Fancy the painful excitement with which a man about to be tried for some serious crime must look forward to his promised talk with those whom he can trust to act for him outside.
The anxious thoughts, the doubts, the fears, the hopes which agitate him in the solitude of his cell are to all bear fruit in the momentous conversation he is permitted to hold.
The chances of the impending trial, his fate if convicted, the means to be raised for his defence, and the effect upon those dependent on him of his present state, have to be eagerly canvassed; and it is all important that not a moment should be lost.
But this very eagerness defeats itself. Just as it often happens, that when people meet after a long absence, and for a limited time, they fail to recall half the topics in which they are vitally interested, and on which they are anxious to compare notes—so with the imprisoned men before us and their friends.
In the other yards we visited men and women were absolutely staring at each other through the bars, in silence; though the latter had come on purpose to talk, and the former would be shut up again in a quarter of an hour.
In some cases it may have been the dumbness of despair which made them tongue-tied; but many seemed so nervously anxious to express all they had to say that they were unable to arrange their ideas sufficiently to give them articulate shape.
Some of the women treated the whole affair lightly, smirked at the warders, and looked boldly round; but these were the exceptions. The rule both in those waiting and those in communication with their male friends was absolute dejection.
Two other kinds of accomodation are provided for special visitors, both similar in character. The first is an enclosed closet in the centre of the principal corridor, and is for the attorneys; the second is for the prisoners who are Roman Catholics, and who are visited by their priest.
Both have glass sides and roof, and realise “the light closets,” upon which Clarissa laid much stress when describing the lodgings she had been entrapped into by Lovelace.
The advice to little children, “to be seen but not heard,” is rigidly enforced upon all people inside these two places.