Pacing regularly round, a fixed space being maintained between each man or boy, and the rate of walking in each case the same, proceed the prisoners. It is their wicked, callous faces which make the school simile seem ghastly.
Dangerous beasts moving restlessly to and fro in a vast cage seems much nearer the mark, now that we are among them. Sordid common villainy, theft, forgery, assault, burglary, cutting and wounding, and passing bad money, make up the bulk of the offences with which the men before us stand charged.
A stout florid-faced man, who looks like a country farmer, and who is gesticulating violently through the bars to the cowed and crying little woman beyond them, is in on a charge of horse-stealing. He has been in prison before, and indeed was only out of it ten days when he was again apprehended. A muscular powerful man, he looks as if he would carry off a horse bodily, if necessary; and one wonders what the messages are he is impressing so earnestly on his poor little wife.
A warder is standing near enough to the twain to overhear their talk, but we are assured no effort is made to eavesdrop, the presence of a prison official being insisted on simply as a precautionary measure.
Next to the horse-dealer is a well-dressed young clerk, whose alleged offence is embeszlement. The elderly woman whose sobs reach us across the yard is his mother.
She seems to be pleading earnestly, and he to be half sullen, half ashamed, but finally to yield to her entreaties, whatever their purport may have been.
The third prisoner being visited is an older man, and the girl talking to him looks like his daughter.
Their interview is far calmer than that of the other two, and seems indeed of a business character; for some clean linen has been brought, and the man is actoally talking of the weather as we pass by—a proceeding which we thought a feint, but which, as we were reminded, was natural enough.
The three-quarters of an hour allotted to each interview is doubtless a very precious time.
It can only be had on particular days, and the strongest wish of those concerned must be to compress as many questions and answers into it as possible.