She was taken to a reception cell and subjected to the usual course of bathing and searching, with those thousand indignities which felons and suspected persons have to suffer. When this was over she was conducted to her cell, which was on the same model as those of the male prisons, and which has been described in a previous chapter of this work.
Miss Stanbridge was disgusted with her narrow prison-house, and she did not fail to express her dissatisfaction.
“Pray tell me,” said she, in angry tone, “is it customary to put prisoners before their trial in such a miserable hole as this?”
“Most certainly it is,” was the answer of her janiters. “We have no other cells.”
“Then I must tell you plainly that I think it an act of great injustice,” said Laura-—“of gross injustice! Am I to understand that a prisoner before conviction is treated in the same manner as a prisoner sentenced to imprisonment, without hard labour, after conviction?”
“Well, yes, she is. Unless she happens to have money.”
“Oh, indeed. Money, eh?”
“Yes.”
“And what if she has?”
“Oh, that makes all the difference.”