment, under my rule, in my face; then, turned away to their
+work again.
+
+They whispered as they stood together, and I saw by their furtive
+glances that they were watching, and discussing me, as I walked around
+to take a survey of my new field of labor. They were undoubtedly
+commenting upon my personal appearance; and making their predictions as
+to my sharpness in detecting their impositions, and ability to control
+their perverseness; or, I imagined so.
+
+The Deputy showed me the mush boiler, that would cook two large tubs
+full of that farinaceous edible at a time; the potato steamer, that
+would hold four barrels of that esculent vegetable at a cooking; the
+soup and coffee kettles, of still larger dimensions; and that comprised
+all of the apparatus required in preparing the mammoth meals which were
+to serve above four hundred people. These cooking utensils were kept in
+operation by pipes conducting steam to them from a boiler stationed in
+the middle of the room.
+
+When he put the steam boiler under my direction I shrank back in terror
+from the task of managing it. The huge culinary apparatus, which he had
+been exhibiting, although outside the pale of ordinary housekeeping, was
+still within the reach of my understanding; but I had no idea of the
+management of steam; it was not only a difficult, but dangerous affair.
+
+"The house will surely be blown up if you leave the care of that upon
+me," I said to him.
+
+"You must watch it very closely."
+
+"I don't know how, and I have no aptness for learning that kind of
+science."
+
+"One of the women will tend it." And he went on with explanations that
+were all Greek to me. "It is safe when you have on twenty pounds of
+steam. There is your gauge," and he pointed to a clock-like looking
+affair on the wall. "That hand will move round and tell you how much
+steam you have on. You must keep water enough in the boiler or you will
+get blown up. If it runs from that centre stopcock, on the side, it is
+safe. You notice that glass tube in front. The water is just as high in
+that as it is in the boiler. This faucet is to let the water off if you
+get the boiler too full. Turn that faucet when you let the water on,"
+and he went along and pointed to one in a pipe by the wall, "and that
+pump is there in case of accident. You must have it worked every day so
+as to keep it in order."
+
+All knowledge is useful, I thought, and in time I shall understand
+running a steam-engine. As the women have been trusted with the
+dangerous thing, they may still continue to be, till I have leisure to
+learn the science of steam as applied to cooking.
+
+After I had taken a survey of the kitchen the Deputy took me into the
+women's prison which led out of it.
+
+The centre of the hollow square, in which the dormitories are built,
+looked like a huge block of glittering ice, so white were the washed
+walls of brick and stone. The black, grated doors of the cells, inserted
+into them, like the teeth of grinning demons, were ranged along the
+sides about two feet apart, tier after tier, five stories, one above
+another.
+
+The Deputy led me along past the iron doors. I trembled and shrank back;
+but I had no idea of receding from my undertaking. I "screwed my courage
+to the sticking-point," and looked into the narrow, stone rooms; but it
+was many days before I could force myself to enter one.
+
+I grew heart-sick, and faint with apprehension of unknown terrors at
+their cheerless aspect.
+
+"What lodgings for human beings!" I exclaimed.
+
+"They are not very pleasant," said the Deputy.
+
+"If you were the one to blame for it I should certainly charge you with
+great inhumanity."
+
+"I suppose you will think us very cruel sometimes."
+
+"In this case I don't know as you can help it. You did not make these
+sleeping apartments for the prisoners. The public functionaries of the
+State may be thanked for showing such tender mercies as these."
+
+"We are used to seeing them, and they don't look to us as they do to
+you."
+
+"Does that make them any more comfortable for the prisoners? Do they get
+used to them so as to be comfortable?"
+
+"I presume so. I know they are more comfortable places than some had
+before they came here."
+
+"Then it should be the work of the vaunting Christianity of this
+religious land to raise such degradation to cleanliness, comfort, and
+respectability."
+
+"There might be a great deal done in that direction if people were only
+disposed to do it."
+
+"Our prisons are rather private affairs, I believe. They can only be
+visited on certain days and occasions."
+
+"It would be very inconvenient for our work to have people running in,
+and over the place at all times. We could not have it. And it wouldn't
+be liked by the prisoners to be gazed at constantly."
+
+I made no reply; but I thought it might have a salutary effect upon the
+discipline of the prison, which he had just said I might think cruel, to
+be exposed to the observation of the public. The prisoners must have
+lost the sensibility which would shrink from being made a spectacle
+before they came in there. If visiting were allowed only on certain days
+and occasions, the place and the convicts would be put in order for
+company, and a very incorrect idea of the every-day life of the
+prisoners would be obtained.
+
+If there were liberty to visit the place, every day, many might go from
+curiosity, and it might become annoying. That very curiosity might
+discover and discuss faults in the management, which ought to be
+remedied, and thus produce a counterbalancing benefit.
+
+The officers might dislike such scrutiny, especially, if they were not
+doing their duty. They are officers of the government. Is it not proper
+that their conduct should be looked after by the people as much as that
+of any other government official?
+
+Evil comrades might go in and hold improper communication with the
+prisoners. Can they not do that on regular visiting days?
+
+Is it not only the work of humanity to see that crime is punished in a
+way that will not increase it; but also that of the legislator as a
+matter of civil policy; and that of the taxpayer as a matter of personal
+interest. It should interest every man and woman as a matter of personal
+protection from the depredations of vice to know how convicts are
+treated, and to judge whether that treatment tends to reform the
+criminal, or to harden and lead him deeper into crime when he is let out
+into the world again to pursue his own ways.
+
+Ought the punishment of criminals, who have been tried, convicted, and
+sentenced publicly, to be conducted in secret? It is to be presumed that
+the keeper of the prison is trusty. There should be no presumption in
+the matter. It should be known that he is so, and he should be kept so
+by the ceaseless vigilance of public inspection. What is the quarterly,
+or semi-annual visit of fifty or a hundred men when the visit has been
+notified, and the prison put in order for their reception, towards
+effecting that?
+
+My residence in that prison led me to see that the descriptions of
+Dickens, and his compeers in the regions of fictitious writing, have
+given, not the poetic illusions of imaginary sufferings to the
+contemplation of the world--hardly a vivid picture of the truth.
+
+God speed the day when our prisons and penitentiaries may take a place
+beside public schools, orphan asylums, houses of refuge, all
+institutions for the cultivation of a knowledge which tends to the
+elevation of virtue, and the suppression of vice, in the care of the
+public!
+
+Our own children may not stimulate to an interest in them. Our own
+children may not require the benefit of the public school, or orphan
+asylum; but somebody's children will. In working for the elevation of
+everybody's children are we not benefiting our own?
+
+After he had shown me around, so that I might take a general survey of
+my field of labor, the Deputy left me with my charge, saying,--
+
+"You are mistress here. No one has a right to interfere with you, and
+you are responsible to no one but me, or the Master."
+
+"But the Head Matron will, of course, come and instruct me in the
+details of my work. I must know what work belongs to each woman, and how
+she is expected to perform it."
+
+"The women know their work and will do it. The most you have to do is to
+keep order."
+
+"That may be a man's idea of managing a kitchen; but there are a great
+many details that I ought to understand in order to get the work
+properly done, and done in its proper time; and with the greatest ease
+to myself and the women."
+
+"The other Matrons will tell you. I will tell you all I can."
+
+I thought, but I did not say it,--You are better disposed than informed.
+He saw by the anxious expression of my face that I was not satisfied,
+and added, "The women know, they will tell you."
+
+I made no reply; but I thought--It is not the proper thing for me to
+receive my instructions from the convicts. It is their place to be
+instructed by me. If I am taught by them, I am placed in an inferior
+position to them. In order to entertain a proper respect for me they
+should look up to me as their superior in all things.
+
+The arrangement for receiving my directions from them placed me too much
+in their power also. It would be only indulging natural proclivities to
+"play off" on me under the circumstances; and I could hardly expect
+these poor, abandoned creatures to be superior to the temptation to do
+it when the opportunity was afforded them.
+
+I could not consider such teachers reliable. If, by misleading me, with
+regard to a rule of the institution, they could obtain an indulgence, or
+relieve themselves of a burden, would they not take the advantage which
+they had of me and do it. I was suspicious that they would.
+
+There was, probably, some pride mixed with these considerations, that
+rebelled against becoming a pupil of convicts when I was their mistress.
+
+I stood looking on, or walking around, watching the movements of the
+women very narrowly, till one of the other Matrons came in. Then, I went
+to her with a volume of questions.
+
+To most of them I received the answer,--
+
+"I don't know about that particularly. I have never had anything to do
+with this department."
+
+"Then, how am I to learn my duties, and get definite orders for the
+regulation of my work? Is there no Head Matron, no superior officer in
+the women's prison to whom I can go?"
+
+"The Master's wife is enrolled as Head Matron, and receives pay as such,
+but she never comes round."
+
+"I would go to her if I knew where to find her."
+
+"I don't think she knows much more about it than you do, if you were to
+go to her. We will all tell you."
+
+"But you don't know. If there is a Head Matron, and she is paid for
+doing the duties of one, why does she not perform them? Is she enrolled
+head officer of this prison merely to obtain the salary? The government
+is very obliging to make her office a sinecure."
+
+I was already perplexed--I was beginning to get vexed.
+
+"Her husband does them for her, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps! Then why is he not here, to tell me the work which belongs to
+each woman, and how she is to do it; what work is required, and how I am
+to get my things to do with? But how can the Master attend to his own
+duties and those of the Head Matron too?"
+
+"The Deputy will tell you."
+
+"He must have his own duties to attend to--how can he perform hers? He
+is just as willing to tell me as you are, and I don't think he knows any
+more about my place than you do."
+
+"The women know, they will tell you."
+
+I was thrown back upon the convicts again for my instructions.
+
+I went on, despairing of help, to study them out as best I could.
+Sometimes by asking left-hand questions of the women, and sometimes by
+getting direct explanations from them; but chiefly by watching the
+progress of the work. The place seemed to me full of disorder,
+confusion, and dirt.
+
+When the Deputy came round again, I was full of trouble.
+
+He said, when I complained to him,--
+
+"You will find things in confusion. The Matron who went away yesterday
+was inefficient."
+
+"Perhaps so," I replied; "but the confusion appears to me to date
+farther back than the last Matron. It arises from the want of a head
+officer to regulate affairs."
+
+"I have double the trouble on this side, with four Matrons and a hundred
+women, than with three hundred men and more than a dozen officers on the
+other."
+
+"You would insinuate that women are more difficult to get on with than
+men. I make a very different solution of the difficulty in this
+particular case. You are on the ground all of the time; explain his duty
+to every officer, and see that he does it. That makes the officer's work
+distinct before him. It is done under your eye, which makes it promptly
+and well done. If that were the case on this side, we might be as
+orderly, and have as little trouble in performing our part, as you on
+yours. The cook tells me that certain work belongs to the slide woman;
+the slide woman says it belongs to the sink women; the sink women shift
+it on the steam woman, and so I am kept on the chase, from one to
+another, for some one to do a piece of labor. I do not know who ought to
+do it, and they know it. If they do not intend to confuse me, they
+intend to clear themselves of all the work they can."
+
+"Use your own judgment, and call on whom you please. They are all
+obliged to obey any order that you give."
+
+"If I call upon one to do the work that has formerly been done by
+another, I stir up ill feelings among the prisoners towards each other,
+and contention, and they think me hard and unjust. It makes me trouble.
+They obey my order reluctantly, and say, 'That isn't my work.'"
+
+"If they quarrel, they know the punishment. If they refuse to obey your
+orders, report them to me, and I will put them where they will be glad
+to obey." He nodded towards the prison door.
+
+I knew he must refer to some kind of punishment. I did not know what;
+but frightful visions of the cruelties of which I had read rose in my
+imagination, and I said no more.
+
+I vowed to myself that I would never get them punished by refusing to
+obey my unjust exactions if I could help it.
+
+My thoughts did not stop with my words. I reasoned with myself. If my
+ignorance, or bad management, cause me to be unjust towards those women,
+and if I, by my injustice, arouse their bad temper so as to cause them
+to be punished, who will be most in fault? I decided that I should be.
+The question suggested itself to me--If you get them punished unjustly
+who will avenge them? The All-seeing-Eye will notice, and avenge it. I
+will be careful.
+
+I resolved to feel my way along softly and carefully. There was no
+relief for my dilemma, except in my own ingenuity to find out the ways
+of the place, and the proper management to apply to it.
+
+
+
+
+                                  II.
+
+                               AT NIGHT.
+
+
+At seven o'clock, P. M., came the marching in to supper, and the locking
+up of all the prisoners.
+
+I looked to see, as they filed past me, one by one, if they carried
+marks of their crimes upon their faces. I saw nothing unusual in the
+mass; occasionally an individual countenance betrayed the vicious habits
+which had brought the woman there. If I had not known that they were
+convicts, I should never have suspected them to be different from the
+ordinary poor people who are constantly passing along the streets.
+
+About sixty of the women in the Penitentiary were employed in the shop
+upon contract vests, pantaloons, coats, and shirts. There were about
+fifty employed upon sewing-machines. The rest cut, basted, and finished
+the work.
+
+There were from four to ten in the wash-room. These were all lodged in
+my domain, with the exception of two or three who slept in the hospital.
+
+When they left their work, at night, they were placed in file, in the
+order of their cells, and marched into the prison past the ration door,
+where their meals were handed out to them, through a slide, from the
+kitchen.
+
+Their supper was a "skillet pan" of mush, or a slice of bread, and a
+quart of rye coffee, which was taken to their cells to be eaten after
+they were locked in their rooms--or stone dens, I called them in my
+indignation. The sight of those little, cramped stone cells recalled to
+my memory the pictures of dungeons, and imprisonments, and tortures
+which I had looked at in my childhood till my heart was racked with
+agony at the cruelties which they portrayed.
+
+It was no paper picture that I was looking upon, but a stern reality;
+and my shrinking spirit asked again and again, as I saw those poor
+creatures marched in, and immured for the night,--Why did your folly
+prompt you to undertake such work?
+
+Never shall I forget the hissing creak of the sliding bar as it closed
+them in; or the click of the lock as I turned the key in it, for the
+first time, upon those poor wretches. Long before I got through with the
+thirty-six locks, it fell to my share to bolt, my fingers were bruised,
+and my arm ached; but not so much as my heart.
+
+I looked in upon the poor things, one by one, as I locked them in. An
+agony of pity worked itself into my soul, and oppressed me almost to
+suffocation.
+
+I said to myself--Is this a woman's work? May be. If it must be done, it
+should be done tenderly. Great God, for Christ's sake, pity them in
+their cold, damp, narrow cells, and make their straw pallets couches of
+rest! I prayed mentally as I left the grated doors.
+
+I had thought this to be missionary ground. I might teach some of them
+the way to Eternal Life, and the way to reformation. Alas! I found
+little chance with those who went to the shop and wash-room. They rose
+at sunrise, and worked till sunset. No one was allowed to hold
+communication with them, but their own Overseer, about their work.
+Neither were they allowed to talk in their cells at night, and they
+would have been too tired if they had been given the liberty to do so.
+The taskmaster had been over them all day to drive them, pitilessly, to
+fulfill their sentence of so many months hard labor in the Penitentiary.
+
+I turned away, sadly, from that disappointed hope; but I saw the
+opportunity still before me to teach the nine, whom I had under my
+immediate care, to govern their tempers, and their passions, and to lead
+a new life. It was teaching only that could effect it. They were
+ignorant of the way to do it.
+
+My bonnet and shawl had lain all day upon the table that was placed for
+my use in the kitchen. The woman, who was to wait upon me in my room,
+had asked if she should take them up. I had said, no, thinking I might
+find time to go with her; but that opportunity did not offer.
+
+After the women were locked up, the Receiving Matron said to her, "Take
+those things to our room! We will go up now," she said to me.
+
+I started back as she led me to the stone stairs of the prison, and
+began to ascend them.
+
+"Where are we going?" I asked in surprise.
+
+"Our room is up here," she replied quietly.
+
+"In the prison! are we to sleep in the prison?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+She made no further comment. It was too late in the day to recede or
+demur. I followed her up, up, up, over five stone flights, along a stone
+walk to the farther end of the building, through a grated door, into a
+room made up of a half dozen cells with a dormer window in the roof.
+Some straw had been thrown down upon the stone floor, and an old woolen
+carpet laid over it. The walls were of stone like the cells, and
+whitewashed like them. There were some wooden chairs, an old bureau, two
+sinks, and two single beds, arranged on opposite sides of the room. In
+one corner was a double wardrobe, apparently to be shared in common by
+both Matrons.
+
+I had not given my own accommodations a thought in taking my place in
+the prison. In all institutions of the kind which I had ever been in,
+each Matron had a nice bed-room to herself, in a comfortable part of the
+house, and most of them comfortable sitting-rooms attached. It never
+occurred to me that a female officer, in any public institution, could
+be requested to occupy such a room. However I could bring myself to it
+for the sake of carrying out the purpose that induced me to take the
+place.
+
+I stood a moment, and looked all round the room. I then examined the
+bed. It was clean, and looked comfortable.
+
+"Is this all the room, and are these all the comforts we are to have?" I
+asked of the Receiving Matron.
+
+"You see all," she replied. "If we had more, we should have no time to
+enjoy them."
+
+"Rather a sorry prospect if one is to take herself into consideration at
+all. Is there a bath-room that we can use? To take a bath would be
+really refreshing, and help me to sleep to-night, I am so tired."
+
+"I am tired all of the time, and there is no chance to rest. We must
+rise at four in the morning, and be on the spring every moment till
+eight in the evening; you will be on duty till nine, because you receive
+the keys at that hour."
+
+"Every day?"
+
+"Every day!"
+
+"There is usually a Relief Matron in such institutions, so that the
+other Matrons can have rest."
+
+"There used to be one here; but, instead of that, there is an Assistant
+Matron in the shop."
+
+"Then the Shop Matron has all of the relief, and the others none. Why is
+that?"
+
+"They want to get as much work done in the shop as possible, to support
+the institution, the Master says. When I get tired, and feel like
+grumbling, I tell them it is money taken out of our flesh and blood to
+make the institution rich."
+
+"It is probably the way the Master takes to recommend himself to the
+Board of Directors. They like him for his thrift in managing."
+
+"I don't know where the money goes; but I know we are worked to death. I
+am dying by inches."
+
+"Why must I be up an hour later than the rest to receive the keys?"
+
+"Because you have them in charge during the night, those that stay in
+the prison. If you are out, I take them."
+
+"Out! What time have I to go out?"
+
+"Three evenings in the week, after the prisoners are locked up, if you
+wish."
+
+"What time have I then?"
+
+"You can be gone till four o'clock in the morning, if you like."
+
+"When shall I sleep?"
+
+"You can make your own arrangements for that. Perhaps on the way, if you
+take a horse car."
+
+"I am afraid to go out evenings alone; but in that relief I can get a
+bath."
+
+"I forgot your question about the bath-room. There is none, that I know
+of, for the officers' use. There is one in the house for the Master's
+family. I don't know whether the Matrons that lodge there are allowed to
+use it."
+
+"Then some of the Matrons are lodged comfortably in the house. Why is
+that distinction made?"
+
+"I don't know. There are bathing-tubs, for the prisoners, in my
+wash-house. I never use them; but if you wish to, you can. They are
+scrubbed out clean."
+
+"I must be up from four A. M., 'till nine P. M. That makes seventeen
+hours of labor."
+
+"Sometimes you will be required to sit up one, two, or three hours
+later."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The Master's wife or daughters may have company, and keep the women
+up-stairs. We have to sit up and wait for them to come in, so as to lock
+them up."
+
+"And be up all the same at four next morning?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do the Master's wife and daughters get up at four the next morning,
+after sitting up so late, and go to work?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"If the wife is Head Matron, has she not her duties to do in the morning
+as well as we? And ought she not to see that the other officers are not
+worked like that? If she possesses the common feelings of humanity, she
+would provide some relief, if it were in her power."
+
+"There is not much humanity in exercise here. We are all too hard worked
+to think of any one but ourselves."
+
+"I should think that might be your case."
+
+"I often tell them it is as much a House of Correction for the officers
+as the prisoners."
+
+"Ten hours of labor is now considered a good day's work. To drag the
+convicts from sunrise to sunset only exhausts them. They do not get
+through with as much work as they would do in ten hours, and the
+intervening time given to rest."
+
+"That has been an established rule here for fifty years or more."
+
+"It is certainly a very antiquated idea, all of a half century old. I
+recollect hearing my grandfather say that people worked that way when he
+was a boy. But people's ideas have changed since that time, and the
+people of this generation consider such demands of labor very
+unreasonable."
+
+"The only changes here have been to make things harder. They will put
+upon you all they can make you do."
+
+If she had been telling the truth that was a plain, but correct
+statement of facts.
+
+"How long has the present Master had charge here?"
+
+"Forty-five or fifty years."
+
+"It is no wonder that his heart has become like the nether millstone. No
+man ought to remain in such a place such a length of time. The best
+human heart that ever beat would become ossified, if it ever entertained
+human feelings, if compelled to exercise such continued tyrannous
+exactions."
+
+"I don't know whether he ever had human feelings--he does not exercise
+much humanity, as I regard it, now."
+
+"But he does not make the laws for the regulation of the institution.
+There must be State laws and a Board of Overseers to which he is
+accountable. There must be printed regulations for the management of
+this prison. I will get them from the Deputy to-morrow."
+
+"If you can, you will accomplish more than the rest of us have been able
+to do."
+
+"I can try."
+
+"You can try, and I hope you will succeed. The rest of us have been told
+that there were no printed rules that would do us any good. It may be a
+benefit to the rest of us if you succeed."
+
+I lay down upon my bed. Sleep was out of the question. The effluvia of a
+hundred human bodies came up through our open door, rank with nauseous
+odor. I got up and opened our one window to its utmost extent, first
+asking my room-mate if it would be disagreeable to her to have it left
+so.
+
+Fatigue even would not overcome the noise of the rattling buckets, the
+snoring, coughing, and groaning of the tired women. If I closed my eyes,
+my head was in confusion. I was going up, up, up over the stone steps,
+and looking over the rails down the dizzy height, to the stone floor
+below.
+
+I lay thinking over my prison prospects. Seventeen hours of regular
+labor, to which might be added occasionally, one, two, or three more.
+The other seven, with the noise of that prison ringing in my ears, and
+the care of it, if accident or sickness intervene. How long can any
+constitution bear such a strain? Surely the Board of Directors cannot
+understand how things are managed here. They cannot understand the
+amount of work which is demanded by the Master of his female Prison
+Matron. One other was no more favored, by her own account.
+
+I was glad when the four o'clock bell rung me up to my duties.
+
+
+
+
+                                  III.
+
+                         SECOND DAY IN PRISON.
+
+
+There was a small bell hung directly over my head; the wire from it
+reached into the men's prison. It was rung by the watchman at four
+o'clock in the morning, to call me up.
+
+I sprang out of bed at the first tinkle, threw a shawl around me, put my
+feet into my slippers, ran down, unlocked my steam woman to make her
+fire, and my cook to start her breakfast. I let them into the kitchen,
+and locked them in. Then, I went back to dress myself.
+
+Up, up, over the five flights, past the grated doors, over the stone
+walks. The air of that prison sent a chill over me like that of a tomb.
+Were not those cells the tomb of love, of hope, of peace, and
+respectability! In them lay buried all of this world's success, all that
+it values: how much of the inheritance of the life to come God knows.
+Those black doors were a pall of disgrace of deeper dye than that which
+covers the coffin with its lifeless clay. I was chilled through and
+through by my thoughts and the objects that engendered them. And those
+objects were to be ever there before my sight, while I remained in
+prison, and those thoughts must ever arise to be my company. I could
+escape; no prison bar was slid upon me to keep me there; but the
+convicts _must_ remain. The unyielding lock, the unremitting toil, the
+pursuing regret, and the torture of remorse were before them, upon them,
+within them.
+
+I might be able to speak to them a word of pity, of hope in a better
+life to come. The thought gave me courage to go to my day's work.
+
+I took no unnecessary time for personal adorning; but my fingers were
+benumbed and moved slowly. I had scarcely finished dressing when the
+"first bell" rung.
+
+That was the large bell in the yard that called all of the prisoners
+from their beds.
+
+At that signal I was to assist in unlocking the rest of the women. If
+they were not out of their beds when the key was put in the lock, they
+were called to sharply by the Matron who was with me--
+
+"Come, get up! How dare you lie there after the first bell has rung!"
+
+It might prove necessary to talk to some laggards in that harsh way; but
+I would try some other method, with those of whom I had the care, first.
+
+Yawning, and groaning, and moaning, they dragged themselves out of their
+beds and made them up. After this was done they tied them up against the
+wall with a cord which was attached to the iron bars upon which the bed
+rested, and then passed over a hook in the side of the cell. Then, they
+stood waiting for the second bell, which was the signal for them to go
+to work.
+
+Poor, pitiable objects, they looked, as they were mustered for the long
+day's drill of thankless, unrequited toil. They worked without a motive,
+and they went to it with listless indifference, or the sullen
+determination to escape all of the task which they could. They
+accomplished their work as it was driven from them; not by the lash, but
+by fear of passing the night upon the bare iron bars of their bed-frame;
+or the stone floor of the solitary cell, without covering beside their
+ordinary dress, without food, save the daily slice of bread and quart of
+cold water.
+
+Between the ringing of the bells the unlocking had been accomplished.
+One of the sweeps was stationed at the end of the upper tier of cells.
+When the second bell rung I called to her,--
+
+"Slide your bar!"
+
+The long bar that runs across the top of all the cells of one division,
+with a bolt reaching down over each door to keep it shut when it is
+unlocked, was then drawn out by her, so that the doors could be opened.
+I then called,--
+
+"Third Division!"
+
+At that they all appeared at their doors.
+
+I called, "Front!"
+
+The doors were opened, and they stood on the threshold.
+
+"Right face!" All wheeled to the right.
+
+"March!" was the next order.
+
+At that word they marched down the stairs, in the order that they came
+out of their cells, deposited the ration pan and quart, in which they
+had carried their supper to their rooms the night before, on the ration
+table, to be taken into the kitchen and washed, ready to receive their
+breakfast, which was passed out in them when they came in from work at
+seven.
+
+The other divisions were called out in the same way, and followed in
+their order.
+
+Unrefreshed, sleepy, and without energy, they moved along to their two
+hours of labor before breakfast. And such a breakfast to look forward to
+when it came. Rye coffee and mush, varied with brown bread once a week,
+and this purposely stinted to the least possible amount which one could
+subsist on and work.
+
+I noticed that most of them took only their coffee, and worked upon that
+when it was brown bread morning till the noon meal came.
+
+Many a one looked into her quart, as she passed me, and sighed out, "God
+help us!"
+
+"May He help you! He only can--I cannot," was my response; but not
+always made audibly.
+
+He only knew how I longed to do so. I often said to myself, as the days
+passed on, I would not starve a dumb dog as those poor human things are
+starved. I would not work a dumb animal as those poor human things are
+worked! Nor would the Master feed his horse as they were fed; nor would
+he stall him as those prisoners were lodged.
+
+I did what I could for them. I asked the Deputy if he could not
+substitute flour bread for the brown which they refused. He answered,--
+
+"No! They will come to it. The Master will not change the order."
+
+They did not come to it. And day after day, as I saw them go
+breakfastless to their work, I wished,--was it wrong? perhaps so,--that
+the avenger might be on the track of that unfeeling Master, and that the
+day might come when he might be obliged to breakfast upon a quart of rye
+coffee and a slice of brown bread, instead of the steaks, and eggs, and
+toasts, and other delicacies that I saw carried to his room from the
+kitchen, as I passed through it to the officers' dining-room.
+
+If it aroused such indignation to witness such cruelty, what must it do
+in the hearts of those who suffer from it! Does such correction of
+convicts tend to arouse better purposes in their hearts than those which
+brought them into prison? Such treatment aroused in them anger and
+revenge. When they dared, and in every way which they could invent
+without laying themselves liable to punishment, they gave expression to
+their feelings.
+
+When they were dismissed from the prison, the officer usually remarked,
+"We shall have that boarder back again."
+
+The answer that I should have made, had I spoken my thoughts, would have
+been--The whole tendency of their discipline here is to produce that
+end.
+
+The first thing that I did, after breakfast was over, was to take the
+names of my six kitchen women, and learn, as nearly as I could, just
+what work belonged to each one of them.
+
+There were two sink women, McMullins and Magill. Their work was to wash
+the dishes, keep the sink clean, and scrub about one quarter of the
+floor. The slide woman scrubbed the ration table, a certain portion of
+the floor, washed the quarts and piled them up, scrubbed the table in
+the centre of the room, took care of the flour bread when it came in,
+and the pieces that were left. At meal time she passed out the coffee,
+and put the potatoes in the ration pans.
+
+The cook made the mush, which was boiled twice a day, the soup, and
+hash, and stewed the peas. She had a certain portion of the floor to
+scrub, and the room to keep tidy, as well as her boilers to wash.
+
+The steam woman took care of the steam boiler, made the coffee, helped
+the cook slice the meat, and kept her portion of the floor clean. It was
+a part of her work to pile the ration pans in rows of pyramids on the
+centre table.
+
+The one who tended the women's slide had one half of the floor to scrub,
+and the Master's furnace, which stood in the centre of the kitchen, to
+tend.
+
+There were many things to be done in common, where all helped; like the
+carrying out of the swill, which was emptied into tubs when the ration
+pans came in to be washed. That was carried a long way down the yard,
+poured into barrels, and left for the yard man to take to the piggery.
+
+They all helped to bring up the potatoes, four barrels at a time, wash
+them in the sink with a large bat-stick, and then put them in the boiler
+to be cooked by steam.
+
+To make the confusion more confounded, the work was changed round, and
+new hands put to it, the day I went there. The bringing up of the coal,
+for the steam boiler, which had heretofore devolved upon the steam
+woman, was now required of all the rest, to be divided among them,
+because the steam woman had had a broken wrist, and it was not quite
+strong again. That gave dissatisfaction, and created grumbling, and the
+constant contention of shifting the labor from one to the other. The
+rest were constantly fretting Allen, the steam woman, because she asked
+it of them.
+
+To settle the difficulty I asked the Deputy, when he came round,--"who
+should bring up the coal for Allen?"
+
+"Any of them that you see fit to order."
+
+That was an excellent hint to me. Allen had been in the habit of giving
+her own orders, which made it necessary for me to interfere continually
+so as to get them executed, and also to keep peace. They invariably
+answered her back with refusal when she asked for coal, and made
+altercation over every bucket that was needed.
+
+All orders, like information, were given promiscuously. I at once gave
+direction that all orders were to be given through me.
+
+"Allen, when you wish for coal, come to me for it!"
+
+Orders had no authority when given by one to another; and by watching I
+discovered that Allen was disposed to retaliate the little peckings she
+received, by making the one that aggravated her most bring up the most
+coal.
+
+It was more than one day's work to bring them to this arrangement. So I
+made it another rule that when they differed they were never to answer
+back; but come to me to settle the trouble. That was rather more
+difficult to establish than the first, they were so hot-headed, and
+anxious to defend themselves.
+
+O'Sullivan, one of the slide women, undertook to try my authority on the
+first order which I gave for coal. She sat idly upon her table, and I
+asked her to bring it up.
+
+A scowl came over her face, she hesitated, and then answered,--
+
+"She's just as well able to bring up the coal as I."
+
+"That's so! that's so!" came from three or four other voices.
+
+"Stop! every one! It is the order that Allen is not to bring up coal;
+you have nothing to say about it."
+
+The others were silenced.
+
+"O'Sullivan, will you bring up a bucket of coal?"
+
+"I'm not going to bring up her coal; she's as well able to fetch it up
+as I."
+
+"You will do just what I tell you! Go now and bring a bucket of coal!"
+
+She started, after looking me in the eye a few seconds to see whether
+she could succeed if she attempted to disobey.
+
+"When you come back I will talk with you about it."
+
+I must have prompt obedience. I saw that her condition, that of
+motherhood, required consideration.
+
+While she was gone Allen came to me and whispered,--
+
+"They never lock up women like her, so she takes the advantage."
+
+After she had brought up the coal, and sat down upon the table again, I
+went along to her, laid my hand upon her shoulder, stooped down, and
+said softly,--
+
+"I see the condition that you are in,--I know that it requires care,--I
+am a mother,--I will see that you do no more than your part. You will do
+as I wish in future, pleasantly, will you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am!"
+
+I then called them all around me, and said to them,--
+
+"The bringing up of the coal for the steam boiler is to be divided among
+you. I will give each her share of it to do as equally as I can. If any
+one of you thinks she is doing more than belongs to her, rightfully,
+make no talk about it, but come directly to me, and I will see that it
+is made right."
+
+My first object was to lead the women to make me the central, regulating
+power, in the kitchen, so that I could reduce the chaotic state of
+affairs to something like order.
+
+"In a week," I said to the Deputy that day, "I hope to get something
+like order established."
+
+"I will give you a month to get the run of things."
+
+"You want the meals well cooked, and promptly passed out at the time;
+the place kept quiet and clean."
+
+"That is what we want."
+
+"Be patient, and in a week or two we shall arrive at that."
+
+"I shall find no fault till I see occasion."
+
+That night, after the work was done, I called them all around me, and
+told them they would find me kind and pleasant, if they were obedient.
+If they were not, they would surely find themselves in trouble, because
+it was a part of my duty to make them obey, and it must be done by the
+rules of the institution; I could not change them. I saw that their work
+was hard; but I would make it as easy as possible. The work was there,
+and they were put there to do it. The more willingly they undertook it,
+the easier it would go off. If they tried to help themselves, I would
+help them.
+
+They all assented, and thus we made a compact to be kind to each other.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IV.
+
+                       A QUARREL, AND DISCIPLINE.
+
+
+It was my third morning in prison. I stood beside the mush boiler with
+Annie O'Brien, who had been scraping it, and was wiping it out with a
+dry cloth.
+
+McMullins came along, and demanded the cloth from her. An altercation
+ensued. I hushed the noise, and asked,--
+
+"To whom does the cloth belong?"
+
+"It is my dish-cloth," said McMullins.
+
+"You might let me have it a moment just to wipe this out!"
+
+"I want it meself, I'm in hurry for it."
+
+"Where is yours?" I asked O'Brien.
+
+"I don't know, ma'am. I left it on the boiler, and some one has taken
+it."
+
+She still kept on using McMullins'.
+
+"I want my dish-cloth; I'm in hurry," said McMullins, impatiently.
+
+"Give her the dish-cloth, and go find your own!" I said.
+
+Annie O'Brien's temper was like a lucifer match. At the command she
+threw the cloth in McMullins's face.
+
+Quick as a cat would spring upon a mouse, McMullins was upon her; and
+the report of the slaps that fell quick, and followed each other fast on
+the side of O'Brien's face, sounded through the room.
+
+It was in vain that I called upon them to stop. O'Brien was enraged. She
+caught up an iron rod that lay upon the window seat, and struck
+McMullins a blow upon her forehead that brought blood.
+
+I called the other women to the spot, and they were soon parted.
+
+I sent McMullins out of the room, took O'Brien, who was white with
+anger, by the arm, and led her to a seat.
+
+"Sit down!"
+
+She looked defiance for a moment; then, did as I commanded her.
+
+"What kind of behavior is this, Annie O'Brien?" I asked, sternly.
+
+"She slapped me in the face--slapped in the face by that low hussy!"
+
+The thought added fuel to her rage, and she started up again as though
+to pursue her.
+
+"Be quiet!"
+
+She sat down again. I stood silent by her.
+
+"She slapped me in the face; by ----, I will not bear it!"
+
+She darted past me, and caught up a carving-knife that lay on the
+table.
+
+"She slapped me in the face; and, by ----, I will have her heart's
+blood!"
+
+My heart sickened at the disgusting scene; but my duty was before me.
+
+"Stop her, and take the knife away!" I shouted to the women at the other
+end of the room.
+
+In a moment the knife was taken from her, and both of her hands were
+confined by four of the women.
+
+"Annie O'Brien, come here!" I called.
+
+She looked at me, but did not stir.
+
+I called again, "Annie O'Brien, come here!"
+
+She said to the women that held her, "Let me go! I will go to her," and
+she started towards me.
+
+I laid my hand on her pale, cold cheek.
+
+"O'Brien, are you not ashamed to get so angry with that poor, foolish,
+half-crazed McMullins?"
+
+"Wouldn't it make your blood boil to have any one slap you in the face?"
+
+"Undoubtedly it would rouse my temper for the moment. It is a very mean
+and wrong thing to strike; but you have behaved no better."
+
+"I was a fool; but I could not help it."
+
+"Yes, you could. Will you behave yourself now?"
+
+"I will do nothing more," and she heaved a deep sigh.
+
+"If you have really come to your senses, go about your work!"
+
+She returned to her work; but in a moment she called to me,--
+
+"You must report me!"
+
+"Yes, in my own time."
+
+"You must report me now; I must be punished. They will blame you if you
+put it off."
+
+"Would you care if they blamed me, Annie?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I should. It is bad enough for me to behave so without
+making you any more trouble."
+
+"I wish to see you entirely over your frenzy, perfectly quiet, before I
+call the Deputy."
+
+"I am perfectly quiet," and she went about making her mush.
+
+"Annie, if you will promise me to try to control your temper in future,
+I will try to get your punishment made as light as possible."
+
+"I will try to do anything you want me to; but they will put it on to me
+hard, I've been punished so many times before."
+
+I saw that I had possession of her so far as she had control of herself.
+
+"Keep about your work as though nothing had happened!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+I went to the door, blew my whistle, and sent for the Deputy. I waited
+in the entry for him, and stated the case before he went in to punish
+the women.
+
+"McMullins gave the first blow; you know she is a poor, foolish thing;
+she has fits. You won't punish her this time, will you? She slapped
+O'Brien in the face, and she struck back. Won't you let them off this
+time?"
+
+"I can't. It won't do."
+
+"Wouldn't it make you angry, and wouldn't you strike back if any one
+struck you in the face?"
+
+"Probably I should."
+
+"You won't punish her for doing what you would do yourself?"
+
+"I must."
+
+"If one is punished both must be. The trouble began in Annie's not
+having her own things to use. I will see that each has her own things in
+future, and avoid cause of contention in that way as much as possible.
+If McMullins should have a fit in her cell, we should both feel bad.
+Can't you let them off with a reproof this time?"
+
+"I can't. McMullins must not count on the fool's pardon when she fights.
+If I let her go now she might fly in any woman's face at any time. They
+never would be safe from her slappings. Don't you think they ought to be
+punished?"
+
+"Yes, sir; with some kind of punishment."
+
+"If I were to let them off, it would be known all through the prison in
+two hours, and there would be rebellion in all quarters."
+
+"Subordination must be maintained. I wish there were a different way. I
+am so sorry to have the poor things locked up."
+
+"I am sorry; but I have no other way."
+
+When he went into the kitchen, Annie O'Brien took off her apron, and
+delivered herself up to him without a word; but McMullins cried, and
+begged him not to lock her in a black cell.
+
+He made no reply, but pointed them to the prison. As he went, he asked
+me to bring No. 1 key.
+
+The black cells are of the same size, and made like the others. The only
+difference between them is, that the doors of the black cells are closed
+from the entrance of all light by a black board placed against the bars.
+
+They have no beds in them, not a blanket to lie upon. Nothing but the
+cold stones to sit, to stand upon, or to lean against. The only article
+of furniture allowed in them is the night bucket, which may be converted
+into a seat. The rations, when in that "durance vile," is one quart of
+water, and one thin slice of bread during the twenty-four hours.
+
+With a heavy heart I saw my poor women locked up. I turned the key upon
+them with my own hand.
+
+O this continual turning of keys! The bunch in my hand all day, under my
+pillow at night.
+
+Click, click, when I go out of the room; click, click, when I come in.
+Will my ears ever harden to the sound so that I shall not notice it!
+
+It is a constant drill, drill to labor under the ever impending
+punishment, which hangs over the prisoner, suspended by a breath of
+complaint by an officer. Is one kind of punishment the only cure for
+disobedience? Should it not be mitigated by mercy, or changed in
+character according to the circumstances, or the peculiar disposition
+of the offender? How does the Great Lawgiver treat His convicts? Does He
+punish all offenders with the same unmitigated rigor? His sun shines
+alike on the evil and the good. He reproves often, and teaches, and
+suffers long, and is kind, and adapts His punishment to the character of
+the crime committed.
+
+Some crime is committed in willful disobedience of known law; but much
+more of it in ignorance of the way to control bad tempers--in ignorance
+of the way to resist temptation.
+
+Teaching is what these poor creatures want, and the time in which to
+learn.
+
+Many a time I went to the key-holes of those black cells to listen that
+day. Many a time I called,--
+
+"McMullins, are you well?"
+
+She invariably begged me to let her out.
+
+"I cannot. You did wrong and must be punished."
+
+"She threw the dish-cloth at me."
+
+"You struck her."
+
+"I'll never do it again, I am so tired. Please will you get the Deputy
+to let me out."
+
+"Just as soon as I can."
+
+That night I went to him, and begged to have my women let out.
+
+"You know McMullins has fits, and to lie there on the cold stones all
+night might bring them on."
+
+"You may put her in her own room to sleep."
+
+"Thank you! It is a favor done to me as well as her. I don't think I
+could sleep at all if she were left lying there. You will let O'Brien go
+to hers--it would be hardly right to let one sleep in her bed, and not
+the other."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"O'Brien has been here before. I know more about her than you do."
+
+"Let me try her my way, Mr. Deputy?"
+
+"Not to-night."
+
+"In the morning?"
+
+"I will see."
+
+O'Brien was obliged to make the cold stones her couch that night, and
+little sleep did I get thinking of her. Many a time did I say to myself
+in its silent hours, I will have her out in the morning if it is in the
+power of persuasion to effect it.
+
+After the women were locked up, Annie called to me. Her quick ears had
+learned, or some other prisoner had told her, that McMullins was in her
+own cell.
+
+She asked,--
+
+"Is it right to keep me in here, and let McMullins sleep in her bed?"
+
+It was not for me to decide the right or wrong of the Deputy's orders,
+to a prisoner.
+
+"McMullins has fits, and it would not be safe to leave her in solitary
+all night. I should not sleep at all if she were there. I am sorry for
+you, O'Brien; but you don't wish McMullins to remain, in solitary
+because you must, do you?"
+
+"No, ma'am; but it don't seem hardly fair to let one out, and not the
+other."
+
+She was using the same argument with me to get her bed that I had used
+with the Deputy to get it for her.
+
+"When you have been here before, and been punished, you have behaved
+very badly, have you not?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Annie O'Brien, will you be patient to-night, and make no complaints?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"In the morning, when the Deputy comes around, will you tell him that
+you will try to govern your temper?"
+
+"I will tell you so."
+
+"Will you tell him so?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Good night, Annie, and may the Christ, whose name you called so
+wickedly this morning, take care of you!"
+
+"Good night, ma'am!"
+
+The next morning, when I gave O'Brien her bread and water, I asked
+her,--
+
+"O'Brien, do you think, if McMullins were to strike you again, you would
+strike back?"
+
+"I don't think I should now,--I shouldn't if I thought."
+
+"What do you think of your behavior yesterday?"
+
+"I am ashamed of myself that I should take any notice of that poor,
+foolish, half crazy thing! But I've got an awful temper, and it gets
+the upper hands of me before I know it."
+
+"When the Deputy comes around, if he says anything to you, will you tell
+him you are ashamed of yourself, and resolved to do better?"
+
+"He never could make me say it to him before."
+
+"He may not ask you to now; if he does, you will be submissive and
+perfectly respectful?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, I will."
+
+When the Deputy came in, I importuned him to unlock my women.
+
+"If I do, it will only be to have O'Brien locked up again in a few days.
+She has been here twice before, and is one of the worst cases we have
+ever had."
+
+"If she is subdued and promises to do better, is not that enough?"
+
+"Subdued!" he echoed. "She will promise anything to get out."
+
+"Did you ever get a promise from her to do better?"
+
+"I don't think we ever did. She has always braved us as long as she
+could speak."
+
+"I am a new mistress, my management may be new to her. Will you let me
+try her, if you please? She is such a young thing, it seems as though
+she might be influenced to reform. You are punishing me to keep her in
+that dark cell. It takes my strength all away to think of her there. I
+could not sleep last night,--thoughts of her haunted me."
+
+The tears came into my eyes. If he had refused me, I should have cried
+outright. He was a man, and one of kindly feelings, too, when left to
+himself. He gave me the order,--
+
+"Bring me your key!"
+
+I brought it very quickly, and unlocked Annie's cell with more alacrity
+than I ever turned key in a lock before.
+
+"O'Brien," said the Deputy to her, "I let you out because your Matron
+asks me to. Now show your gratitude by your good behavior, and obedience
+to her."
+
+"I will try, sir."
+
+"Unlock the other one when you please," he said to me, and went out.
+
+O'Brien turned to me.
+
+"I will never give you occasion to have me locked up again, while I am
+here. I never made the promise before, but I make it now. I have been in
+solitary ten days and ten nights; I have been carried from there to the
+hospital, fainted away dead, and my feet so swelled that I could not
+walk on them. I have been gagged till my jaws were so stiff and swelled
+that I could not shut my mouth. I have been in the dungeon in the
+cellar"--
+
+"Stop, Annie! in the name of pity, stop!"
+
+I was sick to loathing of the cruelty she recounted. Was I in one of the
+prisons of the Inquisition, hearing a description of their tortures?
+
+"It is the truth. And I never made a promise to do any better before."
+
+I trembled with disgust, almost fear, of the place I was in. I bethought
+me, I am here to benefit these poor wretches. I held my breath as I
+asked,--
+
+"What was all that done for?"
+
+"Because I sauced a matron, and wouldn't say I was sorry."
+
+"Did you say it at last?"
+
+"No, ma'am! I wouldn't have said it if they had killed me. I was so mad
+I had just as soon died as not. The more they did to me, the madder I
+grew, and I swore, if ever I should catch her outside, I would pay her
+back, if I got in here for life."
+
+"Annie O'Brien, if you were to sauce me, as you call it, I should punish
+you." I did not say how. "I expect you to treat me with respect always.
+It is not treating me with respect to quarrel with the other women in my
+presence."
+
+"I shall always treat you with respect. I could never be mean enough to
+do anything else after the way you have treated me."
+
+She fulfilled her promise. Never yet have I met a human being that
+kindness would not influence; but I have met with many a perverse will
+that harshness would neither bend or break.
+
+"Now, Annie, you say that you wish to govern your temper, and that you
+will try?"
+
+"I will try!"
+
+"I will help you. When you begin to grow angry, shut your lips close
+together; then, look for me before you answer."
+
+"I will, if I can think."
+
+"As soon as you do think, come straight to me, and tell me that you were
+getting angry. If I see you, and can catch your eye, I will lift my
+finger in warning; or I will call your name. Will you heed me?"
+
+"I will try, with all my might."
+
+"Go get your breakfast, and then go about your work."
+
+Many a time after that, when I saw her face growing pale with anger, I
+have called her name, and lifted my finger. She would recognize the
+signal, drop upon a bench, or the bare brick floor, bury her face in her
+hands for a few moments, then arise and go about her work without
+speaking a word.
+
+Once, about a week after that locking up, she got into an altercation
+with the slide woman. I was in the prison; but I heard her voice, and
+ran to the kitchen door.
+
+"Annie!" I called. She did not heed me, but went on with her dispute.
+"Annie, remember!" I whispered in her ear as I caught her arm.
+
+She jerked it away from me. I looked her steadily in the eye. She
+dropped hers. She was wavering between the disposition to obey, and the
+desire to indulge her temper.
+
+"There is the Dr.'s whistle, Annie. Run to the wash-room, and tell Mrs.
+Martin he is coming!"
+
+She ran out quickly; but when she came back, she walked slowly, looking
+down to her feet. She came up to me and asked:--
+
+"Why didn't you get me punished? I almost broke my promise; but I didn't
+mean to. If you had scolded me, I certainly should."
+
+"I did not get you punished, because I see that you are trying to govern
+your temper, and I promised to help you. If I were to get angry and
+scold, of what use would it be for me to reprove you?"
+
+"If you had scolded me then, I should certainly have sauced you, and
+then I should have been punished. Didn't you send me away on purpose?"
+
+"If I did, it was better than scolding."
+
+"I thought so; and this shall be the last time I will be so foolish."
+
+"I hope so; but if I am obliged to hold up my finger a great many more
+times, I shall not be disappointed."
+
+
+
+
+                                   V.
+
+                     THE SUPERVISOR, AND THE RULES.
+
+
+As my orders conflicted, and my work bothered me, I made another effort
+to find a head manager, or some printed regulations.
+
+When the Deputy came in, on his morning rounds, I asked him,--
+
+"Is the Master's wife Head Matron here?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then why does she not come and teach me to manage my department, and
+see that I do my duty? I go to you, and you tell me the other matrons
+know. I go to them, and they tell me so many conflicting things that I
+am bothered more than helped. Then if I ask some of them one thing, they
+wish to manage the whole, and come in, and give orders that produce such
+an effect that I am obliged to give others to countermand them. They
+give them in such a way, too, that my women are all stirred up, and it
+takes me a long time to get them settled down again. This morning, one
+of them told Mrs. Martin that she needn't come in here putting on airs,
+and giving off orders, when she was no better than the rest of them. I
+pretended not to hear it, for I really thought she provoked the answer.
+If there is a Head Matron, she ought to come to my rescue."
+
+"The Master's wife is Supervisor," said the good-natured fellow, after
+thinking a few moments. He was anxious to make it right on her part.
+
+Superfudge! I thought to myself. I said,--
+
+"I wish she would supervise my place into order. Have you any printed
+directions?"
+
+"Yes. I don't think they would do you much good, but I will bring them
+to you."
+
+He did not offer to bring the Supervisor to me, or to take me to her. As
+I got acquainted with the affairs of the institution, I found that she
+was emphatically super to all of them except her own housekeeping. She
+had brilliancy enough to look after that, and see that it was done well.
+She had the ability, and she exercised it, to come or send down when her
+parlor, which was directly over the prisoners' kitchen, was too cold, to
+have the furnace door shut, or if it was too warm, to have it opened.
+
+About a week after I went there she came in, probably my repeated
+inquiries had been reported to her, and gave me an order to have a room
+cleaned in the attic of the prison. It was one morning when we were in
+the midst of house-cleaning with a gang of men whitewashing in the
+prison.
+
+I told her I didn't think it possible to attend to it that day.
+
+"I will show it to you now, because I have time."
+
+I really had not time to look at it, as any one of common powers of
+observation would have seen; but, as she was my superior officer, I
+followed her without further remark.
+
+As she passed through the prison, and saw the men at work, she gave me
+another illustration of her luminous capacity by remarking,--
+
+"You must be careful and not let your women get with the men."
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+She took me up the sixth flight of stairs into the roof of the prison,
+into a room where the receiving officer packs away the clothing that he
+takes off the convicts when they come into the prison. After showing me
+the dust on the floor, and cobwebs on the walls, she said,--
+
+"You had better send one of your women up to clean it. I always begin at
+the top when I clean house."
+
+"I don't see how I can spare one to-day. If the Deputy will send me in
+one to do it, I will do my best to oversee it. But you see how
+inconvenient that will be, it is so far up here, and there is so much
+going on in the kitchen."
+
+"It won't be much to clean this."
+
+I thought, but did not say it, it might appear differently to you if you
+were to do it. I should consider it a good day's work for two strong
+women.
+
+I looked round with her, and listened to her suggestions.
+
+"What I wanted to call your attention to, particularly, was this box of
+old clothes. I think it must have been here two or three years."
+
+I wondered if it had been two or three years since she had been in that
+room.
+
+"They are cloth caps," she went on, "there may be an old coat or pair of
+pants among them. I don't think they will be of any use,--they might as
+well be sold, and the pay go towards the support of the institution."
+
+I looked into the box. There might have been twenty pounds of woolen
+rags, originally; but they were nearly chowdered into dust by moths.
+
+I saw by that one interview the occasion of the reticence of the Deputy,
+with regard to the Head Matron.
+
+The first moment of leisure I got, that afternoon, I examined the
+printed "Rules and Regulations," by the Board of Directors, which the
+Deputy had brought me. They were printed eight or ten years before, but
+sensible and humane so far as they went.
+
+There were no directions to regulate the details of duty; but all of the
+Master's orders were subject to the approval of the Board. I did not see
+how it could be possible to carry that article out, practically, when
+many of them were changed almost every day.
+
+One order that I noticed gave me great satisfaction, and had it been
+observed, would have created a very different state of things in the
+prison from what then obtained. It was, that "no irritating language"
+should be used to the prisoners. Had that rule been observed, there
+would have been comparatively few "in solitary," to the number which
+came under my observation.
+
+I came to the conclusion that if the rules which governed the
+institution had been subjected to the approval of the Board of
+Directors, that august body must entertain a very imperfect idea of
+their practical working.
+
+One of my orders was to stand at the ration table, in the kitchen, while
+the meals were passed out. Another was to be in the prison, at the same
+time, on duty, which shut me out of the kitchen entirely.
+
+The trouble that arose from the conflicting orders was this. After I
+left the kitchen, the food for the meals was under the control of the
+prisoners, and they secreted what part of it they pleased for themselves
+and their favorites.
+
+Before I left the kitchen I saw the meat sliced, and an equal portion
+placed in each pan. After I left, and there was no one to watch it, the
+women abstracted a part of it from some of the pans, or changed it from
+one pan to another.
+
+I was allowed about two hundred and eighty pounds of meat for the four
+hundred prisoners, bones included. After this was sliced, it was divided
+to each pan as nearly equally alike as possible. To this was added three
+or four potatoes, with the skins on, and the gravy or soup was then
+poured over them.
+
+These pans were arranged in rows across the ration table, to be passed
+out, through a slide, to the men, as they were marched into prison, on
+their side; and to the women, on their side. The kitchen was between the
+prisons.
+
+After the pans were arranged on the table, and the dinners put into
+them, I was obliged to go out into the prison to receive the women, and
+see them slid into their cells. The slide door was shut upon me, and the
+convicts were left alone with the food to hand it out.
+
+Was it strange, with this opportunity placed in their way, that they
+should help themselves to the meat which had been divided to the others?
+
+My order was to detect the thief and report her. That was much easier
+said than done. My opinion was that they all took it.
+
+It was a question strongly debated in my mind, who was most at fault,
+those poor, half-starved things, for taking the meat when the
+opportunity was given them, or those who put the temptation in their
+way?
+
+I did not decide it in season to have any of them punished for breaking
+the rule.
+
+When the convicts got angry with each other, they would report on the
+one they were offended with; but it was an established rule that the
+testimony of one prisoner was not to be taken against another, and I had
+not the least inclination to break the rule.
+
+I did discover one of the thieves at last; but I took my own way to
+punish her.
+
+The steam woman got angry with one of the slide women, and reported her
+to me one day when the dinner came short.
+
+"Never mind now, Allen; but the next time you see her take it, tell me
+where she hides the meat. I will go find it; and then, she can't turn it
+on you for betraying her."
+
+A day or two afterwards, Allen whispered to me,--
+
+"You look on the top of the bread closet in the cellar, and you will
+find something."
+
+I went down, mounted some false steps, and found a quart filled with
+slices of meat. I took it up into the kitchen, and asked,--
+
+"Who hid this meat away on the top of the bread cupboard in the cellar?"
+
+Not one of them answered.
+
+"Will the one who did it be honest enough to own it; or will she be mean
+enough to let me lay the blame on some one else? Did you do it, Annie
+O'Brien?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+"Will you tell me who did it?"
+
+"I don't know, ma'am."
+
+"Allen, did you do it?"
+
+"No, ma'am."
+
+I did not wish to ask her who did it, because she had told me.
+
+"I am going to ask you all, and I hope no one will be mean enough to lie
+about it."
+
+"I put it there," said O'Sullivan.
+
+"Who did you put it away for?"
+
+"For myself, because I don't like peas."
+
+"Very well, O'Sullivan; but you were rather too generous to yourself.
+Half of that would have been enough for your dinner, and to punish you
+for being so selfish, you can't have any of it. I shall give it to the
+others. Your hiding it away down there, gave it very much the appearance
+of stealing. In future, when you wish to put anything away, show it to
+me, and then, put it away like an honest woman. But you are never to put
+anything away unless it is left over, after I have divided the meat. It
+would be very mean to take a double portion for yourself, and make the
+poor fellows on the other side go without."
+
+I had been studying the Rules and Regulations of the Board, and
+discovered that I was to admonish once, before reporting for punishment.
+I did not propose to transcend that rule.
+
+"Now, remember, there is nothing more to be hid away from me."
+
+"There isn't much danger, as long as you let us tell you all about it."
+
+"I shall always let you tell me, before I get you punished; but you must
+always obey, and then there will be no punishment."
+
+"I suppose it is only right that we should eat our share of peas with
+the rest, for they can't get even bread and coffee as we can."
+
+"It is certainly wrong for you to take another prisoner's meat; and very
+mean, because, as you say, he has not the chance you have to get
+anything else. Now, girls, will you promise not to hide things away, and
+try to cheat me any more?"
+
+"I will, I will," was responded by the six. I did not expect them to do
+it without a great many more "admonishings."
+
+"Now, girls, be on your guard, so that the temptation does not become
+too strong for you."
+
+When the Deputy came in, I asked him whether the order for me to stand
+at the ration table in the kitchen, at meal time, had been approved by
+the Board.
+
+"Of course it has."
+
+"Has the order for me to be on duty in the prison at meal time, been
+approved by the Board?"
+
+"Certainly!"
+
+"You consider them a very intelligent body of men, do you not?"
+
+"Of course,--they are my superior officers."
+
+"How can they expect me to be in two different places at the same time?"
+
+"I really don't know much about the arrangements on the women's side at
+meal times. My station is in the men's prison at that time."
+
+"Yes, sir; and it is the place of our head officer to be stationed on
+this side, in the women's prison, at that time, and it is my place to be
+in the kitchen at meal time, to see that the meals go out properly, and
+that none of them are turned from the right channel."
+
+The next day afforded him an illustration of what I said. The dinner
+fell short. He entered the kitchen at one door as I went in at another.
+He came hurrying up to me, and asked--"Why is this?"
+
+"I don't know, sir! It was all right when I left the kitchen. Since
+that, I have no means of knowing what has been going on. I have been
+shut out in the prison, on duty."
+
+He ordered in bread to supply the deficiency. In that case it was the
+mismanagement of the hash, by a new hand, when "dished out," which would
+have been prevented had I been there to oversee it.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VI.
+
+                      FIRST NIGHT ALONE IN PRISON.
+
+
+The four Matrons took the evening watch, alone in prison, in rotation.
+It was a rule that one of them was to be always there, when the
+prisoners were in. They were not to be left by themselves a moment.
+
+The one who had charge was to be alone; the other three were at liberty,
+one to go about the buildings or grounds, two to go out of the prison
+confines, if they liked. It was my turn to be alone in prison.
+
+Immediately after they had been locked into their cells, and the other
+Matrons had left, Haggerton began to complain of her coffee.
+
+"What is the matter with your coffee?" I asked.
+
+"It is cold," she replied.
+
+"I am sorry; but I can't help it now."
+
+Upon that she began to fret. "I haven't eaten any breakfast, nor any
+dinner, and I've worked hard all day, and staid an hour later,"--some of
+them had staid till eight o'clock that night in the shop--"and now I
+can't eat any supper because my coffee is cold. I'll tell the Master,
+and he'll make an awful fuss."
+
+Of course I could not allow such talk as that, and I told her to stop.
+
+"I have done the best for you that I could. You had the same chance to
+eat that the rest had, and the same breakfast and dinner provided for
+you. I am not allowed to provide anything else. If you haven't eaten, it
+is your own fault."
+
+"I can't eat brown bread, and I can't eat soup, nor I can't drink cold
+coffee. The Master will be awful mad, and make an awful fuss, for me to
+have cold coffee."
+
+"Not another word, Haggerton! If you don't like the fare, you ought not
+to take board here," I said. I thought, if the Master would feel so bad
+that your coffee is cold, why don't his compassion lead him to provide
+something that you can eat.
+
+Upon that she went on to cry and sob, and make a great disturbance in
+the prison.
+
+I told her she must stop; but she kept on. I had not the heart to scold
+and threaten the girl. I had no doubt that she was tired and hungry, and
+I pitied her. I went for the Deputy, to see what I should do. He was
+out. I stepped into the officers' dining-room to find some one to direct
+me.
+
+Mrs. Hardhack, the Shop Matron, was eating her supper. The Supervisor
+sat there, talking with her. I stated the case to her. Before I had got
+half through with it, she motioned me away, and exclaimed, in great
+agitation,--
+
+"You mustn't leave the prison alone a moment! You mustn't leave the
+prison alone a moment!"
+
+Mrs. Hardhack rushed past me as though every prisoner had got loose, and
+was running away.
+
+I thought they would probably be safe if she arrived without accident,
+and followed at my usual gait.
+
+When I entered the prison she was leaving Haggerton's cell door, and
+from the second division saluted me with,--
+
+"It's no wonder the girl cries! her coffee is cold! I went to the kettle
+and tasted it myself! She hasn't eaten a mouthful to-day; and now, to
+have cold coffee given her for her supper, it's too bad! The Master
+shall know it, and he'll make an awful fuss."
+
+I made no reply to her; but the next morning, I had several questions to
+ask the Deputy.
+
+"It is a rule, is it, that the prisoners are not to be left alone a
+moment at night, after they are locked in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then how am I to leave the prison, go across the kitchen, and pass out
+my keys? Sometimes it will be ten or fifteen minutes before I can make
+the prison officer hear my rap."
+
+"Of course you must do that."
+
+"Then I must leave the prison alone. Have the Board of Directors
+approved both those rules?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"The reason why I asked was, because the Supervisor and Shop Matron
+thought I had committed a great violation of the rules, to leave the
+prison a moment to find you, to ask you a question, when I was in
+difficulty last night."
+
+"Did you have any difficulty last night?"
+
+I told him the story of Haggerton, and Mrs. Hardhack's management in the
+case.
+
+"You can judge that such conduct is calculated to produce disorder, and
+it did. It was nearly half an hour before I got the women quiet again."
+
+"Mrs. Hardhack has been here many years--she ought to know better than
+to behave in that way. If she don't, I can teach her."
+
+I did not tell him what followed. I had been studying the "Rules and
+Regulations" of the Board of Directors, for myself, and intended to
+abide by them. I remarked carelessly,--
+
+"The Board direct that the convicts shall work from sunrise to sunset.
+They were worked an hour later last night."
+
+"They had some contract work that they wanted to finish."
+
+"The order of the Board is to work from sunrise to sunset. There is no
+provision made for finishing contract work. The order to work over hours
+was submitted to the Board for approval last night, was it not?"
+
+"You are sharp. I see you wish to do your own duty, and you wish others
+to do the same."
+
+"Yes, I like to do my duty if I can find out what it is. In this
+particular case, I am indifferent whether others do theirs or not. But,
+if I find them following me up to make me perform mine accurately, when
+they are involved in the same, it is perfectly natural for me to turn
+and observe their manner of doing theirs."
+
+"I am trying to do mine."
+
+"I see that you are, and I am glad that you have a better opportunity to
+find out what it is, than I do."
+
+The moment that Mrs. Hardhack was out of the prison, that night, the
+convicts commenced hooting and whistling. If she did not put Haggerton
+up, directly, to play off on me, which I strongly suspected, her
+behavior was calculated to encourage their conduct.
+
+I was a new Matron, this was my first night alone, and they would try
+me, to see what stuff I was made of.
+
+If Mrs. Hardhack had instigated their conduct, the punishment would come
+upon them, not her. It was my business to suppress the noise, and to
+detect those who were engaged in making it.
+
+I drew my feet from my slippers, and commenced my search for the
+culprits.
+
+It was made a short one by the assistance of one of the sweeps who hated
+Mrs. Hardhack, and would do anything to thwart her--even betray a
+fellow-prisoner.
+
+She pointed me to one of the doors from whence the whistling came. I
+crept softly along, in the shade, and stood by the next door a moment.
+The girl, unconscious that I was near, gave another shrill call.
+
+"That is you, is it, Kate Connolly?" I said, close to her ear.
+
+She burst into tears at the sound of my voice. Her imagination at once
+brought before her the long aching induced by solitary confinement. It
+was far from an agreeable prospect to look forward to.
+
+"I'm sorry! indeed I am!"
+
+"Sorry for what,--that you made disturbance, or that I found you out?"
+
+"For both. Indeed I am; I knew better--I knew the rules; I've been here
+before, and it'll go hard with me."
+
+"You thought I was a stranger and wouldn't know them, did you?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; but I'm sorry."
+
+"I'm sorry for you, Kate, that you should be so ill-disposed as to make
+a noise, purposely to disturb me; and that you should be so mean as to
+try to impose upon a stranger. In future it will be well for you to know
+who you are playing off on before you begin. Now, Kate Connolly,
+remember--if ever I catch you in another such a trick, I shall have you
+punished!"
+
+"And you won't now? I thank you! I never will trouble you so again!"
+
+I never had occasion to reprove her afterwards for any bad conduct while
+she was in the prison.
+
+She thought it was through my kindness that she escaped punishment. I
+had been reading the "Rules and Regulations," which directed me to
+"admonish" once; and then, report for punishment. By following those
+Rules, I had silenced the noise, and restored order without resorting
+to punishment. I had also secured the future good behavior of the girl.
+
+When one was detected, the others became quiet.
+
+There are good and noble qualities still existing in those prisoners, if
+the right management only be applied to rouse, and bring them into
+action. The rule to admonish was a wise one, and was adopted to that
+end. That the officers did not follow out the rule was wherein the fault
+lay. And that they overlooked it, or failed to obey it, caused untold
+suffering to the prisoners.
+
+No instance came under my observation where the offense was repeated,
+after a prisoner had been admonished.
+
+After quiet was restored, I sat down to think, and rest. I was tired of
+the ceaseless surveillance, the turning of keys, the grating of bars,
+the driving of the prisoners at their tasks, the compelling to pleasant
+manners while under such severe exactions of toil.
+
+I sat thinking it over and asking myself if it would be possible for me,
+driven, urged to work with no alternative but the solitary cell, and the
+bread and water diet, with no motive but fear of punishment, to be
+gentle and patient.
+
+The exhausted flesh and the wearied spirit would express their agony in
+some form of complaint. Human nature might restrain its indignation at
+such a dreary lot from breaking forth, in fear of a greater punishment.
+The prisoner might work on in silence till she fell, and was carried to
+the Hospital. I was told that it had been so, and I could not doubt it.
+
+My orders verified the statement. I was to keep them at work. If they
+complained they were to see the Doctor, and he was to decide whether
+they were unfit for labor. In that case they were to go into the
+Hospital.
+
+I had asked, "Shall their whole task be exacted of them?"
+
+"Yes,--if you listen to their complaints, they will all play sick, and
+we shall get no work done."
+
+I had said, "They might do something, and by not being driven so hard,
+made useful, and their health spared."
+
+"We have no such rules," was the reply.
+
+"But any Matron, after she is acquainted with her women, can judge so
+that they will not impose upon her very much."
+
+"They will all cheat, and lie, and shirk, if they can."
+
+That might be so generally; but I knew that I had women who would rather
+work reasonably than be idle, because time passed faster when they were
+employed, if from no other motive.
+
+If they would all lie, and cheat, and shirk, the discipline that was
+applied to them did not work any reformation in their characters.
+
+The treatment meted out to them was hard, unremitting toil, enforced by
+harsh words and punishment.
+
+Implicit obedience to arbitrary rules was exacted, with no reasons given
+why they were enforced, and no explanations for their necessity. The
+hard work, the solitary cell, the meagre food, the damp stone prison,
+the narrow cells, and the crawling vermin, all went in revision before
+me.
+
+Can such discipline soften the heart, and turn its stern purposes to
+commit crime into the ways of virtue? Must not the hearts of these poor
+things inevitably grow harder under such influences, till they become
+the human fiends which they sometimes manifest themselves?
+
+I looked along the whitewashed floor. Rats and mice were running
+fearlessly about, holding gay revel over the crumbs that had been
+scattered to them by the prisoners in their rooms.
+
+I looked up at the cells. Human faces stared down upon me, through the
+bars, made ghastly by the flickering gas-light. There were human hearts,
+alive with all human emotions, beating beneath those horrid faces.
+
+Directly in front of me, with no light, save one narrow, stinted ray,
+which glimmered through the key-hole, with no bed but the stone floor,
+no seat but the wooden bucket, nothing to lean against but the bare
+brick walls, lay a girl "in solitary."
+
+No human being has life enough to stir up those cold stones to warmth,
+no change can soften them to comfort. Whichever way she turns, the hard,
+chilling granite is her resting-place. She lies there with no covering
+but her usual clothing, and that has been dealt out to her with the
+spare hand of public rigor. No discretionary mercy has interposed to
+provide a plank or a blanket to break the chill.
+
+Like a flash the thought crossed my brain, If that were my child! It
+sent a pang through my heart that stopped and wrung there till I gasped
+for breath.
+
+I looked up at the cells. The faces that glared down upon me were the
+sweet faces of my own daughters transformed to human demons by the vile
+impress of crime, and its compeer, punishment.
+
+Was I putting my hand to the work to help on the hardening of human
+hearts, and the degradation of human beings! I would flee the place, and
+leave the work with the morning light. I could not flee the thoughts.
+Wretched, wretched employment!
+
+I was half frenzied. I started up and rushed around the prison. I laid
+my head against the iron bars of the grated doors. I leaned against the
+cold stone walls. I could have lain down upon them in bitter penance for
+the part which I had taken.
+
+The eight o'clock bell rung for inspection. It was a relief.
+
+Humbly I took my lantern, and crept softly round to examine the locks.
+Many of the women were in bed, some of them were up reading.
+
+One of the girls looked up to me with a smile, and said,--I wondered
+that she could smile at all,--
+
+"See how nicely I keep the rats out."
+
+She had taken off the cover of her box, and braced it, by the box,
+against the lower part of the door.
+
+Every room is furnished with a box which has a drawer in it. This box
+serves for table and pantry. It contains a spoon, knife and fork, salt
+and pepper boxes.
+
+"Can't they jump over that?"
+
+"They don't try; but run along to another room. There hasn't been one in
+here since I put it up."
+
+I sat down and busied myself reading till the nine o'clock locking came.
+When that was accomplished, I went up, up, up the stone stairs to my
+cell in the roof of the prison.
+
+I laid me down, and from sheer exhaustion fell into a kind of slumber;
+but my short sleep, if it were sleep, was rank with nightmare, or
+haunted with the ghosts of my abode. No sooner did I become unconscious,
+than I was falling from my eyrie to the rocky floor below, or was
+strapped upon the iron bars that held the prisoners' beds. Visions
+appeared to my dream-sight that roused me with a start and scream to
+wakefulness again.
+
+Even such disturbed slumber had hardly got possession of my faculties
+when a volley of oaths came rolling through my door, and roused me to
+distinct consciousness.
+
+I sprang from my bed, ran to the door, and called,--
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"That bloody Smith snores so that we can't sleep!"
+
+"Where is she? I will go down and wake her."
+
+"On the third division, south side, almost to the foot."
+
+I put my feet into my slippers, wrapped a shawl around me, and ran down
+to Smith's door.
+
+"Smith, turn over! You are snoring so loud that the other women can't
+sleep."
+
+"O! how you scared me."
+
+"Do you know that you are snoring so loud that the women can't sleep?
+Turn over on your side!"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+I went back to my bed, but no sooner had I settled myself to sleep than
+the clamor of complaint was renewed.
+
+"That bloody Smith is at her snoring again!"
+
+Again I started for the second division, south side.
+
+"Smith! you are snoring again!"
+
+"I can't help it, ma'am! don't have me punished."
+
+Punished! How the idea haunted them, even in their sleep. "I know you
+can't help it, only by turning over. Turn on your face, and try that.
+The women must sleep, they are tired, and they are obliged to work
+to-morrow."
+
+"I'll try not to snore, ma'am!" She turned on her face as I directed
+her.
+
+At last I attained to that state of repose which the renowned Sancho
+Panza has so felicitously eulogized, and successfully immortalized; but
+my enjoyment was not of long duration.
+
+It was but a short distance that reached into the middle of the dark,
+dismal night, and time had travelled it when I slowly awoke. Shivers of
+terror, from some undefined cause, crept over me. Gradually I came to a
+knowledge of what was passing. My hair, which was thrown loosely over
+the pillow, was moving as though trodden by some nocturnal agent of
+locomotion. What moved it? there was no draft of air in the room.
+
+I put my hand to the "crowning ornament by Nature given" to my head, and
+imprisoned a mammoth mouse, or scarce grown rat.
+
+I was fast getting initiated into the mysteries of prison life, and
+inured to its peculiarities. Unmoved, I might allow my hair to become a
+bed for rats and mice; but I could not spare the sleep.
+
+I threw the creature from me, in a fret at being disturbed, and issued a
+peremptory order, independent of the Master, and without the approval of
+the Board, for all rats and mice to pay respect to my person, and my
+apartments, and trouble me no more. Then I turned over, and went to
+sleep again.
+
+Adverse fate, or some other mysterious personage was on my track that
+night. Before I had time to close my eyes, a shrill shriek of horror
+resounded through the building, starting the echoes from every side.
+
+It sounded in my ears like the despairing cry of one doomed to eternal
+death. Imagination supplied the cause, and brought me to my feet with
+one bound.
+
+Some pent up prisoner was dying alone in his cell. I sprang to the rail
+and called,--
+
+"What is the matter?"
+
+"I think I had the nightmare. I do have it sometimes."
+
+"Was that you, Mary McCullum?"
+
+"I think it was, ma'am. I'm sorry I waked you! Never mind me, ma'am!"
+
+Poor Mary McCullum! In a moment I remembered all about her. They had
+told me a sad tale about her incarceration for the murder of her rival.
+
+Mary's husband had left her, taking her three little girls away, and
+married another woman. Mary, in a fit of jealous madness, had ground up
+a knife, enticed the woman to drink with her, and murdered her in her
+cellar. A policeman had detected her in the act. God pity, and judge
+her! She had been sentenced to ten years of hard labor in the
+Penitentiary for the crime.
+
+Five years had been worked out. Her health was gone, her nervous system
+had become a wreck. The damp rooms, the chilling stones, the ceaseless
+toil, were the slow torture that had undermined her constitution, and
+consumed her vitality.
+
+Her narrow cell had become, to her imagination, the home of demons who
+haunted her with her crime.
+
+The other women had told me that the ghost of the murdered woman came to
+Mary McCullum every night, all in her bloody garments, and set her
+shrieking in her dreams.
+
+Should such a criminal go unpunished? The halter could bring no surer
+death than what was slowly creeping upon her. Restrained of her liberty
+she should be, and from the power to do further harm. Labor for her own
+support should be required of her. Connected with it, a sufficient
+amount of rest to secure health, a place to sleep free from the damp and
+noisome air of a stone prison.
+
+A plenty of wholesome food should be allowed her; time and space for
+repentance given, time to think upon the error of her ways, and
+instruction that would teach her how to do it.
+
+That worrisome night was to meet with one more "thrilling adventure"
+before it passed away into the light of the following day.
+
+I lay, tossing from side to side, after I returned to my bed. Sleep was
+out of the question. I lay, tossing thoughts about the circumstances
+that surrounded me to and fro in my mind, trying to analyze, to
+distinctness, the mixed up conclusions that arose from them.
+
+Another unearthly cry rung out on the air, and startled me from my
+perplexed meditations. It was more like the shriek of an animal in
+distress, than a human sound.
+
+Wail followed wail, in quick succession. Can it be a human being? I
+asked myself, as I hurried on some clothing. It must be, there is
+nothing else here that can make such a noise.
+
+I stopped to listen, as I went to search it out. It came from one
+quarter, and then, from another. If it were made in one cell, it
+possessed a wonderful power of ventriloquism.
+
+I remembered the hooting and whistling of the night before, and
+immediately inferred that the same mischievous girls, who made the
+disturbance in the evening, had set up this cry and echoed it around
+from division to division, in order to make a night of it.
+
+Quick as the thought entered my mind, my patience gave way. I vowed, in
+my heart, that I would have them punished if I could catch them. My own
+aroused temper certainly suggested the punishment that I contemplated.
+Even with the thought which suggested punishment arose the query--Is it
+not a just indignation that I feel, and do they not deserve punishment
+for willfully making this unreasonable disturbance? Is it my anger that
+seeks revenge for the annoyance they are inflicting?
+
+Although half way down into the prison, I ran back to my room, and left
+my slippers, in order to avoid the tap, tapping of the leather soles on
+the walks, which would announce my approach to the culprits, and warn
+them in season to avoid detection.
+
+Again I traversed flat after flat in my stockings. Quickly, and
+noiselessly, I threaded the walks towards the spot from whence the sound
+appeared to proceed. But when I reached it, all was silent there, and
+the wail came shrieking around another corner.
+
+I grew more and more angry as chills crept up my limbs, and set my
+teeth chattering. I raised my thinly clad feet from the cold stones only
+to set them down in a still colder track--a practical test, it now
+occurs to me, of the experience of the woman on the stones "in
+solitary,"--but my determination to ferret out the offenders never
+faltered.
+
+I was benumbed; but I persevered till I had traversed the five flats,
+and listened at the door of nearly a hundred cells. The wails had grown
+to howls, and filled the prison with their noise as the thunder fills
+the air with its reverberations, but eluded my search.
+
+I gathered my shawl around me, and sat down by the stove to listen; and
+determine my future course. When I became stationary, the sounds changed
+their course, and instead of receding approached me. Nearer, and nearer
+they came. In a moment they were issuing from the floor at my side. I
+shook with a vague dread. Were those shrieking wails from some prisoner
+confined in the dungeon vaults below the prison, insane or dying?
+Involuntarily I looked down. There stood the cat, uttering piteous cries
+on account of separation from her kittens in the kitchen, and pleading
+to be let out to them.
+
+Quickly I ran over the stairs to get my keys, nor did I feel the chill
+of the cold stone walks, as I ran back to appease the distress of the
+mother cat by opening the way to her little ones.
+
+I did not regret that I lost the opportunity to execute the mentally
+threatened punishment of my women.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII.
+
+                       THE MASTER AND THE RULES.
+
+
+One morning, as I sat warming my feet by the prison stove, I heard a
+slow, measured tread on the stone walk, like some one pacing off the
+length of the building. When it came near to me I looked, to see the
+Master stalking along in pompous dignity.
+
+There was what he probably supposed to be authority in his bearing.
+
+I arose and stood respectfully before him. I supposed he had commands of
+some kind, for me, from his appearance.
+
+He went along without changing his gait, or turning his head, into the
+kitchen.
+
+I really did not know what etiquette to observe on this state occasion;
+but I slowly followed him. He marched round, looking over the place in
+silent inspection; then came directly before me, and made a dead halt.
+
+He did not speak for a moment, and I, to relieve the embarrassment,
+asked,--
+
+"Does the place look to suit you?"
+
+"When it don't, I shall tell you," he answered gruffly.
+
+"It is more pleasant to be told when we have pleased, than when we have
+not."
+
+He made no reply to that remark; but said sternly,--
+
+"You are not to read the Rules to the prisoners; you have nothing to do
+with that."
+
+"I have not read the Rules to the prisoners. I can find no rules to be
+governed by myself, much more to read to them."
+
+"If the prisoners do not obey you, you are to report them at once."
+
+"I believe, according to the Rules and Regulations laid down by the
+Board of Directors, that I am to admonish them once, and at the second
+offense report them."
+
+He turned and stalked away, looking a little puzzled.
+
+At first I could not imagine to what he referred; but after stirring up
+my memory, I recollected that I had mentioned, in reproving the women, a
+day or two before, that they were breaking the Rules.
+
+I sat down and wrote the Master a note after this wise:--
+
+"The women have a habit of talking as they march in and out of prison. I
+am ordered to report them if they do it. I find in the Rules and
+Regulations, given to the officers, by the Board of Overseers, on the
+tenth page, that we are directed to 'admonish' the prisoners, for
+misbehavior, and at the second offense report them. That was what I did
+yesterday, however my proceedings may have been reported to you."
+
+In a few moments the Deputy made his appearance.
+
+"Your explanation was just the thing. We have looked up the Rule, and
+you are right. It is better to take each one as you catch her, rather
+than take them all together."
+
+"That gives me a chance to exercise still more mercy. Thank you!"
+
+Thus ended my first interview with the Master, and the second was like
+unto it.
+
+About a week after that the Receiving Matron came and told me that I was
+to go to her wash-room, to oversee her women, while she went to put the
+officers' rooms in order.
+
+I replied, "I cannot attend to your work. I have more to do in my own
+department than I have strength to accomplish."
+
+"Mrs. Hardhack"--that was the Shop Matron--"said you were to do it."
+
+"I am not employed by Mrs. Hardhack, nor do I take my orders from her."
+
+I was overburdened with work, and extremely tired. It appeared
+unreasonable, to me, to crowd anything more upon me. I had not physical
+strength to do any more than I was doing.
+
+The Matron turned from me in a fret, and left. I dropped upon a bench
+and rested my head upon the table. From sheer fatigue the tears
+started.
+
+In a few moments I heard the measured tread of the Master. I did not
+raise my head till he had stood before me a moment or two. Then I looked
+up. I did not pay him the respect to rise. He looked at me a moment, and
+seemed to have some idea of my condition. He said gently, if anything
+could be said gently by one so rough--
+
+"I should like to have you go to the wash-room while the Matron is at
+the officers' rooms. There is a gang of women at work there, and she
+cannot leave them alone very well."
+
+His manner modified my feelings somewhat; but I had no idea of having
+any more labor put upon me, and I said,--
+
+"I find it very difficult to get through with the labor that I engaged
+for, and it is impossible for me to have that of another put upon me."
+
+"Just for to-day, as she has just come in."
+
+"I will go for to-day, as a matter of favor; but I did not engage for
+that work, and I don't wish her to feel that she can call upon me to
+take her place at any time that she may wish. Her relief should come
+from another quarter."
+
+"It is only for to-day."
+
+He went out, and I started for the wash-house.
+
+
+
+
+                                 VIII.
+
+                             MRS. HARDHACK.
+
+
+I had been in the prison but a few days when Ellen, one of my "sweeps,"
+crept softly round to me, and whispered in my ear,--
+
+"You must be careful what you say! Mrs. Hardhack has just been in on the
+other side to listen. She creeps round like a cat, and you never know
+when she's coming, and there's no knowing what she'll tell, and she'll
+surely get you into trouble."
+
+"Don't give yourself any uneasiness, she can't get me into trouble."
+
+"Don't tell what I say; but she do pick a fuss with all the Matrons that
+come here, and she tells on 'em, and reports 'em, and makes the Master
+mad with 'em. And I jest see her creeping round in there now."
+
+"You know that I am not obliged to stay here as you are, Ellen. If I am
+made unhappy, I can leave at any time."
+
+"I know you can; but I don't want you to be unhappy. I want you to stay,
+and so do the rest of the women."
+
+"Thank you, Ellen. I am glad you want me to stay, because I think you
+will do your work well and try to please me by obeying all of the
+rules."
+
+"I'm sure I'll do anything in the world to please ye."
+
+I thought I would see if Ellen's information were correct, so I stepped
+lightly around the corner to which she pointed. I was just in season to
+see the back of Mrs. Hardhack's garments disappearing through the door.
+
+I was indifferent to such espionage personally. I could easily correct
+any false impression which might be made of my conduct, as I had done in
+the representation which had been made of my reading the Rules; but it
+is extremely unpleasant to look upon such a character, as had been
+developed, in one who must be an associate. The meanness and treachery
+that were written upon it would stand out before me, whenever I saw her,
+in spite of any good qualities that she might possess.
+
+That woman had been in the institution a great many years, and had
+become thoroughly imbued with the spirit of its rulers. If she went
+round into the other departments to listen, I inferred that it must be
+with the approval of the Master.
+
+If she carried him information acquired in that way, it must be
+acceptable, or she would not continue it.
+
+It is difficult to understand why such management need be pursued in
+this country. If the Master found a subordinate practicing against him,
+he could dismiss her arbitrarily; but in so doing he would only dismiss
+her out into the world to tell her own tale, he would argue. He could
+make his own representation of the case to the Board of Directors, and
+screen his own doings; but the Board are not the directors of public
+opinion.
+
+A just, upright, and open management would secure the cooeperation of
+subordinates who are fit to hold a position in such an institution. That
+such a course was not pursued, was because the disposition of the head
+Manager led him in another direction, and the disposition of the
+subordinate, Mrs. Hardhack, made her a fit agent to carry out his
+peculiar views of the proper way to govern the institution.
+
+She did not stop at that, but tried many little experiments of her own
+suggestion. Her long residence and knowledge of the place enabled her to
+practice them very much to the annoyance of the other Matrons, and to
+the distress of the prisoners.
+
+The women were her equals in detecting her ways, if they had not the
+power to practice her stratagems.
+
+They watched her till she was fairly across the yard that morning; then,
+they gathered around me, and began to tell me of her "tricks," as they
+called them.
+
+"She's the artfulest huzzy that ever lived," said Ellen. "She'll tell
+the women when they leave the shop not to speak a word till they get out
+of it, nor in the yard; but when they get into the prison they may talk
+as much as they are a mind to. Don't ye see, that's to make you trouble.
+You'll have to scold 'em, and get 'em locked up; and then, they'll hate
+you, and plague you all they can."
+
+"Don't be anxious, Ellen! After I have been here awhile the women will
+understand me, and they won't be any more willing to plague me than you
+are."
+
+"That's true! but it will take longer because you don't see 'em so much
+as you do us. And don't ye see, she'll tell 'em anything. She always
+be's stirring up a fuss somewhere. The women all hates her."
+
+"Never mind saying anything more, Ellen. I think I can manage her."
+
+"Don't let her know I've said anything! She'd surely pick up something
+to get me locked up for."
+
+"'Twas she that got me ten days in solitary, and the gag," said O'Brien.
+"I'd like to make her bones ache as mine ached then! If ever I catch her
+out-outside I'll"--
+
+"Anne O'Brien, stop!"
+
+"Well, ma'am, if she had treated you as she has me you would hate her.
+I'd strike her down in a minute if I could get the chance. And she will
+get struck down in the shop sometime and killed. She never goes outside,
+and she dares not, so many of the women hate her, and are on the watch
+for her."
+
+That was the effect produced by solitary confinement, without
+mitigation, as I heard it talked universally among the prisoners. Does
+it conduce to reformation?
+
+At the time this occurred, I thought the prisoners had exaggerated in
+their statements about Mrs. Hardhack; but in a few days they were
+confirmed by her own conduct.
+
+I was suspicious that the truth had been told me with regard to her
+putting the prisoners up to make a noise when they came in prison, by
+the appearance of a few of them.
+
+I thought I might arouse her pity for them, and induce her to stop her
+machinations in that way.
+
+I remarked to her, as we were standing together one evening after the
+women had been particularly noisy in coming in from the shop,--
+
+"I am afraid I shall be obliged to have some of the women put in
+solitary if they continue to be so troublesome when they come in to
+supper."
+
+"Afraid!" she echoed scornfully, "I like to get them locked up."
+
+I looked in blank astonishment upon the human monster before me.
+
+"Are you in earnest?" I asked. "Do you mean to say that you like to add
+to the hard lot of those poor creatures by that dreadful punishment of
+solitary?"
+
+"Yes, I'm sure I do!"
+
+And with a coarse laugh she turned away.
+
+I hoped she could not mean it; but all of her actions, and all the
+reports that I heard of her, tended to produce the conviction that she
+had formed a just estimate of her own character; and, upon that, made a
+correct representation of herself.
+
+That remark of mine hit wide of the mark. Instead of touching her
+compassion it roused the spirit of mischief.
+
+She was on duty that night in prison, and, restless as the renowned
+adventurer who went to and fro in the earth seeking whom he might
+devour, she went on a search through the cells of the first division
+where my kitchen women lodged.
+
+The Deputy had ordered me to supply the women, on that division, with
+all the blankets they wanted, because they worked in the kitchens where
+it was hot and the air full of steam. And being the lowest tier of
+cells, they were colder than the others.
+
+I had done as he directed me, so that some of them had four or five.
+Allen, my steam woman, an old woman of nearly sixty, had six.
+
+Mrs. Hardhack stripped their beds, and counted their blankets. She took
+off all but two, and locked them up in a black cell.
+
+The sweep who sat 'tending the door saw the proceeding, and ran to tell
+me what was going on.
+
+"Mrs. Hardhack is stripping the blankets off the women's beds, and she
+hasn't left poor old Allen but two little strips of rags."
+
+I went to see what she was doing. No sooner did her eye light on me than
+she commenced to show me how well educated she was in the use of the
+dictionary.
+
+"Here are your women with six blankets, and the rule is that they shall
+have only two. A double one and a single one."
+
+I was in no wise accountable to her, and did not think it necessary to
+answer. I stood and looked at her. She went on,--
+
+"You have no right to give your women more than the rest have. You have
+no right to give out blankets in that way, and the Master will know it
+directly. Here are your women with six blankets, and my shop women with
+only two. It's a shame to treat your women so much better than you do
+mine."
+
+When she had exhausted herself, I said, quietly, but loud enough for
+them all to hear,--
+
+"Your shop women are just as well treated as my kitchen women. Some of
+the old ones have five or six blankets--they all have as many as they
+wish for. I have been to the doors, and asked every one of them if they
+wished for more. And now if any woman wants another blanket, speak! and
+she shall have it. You may be assured, every one of you, that you shall
+have every comfort, from me, that I am allowed to give you."
+
+No one spoke. That time Mrs. Hardhack failed to stir up jealousy on the
+part of the shop women towards me; or create disturbance in the prison.
+
+"I shall have it my own way about the blankets to-night," she said, and
+locked them in a black cell.
+
+I did not like to come in contact with her, so I went for the Deputy, to
+settle the matter. He was out. I asked for the Master. I was told that I
+could not see him. He was indisposed. I could not get access to him,
+and my women slept without their blankets till nine o'clock, when Mrs.
+Hardhack left the prison. After she was gone I returned them the
+blankets she had taken away.
+
+The next morning she came to me to know who unlocked the black cell
+door.
+
+"When you have authority to inquire into my actions, I will render an
+account of them to you."
+
+"You have no right to unlock a door after I lock it."
+
+"You have no further care of the prison after you leave it at night, and
+the last order given is the one to be obeyed. I had a plenty of blankets
+up-stairs, in a chest, to supply the ones you took away, if I had chosen
+to use them."
+
+I went to the Deputy in the morning, and he forbade her interference in
+such matters.
+
+She indulged herself in one more exhibition of her sweet temper with
+regard to the affair, and that was to tell me that she had secured my
+women a few hours of cool repose.
+
+
+
+
+                                  IX.
+
+                       A BREAD-AND-WATER BOARDER.
+
+
+One night, when the women were coming into the prison, I observed great
+commotion and disturbance among them. I heard a confused, mixed up, talk
+about beds being taken out.
+
+Two or three of the women stepped out of the ranks, and looked up into
+their rooms, to see if their beds were taken out of them. Among the
+number was a woman by the name of Callahan.
+
+I had heard of her as being a desperate character; but she had behaved
+well in the prison.
+
+She was a tall, stout woman, with a loud voice. After she had looked
+into her room, and seen that her bed was gone, she turned to me, and
+asked,--
+
+"What was my bed taken out for?"
+
+"I didn't know that it was out."
+
+She looked steadily at me for a moment; then, lowered her voice, and
+asked,--
+
+"Do you mean to say that you didn't know that my bed was out?"
+
+"Yes, Callahan, I meant to say that I did not know your bed was taken
+out. Perhaps you are mistaken, it may not be out."
+
+"O, yes, it is out; I saw the naked bars."
+
+"Come, Callahan, go along like a good woman! Go to your room first, and
+see, before you ask why it is done."
+
+She went into her room. The other women were in theirs. I called,--
+
+"Second Division!"
+
+All of the rest shut their doors.
+
+"Shut your door, Callahan!" I called pleasantly.
+
+"No, ma'am, I will not. I don't mean anything against you; but I will
+not shut my door, nor sleep on the bars. Do you know who reported me,
+and what my bed is taken out for?"
+
+"No, I do not."
+
+I was obliged to leave her standing in her door, and go round to the
+other side of the prison to see the other prisoners slid in.
+
+The moment I left Callahan, she began to rave. "By the Holy Jesus, I
+won't sleep on the bars. And I'll know who reported me, and what I'm
+reported for,--the miserable set of"--
+
+"Callahan, stop!" I ran round and called.
+
+Neither of the Shop Matrons appeared, and I was told that it was because
+they were afraid of Callahan's violence.
+
+"No, I won't stop! I'll do something to make them lock me up. I won't
+sleep on the bars. It was Hardhack that reported me. I wish I'd struck
+her down!"
+
+"No! no! it was Thingsly," said a voice that I did not know.
+
+"Hardhack made the balls if Thingsly fried 'em. She's at the bottom of
+all the deviltry there is done here."
+
+Then she commenced a tirade of vituperations and oaths that made my ears
+tingle.
+
+In a few moments the Deputy made his appearance.
+
+"Your No. 1 key," he said to me, and proceeded to Callahan's room.
+
+I got it; and then followed him.
+
+"Now, Mr. Deputy," she said to him, when he went up to her; "you know I
+won't sleep on the bars. You might as well lock me up first as last, if
+you are going to punish me. But you ought to tell me what it's for. I
+haven't done anything but speak in the walk, and all of 'em do that."
+
+The Deputy made no reply; but I saw that he had buttoned up his coat as
+though he expected violence. She went peaceably to her solitary cell,
+however; but all of the way she begged the Deputy to tell her what he
+was locking her up for.
+
+When she saw me standing by the Deputy, she asked me where Hardhack and
+Thingsly were.
+
+"I don't know; they haven't been in the prison to-night."
+
+"They're afraid to come; but I wouldn't hurt the poor little lambs. They
+know they're guilty, and they know I'm locked up for nothing."
+
+"Shall I give her her bread and water to-night?" I asked the Deputy, as
+he turned to leave.
+
+"Yes."
+
+I knew the water would be grateful to the poor thing.
+
+I wished to ask the Deputy if Callahan had told the truth; but my own
+consciousness told me that she had. I had learned to esteem the man, and
+I could not bear to hear him say that he was accessory to such
+injustice, although I knew that it was his duty as a subordinate officer
+to do as he had done.
+
+I could not help questioning, Ought not the girl to be told what she is
+punished for? Has she been "admonished?" The poor thing had no redress
+for such injustice.
+
+That was the point that she, too, was revolving in her mind. When I gave
+her the bread and water, she said to me,--
+
+"Look here, now, don't you think they ought to tell me what I am
+punished for?"
+
+"You must not ask me such questions. It isn't for me to sit in judgment
+upon what the Master does."
+
+She was intent on finding out my opinions, so she put her questions in a
+different way.
+
+"If you reported me, wouldn't you tell me what it was for?"
+
+"Certainly! I should probably give you a good scolding before I had you
+punished."
+
+"If you was going to punish me just as you were a mind to, for speaking
+on the walk, would you shut me up here two days and two nights for it?"
+
+"Perhaps not; but how do you know that you are to stay here two days and
+two nights?"
+
+"Because they are never shut up for any shorter time."
+
+"O'Brien and McMullins were only in for one day and a night."
+
+"That was because you begged 'em off. But nobody'll beg me off. Say!
+would you shut me up here for speaking on the walk?"
+
+"Perhaps not; but you knew the rule, and disobeyed,--it is for
+disobedience that you are punished."
+
+"Ever so many of them talked,--they all talk; but none of 'em got
+punished but me. They've got a spite against me,--is that right."
+
+"Perhaps that is your jealousy, Callahan."
+
+"No, it isn't. Four of us were talking together. If Thingsly saw one,
+she saw the whole of us."
+
+"Perhaps it isn't for that you are punished."
+
+"Won't you find out? Won't you ask Hardhack?"
+
+"No, I don't wish to."
+
+"Are you afraid of her?"
+
+"No!"
+
+"Do you like that woman?"
+
+"She is nothing to me. But if I were to ask her a question, about what
+does not concern me, I might not get a civil answer."
+
+I was fast arriving to the conclusion that it would be impossible for me
+to assist in carrying out such a system of government.
+
+The next day I spoke to the Deputy about letting her out. He shook his
+head.
+
+"If she was one of your women, and you had the care of her, I might."
+
+When the two days were expired, he sent me round word to let Callahan
+out at six o'clock. With my watch in my hand I did not defer it a moment
+later. As I was waiting upon her to her room, I asked her,--
+
+"Why had you rather go into solitary than sleep on the bars?"
+
+"If I sleep on the bars, I lose just as much time, and have to work all
+the next day. If I can't have my bed to sleep in, I won't work for 'em."
+
+"I shouldn't think there would be much rest in solitary."
+
+"There ain't; but I don't earn any money for them either."
+
+There was retaliation with calculation.
+
+"Callahan, I turned the key on you in solitary, and kept you there,--why
+are you not angry with me?"
+
+"You didn't do it out of spite--you never did me any wrong. If they only
+punished me when I deserved it, I shouldn't be mad."
+
+I did not know how to reprove the woman. "Callahan, be as good a woman
+in the shop as you are with me."
+
+"I'll try to; but they wake up the devil in me. I wish you would get me
+into the kitchen."
+
+"I'll try."
+
+
+
+
+                                   X.
+
+                              AN ARRIVAL.
+
+
+The windows of the kitchen were of ground glass. They were made to let
+down at the top, but could not be raised at the bottom.
+
+When they were let down, I noticed that the younger women, if I were out
+of the way a moment, sprang upon the window-seat, which was a deep
+recess, and stood looking out. I inferred from the manner of doing it,
+and the apprehensive look they gave me, when detected, that it was
+breaking the rules to do so.
+
+But no one informed me of such a rule, and I did not think it necessary
+to inquire. I could see no possible harm that could come to them from
+looking through the bars upon the grass, and trees, and flowers of the
+grounds. Positive good might arise from changing the tenor of their
+thoughts. If they stood longer than I thought best, I sent them to do
+something for me.
+
+One day, Annie O'Brien had mounted the window-seat, in my absence from
+the kitchen, and when I went back, was exercising her powers of
+description upon what she saw, for the entertainment of the others.
+
+The window through which she was looking, commanded a view of the yard,
+the office, and the walk through which the public found entrance to the
+buildings.
+
+"An arrival, an arrival!" called Annie, in a loud whisper.
+
+"Who is it? Is it anybody that we know?" asked one of the girls that had
+been brought in with her.
+
+I stood behind the furnace a moment to notice what was going on.
+
+"Yes, there is Tom Ticket. I wonder what he has been doing."
+
+"Nothing new, of course! They wanted a carpenter down here, so they sent
+up for him. The carpenter was discharged the other day, and I heard one
+of the men say they'd have another down in a few days,--they knew just
+where to lay their hands on one of the best in the city."
+
+"Do you mean to say, Lissett, that they can have a man brought down here
+a prisoner, because they want a carpenter?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, ma'am. They know he drinks, and can prove it, but they don't want
+too many at a time, so they let him run till they want him; then, they
+have him taken up, and fetched down here."
+
+My face must have expressed the utter abhorrence I felt of such work. O
+let us cleanse our whited sepulchres! Is there not work enough within
+our own borders to employ our Christian men and reforming women! We need
+not go abroad for work with such festering sores in our own vitals. For
+very shame let us cleanse these places!--were my thoughts.
+
+Here was another occasion for glib Annie O'Brien to hold forth; and such
+occasions were never slighted by her.
+
+"Half that come in here," she said, "are not doing anything when they
+come. My coming, when I came, was a put up job."
+
+"What do you mean by that?"
+
+"A policeman was hired to take me up. I was sitting in a store, about
+nine o'clock in the evening, when he came in and told me to follow him."
+
+"Who put him up to it?"
+
+"A man that kept a saloon paid him five dollars, and he did it. Any of
+the policemen will take a person up for five dollars. When I came here I
+wasn't doing anything out of the way; but, of course, they knew what I
+had done."
+
+"What did the saloon man want you taken up for?"
+
+"Because I wouldn't tend for him. He had tried to get me in there, and I
+wouldn't go."
+
+"Why wouldn't you go? Wouldn't it have been better for you to earn an
+honest living?"
+
+"An honest living! I'd had to gone with any man he said if I'd gone
+there, and I rather choose my own friends."
+
+"O, Annie, how can you stand there, and tell this over? I should think
+your heart would burst with grief when you think of it!"
+
+"O pshaw! it's nothing when you get used to it!" said Lissett, and
+snapping her fingers at the imagination that O'Brien had called up, she
+flounced out of the room. But for all that, I saw that she choked as she
+said it, and the tears came in her eyes.
+
+"I hadn't got quite so used to it as to go to that pitch," said O'Brien.
+
+And where are the men that make these women what they are? I asked
+myself. Coolly walking the streets outside the terrors of the law. At
+that moment I could have locked all of mankind in solitary, and fed them
+on bread and water, without suffering one pang. Is there no help for
+this state of things, that the weak suffer for the sins of the strong?
+If man does not meet his punishment here he is borne on, by time, to
+judgment, where he will have no power to screen his guilty acts or shift
+his punishment upon the helpless.
+
+That reflection did not satisfy me at the time. A more summary
+retribution would be better suited to the sin. One that would inflict
+immediate tribulation and anguish upon him, such as had fallen upon his
+victims.
+
+Annie turned again to look out of the window.
+
+"There is but one woman taking a ride in the fancy carriage of the
+government. Exercise in that carriage is excellent for dyspepsia."
+
+"Do you know her?" asked Allen.
+
+"No! she's a jail-bird, I know, by her looks. She's come from the
+Superior Court; she'll have a long sentence. She's coming through the
+kitchen."
+
+Annie sprang down to look at her, and all of the rest followed her to
+the door which stood open, into the garden, for the men to bring in the
+bread for supper.
+
+"Stand back! It isn't necessary for you to give her a welcome."
+
+The newly arrived had her veil drawn tightly down over her face; but I
+could see that she was young, and very good looking.
+
+In the absence of the female Receiving Officer I took her from the
+Clerk, and waited upon her to the reception room where she was stripped
+of her own clothes, and put into a bathing-tub. When she was thoroughly
+scrubbed and dried, she was arrayed in the uniform of the place, and
+sent to the shop.
+
+There her capabilities were tried, and she was assigned to the work for
+which she was best adapted.
+
+The clothes that she had taken off were carefully folded, put in a bag
+by themselves, and labeled, to restore to her when she went out of the
+prison.
+
+When I returned to the kitchen, my girls had found out who the new
+prisoner was, how long a sentence she had, and what was the offense for
+which she had been committed.
+
+How the facts got circulation in so short a time, was a mystery to me.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XI.
+
+                           INSIDE MANAGEMENT.
+
+
+In deciding upon the capabilities of the prisoners Mrs. Supervisor made
+herself useful.
+
+Her first care was to find out how long a sentence a woman had. That
+determined one qualification for her own service. If the sentence were
+for two or three years, and there was to be a vacancy in her own family,
+the woman was eligible to a place there, provided she could be trained
+into the work required.
+
+This care was taken to save herself and her Housekeeper the trouble of
+changing.
+
+To oversee her housekeeping was the Supervisor's pet employment, and it
+was fortunate for the Housekeeper that the government super-official had
+one pet. Through that partiality, she got two hours and a half more
+sleep in the morning than the rest of us.
+
+She was not called till half past six; but I unlocked her women at the
+same time that I did the others.
+
+I was glad she could be so favored; but I could not see the justice of
+such an arrangement.
+
+I found, in the course of time, that it was a system of mutual favor. I
+went in to breakfast one morning, and there was no milk on the table.
+
+Katie, the table girl, went to the refrigerator, that stood in the room,
+to get me some. She had just laid her hand upon the bowl when the
+Housekeeper, with a quick motion, arrested her.
+
+"I must have that cream for the Master's breakfast!" she whispered.
+
+She took the bowl, removed the cream into one pitcher, poured the
+skimmed milk into the one Katie held in her hand, and sent it to me.
+
+I was not particularly anxious to drink skimmed milk in my tea so that
+the Master might have cream; but I supposed it was in some way to
+contribute to the support of the institution; or that there was an order
+of the Board to that effect, so I made no complaint. Indeed it was my
+policy not to appear to notice what was going on in such trifling
+matters,--trifling to the Supervisor, probably, whatever they might have
+been to the inferior officers.
+
+Before I knew the Housekeeper's hour of rising, I went into her kitchen,
+on an errand, several times before she was up.
+
+I always found the women working on nice embroidery. They could not
+attend to their housework because the Housekeeper had the keys, and was
+not up to unlock the stores and give out the things to work with. But
+there could be no relaxation of their labor on that account. They must
+be up and at work.
+
+One morning, Mary Hartwell asked me to look on the list, and see if her
+name were there.
+
+The names of the women who were going out during the month, with the
+date of the day that they were to be discharged, was handed to the
+Receiving Matron, the first of the month.
+
+The women were very accurate, usually, in keeping account of their own
+time, still they were anxious to have their own calculations confirmed
+by knowing that their names were entered on the discharge list.
+
+"If you will please look for me, I will do something for you after I go
+out."
+
+"Something for me, Mary! O no! I will look for you when I go to the
+wash-room to-day."
+
+Her remark called my attention to her work. I saw that she was doing a
+beautiful piece of embroidery. When she saw that I noticed it, she held
+it up and exhibited it with a great deal of pride.
+
+It was a night-gown yoke, in linen, of an elegant and elaborate pattern.
+
+"Who are you doing this for?" I asked.
+
+"This is for Mrs. Means." That was the Housekeeper.
+
+That is what I call you up two hours and a half before she rises, to do,
+I thought.
+
+"How many of you are there that can do such work?" I asked.
+
+"Five of us can do this kind, and we can all do fine stitching, or
+crochet, or some kind of fine needlework."
+
+There were ten of them to do the work in the Housekeeper's rooms, and
+those of the Supervisor. Quite an array of talent!
+
+"You ought to see Ann Horton's work. She does all kinds beautifully. She
+stays up-stairs, and works all of the time. She had a sentence of three
+years; it's most out now. It would do your eyes good to see the piles
+and piles of nice things she has done for the Master's wife and the
+young ladies. The pillow-cases, and the yokes, and bands, and skirts."
+
+"Has she been doing embroidery all of the time for three years?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am, and nice sewing."
+
+I thought three years of hard labor, from five in the morning till eight
+at night, must accumulate quite an amount in value, of such work, beside
+what was done at intervals of two or three hours at a time, by the other
+nine women.
+
+Supervisor might have exercised her thrift in supporting the
+institution, very profitably, by selling that embroidery as she proposed
+to do the moth-eaten rags. In doing that she might obviate the necessity
+of giving the officers skimmed milk in their tea.
+
+I inferred that that three years' labor was a perquisite belonging to
+the office of Supervisor. In addition to her salary she was making a
+profitable affair of her sinecure situation. Far more advantage would
+accrue to her than to the institution in having such an incumbent.
+
+Supervisor of what? Of her own housekeeping. The very best of
+employments for a woman if she has a family.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XII.
+
+                                SUNDAY.
+
+
+It was Sunday morning. Sunday was our busiest day, because our meals
+came so near together.
+
+We were allowed one hour more of sleep on this morning than on the
+others. I had waked at the usual hour, but settled myself comfortably to
+rest again hoping to obtain it. Tinkle, tinkle, went the bell over my
+head. I paid no heed to it for a moment. Rattle, rattle, rattle went the
+noisy thing for full ten minutes. By that time, vexation had expelled
+all drowsiness.
+
+I vowed, in my own mind, that I would muffle it the next Saturday night,
+in retaliation for the unseasonable summons. At first I determined to
+disregard the call. It must have rung from habit.
+
+The next thought that suggested itself brought me to my feet. Perhaps a
+new order had been issued, and subjected to the approval of the Board at
+that early hour. In that case the august mandate was not to be
+disregarded. I rose, unlocked my women, and set them to work.
+
+The ringing of the bell so early proved to be a mistake of the watchman,
+who was a new hand, who fearing he should be late, gave me that
+untimely warning. I judged, from that circumstance, that the orders were
+as distinctly given, and the duties as definitely arranged on the other
+side as on ours.
+
+I grudged that hour of lost repose both for myself and my women. I was
+hungry for rest; and my women were worked to sheer exhaustion.
+
+Sunday all of the women were unlocked at six o'clock. They were called
+out of their rooms, in the same order as on other days, left their
+skillet pans, and the quarts in which they had taken their suppers to
+their cells the night before, at the slide, as they went out. They were
+marched to the shop to wash and be dressed for chapel. While they were
+gone, their dishes were washed, and their breakfasts put into them to be
+taken to their rooms when they returned to them.
+
+At nine they were marched to chapel, where they remained till half-past
+eleven or twelve, when they returned to take their dinners, and remain
+in their cells till half-past one. Then, they went to chapel again, and
+returned at three to take their suppers to their rooms, and be locked
+in.
+
+After that the presence of only one Matron was required in the prison.
+One of the other three was required to remain on the premises. Two might
+go where they liked.
+
+Sunday breakfast and supper was of bread, mush, and rye coffee, the same
+as other days. The dinner was of roast beef, which was cooked at the
+bake-house, and sent in to us to be carved and served.
+
+The gravy was to be made in the kitchen, and the potatoes steamed: the
+meat and potatoes put into the pans, and the gravy poured over them.
+
+To get that meat to its right destination required sharp care on my
+part. There were extra women sent in from the wash-room to help on
+Sunday. They, with my own, were possessed with a disposition to get
+possession of the greater part of that rarity.
+
+They got up all sorts of inventions to get me out of the room, while it
+was being sliced, in order to secrete a part of it for their own use,
+the next day, and for that of their favorites among the prisoners.
+
+At first they had been able to impose upon my ignorance, but at this
+time I had learned just how much two hundred and eighty pounds of meat
+would divide to about four hundred people. I had learned their "tricks
+and their manners" also, so that it had become impossible for them to
+draw me from my object, which was, to see it equally divided.
+
+"An' sure ma'am," said Bridget O'Halloran; "we're wanting the pails from
+the hospital."
+
+In order to get the pails I must go to the outside door, blow my whistle
+to call a runner, wait till he came, and then order my pails. The hint
+was just in season. Allen had taken the first piece on her fork to
+commence carving. I said to her,--
+
+"Don't cut that meat till I come back, not one slice."
+
+I then ordered in the pails, and bread--everything that would be wanted
+before dinner, and took my station at the table with the determination
+not to be drawn away from it upon any pretense.
+
+The smell of the meat to the poor, half-fed things was very savory, and
+they came around picking up the bits which fell off while it was being
+carved.
+
+"Please ma'am, give me a bone,--just the least bit of bone!" was the cry
+perpetually in my ears. And the bones I was forced to give to their
+importunity as fast as they were freed from the meat.
+
+To keep their fingers from that meat was like fighting eagles from a
+dead carcass.
+
+Bridget O'Halloran's ways were suspicious. I thought she had eluded my
+vigilance, and secreted some of it in spite of me. I kept watch of her
+motions for the rest of the day.
+
+I noticed that she visited the shed very frequently. If I wanted her I
+was continually obliged to send for her. At last I thought I would go
+myself and see what attraction that old shed had become so suddenly
+possessed of.
+
+When I discovered her she was stooping down in the middle of the
+building without any apparent object in view.
+
+"Bridget--I want you in the kitchen at this moment!"
+
+She was fumbling about her stocking. I stood looking at her while she
+was apparently arranging it.
+
+"What is the matter with your stocking, Bridget?"
+
+"Nothing, ma'am!"
+
+She colored, was confused, and started with the top of it in her hand. I
+let her pass on before me so as to get a better prospect of what was
+going on.
+
+From the glimpse that I got of her leg I thought she had been following
+the fashion--in adopting false calves. In hurrying her I had spoiled the
+proper adjustment of them, and they had slipped to her ankles. I
+intended to examine into the case when I reached the kitchen; but an
+explanation came by way of accident.
+
+In order to make more speed, as I hurried her on before me, she let go
+the top of her stocking, the weight of what was in it brought it down
+over her shoe, and out fell two or three slices of meat. The cause of
+her clumsiness in moving was explained, also of her frequent absences.
+She had slily slipped away slice after slice, one at a time, and gone
+into the shed to secrete them in that safe place.
+
+Under my eyes, as I stood looking at that meat, she had done it.
+
+"Stop! pick up your meat, Bridget!"
+
+"It's no matter, ma'am!"
+
+Her face was ablaze with disappointment and smothered anger, and tears
+filled her eyes.
+
+"Stop, and pick up that meat!"
+
+She did so.
+
+"Now look me in the face!"
+
+That was a hard command for her to fulfill; but she looked up at me.
+
+"Caught in the act of stealing! You do not intend to treat me any
+better than you do any one else?"
+
+"I did not mean it against you,--indeed I didn't!"
+
+"Every rule that you disobey is something done against me."
+
+"I suppose you will report me; but I was awful hungry."
+
+"The rest of the prisoners are awful hungry; you are no worse off than
+they when you share equally with them; but if you rob them, in order to
+help yourself to more than they have, you make them worse off."
+
+"I did not think of that. I work hard, and I earn a good living, and I
+mean to get it if I could. It's a shame for me to go hungry when I work
+so hard."
+
+"If you steal food here, Bridget, you steal it from your
+fellow-prisoners, not from the institution. There is just so much
+allowed for you all, and the rest won't get any more, in any way, if you
+take it from them. They must go without if you have it; and they work
+just as hard as you, and get no more for it."
+
+"It makes me awful mad to think I work so hard, and don't get any pay
+for it."
+
+"Then you ought not to come here. You have been here before, and you
+knew just how it was before you did the wrong which brought you here.
+You were sent here to work hard, for nothing, for a punishment."
+
+"Others do worse than I, and they don't come here. If those that put me
+here had their dues they'd be here too!"
+
+That was the continual rejoinder.
+
+"May be; but how are you going to help that? You will have about as much
+as you can do to attend to your own case. Only think of what you have
+been doing; robbing another person as badly off as you are. You ought to
+have pity on each other, if no one else has pity on you! You ought to
+respect the rights of your fellow-prisoners,--they have done you no
+harm!"
+
+"I will; but I was so hungry and the meat smelt so good; and I did not
+think of them. If you worked as I do, and was real hungry, and saw the
+meat, wouldn't you take it?"
+
+"I don't know, Bridget; I have not had the temptation."
+
+The word temptation sounded out from the other words that I had been
+using, fearfully loud when I pronounced it. A nice slice of roast beef
+was a strong temptation to those hungry women. They were allowed enough
+to tantalize but not to satisfy them.
+
+By being kept without enough to satisfy their hunger they were led into
+sin, if it be a sin for them to help themselves to more than their
+share. They were led to disobey the rules, which involved punishment if
+they were detected. It would certainly undermine their health to work so
+many hours as they were obliged to without a suitable amount of food to
+produce recuperation.
+
+"Are you hungry enough to eat that meat after it has been in your
+stocking, and on this floor?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; it ain't hurt it any. I'll eat it if you'll give it to me."
+
+"Eat it!"
+
+She brushed the dust off it with her hand, tore it apart with her
+fingers, and put it in her mouth.
+
+"Bridget, don't ever take any more, and secrete it without my
+knowledge."
+
+"No, ma'am; and you wont report me now."
+
+"I gave you the meat. How can I report you?"
+
+"Thank you!"
+
+"If you are ever so hungry, don't you put any away for yourself without
+asking me!"
+
+"No, ma'am!"
+
+Perhaps she will not. The fear of punishment, in a solitary cell, had
+not deterred her from taking the meat. Perhaps pity for her
+fellow-prisoners would not; nor the desire to please me.
+
+That evening I heard the Matrons discussing the music by the quartette
+choir in the chapel of the prison.
+
+"You have a hired choir?" I asked.
+
+"Yes, and an organ?"
+
+That information sounded strangely in contrast with the scanty meals and
+the solitary cells.
+
+Where does the praise of God come in?
+
+
+
+
+                                 XIII.
+
+                         LIFE AMONG THE LOWLY.
+
+
+After the kitchen was put in order, that Sunday afternoon, I gathered
+the women around me, and read a story to them, from a religious
+newspaper.
+
+I also read them one of the Saviour's parables. Then, I talked with them
+so as to find out what ideas they entertained of themselves, and the
+lives they had led.
+
+"What are you in here for, Sarah?" I asked of a smart, bright, active
+woman. As she was among convicts she was called bold; but if she were
+working outside she would be called a smart, capable woman. If any
+notice were taken of her ways she would be just remarked as independent.
+
+"For shoplifting, ma'am;" and with a toss of her head, that was intended
+to ward off reproof, she added, "When I go out of here I will do just so
+again. I'll take five dollars for every day they've left me here."
+
+"Then you will get detected, and brought back again."
+
+"No, ma'am! I'll look out for that."
+
+"You cannot; you may be sure your sin will find you out. If you break
+God's commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' his eye is on you, He will
+see it, and surely punish you for it. It may be by coming here, and it
+may be in some other way."
+
+"I'll risk all He'll do to me if I don't fall into the hands of the
+police, and get in here."
+
+"That's my case," said Bridget. "The Lord knows just how poor we are,
+and how hard it is for us to get along; and He knows how the rich folks
+crowds on us, and He pities us. And He knows how they lie, and cheat,
+and steal from each other,--and He won't punish us any more nor He does
+them."
+
+"It will make no difference to you what they do to each other, or what
+He does to them. You will not have to answer for their misconduct, nor
+be punished for it. You will only suffer for the commands which you
+break."
+
+"We shall get into their company once where they can't put on airs over
+us; and that'll be a great comfort. I hope I shall be there when some of
+'em go to judgment."
+
+"If you are you may have enough to do to attend to your own affairs."
+
+"If I was in the lower end of the d--l's kitchen, I shouldn't be too
+busy to see them sprinkled with brimstone."
+
+"Hush, Bridget! that is revenge!"
+
+"We can't help it," said the ever ready O'Brien. "I'd like to pay them
+back what they've done to me. Don't you suppose we've got human
+feelings? Only think what that miserable Hardhack has made me suffer in
+solitary. Wouldn't I make her suffer back again? I'd beat her till she
+couldn't stand, the first time I meet her, if it wasn't for getting
+another sentence. One girl did give her an awful pommeling, and
+scratched her face; and she got another six months for it."
+
+"O Annie, that is a bad temper!" but I thought I would study her still
+further. "I don't see why just the idea of being punished should make
+you so angry. I had you punished. What would tempt you to strike me?"
+
+"Nothing on earth, ma'am! I would stand between you and a blow if it
+broke my head."
+
+"But I had you locked in solitary."
+
+"Yes, ma'am, and you was sorry for it, and I deserved it. But when they
+lock me up for nothing it makes me mad."
+
+"Who is to be judge of when you deserve it? It would not do to leave it
+to you. You would never think you deserved it."
+
+"You are mistaken there, ma'am. Didn't I tell you to report me when I
+was locked up? Didn't I say that I deserved it? You might have some of
+us locked up every day, if you were a mind to; but it wouldn't make us a
+bit better."
+
+"It would make me very unhappy to do that. It would make me sick at
+heart to see you such bad women as that."
+
+"We know it, and that keeps us from a great many things. But you might,
+for what we do, if you had a mind to, just to show your authority. You
+don't get mad, and we don't. You try to make us better, and we wouldn't
+any of us be mean enough to do wrong on purpose."
+
+"I could not have you punished when I see that you are trying to do
+right. It is when you do wrong, and are determined to do wrong, that I
+shall have you punished. I see that you are improving in governing your
+temper, Annie. You don't get angry so easily as you used to, and you
+don't give way to it when you are angry, as you did two or three weeks
+ago."
+
+"I don't think I do; but I should if you got mad and scolded me. If I do
+anything wrong, you turn round so calm, and talk to me so, it makes me
+ashamed; and I think of it when I want to do it again, and it keeps me
+from it, because I know you'd make me ashamed again. You have the upper
+hands of me. When I was in the shop, Hardhack would get mad and scold
+me, and that would make me mad, and I would sauce her; and then I got
+punished. If she hadn't got mad first I shouldn't."
+
+It occurred to me that the officers of the institution would do well to
+study the rule of the Board which directs that "no irritating language"
+be used to the prisoners. The provision was a good one. It needed an
+additional quality, the oversight which compelled it to be carried out.
+
+"If I were to get angry and scold I could hardly have confidence to
+teach you to be gentle and good-tempered. Now, Sarah, as you are only
+here Sunday, let us talk about the crime that brought you into this
+place."
+
+"It wasn't a crime, ma'am. I'm sure I only took from the rich. I never
+lifted from any but the big stores where they lie and steal and make
+fortunes. I never went into any of the little small places, where they
+are trying hard for a living. I wouldn't be guilty of such a mean
+thing."
+
+"Honor among thieves," says the old proverb.
+
+"But it did not belong to you, without regard to the way they got it.
+You gave nothing in return for it."
+
+"It did not belong to them, either. It belonged to me as much as it did
+to them. It would be hard telling who the right owner is. I thought I
+might as well have my share."
+
+"I do not see that you had any share in it. You were taking that for
+which you made no return to any one, and that was stealing."
+
+"If it had belonged to them it would be stealing. They take it, and
+dress their children up, and make a great show on it. My children are as
+good as theirs. Don't you suppose I want them drest up as nice when they
+go to school, and look like other children? I can't earn the things if I
+work ever so hard, so I lift from those that cheat out of others."
+
+"Do you see what examples you are setting them? You are bringing them up
+to be thieves; and instead of the fine things which you covet for them,
+they will be drest in the same uniform that you are."
+
+"Never, ma'am; never! my children shall never be thieves!"
+
+"But they will do as you do."
+
+"No, ma'am, they will not do as I do. They shall not. They go to
+day-school, and to Sunday-school, and say their prayers at night. They
+will never do as their mother does!"
+
+In saying that she choked down the sobs that rose in her throat, and
+brushed off the tears that were gathered in her eyes, just ready to run
+over the hardy old cheeks.
+
+"If they grow up to think differently from what you do,--to look upon
+the sin of stealing as it really is,--they will be greatly grieved that
+you have committed such acts. They will be ashamed of the clothes you
+have stolen for them. Every time they look at them they will think, my
+mother stole this dress. They will think everybody knows that she stole
+it. They will be ashamed to look any one in the face. The other children
+will taunt them with it, and they will be miserable, and they will turn
+it back upon you. They will blush for their mother; then, how can they
+respect or love her!"
+
+If there were a tender spot in that mother's heart I meant to probe it,
+and I succeeded. She covered her face with her hands, and her chest
+heaved. The big tears made their way through her fingers. She was
+determined to brave it out. In a very few moments she mastered her
+emotions, and answered me,--
+
+"They don't know what I do, and they never shall know it."
+
+"Don't they know where you are now?"
+
+"No, ma'am!"
+
+"Where do they think you are?"
+
+"Gone a journey."
+
+"You may deceive them that way for a time; but you are only adding sin
+to sin. God says 'the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon
+the children.' You may be sure that they will know it in the end. It was
+put in the papers when you came here. It is impossible to conceal what
+you have done, and where your sin has brought you."
+
+"I didn't come here in my own name."
+
+"Every one in here knows your real name; so do all of your acquaintances
+outside. You cannot save your children the knowledge and disgrace of
+your crime. Then, consider what you suffer from it."
+
+"I don't care what I suffer, if I can only get the things for them.
+Talking is one thing, and living another. My children shall look as well
+as the best of them they go with."
+
+That one idea had been ground into her mind by the force of her
+associations--the one idea of dress. It was in those above, around,
+below her. She had adopted it unconsciously, irresistibly.
+
+The mother's love and pride were in that woman's heart in all their
+strength, and they had been developed by the circumstances around her.
+She did not care what she suffered if they could only be supplied with
+the good things which she valued because she saw the whole world setting
+the high price upon them. Body and soul might be the sacrifice; no
+matter, so she obtained them. Into what a strangely perverted channel
+had that mother's love run. Was that noblest, best of woman's instincts
+to destroy that woman's human life, and ruin her soul? God knows! He
+also knows how much of her sin rests upon those who profess to be
+following after better things; but have set her the example to make the
+obtaining of dress the business of her life; and placed the temptation
+in her way to do it dishonestly.
+
+How much of the guilt he who causes his brother to offend ought to bear,
+must be decided by the Higher Judgment.
+
+"If God had seen fit to gratify your pride, in your children, He would
+have provided a way for you in which you could have done it honestly. As
+he did not, you ought to have submitted to your lot, and done the best
+that you could."
+
+How hollow those words sounded to me as they came from my lips. How easy
+it is to preach sound doctrine. How hard to make an impression, with it,
+upon minds and hearts established in their own opinions of right and
+wrong, and persistent in the determination to follow the wrong! If I
+could have had that woman under my influence a year, I might have led
+her into different views and ways. She was not wholly hardened, as her
+tears showed.
+
+"God did intend that I should have it, and that was His way of giving it
+to me. He made me light-fingered, and gave me a chance to help myself.
+I'm willing to leave it to Him. I don't believe He will judge me any
+harder than He will those I took it from."
+
+She fell back again upon what others do. I had made no progress in
+dispossessing her of the idea that the wrong of another mitigated her
+own.
+
+"The command reads, '_Thou_ shalt not steal.' If the men that keep those
+large stores steal, you are not responsible for it. It is only for what
+you do that you will be called to give an account."
+
+"Line upon line," I thought. "I hope you will never come in here again."
+
+"I never mean to," and she nodded her head as much as to say, I'll be
+bright enough to avoid that.
+
+"I hope you will never again do the things that brought you here."
+
+"I shall, ma'am. For every day I'm in here, I'll have five dollars out
+of 'em."
+
+She did not say this so vauntingly as she had made the assertion at
+first. Still there was the spirit of retaliation, of revenge, upon some
+one for her punishment.
+
+"In doing that, who do you think you will spite?"
+
+She stopped to think a moment. The question had taken her at unawares.
+
+"I don't know. Them that put me here."
+
+"But if you go into their store, they will know you, and watch you, and
+you will get caught again."
+
+"Then I'll have it out of some of the rest of them."
+
+"How will that spite the ones that sent you here?"
+
+"They're all alike. It won't make any difference which I take it from."
+
+"They are not all alike, any more than you and I are alike because we,
+just now, happen to be in the same place. If you go out of here and
+steal again, you spite yourself, and the punishment for it will fall
+upon your own head, and on the heads of those poor children that you
+have brought into the world. Those poor little things that are bone of
+your bone, and flesh of your flesh. Does not the mother-heart melt
+within you in pity for those children when they come to find out that
+their mother is a thief? O Sarah, if you are not afraid of God's
+judgment, which is the most fearful thing that can overtake you, let
+your children be in your thoughts when you go to take what is not your
+own, and turn you from your wicked purpose."
+
+"She tells ye the truth," said McMullins. "And only think of me! Here I
+am, the mither of five beautiful chilter as ye ever set eyes on. And me
+heart is sick after them. The lads are with the father, and the little
+girls are in the alms house. Only think what a mither I am! I have
+ruined meself for life, and damned me soul to hell forever."
+
+"I don't believe anything about a hell," said Lissett. But she moved
+uneasily on her seat. It was easy to shake off the terror at the end of
+her tongue; but it was to be seen that she was haunted by a fear of it
+in a conscience not quite seared.
+
+"Indade, there is. The praist has always told me that, and I've got it
+already whin I think what a mither I've been. God pity! God pity me!"
+This she said amidst sobs and tears.
+
+"What kind of a wife were you, McMullins?"
+
+"I don't care so much for the old man, he used to bate me sometimes, and
+he says he'll never live wid me any more. The minister went to see him
+for me, and he told him I had disgraced him; that he was fond of me
+once, but I had disgraced him, and put the chilter in the almshouse, and
+he would live wid me no more. Do you think he will? Only think what a
+miserable wife I've been! God pity me!"
+
+"What did you come in here for McMullins?"
+
+"It was all for a gallon measure, and a pint of beer. I wint in a store,
+and there stood a gallon measure, and a pint of ale widin it. An' sure I
+drank the beer like a sinsible woman; but I didn't know what to do wid
+the gallon measure, and I carried it to a policeman, and told him to
+take it. An' sure he brought me wid it to the watch-house, and thin, to
+the court, an' sure they gave me a year. Wasn't it too bad to give me
+the making of a year in here for jist a pint of beer and a gallon
+measure? Wasn't it a long sintence for a pint of beer, and a gallon
+measure?"
+
+"I think you must have had something before you took the pint of beer
+and the gallon measure?"
+
+"An' sure I had; but it was on that I lost my sinses, and got me
+sintence."
+
+"You have been here before, havn't you?"
+
+"An' sure I have."
+
+"You were put here, probably, to keep you out of the way of temptation.
+If you were out you would, probably, take another pint of beer and
+gallon measure the first thing you did."
+
+"I don't believe I could help it."
+
+"I don't think you could."
+
+I turned to one of the other women and asked: "What are you in here for,
+O'Sullivan?"
+
+"For a home," said the slide woman, sharply.
+
+"You must have a curious taste to choose this for a home."
+
+"I had no other. The man what's the father of my child told me to steal
+a dress, and get in here, and be taken care of. I stole the dress, and
+he informed on me, and I came here."
+
+"Why didn't he take care of you himself, after bringing that trouble
+upon you?"
+
+"He couldn't. He give me all his earnings; but couldn't get work enough
+to do it all."
+
+"An' sure he's nothing but a miserable drunkard hisself," said
+McMullins.
+
+"It don't become the likes of you to say much about it if he is!"
+snapped back O'Sullivan.
+
+A poor, old reprobate, from the wash-house, whose hair was once red, now
+gray, sat next.
+
+"What are you here for, granny?" I asked.
+
+"An' sure they swore a theft on me. I didn't desarve it. I lived with a
+German family on Rust Street. They missed a solid hundred dollars, and I
+never saw it no more nor a child unborn. But they got the sintence of
+ten years on me."
+
+"How long have you been here, granny?"
+
+"Since seven years last Christmas."
+
+A long sentence, if it is the first one. I was sure it was not. A long
+life full of transgressions of the law stretched itself upon her past
+history.
+
+"What are you here for, Nellie?" I asked a girl not twenty.
+
+"A handsome Balmoral skirt took my fancy, and I'm here for it. I took a
+sup of liquor, and I was as rich as a Jew. I thought the Balmoral and
+all that I saw was mine."
+
+"It is glorious to feel so rich!" said Lissett. "I mean to get a sup of
+liquor before I get back into the city."
+
+"And be brought directly back here again."
+
+"I shall have that one time on them."
+
+"On yourself, you mean. It is all on yourself. The law does not suffer,
+nor do those who execute it, for your being here."
+
+It was evidently a new aspect of the subject that they were the greatest
+sufferers for their misdoing.
+
+"It plagues them, or they wouldn't put me here."
+
+"It is not because you plague them; it is because that you injure others
+that you are put here."
+
+The spirit of revenge, upon some one, for the punishment they were
+receiving, was the one that was uppermost in their minds. Revenge
+against those whom they had injured in the beginning; against those who
+made the laws, or the officials who executed them. Their idea of revenge
+was to commit the same deed again.
+
+"Don't you all feel ashamed of what you have done," I asked, "when you
+think of it?"
+
+"Yes, we do, that's the truth," said Annie O'Brien. "But's of no use.
+Nobody will ever think anything of us again, after we have been in here,
+and its no use to try to do any better; and we just do as bad as we
+can."
+
+"But the All-seeing Eye is watching you, and, if you try to do right,
+will help you along. And in the life to come, where all hearts are
+known, you will get your recompense. Then, if you are really trying to
+do right you will be thought of and loved."
+
+"It is a great while to wait for that, and it is hard."
+
+"I know it is hard; but it cannot be long. It may be that we go at any
+moment; and then, it is forever and forever."
+
+"If we could only keep that in our minds--but we forget it."
+
+"You cannot of yourself. But if you ask the Father of your spirit to
+take your thoughts under his control, He will, and help you to think."
+
+Poor things! They were ignorant of the way to control themselves. They
+had few to teach them in it, and none to help them in their personal
+efforts to overcome the evil dispositions so long indulged in.
+
+That night, when I went into the hospital, for the closing inspection,
+the nurse was grumbling about the trouble one of the women had given
+her.
+
+"Indeed, ma'am, this is the awfullest place a woman can get into!"
+
+I thought I would give her a hint that it was her own misdoings that
+brought her there.
+
+"What brought you in here, Mary?" I asked.
+
+"I made my fingers too nimble with a man's pocket-book."
+
+"You did! then you don't deserve a very good place, do you?"
+
+"I have got my pay for it."
+
+"How came you to do such a thing?"
+
+"He left some money with me to keep, and I did keep it so as he couldn't
+get it again. He got drunk, and I thought perhaps he wouldn't remember
+it again."
+
+"Men don't forget their money so easily."
+
+"So I found to my cost."
+
+"What did you do with the money?"
+
+"I spent it for things that I wanted."
+
+"You will hardly try that again if you ever have the chance."
+
+"No, ma'am! I could have earned the two hundred and eighty dollars that
+I took in half the time I have been here, and had my liberty too."
+
+"You knew it was wrong when you took the money and used it?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; but I wanted the things, and the money was in my hand to
+buy 'em. The things would be of use; and I knew that drunken fellow
+would waste it if he had it."
+
+Another specimen of specious reasoning; nor is that kind of reasoning
+confined to convicts.
+
+"It was not yours; you had no right to it, and that ought to have been
+sufficient for you. If he wasted it in drunkenness that was his sin, not
+yours. You could have restrained him through the laws that punish
+drunkenness. You could have told him how wrong he was doing, and set him
+a better example. Instead of that you stole, and he got drunk. You made
+yourself as bad as he."
+
+"I did not think of that."
+
+"I hope this has taught you a lesson that you will never forget,--one
+that will make you think. Before you had this punishment you had not the
+strength to resist the temptation to take the money. Now you will always
+remember what you have suffered here, and you will not be likely to do
+it again."
+
+"No, ma'am, I don't think I shall. This is harder than working for a
+living outside, besides the rough handling we get. A poor living at
+that, and poorer clothes. And you officers don't fare much better. You
+get a little better feed, and a better bed, and a little pay; but not so
+much rest; and you are in as close confinement as we are."
+
+"But we are not prisoners; we can go if we like."
+
+"What do you stay here for; you don't seem fit for such work, and you
+might earn a great deal more outside, and not work so hard?"
+
+"I may be able to teach a few of you, poor things, to live right when
+you go outside, and that will be better to me than money."
+
+"God bless you! that is what we want. There is many a one of us would be
+glad to live right if we knew how."
+
+"There are some that only grow harder for coming here, and do as bad
+again, and come back."
+
+"O, yes! they think they're prison birds, and there's nothing more for
+'em in this world, and they don't care. Nobody likes to have such as we
+about 'em."
+
+"But there are people that would help you to lead a better life, and
+earn an honest living, if you could find them."
+
+"They might find us, but it is hard for us to find them."
+
+That was a very true remark. Our prisons are prominent institutions in
+the land. It is easy for any one who is interested in the cause of
+humanity to find them; but to get access to them is a more difficult
+undertaking, as many can testify who have attempted it. I leave them to
+tell their own tale, and let it bear its own testimony. It is easy to
+find the poor wretches who are compelled to take up their abode within
+them, and do them good if one wills.
+
+What a page of life was revealed to me in that one day! What a work is
+there here for you to do, O women of this broad land, for your fellow
+woman, if you will address yourselves to it!
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIV.
+
+                   INSPECTION OF PRIVATE APARTMENTS.
+
+
+It required the exercise of a large share of physical courage to enter,
+and examine into the condition of the private apartments of my boarders.
+
+I shrank away from the task in loathing. Low, narrow, confined, they
+were like the cages of wild animals.
+
+The human odor of the occupants had penetrated the walls and made the
+air noisome. They were ventilated through the bars of the door, and an
+aperture of five or six inches in diameter in the inner wall of the
+cell; but being used for all purposes, they would have remained
+uncleansed had every care been taken.
+
+I went to the door of one, and looked in. I shivered, dreaded to enter,
+turned away. I went along to another. It looked comparatively tidy. A
+little white cloth embroidered around the edge with gay-colored thread,
+was laid carefully over the box. I stood and looked in while I reasoned
+with myself to screw my courage to the sticking point.
+
+I put my head within the door, the bugs were crawling along the walls,
+and the white-wash was spotted with marks of the violent death which
+had befallen many of them the night before. Again I shrank back in
+disgust. I called the white-wash woman to come with her brush and cover
+up the filthy sight, if she could not cleanse the dirt away.
+
+If the sight is so revolting, what must it be to sleep among them, to be
+lodged with, and fed upon by them. I worked up my feelings of pity for
+the poor prisoners till my disgust was partially overcome.
+
+The rats and mice can come in at the open doors, and there is no
+obstacle to such ingress of bed-bugs. Indeed such armies of them as I
+beheld could hardly have made their entrance in any other way. There
+they were in swarms, and had planted their colonies upon the solid brick
+and mortar, granite and iron, industriously, as the busy bee prepares
+her dormitory.
+
+There is no ill to which the flesh is heir which has not been endured by
+the flesh. What has been endured by one flesh may be by another. In this
+case under modifying circumstances. Truly I can bear the sight of these
+vermin, and attend to their destruction with much less suffering than
+those poor women can be made their prey night after night.
+
+My indignation was aroused against those who had charge of this place,
+and who, in their neglect, had allowed these dens for the confinement of
+human beings to become breeding nests of vermin. That indignation gave
+me courage and energy for my task. I set one of my sweeps to the work of
+slaughter. I stood by and directed the cleansing with shivers of
+disgust creeping along my flesh, and thrills of indignation stirring my
+heart.
+
+When the Deputy came round, I gave vent to my feelings in a side-thrust
+of sarcasm. I stated to him the condition in which I found the cells,
+and then asked,--
+
+"Did these bed-bugs get a sentence here for life; or did they come, a
+special beneficence to the prisoners, by an order approved by the
+Board?"
+
+"We have the beds taken down, and filled with new straw in the spring,
+and the cells white-washed, and the frames washed. It has just been
+done, you know."
+
+"To what purpose you can see. It could not have been properly done. If
+it had they would not have recruited so quickly."
+
+"I will give you a bed-bug woman, whose special business it shall be to
+look after and exterminate them."
+
+"Some poor old cripple, I suppose, who would be an additional care. It
+is no matter about the woman."
+
+I was vexed that the cells had been allowed to get into such a
+condition. "It is very disagreeable to make them clean. I can keep Berry
+at the work. If I do not keep her hands busy her tongue is hatching
+mischief. If I do not keep her at work I can't keep the track of her.
+She is over to the wash-house, down to the shop, or hospital, gossiping,
+and carrying news."
+
+Berry was the white-wash woman. After the other two "sweeps," or prison
+chambermaids, had swept the cells, and walks, her work was to go around
+with her white-wash brush, and cover up any soil or stains which had
+been left upon them.
+
+"Suit yourself. I will do all I can for you."
+
+"Thank you! If I could have one smart, healthy woman in the kitchen, it
+would help me very much."
+
+"O, a smart woman! we must have the smart women in the shop. We can't
+spare you a shop hand."
+
+"I have enough that are maimed and halt, and blind, now."
+
+"You know a greenback covers every bundle of contract work that is done
+in the shop," he said, with a knowing wink.
+
+"And the women must be made to help support the institution. There may
+be various ways of doing that. Greenbacks may look very nice to you men;
+but will not the health and reformation of those woman be as much money
+in the treasury of the state as the greenbacks which cover that contract
+work?"
+
+"That is the Master's order. He is bound up in that contract work. He
+knows just how much each woman does. He examines the tickets himself,
+every morning."
+
+"Would you work the women in that way if you were Master here?"
+
+"I am not."
+
+"Just let me tell you what an able-bodied corps I have in the kitchen.
+Old Allen, the steam woman, has a broken wrist. The cook is lame in one
+of her hips. One of the sink women has fits; the women say, the other is
+a 'poor weak thing.' One of the slide women is in that condition which
+some women, of the class that are here, find themselves without a lord,
+and always demands consideration. Another has just got up from her
+confinement. One of the sweeps is blind of one eye, and can't see with
+the other. The only able-bodied woman that I have complains that I put
+every hard thing upon her to do."
+
+The Deputy laughed good humoredly at my description, and said,--
+
+"I will see what I can do for you; but I'm sure the Master will not be
+willing to spare you one of his shop hands."
+
+To get a large amount of contract work done, and show the figures that
+were received for it, was the Master's way of recommending himself to
+the Board of Directors; and it was what enabled him to keep his place.
+
+It must be an apparent fact to the most shallow comprehension, that
+dollars and cents are essential to the welfare of humanity; but there
+are various ways of calculating their benefit.
+
+The "almighty dollar" enlarges and increases in value, as it is
+contemplated, and its advantages dwelt upon. In the same ratio does an
+appreciation of human suffering decrease as it becomes familiar to the
+observation. The Master had evidently been through the mental process in
+both directions. The dollar had grown till it covered the whole surface
+of human life; the suffering had diminished till it became a mere speck
+in the distant view which he took of it.
+
+"Let me have Callahan?" I proposed.
+
+"I don't believe it would be best," and he shook his head wisely. "You
+would get along with her, and she would make you no trouble; but it
+wouldn't be a week before she would be in a broil with the other women,
+and I should be obliged to lock her up."
+
+"When she was in here before, she was in the kitchen four months,
+without being locked up, wasn't she? She gets locked up where she is
+now."
+
+He saw that I was informed upon Callahan's past history. She did a great
+deal of work in the shop; the Master would not be willing to spare her.
+He knew that to transfer her to the kitchen would be to interfere with
+Mrs. Hardhack's plan of breaking her temper, and she would resist her
+removal. His influence was not strong enough to overcome that of the two
+combined. He shook his head,--
+
+"I'm afraid I cannot, and I do not think it would be best." He
+understood how to make his refusal palatable. "I think you are getting
+along well. I have been intending to tell you that I am satisfied with
+your management. The kitchen is clean and quiet; and the meals are
+prompt, much more so than they were for a long time before you came.
+They are well cooked, too."
+
+"Thank you! but my women are worked beyond endurance. It makes my heart
+ache to see those poor cripples lifting out tubs of swill that two men
+could scarce handle; and bucketful after bucketful of that large, heavy
+coal from the cellar, with all of their other lifting and scrubbing."
+
+"I'll see what can I do about sending you another woman. Do the best you
+can!"
+
+"I will certainly do that."
+
+After he had gone out, O'Brien said to me,--
+
+"The Deputy wouldn't be hard on us, if he could help it."
+
+I did the best I could. I told them I was sorry to make them work so
+hard; but I could not help it. I asked them to do things, when I could
+possibly do it, rather than give a command.
+
+When I had time I gave them a reason, for an order, and however tired
+they might be, that was sure to secure ready and prompt acquiescence.
+
+"You must get on more steam as quick as you can, because we are a little
+behind time with our dinner," was sure to set Allen's fire going at
+once.
+
+If I came in, and found them sitting down, idly gossiping away the time
+before their work was done, I had only to say,--
+
+"Now, girls, start round, and get your work done; then, you can sit down
+and talk. A clean room is so much pleasanter than a dirty one to me, and
+I want my place to look the nicest of any one in the institution, and
+you wish me to have the credit of its being so. You like to have all of
+the visitors taken in to see the kitchen because it looks so nice."
+
+They would put the work about very quickly. Scrub and dust, and make the
+old kitchen shine like a new one in a twinkling.
+
+They were keen enough to fathom character, and took no advantage of my
+manner. They were conciliated; but did not lose the restraint of
+authority. They knew it was there, and could be used if necessary.
+
+They never gave me impertinence; nor refused to obey when an order came
+directly from me.
+
+That inspection day was a literal washing of the great Master's feet;
+not with my tears of penitence, but with the bitter remnants of pride
+and anger subdued to patience? My work was even more humiliating. It was
+that of the dogs, at the temple gate, cleansing the sores of the vagrant
+Lazarus.
+
+The prisoners were allowed the condiments of salt, pepper, and vinegar.
+Their boxes and bottles were filled every Thursday. That was to last
+till the next Thursday. If they were wasted, or extravagantly used, they
+were obliged to go without till the replenishing day came. To attend to
+that was one of the duties of the chambermaids.
+
+I was obliged to look after it or they would scatter and waste their
+allowance, and then play off on me. They would call to me,--
+
+"I want salt; there was none put in my box."
+
+That would be done from pure mischief, to get the sweeps a scolding.
+But I gave them little chance to carry out their mischief in that way. I
+had the answer ready,--
+
+"It was put there. I have been in every room to-day and saw it there. If
+it is gone you have wasted it, and must go without."
+
+"I haven't wasted it."
+
+"Wasn't it your pepper and salt that was strewed on the shop-floor
+to-day?"
+
+That hint that I was after them, and knew what they were about, was
+sufficient. There were no more complaints made.
+
+Every woman was obliged to make, and tie up, her own bed. The prison
+women swept the rooms every morning. That gave them an opportunity to
+secrete many a nice bit for their friends. Indeed my sweeps ran a
+regular underground bakery express from the Masters kitchen, and also
+from the prisoners'.
+
+Many a nice biscuit and slice of cake went from the range to the cells,
+and bread from my table was provided against mush morning, and
+brown-bread breakfasts.
+
+Onions were a favorite vegetable, but their telltale odor enabled me to
+detect them easily.
+
+One evening, I passed a cell where they gave out unmistakable evidence
+of their presence. I called to one of the sweeps,--
+
+"Ellen, the gardener has made a mistake! He has put the onions, for the
+soup to-morrow, in one of those cells. Won't you take them out, and put
+them in the cellar. If one of the other Matrons, or the Deputy, were to
+come in, they would smell them as plainly as I do, and they might think
+you put them there for some one to eat privately, and get you reported."
+
+That hint was sufficient; I never smelt onions in the cells again.
+
+The officers professed to take no report from one prisoner against
+another; but when they got angry with a prisoner, and wished to remove
+her from their department, they did not scruple to avail themselves of
+information obtained in that way. Berry, my white-washer, was an apt
+agent. Sly, artful, and treacherous, she pretended sympathy, and got
+possession of knowledge which was Mrs. Hardhack's principal clew to find
+out what was going on in the kitchen and prison.
+
+The other women understood, and avoided her. That made her angry, and
+the more watchful and treacherous.
+
+One day she found a biscuit from the officers' table in a cell. She
+reasoned that Flannagan must have put it there, because Flannagan and
+the girl in whose cell she found it were great friends. That morning the
+Housekeeper had been fretted with Flannagan, and Berry had got wind of
+it. Here was the opportunity to exercise her vocation. She slipped the
+biscuit under her apron, took it into the officers' kitchen, and showed
+it to the Housekeeper.
+
+Flannagan must have done it, because she had given offense in the
+morning; and she was forthwith dismissed to the shop.
+
+A woman who came in a few days before, on a long sentence, had been
+discovered to be a nice needle-woman, smart and pretty; whereas
+Flannagan was plain and slow. Occasion was thus made to effect the
+change, so my women said. And what they failed to find out in that
+institution was beyond investigation.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XV.
+
+                        A DAY OF ODDS AND ENDS.
+
+
+The day commenced at odds. In the morning Mrs. Hardhack came flying into
+the kitchen, and demanded, from O'Brien, something for one of her girls
+to eat.
+
+"She has fainted away for the want of food! She has had no breakfast!
+How did you dare to keep her breakfast from her!"
+
+O'Brien kept her temper wonderfully. She answered very quietly,--
+
+"I'm sure she had the same as the rest if she had been a mind to taken
+it."
+
+"How do you dare to stand there and answer me in that way? I'll have you
+punished if you dare to open your mouth again."
+
+O'Brien's face grew red, she opened her lips to retort just as I arrived
+to where they stood. I stepped between them.
+
+"O'Brien, will you get a bucket of coal? I want more steam as soon as I
+can have it."
+
+"Yes, ma'am," and she started away; but she looked up at me as she went
+as much to say, you have saved me.
+
+I turned to Mrs. Hardhack.
+
+"I'm sorry one of your girls couldn't eat her breakfast; you know it is
+impossible for me to get anything aside from the Master's orders, and
+what the rest have. I'll see if I can find her something."
+
+"We have got so much contract work to get done to-night, and, if the
+women faint away, they can't do it."
+
+"I should be glad to provide them a good, substantial breakfast to work
+on; but I can't have my way about it. It is very cruel to feed them as
+they are fed here; and then, to work them as they are worked."
+
+I thought, as I went to look up something for her to take to the poor
+girl, of the remark John Randolph made to his lady neighbor, when he
+entered her house and found her at work for the Greeks, "The Greeks are
+at your door." He had entered the house through a little army of naked,
+ignorant servants.
+
+Do not the ladies of the United States need to be reminded that the
+Greeks are at their door? Are they not in every prison in the land?
+
+I went into the pantry. There was a skillet pan standing on the shelf
+with a bone in it. I took it out and inquired,--
+
+"Whose bone is this?"
+
+"It is mine," said Lissett.
+
+"Will you give it to the woman in the shop who fainted this morning
+because she had no breakfast?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am!"
+
+"Bring a slice of bread, and quart of coffee to go with it."
+
+Handing it to Mrs. Hardhack, I dispatched her as quickly as possible. I
+was glad when she departed. Her visits to the kitchen were very
+disagreeable. She always managed to use the "irritating language,"
+forbidden by the Board in their "Rules and Regulations," which stirred
+up the angry feelings of my women, and it took time and argument to get
+them settled down into calmness and quiet again.
+
+"If it hadn't been for you, I should have been in solitary again," said
+O'Brien, after she left. "How I hate that woman!"
+
+"And so do I, and so do I!" was echoed round the room.
+
+"If you hate such ways never copy them!"
+
+"What's the use in scolding us! She knows we can't help the victuals. If
+she wants to scold anybody she'd better scold the Master."
+
+"He'd sauce her back again; and then, both of 'em would get locked up.
+Wouldn't you like to see 'em both locked up?" said Lissett.
+
+"Yes, that I should!" was echoed all around.
+
+"I'd like to cut the bread for 'em," said O'Brien. "The slices would be
+thin."
+
+"I would draw small quarts of water," said Lissett.
+
+"Hush, girls! Don't you know that you are now indulging in the very
+temper that looks so hateful to you when you see it in others."
+
+Scarcely was I relieved of Mrs. Hardhack's anti-benign influence, when
+the Receiving Matron made her appearance, and asked, although in a very
+different manner,--
+
+"Why didn't the women bring over their clothes?"
+
+"What clothes?"
+
+"Their sheets to be washed. This is their day. They take them from their
+beds when they get up, and carry them to the wash-house as they go down
+to the shop. My women, and the four who were sent up from the shop to
+help them, have lost an hour by the delay. I don't mind about mine; but
+the shop women will be late back; and then, I shall be complained of
+that I did not drive them hard enough, and get the work out of them
+sooner."
+
+"I didn't know anything about it. If you had told me last night I would
+have attended to it. Some of the women asked me if they should take out
+their sheets; but I didn't know what they meant, and told them I would
+see. I will send the sweeps to gather them up immediately, and send them
+over."
+
+"I forgot to tell you last night. They won't blame you but me; there is
+the trouble. I hate to have the Master come around, and find fault."
+
+"Are you afraid of him?"
+
+"No! I'm not a prisoner; but I always feel uncomfortable where he is,
+don't you?"
+
+"I have only seen him once or twice; and then I was very much inclined
+to laugh at the pompous airs he put on; but a sense of propriety
+restrained me."
+
+"I had a great deal rather not see him, especially, when he comes to
+find fault."
+
+"He ought not to find fault with you in this instance. You are under no
+obligation to teach me the duties of my department. If you attend to the
+work in your own you do your duty."
+
+"I know that, but I can't help myself. He says I am here to do whatever
+he orders me, and that I must do it if I stay. I am a widow, and have a
+boy to support, so I try to do all I can."
+
+"He knows that?"
+
+"Yes, they all know it."
+
+"And he takes advantage of it to compel you to do his wife's work while
+he gets the pay for it."
+
+"That is the plain English of the whole thing."
+
+"But you can get more pay outside for less work than you do here."
+
+"Perhaps so, if I knew how to find it; but I never have been so
+fortunate as to find it before."
+
+I had gone out into the prison as I was talking with her, and stood at
+the door a moment after she had passed out; but there was no chance for
+rest during my watch. There came the sound of scolding and contention
+after me, and recalled me to the kitchen. I hurried back. The fear that
+some of them would get into a quarrel, beyond my reach to control,
+always haunted me.
+
+"What is the matter?" I called out at the door.
+
+"The cook is so slow we shall never get this swill out, and I am trying
+to hurry her," said the sink woman. "She hinders me so I shall never get
+my work done."
+
+"I can't do no faster than I can," called back the sink woman. "It is no
+use hurrying me."
+
+"Stop! both of you! Lissett, you know Jennie is slow, and you must have
+patience with her. Do I not have patience with you? You only make
+matters worse by fretting. Jennie, you are slow. When you carry swill
+with Lissett, go as fast as you can, so as not to hinder her; then rest
+when you get through."
+
+"Do come along!" fretted Lissett, "You are enough to fret a saint."
+
+"That can't be you, Lissett. Haven't I told you, many a time, that you
+ought to help each other along, instead of scolding and fretting at each
+other."
+
+"It is hard work to drag her, and the swill tub too."
+
+"Then go a little slower, and give her a chance to do her part. There is
+one thing that I wish to do myself, and that is the scolding, and I
+don't wish to have you take it out of my hands."
+
+"If you do it all there won't get much of it done."
+
+"There will be enough. I do not need help. And I can suit myself much
+better in doing it than any one else can suit me. In future, Lissett,
+you and Annie O'Brien will carry the swill together. Then you can both
+work as fast as you please. Jennie, you and Allen may carry together;
+you can be as slow as you please. I wish to hear no more trouble over
+the swill."
+
+I intended to arrange their work so as to avoid all collision; but I
+sometimes failed. When I had put those, whom I thought to be the best of
+friends, at work together, some little difference would arise and
+separate them.
+
+Directly I had a call in the prison. Berry could not get on with her
+white-washing, because Maggie had not done her sweeping, and came to me
+with a complaint,--
+
+"Maggie won't sweep, and that keeps me waiting. Won't you tell her to
+sweep so I can white-wash?"
+
+"Maggie, why don't you sweep so that Berry can white-wash?"
+
+"I am, ma'am, as fast as I can. I have got all of the rooms to do before
+I do the floor."
+
+"You need not wait, Berry. Take a broom and help her."
+
+That was something that Berry did not calculate upon.
+
+"If Maggie would get up in season she could get her work done herself;
+she loves her bed too well."
+
+"I have told you of a way to get your work done if you do not wish to
+wait."
+
+"You favor Maggie too much, and the other Matrons all say so. You ought
+to get her up in the morning, they all say."
+
+"Take a broom and sweep that platform! Don't bring any tales to me from
+the other Matrons! When I wish you to teach me how to treat the women, I
+will ask you."
+
+Berry chose to consider herself a very much injured woman, and began to
+snivel and grumble.
+
+"I am going down to the shop to work. Maggie is so saucy I can't get
+along with her." She dared not express her disaffection towards me.
+
+"Well, Berry, when you find yourself so much your own mistress as to go
+where you please, I will give you 'a character,' and you may go to the
+shop to work."
+
+"What kind of a character?" asked O'Brien, who happened along at that
+moment.
+
+"A good one. You are a pretty good woman, Berry. There is one fault
+which I think might be corrected by going to the shop. You are very much
+disposed to tattle, and that sometimes makes mischief. If you go to the
+shop, where you are not allowed to speak at all, you can't do that kind
+of mischief. That would save me, if it did not yourself, a great deal of
+trouble."
+
+I heard no more about going to the shop.
+
+The kitchen was quiet after dinner and the work, before supper, done. I
+threw my head back, in the large chair in which I was resting, and
+drowsed.
+
+The women sat buzzing, on low stools, just behind me. I had been too
+sleepy to notice what they were saying; finally a word or two that I
+heard attracted me to listen.
+
+"Was you here, O'Brien?" asked Maggie; "when Ida Jones was pulled into
+the hospital by the hair of her head?"
+
+"Yes, I was, and I saw it with my two eyes. The Master pulled her by the
+hair of her head, and kicked her as he went along the walk; and she a
+poor, half-witted thing too. That was six weeks ago, and she has been in
+the hospital ever since."
+
+I was wide awake--thoroughly aroused when that story was completed.
+
+"Maggie Murray, do you mean to say that you saw the Master pull Ida
+Jones along the walk, by the hair of her head, and kick her as he pulled
+her? You ought to be very careful how you tell such stories, unless they
+are true."
+
+"It is the truth, ma'am!" said several of them in a breath.
+
+"He took her by her pug, like this," and she took hold of the coil of
+hair on the back of O'Brien's head, "and dragged her along. We all saw
+it, and the Housekeeper saw it, and she said he ought to be reported to
+the Board. And that Matron, that skinny person, I forget her name, that
+was here, she saw it. There were a plenty that saw it. When you go down
+to the hospital, you can ask Ida what is the matter, and she will tell
+you so too."
+
+"What did he do it for?"
+
+"She said she was dead with work--she could not sit at it another
+minute--she was ready to fall; and Hardhack reported her; and the Master
+was so mad,--some of 'em said so drunk,--he dragged her himself out of
+the shop, all of the way to the Hospital."
+
+My face must have expressed the horror that I felt.
+
+"Indeed it is the truth, ma'am!" said O'Brien. "The Master was crazy to
+get a lot of work done that night, and it made him awful mad to lose a
+hand."
+
+I asked myself if it were possible that that man would dare to abuse the
+trust reposed in him in that manner. Certainly! The whole system of
+secrecy upon which our prisons are managed is just calculated to screen
+such conduct, and to induce the practice of it, if there be a tendency,
+in the disposition of the man who has charge, to do it. If the testimony
+of prisoners is not to be relied upon, a Master could make it for the
+interest of his officers to remain silent. Some might look at it in the
+same light that he did, and feel perfectly satisfied.
+
+Why should not a prisoner's testimony be taken in a matter where he is
+concerned? He has been tried and convicted of an offense. Is that fact a
+conviction in every other case where he may have difficulty with another
+person?
+
+If prisoners are entirely unworthy of trust, how does it happen that
+such a man, once a convict himself, according to the traditions of that
+prison, has charge there, and the unlimited confidence of the Board?
+
+I noticed, in making out the report of inmates, that there were not so
+many women as men in prison. There was satisfaction in obtaining that
+fact, because I had entertained the idea that women were more frequently
+punished for their offenses than men.
+
+It was a mistake, except in the one crime of licentiousness. In that man
+goes comparatively free, and woman is the only sufferer in what is, to
+say the least, their mutual sin. I say, almost every woman will say, and
+with truth, for the sin that man leads her into.
+
+Woman does not seek man, in that way, in the first instance. He draws
+her into the sin, and when she becomes abandoned, and the Penitentiary
+brings her up, she is no worse than he. She becomes a night-walker, and
+suffers for her violation of law. He is a night-walker also, as
+miserable and degraded a man as she is woman; but who prosecutes him,
+and gives him a sentence in the House of Correction! He continues a
+night-walker unmolested while she suffers for her sin.
+
+He walks into the parlors of the intellectually cultivated, and socially
+refined,--I was about to say virtuous woman. There can be little virtue
+in such shaky morality. I can only say of the chaste woman, and she
+takes the hand of the night-walker, and greets him cordially, and makes
+him welcome, especially if he be rich,--the hand that leads her fellow
+woman to her social ruin if not to her eternal death.
+
+If woman were to help make the laws, could she remedy this state of
+things,--would she? Would she take her husband, father, brother from his
+home to the Penitentiary? She must do that, in order to rid society of
+the pest of night-walking. She may do that now if she will. The law
+gives her the opportunity. Instead of lavishing her courtesies, as she
+now does, upon the male offender, she might extend her charity in kindly
+assistance to his victim, if she were disposed to do it.
+
+To judge by the way she treats him now, if she were to assist in making
+laws would she not be still more unjust than she now is, to her own sex,
+and lenient to the other.
+
+If man go unpunished, of human law, for this sin, justice will find him
+out sooner or later. God pity him when his retribution comes! The
+avenging of a guilty conscience will work him greater woe than the
+miseries of a prison can inflict.
+
+As I sat in the prison this evening reviewing my day's work, I counted
+up my occupations.
+
+I am Housekeeper, Engineer, Overseer, Jailer, Porter, Usher, Sentinel,
+and many others which I did not enumerate.
+
+Irksome as was the handling of keys to me, it was quite an entertainment
+to see myself answering the knock of the gentlemen in striped uniform,
+letting them into my kitchen, and following them around, like a page
+after a prince; and then, letting them out. I hardly think they get such
+attendances in the outside world.
+
+Rotation in duties, and reversion in offices was the order of the place.
+I was Usher to the prisoners; my sweeps were stationed on the stone
+stairs, when the prisoners were in their cells, and the kitchen door
+locked, to open it if there were a knock on the outside, and to lock it
+again after the officer who entered.
+
+Sittings on the stone stairs could hardly have been comfortable
+accommodations. I was reminded of that fact this evening, by hearing
+Ellen whisper when she heard a knock,--
+
+"I hate to get up,--I've just got my seat warm."
+
+"Every back is fitted to its burden," is an old proverb. I wondered if
+those prisoners had been provided by a beneficent Providence, of some
+kind, with an extra amount of animal heat, in order to warm up the
+stones they lived on during their incarceration.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XVI.
+
+                               A FRIGHT.
+
+
+Supernumerary was in the habit of sending to me for my No. 5 key
+occasionally. She said it let her through from the house into the attic
+of the prison.
+
+I could not imagine what she wished to go through there for. I finally
+settled down upon the supposition that she wished to supervise the
+prisoners' rooms at her convenience, and see if I kept them in order,
+and made the poor things as comfortable as possible.
+
+The mystery was unraveled when she took me up to show me the room of the
+Receiving Officer which she wished to have cleaned. She pointed to a
+large closet on the same flat, where she packed away summer articles of
+use in the fall, and winter ones in the spring, which she said my 5 key
+locked.
+
+I had given her the credit of one generous deed too many. Still,
+although she went through on her own business she did have an eye to
+cast about upon the affairs of the prison.
+
+One night, about eight o'clock, after she had been using this key in the
+afternoon, I was on the third flight of stairs. The Deputy went rushing
+past me, in great perturbation, looking deathly pale.
+
+"What is the matter, sir? pray what is the matter?" I asked, as I turned
+back to follow him.
+
+"Mrs. Martin says she heard some one in solitary, this afternoon, in one
+of the upper cells; and there has been no one put in for three days."
+
+"And I have fed no one up there for three days!" I exclaimed in an agony
+of apprehension. The second thought followed fast upon the first. "It
+cannot be, Mr. Deputy! I have passed those doors several times a day,
+and the sweeps sleep next to the black cells. No woman would stay there
+three days and nights without letting it be known. If there had been any
+one there I should not have forgotten her, and I don't think you would."
+
+"Mrs. Martin says she heard her talk and sing this afternoon."
+
+"It cannot be! She has been very cool to make no mention of it till
+now."
+
+But the thought of my having left any one so long in solitary, without
+food, took my strength from me. My limbs trembled; I sunk upon the
+steps.
+
+"It cannot be, Mr. Deputy, that we have been so careless! Mrs. Martin
+has been very cool about it. She had my key about three; it is now after
+eight. No woman who had been in solitary three days without food would
+be merry enough to sing."
+
+He slackened his pace; but still said,--
+
+"I am going to see!"
+
+When he came down I asked him what he found.
+
+"An empty cell," he said quietly.
+
+Mrs. Hardhack did not let her superior officer off so easily.
+
+"I wish that woman could ever exercise a little common sense!" was her
+gentle comment.
+
+"She is Head Matron of this institution,--you ought to speak of your
+superiors with respect;" was my sarcastic rejoinder. I could not choke
+down the remark.
+
+The Deputy showed his humanity by looking into the matter as soon as it
+was told him, as much as such testimony, in his favor, is to the
+disadvantage of the brilliant and energetic Head of the female
+department of the prison.
+
+That man was very acute in his management to get along pleasantly with
+the officers; and obtain from them what service he wished. If he exacted
+labor of us, that he had no right to ask, he made the exaction tolerable
+by his manner.
+
+One day we were without a Receiving Matron. On that day I had had the
+promise of having my kitchen white-washed, and had made my arrangements
+for it, so as to make it as easy for the women as I could, while it was
+going on.
+
+I expected to take the Receiving Matron's place; but I gave no hint that
+I expected to do so. I wished to see how the Deputy would manage to
+obtain the favor from me.
+
+He came in quite early in the morning and said to me,--
+
+"I'm afraid we can't do the kitchen for you to-day. I don't think the
+white-wash will dry. It is too damp."
+
+If he sent his men in to white-wash it would be impossible for me to
+leave, and go to the Receiving Matron's rooms, and oversee the washing.
+I saw through his plan; but I said,--
+
+"I think I can keep fire enough to dry it. I have made my arrangements
+to have it done."
+
+"I'll see," he said, and went out.
+
+In a short time the officer who was to oversee the white-washing came
+in,--
+
+"As it is so damp to-day, the Deputy told me I had better put the men on
+a job down in the men's workshop; so they won't be in here to-day."
+
+"If the whitening will dry there, why not here?" I asked.
+
+He smiled. "The men have begun there; it won't be best to take them off.
+I don't think the Deputy would like to have me come in here now."
+
+"I don't think he would," was my knowing reply.
+
+Very soon, Mr. Deputy made his appearance again, and came up to me with
+a nice, spicy compliment.
+
+"I find it the same here early and late, quiet and clean."
+
+"I'm glad you are pleased with my place."
+
+"Can't you go over to the wash-room, and set the women to work, when
+they go out from breakfast? And I should like to have you stay there as
+much as you can this forenoon, to keep order. As it is pea day your
+women won't have a great deal to do; and you have got them so well
+trained they will get on very well without you. You will have no trouble
+in managing both places."
+
+"O yes, sir; I will oblige you in that way with pleasure!"
+
+When they came in to white-wash the kitchen, it rained pouring. The only
+revenge I took upon the Deputy was to ask him if he thought it would be
+a good drying day.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVII.
+
+                             VISITING DAY.
+
+
+Visiting day, which came every fourth Wednesday, was a great occasion in
+the institution.
+
+For two weeks before it was due, the question was continually asked
+me,--
+
+"Is it next Wednesday, or a week from next Wednesday, that is visiting
+day? I wonder if my husband will come! I wonder if anybody will come to
+see me! I want to see the old man so much! I want to hear from the
+childer so much!"
+
+For a day or two it was my constant care to repress the talk occasioned
+by the overflowing of their expectations, or fears, so as to get their
+work done by the women.
+
+The Doctor, when he came to make his visits, passed the kitchen door.
+That door was made of small panes of ground glass. There was a wooden
+one inside, to slide over it at night. When he announced his arrival, he
+had knocked upon one of the panes, with the head of his cane, and broken
+it. It had been done apparently for mischief; but I thought it was to
+give the prisoners a glimpse of the blue sky, and the green trees, and
+the bright flowers that were in front of the prison.
+
+The windows of the kitchen were of the same ground glass, cut into small
+panes of six by seven. They were made fifty or a hundred years ago, no
+doubt, with the utilitarian notion of producing greater diligence in the
+inmates by shutting out all attractive sights which might decoy them
+from their work. The Matron was taken into the account; her attention
+must not be drawn from the care of her maidens.
+
+If that were a good rule for the inferior officers and prisoners, why
+might it not apply with propriety to the Head Matron and Master? The
+city or state might be saved the large item of expense, in "supporting
+the institution," of cultivating handsome grounds exclusively for their
+benefit?
+
+It was a deed of mercy to break that window pane. Many a time when I
+have seen the lowering brow, or heard the angry remark, I have saved a
+war of words, perhaps of hands, by sending one of the belligerents to
+that broken pane to see if the Doctor were on his way to the hospital,
+or if the bread or meat were coming round.
+
+If I saw the dissatisfaction to be deep-rooted, I gave the command,--
+
+"Stand there and watch a few moments!"
+
+That broken pane, on that visiting day, was an outlet for much anxiety.
+One of the women stood sentinel there all day--sometimes one, sometimes
+another.
+
+The steam woman, in her anxiety to discover the approach of her "old
+man," forgot the care of her boiler, and created quite a scene. She
+turned the water into it and went to the broken pane to look a moment,
+forgot to turn it off, and the consequence was an overflow which put out
+her fire and flooded the floor,--created what McMullins called an
+"explosion." This she did twice in the forenoon.
+
+The hurry and scurry which was created to relight the fire, and sweep
+the water down the hatches, diverted the attention of all for a few
+moments, and passed away the wearisome time of waiting. I pitied the
+poor old thing as the day wore away, and there was no call for her to go
+out and see her husband.
+
+"What time is it, if you please, ma'am?" was the continually repeated
+question when I went near her.
+
+"I don't expect any one to see me," was the remark of the volatile
+O'Brien.
+
+"Then why do you stand at the window so much to watch?" I asked.
+
+"I want to see who comes to see the others. I want to see if anybody
+comes in that I know."
+
+Then, the restless thing would mount the window seat. "There goes
+Johnny, or Charley, or Jimmy, or Dolan." She either saw some of her old
+associates, with her "two eyes," or through the vision of her
+imagination. Her suppositions, as to whom they came to see, were as
+active as her curiosity to see who came.
+
+For the last time the steam woman asked,--
+
+"It is five yet, ma'am?"
+
+I looked at my watch. "Yes, Allen, and five minutes past."
+
+She dropped upon a low table, by which she stood, and burst into tears.
+
+I walked round the kitchen a few times to let her fret spend itself;
+then I went back, and stood by her side.
+
+"How many children have you, Allen?"
+
+"Three, ma'am; two boys and a girl."
+
+"If they were not all right your husband would have come, or sent some
+one to tell you."
+
+"That's what I'm afraid of, ma'am. The little girl has had a fever. I'm
+afraid she is worse, or has died, and my husband hates to tell me."
+
+"Perhaps he couldn't leave his work. What does he do?"
+
+"He's a house-builder, ma'am. He's one of the best workmen, ma'am, and
+they don't like to let him go. He gets three dollars a day, and now he
+has the whole care of the childer."
+
+"What did you come in here for, Allen?"
+
+"Shoplifting, ma'am."
+
+"With your husband earning three dollars a day you had no excuse; that
+was enough to keep you comfortably."
+
+"So it would, ma'am, if I had been contented. I don't know what made
+me,--I got a hankering for it. It was eighteen years ago, I was going
+out to buy me a silk dress, and one of my comrades went with me. I stood
+looking at a piece of silk, and was going to buy it. She touched my
+shoulder, 'don't buy that till we look in another store!' When we got
+out she showed me a piece of silk that she had under her shawl. She got
+it while I was looking at the other. After that we used to go together."
+
+"Did you ever get caught before?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; I was in here seven years ago."
+
+"And for eighteen years you have followed that wicked life, constantly,
+and never got caught but twice."
+
+"I never stole from the poor. It was from those that could well afford
+to spare it. I always took the richest of silks and satins and velvets
+and linens. Sometimes I had seven or eight hundred dollars' worth at a
+time."
+
+There was an exhibition of pride in her statement.
+
+The larger the crime, the more honorable, she thought. A strange code of
+honesty, but a very common one, it would be found, if the practical
+principles of every person were subjected to analysis.
+
+"But you had no right to the goods; you paid nothing for them."
+
+"It is the way they do. If a rich customer goes into one of those big
+stores, they ask him a big price. If a poorer one comes in, and they
+think he knows what a thing is worth, they don't ask him so much. What
+is that but stealing?"
+
+"Their doing wrong does not make it right for you to do wrong. What did
+you do with what you took?"
+
+"Sometimes I used it, and sometimes I sold it at people's doors. I went
+out West a great many times with a lot."
+
+"What did you intend to do with your money?"
+
+"Buy a big house, and live in the fashion, when the childer get up."
+
+"Do you think you would enjoy a house bought with money got in that
+way?"
+
+"Most of the big houses are bought with money got in that way. I know
+many a person as has carried on the business for years, and got rich by
+it."
+
+"The business of shoplifting! then the crime has become dignified into a
+business." Rather a liberal translation of the example set, I thought.
+
+"Did your husband know what you were doing?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"Did he approve of it?"
+
+"No, ma'am; he always warned me, and sometimes forbid me. But as soon as
+he was off to his work, I would shift my clothes and go out. I hurried
+back, and got them shifted again before he came home; and he wouldn't
+know it till I had got a great many pieces."
+
+"Does he turn against you now?"
+
+"O no! He is a good man; and he cried when I came here,--for me and the
+poor childer. He pitied me, and told me how hard it would be on me,
+seein' I was never used to it."
+
+Crazy Manhattan came up just in time to hear the last sentence.
+
+"An' sure it is hard on her! I've known her outside, and she's not
+bein' used to lift her finger to work."
+
+"She had better have been, than to have been lifting her finger to take
+other people's goods."
+
+"Give me a slice of bread, ma'am, an' you please! I've been ironing in
+the wash-room, and I've done your own things beautifully. Don't tell the
+Deputy!" she said, as she slipped it under her apron and ran away.
+
+"I knew her a little outside," said the steam woman; "but she was
+nothing but a house thief!"
+
+Well, well! the fashions of society obtain among thieves as well as the
+principles. A shop lifter ranks in a higher grade than a house thief.
+
+I talked with Allen some time, and tried to show her that whatever
+others might do was no excuse for her in wrong doing. At last she
+admitted it; but wound up by saying,--
+
+"Ise got such an itching in my fingers for it, I couldn't help taking
+the things."
+
+The patience which is required to inculcate right principles, where
+wrong ones have been practiced for half a century, is incalculable. But
+it does not come in comparison with that which is exercised towards us
+by the long-suffering Father of our spirits.
+
+
+
+
+                                 XVIII.
+
+                            CALLAHAN AGAIN.
+
+
+I stood by the mush-boiler, one morning, calculating the probabilities
+of having that delicacy well cooked by eleven o'clock, so that a second
+edition might be issued before night, when I heard the cry out in the
+prison,--
+
+"Callahan is coming! Callahan is coming! they've had an awful row at the
+shop!"
+
+I had some idea of what a row with Callahan meant. I had been told that
+she had snatched the Master's wig from his head, torn it in bits, and
+scattered it to the winds; that she had pulled the Deputy's watch from
+his pocket, and stamped it beneath her feet; that she had ripped their
+coats open with her fingers, and scratched their faces like a cat. I had
+heard that she gloried in being the worst tempered woman in the shop, in
+being stronger than a man, and bragged that it took two to confine her.
+To me she had always been respectful and obedient, even when in
+solitary.
+
+Once, when I saw her speak while marching into prison, I "admonished"
+her.
+
+"Callahan, you know it is against the rules to talk when you are coming
+in; you won't do it again?"
+
+"No, ma'am; but Callahan isn't my name, now; that was my first husband's
+name. It is Goodenough, now. Please call me Goodenough!"
+
+"I will call you so; and I hope you will be good enough when you are
+under my care."
+
+"I will be good when I am under your care."
+
+That was all the experience I had had in reproving, or punishing,
+Callahan when she had offended in my presence. And that was the only
+offense she had committed.
+
+The noise of voices grew loud in the yard. O'Brien came running up to
+me,--
+
+"Please come out here, ma'am. They have had an awful time with Callahan,
+I know by the way she swears; but she will mind you if you speak to her.
+She behaves well enough if she is only treated half decent."
+
+I went to the door. Callahan was coming up the walk between two
+officers, raving frightfully, shouting and swearing. When she came into
+the entry she smashed her hand through every pane of glass that she
+could reach, gashing her arms and spattering the blood on the floor and
+walls.
+
+As soon as I could get her attention, which it took me some time to do,
+she was so excited, I spoke to her,--
+
+"Callahan, stop! haven't you promised to be a good woman when you are
+with me?"
+
+She looked at me, lowered her voice, but kept on with her talk. In a few
+moments I spoke again,--
+
+"Callahan, stop!"
+
+She turned to me, and answered, but pleasantly,--
+
+"Can't the Deputy take care of me?"
+
+"Certainly! but you ought to have respect enough to my feelings to talk
+decently where I am."
+
+"I have cut my hands awfully;" and she held out her arm towards me.
+
+"Yes, you have. Shall I bind it up for you?"
+
+I sent for bandages and water, and bound up her hands and arms. She
+washed the blood-stains from her clothes, and made herself tidy.
+
+"That will do, Callahan! We want to lock you in now."
+
+She looked at the key which I held in my hand.
+
+"I am ready; lock me up."
+
+The key was turned, and Callahan was in solitary again.
+
+Not long afterwards, when all was quiet, I passed her door. She called
+to me,--
+
+"Look here!"
+
+"Well, Callahan."
+
+"I'm sorry I talked so bad before you; but I was so mad I didn't know
+what I said. I've got no spite against you."
+
+"I am sorry you have against any one."
+
+"O that she-d--l in the shop! I'd send her into eternity if I could get
+hold of her!"
+
+"Stop, Callahan! will you be gentle and patient while you are here with
+me?"
+
+"Yes, for you I will. But look here! my arm pains me, and it's swelled
+awfully! I'm afraid there's glass in it."
+
+"I think you can see the Doctor if you wish. I think he had better see
+it. I'll go ask the Deputy to send him in."
+
+"Thank you; I wish you would. I'm afraid there's glass in it, and it
+will be awful sore if it stays there."
+
+I whistled for the Deputy, told him what Callahan said, and he sent the
+Doctor in.
+
+When she was first locked in he had told me not to open her cell unless
+he were present. He was a new Deputy who had come into office that day,
+and evidently felt the responsibility that was attached to his office,
+and the consequence it gave him.
+
+"You will come round when it is time to give her food?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I thought he was afraid of her violence; but I had no apprehension on
+that score, so when the Doctor came, not thinking of the order, I opened
+the cell as I had always done under the other Deputy. I had occasion to
+think, afterwards, that he did not wish her to tell her own story,
+unless it was in his presence; or intended to prevent her altogether.
+
+The front door of the kitchen stood open, and the Doctor came in that
+way without seeing any of the officers.
+
+"What is the matter here?" he asked in his jolly way; "who is cut to
+pieces?"
+
+"Callahan has cut herself," I answered, as I went to get the key to open
+her cell.
+
+"How did she do it?"
+
+"She got angry and struck her hand through the window."
+
+"Is that the way you do when you get angry?"
+
+"Did you come here to treat me?"
+
+"Women are a great deal alike, are they not?"
+
+"You make an assertion, and ask me to confirm it."
+
+"Isn't it so?"
+
+"As much alike as different men, if you are really interested to know my
+opinion."
+
+"How about the other?"
+
+"You wish to understand my disposition, do you? I am happy to gratify
+you on that point so far as my knowledge goes. There is method in my
+madness. I usually consider the matter awhile, or sulk; then, make a
+thorough application of the dictionary to the offending party. Look out
+for yourself or you may get a blow sometime from Webster's Unabridged."
+
+I had opened the black cell door.
+
+"What are you in here again for so soon, Callahan? Let me see your arm."
+
+She reached out her arm, and the Doctor took off the bandages.
+
+"I'll tell you the truth, Doctor."
+
+"Tell away."
+
+"I called to little red-headed Jones,--you know that little dumpy thing
+that fetches the work for us,--I called to Jones to fetch me some work.
+She was talking to that little fire-brand of a Harlan that takes care
+of the engine in the work-room. Well, you see, she felt so nice to be
+taken notice of by Harlan, that she wouldn't mind when I spoke. She
+pretended not to hear. I called louder, 'Jones, fetch me some work,'
+Jones was mad then, and said, 'I'll fetch it when I please.' Then I told
+her to fetch me some work now, and do her talking afterwards: 'That's
+what you're here for,' I said. Harlan was mad, and went straight out
+into the men's shop and reported me. The Master and the Deputy came
+right in, and made towards me. I was mad; for if anybody was reported it
+ought to be Harlan and Jones, for it is against the rules for them to be
+talking together; but 'twasn't against the rules for me to ask for work.
+When I saw the Master and the Deputy coming straight to me, to lock me
+up, I pulled up a chair to knock him down, I was so mad to think I was
+going to be locked up for nothing, and Jones to be let go when she had
+been breaking the rules. And Harlan to report me, when he helped her
+break 'em. The little spit-fire!"
+
+"Why didn't you wait and see if you were going to be locked up, and tell
+the Master how it was, before you took up a chair to strike him down?" I
+asked.
+
+"She's green, Doctor! Tell him! he wouldn't let me tell him anything!
+Many's the time I've been locked up and didn't know what 'twas for. Look
+here, wouldn't it make you mad to be locked up when you wasn't to blame?
+Look here, do you blame me for being mad?"
+
+I could not say yes, and tell the truth. There is not a human heart but
+what would resent such injustice. There are but few who would not resist
+it if they could. I could not say no, because it might be construed into
+encouraging insubordination. I did not feel it incumbent on me to think
+the Master in the right because he was the Master, and she the convict.
+I deliberately committed the vulgarity of listening to a convict's
+story; but did not think it necessary to tell her my thoughts.
+
+"Callahan, you mustn't ask me such questions. I am sorry for you, and
+will make you as comfortable as I can."
+
+The doctor put some compresses on her arm, wet them with water, and
+ordered her some to drink.
+
+"Some water for Callahan to drink! Quick! The doctor has ordered it!" I
+echoed. I thought I heard an officer's step at the farther end of the
+prison, and it was a legitimate supposition that if it were the new
+Deputy, who was coming, she would get no such favor. Unless she got the
+water and drank it before he came, she would not get it at all.
+
+It had been whispered to me that the Master had thrown Callahan on the
+floor in his anger, when she caught up the chair, and put his foot on
+her neck. I saw a mark of dirt on the lower part of her cheek and neck.
+I looked closely at it. The skin was grazed as though a boot-heel had
+been ground against it.
+
+"Callahan, what is that dirt on your cheek and neck?" I asked.
+
+She put up her hand and passed it across her face and neck at the place
+where I saw the dirt. She knew exactly where to find the mark of which I
+spoke. The boot had evidently been there.
+
+"He did hurt me some," she said.
+
+"Who?" I asked.
+
+"The Master, he put his foot on me."
+
+"On your cheek and neck?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"To hold me down."
+
+"Let me see."
+
+I examined the flesh; it was a little discolored as though it had been
+bruised. It was evident that the tale that had been told me was true.
+Was it necessary for that man--or the monster--in taking the chair away
+from that woman, with two men to help him, to throw her upon the floor,
+and place his foot on her neck?
+
+"He was pretty well seas over. He's always savage when he is. I knew
+he'd just had a horn when I saw him coming, and that's one thing made me
+mad. Look here; folks are sent down here for getting drunk. Do you think
+it'll ever cure 'em to put a drunkard over 'em?"
+
+I did not make Callahan any reply; but I thought of the old proverb, "It
+takes a rogue to catch a rogue;" but whether a rogue may be
+advantageously set to cure one, is another question, and one upon which
+a great deal of discussion might be spent, before popular judgment
+would decide it in the affirmative.
+
+Callahan had just finished washing the dirt from her face when the
+Deputy made his appearance.
+
+"I gave the order that Callahan's cell should not be opened unless I was
+here."
+
+"The doctor came, I supposed you sent him, and opened the cell door as I
+always do for him."
+
+"What way did he come in?"
+
+"Through the front door of the kitchen, as he often does."
+
+I was not sorry for the mistake.
+
+That evening Mrs. Hardhack told me they were determined to break
+Callahan's temper. They had got her pretty well under; but it was not
+quite broken.
+
+Her constitution was in a fair way to be broken, her temper might share
+the same fate. If to teach her to control her temper were what was
+meant, a very unfit method was adopted to effect the purpose.
+
+How can one person teach another to control his temper when he is
+ignorant of the way, and does not practice the government of his own?
+
+When I was left alone in the prison, I sat down before Callahan's cell
+door. I thought over the object of punishment. Is it intended to deter
+the vicious from continuing in crime? That is the apparent object. Then,
+ought it not to be adapted to the crime, and administered by those who
+are free from the same faults? Instead of that, it was left, in this
+instance, an almost irresponsible power, in the hands of ignorance and
+cruelty, and if report were not mistaken, of kindred sin.
+
+I thought, some mother's heart is aching for you, poor Callahan; such
+treatment as you receive here, will never lead you to make it ache the
+less. Injustice and severity will never soften your heart, or enlighten
+your understanding. God pity you, and interpose in your behalf!
+
+"What are you thinking of?" asked Callahan.
+
+"How did you know that I was thinking?"
+
+"I looked through the key-hole, and saw you looking straight to the
+floor, biting your nails."
+
+"I was thinking of you, Callahan."
+
+"You was thinking what a wicked wretch I am?"
+
+"I wish you might become better, and never come in this place again. It
+is a great deal of suffering for so little comfort as you can take in
+sin. Won't you try to do better, Callahan?"
+
+"I can't in here. They are just as bad as I am that put me in here, and
+they'll never make me any better."
+
+There was the injustice for which she had suffered rankling in her
+heart.
+
+"It is more what we do ourselves than what others do to us which makes
+us happy or unhappy."
+
+"It's what they've done to me that makes me unhappy, and if ever I catch
+them ---- outside, I'll pay 'em back,--I will, if I go to h--l for it!"
+
+"Callahan, Callahan, be patient and gentle! Don't think of any wicked
+things to do outside, but think how to behave so that you can stay
+there. Remember it was for your own deeds that you came in here. If you
+hadn't been in here, they couldn't have put you in the black cell. Be
+gentle and patient while you are here, now that it can't be helped, and
+never come again."
+
+"For you, I will; and I'll try not to go in the ways that bring me here.
+But if I should meet them, I know I should forget it all. I should think
+about it, and it would make me so mad. If I was out of the right way,
+and got in here, the Master had no right to lock me up here for what I
+did not do."
+
+I had no justification of that proceeding to offer, so I said nothing
+more.
+
+"Will you please give me a drink of water?" asked Callahan in a moment.
+
+"Callahan, you know that I cannot! Why do you hurt my feelings by asking
+me?"
+
+"You have the keys,--you could give it to me, and the Deputy would never
+know it. If you knew how dry I am you would."
+
+"I cannot, Callahan. When I go out of here I can tell those who make the
+rules, how hard it is to go so long without drinking, and how tiresome
+it is to lie, and sit, and stand on the stones, and perhaps they will
+change them; but I cannot disobey."
+
+"O dear!" she sighed, and began to sing. Every sound went through my
+heart like the stab of a sharp knife. If that were my child! was the
+agonizing thought. What keeps my children from such a fate? The loving
+care of Him who holds the hearts of all in His hand. I could have gone
+prostrate on the cold stones to thank Him that He had saved them from
+such a fate, and me from such an agony of sorrow. How can I show my
+gratitude? By trying to make less hard the hapless lot of the
+unfortunates around me, and teaching them in the principles that lead to
+better practices.
+
+My tears almost choked my utterance as I called to her, "Callahan, stop
+that singing unless you mean to break my heart!"
+
+O'Brien had been standing on the steps that led to the kitchen, only a
+few feet from me. She came along and sat down on a low stool at my feet.
+
+"How different you are to what I thought you was when you came in here.
+You stepped round so square and independent, I thought we had got a hard
+mistress."
+
+"Look here!" said Callahan, "it does me good to speak to you sometimes.
+It is easier to be patient, and the time don't seem so long. Look here!
+Do you love Hardhack?"
+
+"I know very little about her."
+
+"I heard her in the kitchen scolding awhile ago, and you took it as cool
+as could be. If I'd been you I'd put her out. She has no right to come
+in your place and give orders. It sets me crazy to hear her."
+
+"If I could not keep my own temper when I am annoyed, how could I teach
+you to keep yours?"
+
+"That's it," said O'Brien. "Hardhack gets mad in the shop, and scolds
+us, and we scold back; and then we get punished. I wish there was
+somebody to report her, too."
+
+"Girls, did you ever hear of One who said, 'Love your enemies, bless
+them that curse you'?"
+
+"Yes; but I never saw anybody do it," said O'Brien.
+
+"Did you ever try to do it, Callahan?"
+
+"No! I always thought 'twas all moonshine. It'll do to preach about."
+
+"It will do to practice, too. Suppose you try it towards Mrs. Hardhack,
+and see how much happier you will feel."
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!" resounded through the prison in continuous echoes.
+
+"It has done me good to laugh. I don't feel half so mad with her as I
+did."
+
+"O'Brien, I came very near sending you to the shop to-day, when you
+scolded Allen so hard. Be careful or you will change your mistress
+before you know it. You keep me in constant anxiety lest the Deputy, or
+some of the other Matrons should come in and hear you. In that case it
+would be beyond my power to help you."
+
+"If you do send me to the shop you will have me home again in less than
+twenty-four hours, one of your bread-and-water boarders."
+
+She understood how to meet that threat.
+
+"I don't know but Hardhack will get me into solitary as it is. When she
+came through the kitchen this noon, she saw me eating a piece of fish
+with my bread,--we'd been stripping it off for the hash, and I took a
+piece. She asked me who gave me liberty to eat fish. I told her, nobody.
+She asked me how I dared to eat that fish without permission. I should
+have made her a saucy answer only I knew it would make you feel bad, so
+I didn't say anything."
+
+"I am glad you had so much thought, and exercised so much self-control."
+
+"I wasn't afraid of Hardhack."
+
+"I am glad you had so much regard for me. It gives me a great deal of
+pleasure to know of your good behavior. Don't you feel better, yourself,
+for doing what is right?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; I do! and when you tell me I do right, it makes me feel
+quite like a woman again; as though I was somebody."
+
+Self-respect goes a long way towards creating good behavior, and
+commendation given, where it is deserved, produces that effect. I
+watched for a chance to praise them when they did well, and bestowed the
+approval wherever I could find the opportunity.
+
+There was no lack of discrimination on their part. They were aware when
+they committed intentional wrong, and, as a rule, acknowledged it when
+rebuked in a kind spirit. With the same understanding they appreciated
+the praise when it was deserved. Gratitude was aroused when it was
+given, and the satisfaction they enjoyed was an incentive to strive to
+obtain more.
+
+I had constant proof that the exercise of kindness was far more
+effectual in getting my work done than that of stern authority.
+
+That afternoon I had wished O'Brien to take more pains with her
+scrubbing, and had said to her,--
+
+"Your floor looks red and nice,"--the kitchen floor was of brick,--"but
+do you notice that soiled strip in that corner, under the table? A dingy
+border spoils all the effect of your labor."
+
+"Yes, ma'am. I saw it when I was scrubbing; but I was so tired, and my
+shoulder ached so bad that I didn't touch it."
+
+"I am sorry your shoulder aches, and I know you are tired; but I like to
+see the place look nice."
+
+"I know you do; I'll go right now and take it away."
+
+Kindness begets kindness. There are few human beings so totally
+depraved, desperately wicked as some may be, who cannot be aroused into
+appreciation of kind treatment. I have never met with one who could not.
+So harshness in a superior begets harshness in an inferior; and constant
+fault finding either arouses anger from its injustice, or paralyzes all
+effort to do well.
+
+As are the manners of those who lead, so are the manners of those who
+follow. As a matter of policy, to restrain crime without regard to the
+teaching of religion, those who have charge of convicts should be gentle
+and humane.
+
+
+
+
+                                  XIX.
+
+                       DISCOMFORTS, AND THE END.
+
+
+A very few days after I entered the institution, I gave up looking for
+any consideration from any one but the Deputy.
+
+It was a rule of the place to shift every labor, when it could be
+effected, by the one to whom it belonged, upon some other person. That
+is, in the female department. The example set by the Head Matron was
+considered worthy of imitation, and copied with an accuracy deserved by
+a better one.
+
+To impose upon an officer, ignorant of the ways of the place, was a
+favorite entertainment of some of the others.
+
+They commenced to hand me along from one to another when I wished for
+things to use, or for information, giving me a long chase to find it;
+but a short time, only, was required to extinguish that entertainment. I
+refused to take orders or information from any one but the Deputy.
+
+My inquiries of him, and statements of what I had been told, exposed
+them. They got reproof instead of entertainment, which, of course,
+created resentment that vented itself in a thousand of those little
+annoying inventions in which unamiable women are so ingenious.
+
+The reprisals Mrs. Hardhack made did not always redound to my
+inconvenience alone,--my women came in for a share in the retaliation. A
+new Receiving Matron was told to take no trouble about the dresses of my
+women in the kitchen,--it was no matter how they looked. The shorter she
+kept them, the better the Master would like it. The less they had to
+wear the more money would be saved to the institution. In consequence,
+dresses sufficient to make them decent were withheld.
+
+I made a statement of some of these things to the Deputy. He said,--
+
+"The Matrons have been in the habit of settling those small matters
+among themselves."
+
+"So we might if either of us had the authority to dictate. If Mrs.
+Hardhack has the authority to control, and gives the order that my women
+are to go dirty and ragged, as you see them, I appeal to you. Just look
+at them as you see them now. Those dresses are all they have, and I can
+get no better without an order from you."
+
+He looked at them. The angry color flashed into his face, and his teeth
+were set together. In about two hours tidy dresses were sent in to my
+women.
+
+I went on,--
+
+"If she has no authority, but is meddling to make mischief, will you
+please see that she does it no longer. I know it is not the Deputy's
+business to be settling these little disagreements among the Matrons;
+but I have no one else to go to. We have no one to regulate these
+matters for us but you. You call them small matters; so they may be to
+one who looks on; but our life, every day, is made up of them. And if
+you take them home, and make them your own, you will not think them so
+very small. Neither you nor I would consider it a small matter to go
+dirty and ragged. Would you allow one of your male officers to keep the
+men who are under another officer dirty and ragged, out of sheer malice,
+or for any reason?"
+
+"They could not do it,--I should not allow it."
+
+"And you are there to see it, and have the authority to prevent it. And
+as you have undertaken to do the duty of the Head Officer on this side,
+I see no other way but to appeal to you in these cases of ours. I have
+no authority to prevent the mischievous interference of Mrs. Hardhack;
+and to aggravate, in return, I cannot. She has the advantage of me in
+the disposition and ability to do so. She has ample opportunity to
+meddle with the affairs of the other Matrons, because they are sent to
+her for instruction; and also to give her interpretation of the Rules.
+Mrs. Hardhack is not so much to blame for what she does. She is only
+following the bent of her own disposition, as the opportunity to do so
+is given her. The Head Matron comes to me, and says,--'Control your own
+place. Mrs. Hardhack has nothing to do with it. If she makes trouble
+with another Matron, she shall surely be discharged. She has been
+discharged three times, and begged herself back; but if we say to her,
+go again, she will surely go.' Then she goes to Mrs. Hardhack, and
+says,--'You go over to the wash-room and tell the Receiving Matron about
+her place. You know all about the Rules and things better than I do. I
+don't know what I should do without you.' That pleases Mrs. Hardhack,
+and she meddles with everything, and makes trouble all around."
+
+"I will do all I can to help you."
+
+"I know; but I am tired. The care is altogether too much, and the
+mismanagement of the place makes it intolerable. Explain to the
+Receiving Matron, if you please, that she is under obligation to wash
+and mend the clothes of my women the same that she does the others, and
+give them out another dress when one fails."
+
+"I will do that."
+
+That night I was speaking of the severe labor required of the officers
+in the institution to Mrs. Hardhack. She turned to me, and said
+roughly,--
+
+"I find it easy enough."
+
+It was just the right moment for me to tell her why she found it so much
+easier than the rest of us.
+
+"You may well find it so, in comparison with the rest of us. You have an
+hour more of rest in the morning than I, and an hour more at night,
+making nine hours of rest from labor in the twenty-four, instead of the
+seven that I have. During those nine hours you are entirely free from
+care, and sleep in a quiet room in the house. During the fifteen that
+you are on duty you have the entire help of the only Relief Matron in
+the institution, which ought to be divided among us all, so that you can
+go out when you please."
+
+"Perhaps, when you have been in the institution as long as I, you will
+get as many favors."
+
+"I could not take them, if I got them by robbery. I could not enjoy my
+liberty if the work which belonged to me were imposed upon another,
+making her burden double, for me to have it."
+
+A smart rap was all the woman could feel. I really grew in her esteem by
+cutting her up with my sharpness, and she attempted to ingratiate
+herself into my favor. I will relate how, and how I discovered it.
+
+The next night I was called to lock a woman in solitary. She walked into
+her cell in silence, and I as silently turned the key upon her. I did
+not ask the Deputy why she was put there. She was brought up from the
+shop, and I supposed some miserable tale was appended to her
+incarceration which I did not care to know.
+
+The next morning, when I went to give her bread and water, she asked
+me,--
+
+"Do you know what I am in here for?"
+
+"No; I haven't heard them say."
+
+"It was for mocking you. I know it was wrong; but the others did it, and
+I did it too, and I got caught."
+
+"Who caught you?"
+
+"Mrs. Hardhack. I know it was wrong, I was foolish, but I'll never do it
+again. The others did it, and so I did it, too."
+
+"And you hadn't courage to do right when others were doing wrong. You
+are a brave girl! Do you know that there must be order kept in this
+place, and that there must be rules in order to keep order, and that you
+must treat those who have the rules in charge with respect?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; and I never will do it again. Will you get me out?"
+
+"I'll try; but you must always treat me with respect, and all of the
+other officers in the same way. I shall never intercede for you again."
+
+"I will never give you any reason to."
+
+When the Deputy came round I asked,--
+
+"Is Mary Muran in solitary for mimicking me?"
+
+He said, "Yes."
+
+"Was it for the second offense? Had she been admonished once?"
+
+"She knew better."
+
+"Your Rules and Regulations make no conditions that they know better.
+They shall be admonished once, and, for the second offense punished."
+
+"They wouldn't do exactly the same thing twice, perhaps; but they would
+do something as near like it as they could."
+
+"We have no help for that, if we obey the Rules."
+
+"We should be constantly admonishing."
+
+"Wouldn't that be better than constantly punishing? Isn't it better to
+err on the side of mercy than on that of severity? It seems to me a very
+severe punishment to put upon a girl for so slight an offense. I think I
+could have administered a rebuke that would have prevented her repeating
+it towards me. It really makes me very unhappy to think she is locked up
+there for a disrespect shown me."
+
+"If you are satisfied with the punishment she has had, you can let her
+out."
+
+"Indeed I am!"
+
+If she had been one of my women perhaps I should not have reminded the
+Deputy that he had transcended his orders. Mary Muran was a shop woman.
+When she was released from her solitary confinement she would return to
+the shop. Mrs. Hardhack would call him to account for letting her off
+with so slight a punishment. I gave him an answer for her.
+
+I went directly to the girl's cell.
+
+"You can go, Mary, and I hope you will never do so mean and foolish a
+thing as to mimic a Matron again."
+
+"I never will, and I shall always remember this kindness in you."
+
+I never knew her to require reproof again, while I was in the
+institution. It was like the experience I had with every other prisoner.
+There are, undoubtedly, those who return kindness with ingratitude, but
+I never saw the kindness fail to produce good behavior while there.
+
+The long day's work, the night vigils, and the damp, noisome air of the
+prison, were telling upon my health. I was getting an intermittent
+pulse; chills and fainting every other morning.
+
+I asked the Housekeeper to let me have a cup of tea at half past six.
+Unless I took it then, I was obliged to wait another hour, because I
+must attend to giving out the breakfast of the prisoners. In doing that
+duty I was made a three hours and a half watch before I had anything to
+eat in the morning. She had given her permission for me to have it; and
+I had availed myself of the privilege.
+
+One morning after setting my women about the work I wished to have done,
+while I was gone, I went in to breakfast.
+
+Supervisor arose about that time, and made the important discovery, to
+her, that the fire had gone out in her furnace, and her parlor was cold.
+This was in May, consequently the weather was not very inclement.
+
+Her parlor was directly over the prisoners' kitchen; her front door over
+the kitchen door. The steps that led up to her apartments went past our
+windows. She often ran down these steps, and looked in the window to
+give an order about the furnace. This morning she did so, and, not
+seeing me, inquired where I was.
+
+"Gone in to breakfast," was the reply.
+
+Annie O'Brien, who had charge of the furnace, brought me the order as
+soon as I went in.
+
+"Shall I have time to do it?" she asked.
+
+"No; it wants but eight minutes of breakfast time. It will take all of
+that time to "dish up" your mush, and get your coffee ready. It will
+take half an hour to clear the furnace and light the fire. I am sorry;
+but you will be obliged to wait till after breakfast."
+
+Supervisor grew impatient, and the more impatient she was the colder she
+grew. Her comfort was the first thing to be attended to in that
+institution. The prisoners might go without their breakfast,--the
+Matrons might faint away for want of food,--it was only paying her
+proper respect to light her fire, as soon as the order was given.
+
+I was in her power, she could retaliate upon me.
+
+That evening I met her in the officers' dining-room, and asked her if
+she wished me to keep a three hours and a half watch before breakfast.
+She replied,--
+
+"It has been done thirty-three years."
+
+"Great changes have taken place in the world during the last
+thirty-three years, and many more might be effected with advantage," I
+remarked.
+
+"I don't see how you can find time to go to breakfast at that hour."
+
+"I should not find time at any hour unless I took it."
+
+"That is so; but they were dishing out when I went down. You ought to be
+there when they are dishing out."
+
+"I suppose so; but I have an order to be in the prison a large part of
+the time, at all three of the meals, when they are dishing out, and they
+are obliged to do it without my oversight." Doing your duty, I would
+have liked to have added.
+
+"Most of the officers like to go to table with the others for company."
+
+"I did not come here for society. In wishing to breakfast earlier, I was
+not consulting my taste, but trying to take care of my health. Unless I
+am made somewhat comfortable, I shall break down, and be obliged to
+leave."
+
+"Comfortable!" she echoed. I was not surprised that the word sounded so
+strangely to her, connected with any other person than herself.
+
+Discipline had become a mania, and it was applied as severely to the
+officers as the prisoners, so far as it was in her power to effect it.
+
+The whole study, it appeared to me, was to keep them on duty all day,
+without relaxation; and they were cut off from every means of enjoyment
+which was not connected with their care.
+
+There was a common sitting-room where the male officers and Matrons sat
+and talked together, when they were not on duty, when I went there; but
+that was taken away, and made into a bed-room, so that there was no
+place for them to meet except in their own bed-rooms, the halls, or on
+the grounds.
+
+If human ingenuity were to set itself to work to invent a position of
+unmitigated discomfort, that prison life would give some excellent
+hints. The heads of the establishment were certainly very keen in
+discovering ways to circumscribe the comforts of its inmates.
+
+I made a statement of my circumstances to Supervisor; not with any
+expectation of obtaining any consideration, but merely to place my view
+of things before her.
+
+"You cannot wonder that I do not consider that I am made comfortable
+when you think of my seventeen hours of labor in the day, to which is
+added the care of the prison, nights."
+
+"The care of the prison, nights!" she echoed, and turned up her nose in
+disdain.
+
+I did not explain; but reminded her that the Housekeeper had two hours
+and a half more rest in the morning than I.
+
+"I am glad she can have it; and it would be only kind to give me my tea
+a little earlier, as I cannot have it."
+
+"She has to be up nights frequently."
+
+"No oftener than I, and not so late. I lock her women up after she
+dismisses them from her kitchen."
+
+"I shall lose a good Housekeeper if you have your breakfast before the
+rest. She won't stay if she is obliged to get it."
+
+"She told me she was willing I should have it."
+
+"She is unwilling now."
+
+I readily saw why she had become unwilling. She herself had made up her
+mind that it was not to be given me, because I delayed the kindling of
+her fire, and she had made the Housekeeper unwilling.
+
+"You had better keep her. It is doubtful if I could remain with that
+favor. It is with great difficulty that I get through the day now, with
+the help of a tonic that the Doctor has given me."
+
+I sent in my resignation the next morning. I told the Master that I
+would stay till he could find some one to take my place.
+
+As I was no longer an officer on duty, merely a temporary supply of
+help, I took the liberty to go back to bed, after I had called the women
+out, to get an additional hour or two of sleep. I found that it helped
+me wonderfully in getting through the day.
+
+When the Deputy came round, I reported myself.
+
+"You did not do your duty!" was his curt reply.
+
+"I am not on duty and I shall do it every morning that I stay here to
+oblige you. If I were the only one in the institution who does not do
+her duty, it would be well to single me out for reproof. Indeed I am not
+sure that I am not doing my duty--to myself. If the women in the
+officers' kitchen can work two hours and a half in the morning without a
+mistress, so that the Housekeeper can get her rest, why may not the
+women in the prisoners' kitchen do the same thing, so that their Matron
+may get rest?"
+
+The Deputy smiled at my reasoning. "I cannot discipline you; you are not
+one of the officers of the institution now. I get up nearly as early as
+you do."
+
+"I hope you enjoy it."
+
+"I cannot say that I exactly enjoy it; but my duty calls me, and I do
+it."
+
+"You are a strong, healthy man, and can bear a great deal of care. But
+you do not have as much as I. You have your rest through the night
+without it. You have your watchman in prison, and go to your bed in the
+house. That prison is no place for a woman to sleep in, and the care of
+it is no work for a woman, who works all day,--and for no one else who
+is obliged to be on duty through the day."
+
+"It is hardly fit work for a woman to sleep in a prison, and take care
+of it nights."
+
+"Aside from its fitness I cannot do it for want of strength. I hope you
+will find some one to take my place very soon. I saw two or three
+advertisements in last night's paper for such a place."
+
+The next morning, I fainted in attempting to rise, and was obliged to go
+down in my night-dress and shawls to call the women out.
+
+I should have told the Master that day that I could rise no longer to
+call the women out, only that I heard that Mrs. Hardhack wished to go
+out that night, to return at seven the next morning. If I refused to get
+up, she would be obliged to stay at home to do that duty.
+
+I thought I would heap one coal of kindness on her head, so I told her I
+would try to get through with it one more morning. She accepted the
+favor; but it was like casting pearls before swine--she did not thank
+me.
+
+As soon as she returned the next morning, I wrote the Master a note,
+saying I could rise no longer to call the women out, and I hoped he
+would find some one to relieve me of all duty as soon as possible.
+
+He took no notice of my note till afternoon; then I heard him, in his
+measured tread, stalking along the prison floor. The dinner was out of
+the way; nearly all of the work attended to for the day. The time I had
+spent from morning till afternoon was so much gained for which he did
+not pay.
+
+"You are not willing to get up and unlock any longer in the morning, you
+say?"
+
+"I cannot, sir; I am too ill."
+
+"Then we don't want you here any longer," was the gentlemanly response.
+
+"I am happy to be relieved of my duties here."
+
+"You may go now, the sooner the better," was his gentle reply.
+
+"Yes, sir; I will leave directly."
+
+I called my maid, packed my trunk, and made all haste to depart. I made
+my adieus as brief as possible. My women, with one exception, were
+crying and lamenting my departure, and I truly regretted to leave the
+poor wretches in such merciless care.
+
+"I shall spend the rest of my time in solitary," said O'Brien.
+
+"I shall get locked up the first thing," said Lissett.
+
+"I shall try to get into the shop," said Allen. "I never can stand it
+here after ye."
+
+"My heart is as black after ye as that stove," sobbed McMullins.
+
+It was many a day and night, after I went out from that prison, before
+the sights and sounds that I saw and heard there left my mental sight
+and hearing.
+
+I thought as I went away, I will go from door to door through this broad
+Commonwealth, state what I have learned of woman's condition in prison,
+and beseech every other woman to help open the doors of her ignorance,
+and degradation, to the light of the knowledge which will lead to
+reformation.
+
+Every one who has the cause of humanity at heart will echo the
+cry,--open the doors of our prisons, as the doors of other public
+institutions are thrown open, so that those who support may have an
+opportunity to inspect them.
+
+It is the right of every tax-payer to know what is done within our
+prison walls at all times. It is the duty of every Christian man to make
+himself acquainted with the moral bearing of the discipline which
+obtains within them.
+
+It is the duty of every religious woman to see that her fellow woman is
+not trampled down in degradation and vice, lower than her own sins would
+carry her, by the heel of her master in discipline.
+
+Let the prison doors be opened, and the inside of them exposed to the
+view of all. Knowledge awakens interest, and interest leads to action.
+
+If the people of this land could be roused to examine the subject, our
+prisons would soon be managed upon principles which would tend to the
+elevation of the wretched beings who now come out of them more degraded
+and hardened in the commission of crime than they go in.
+
+God grant that the day filled with such blessing for the poor convict,
+be not far distant!
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Notes:
+
+The following corrections which did not concern obvious printer errors
+have been made to the text:
+
+In the header for the second chapter ("At Night"), the number II. was
+added.
+
+"mammoth mouse" was "mammouth mouse".
+
+"aperture" was "apperture".
+
+"worrisome" was "worrysome".
+
+"awfullest" was "awfulest".
+
+"You ought to have pity on each other, if no one else has pity on you!":
+"one" was added.
+
+"As he went, he asked me to bring the No. 1 key.": "the" was added.
+
+"Don't be anxious, Ellen!": question mark replaced by exclamation mark.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Woman in Prison, by Caroline H. Woods
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