Hundreds of hooks stud the rims of the shelves and the sides of the compartments, and from them are suspended hundreds of little packets neatly made up in brown paper, tied with white twine, and severally distinguished by large parchment labels, each bearing a neat inscription.
The packets contain small articles taken from the prisoners, who in due course, after they are discharged from prison will be brought to Scotland-yard, and their portraits taken by force should they object to that process.
The larger things are deposited in the compartments of the shelves, and every item, no matter how insignificant, is entered into the proper register.
A motley collection are the larger articles, with a preponderance among them of grimy pocket-books and greasy purses.
But there are valuable things in some of those parcels, and downstairs in the officials’ room is a massive iron safe, fitted with sliding shelves, in which is kept a large collection of watches, rings, choice pins, scent bottles, pencil cases, and other jewellery, which are either the lawful property of prisoners or have been found in their unlawful possession and confiscated, but for whom no owners have been discovered.
Among the watches are some beautiful specimens. One in particular, taken from a costermonger, of exquisite workmanship and ornamentation, is valued at fifty pounds.
The prisoners’ property room is scrupulously clean and tidy, but the look of it is forlorn and squalid, the powder lying thick on everything, and the scent of moth and rot is in the air.
Great bales of cloth and woollen stuff occupy the shelves of the central stand.
They are shaken and beaten and turned, but all to no avail; the moth and rot get at them, and the unwholesome weirdness peculiar to once worn but long unused garments is upon the articles of wearing apparel which are hung or folded up in the room.
This impression comes more strongly upon the visitor when he goes up higher still into the topmost apartment, where heaps of clothing hang upon the walls—some new, some worn.