It was useless to complain, he had to submit to the humiliating process with the best grace he could.
When the inspection was concluded, he had his hair cut after the approved prison fashion, and was put into his cell to make mats.
His cell was white as the driven snow. His domestic duties were explained to him, and he was informed a heavy penalty would be inflicted if a speck of dirt was discovered on the wall or floor of his cell, or if his cocoa-bark mattress should not be neatly rolled up after use and the strap tight, and steel hook polished like glass, and his little brass gas-pipe glittering like gold.
He listened to all these injunctions with exemplary patience, having made up his mind to be, if possible, a model prisoner. He had in view the remission of his sentence, which was only to be gained by exemplary conduct.
To a sanguine or irritable temperament the monotony of prison life is almost insupportable.
Peace was nearly getting into trouble on the first Sunday he spent in prison for a very unintentional violation of the prison rules.
In accordance with these rules, convicts are not allowed to turn their heads in any direction in the chapel; if they do so it is the duty of the attendant officer to take them before the governor, who, in all probability, will punish them for their disobedience.
It is fair to assume that those who framed these rules had some good end in view in being stringent in the matter of posture in religious service.
The difficulty with Peace was to discover whether the spiritual welfare of the prisoners or the preservation of a more than military discipline amongst them, even in matters of religion, had appeared to them to be of the greatest importance.
It is probable, however, that neither of these considerations decided the question, but that the principal object of these regulations was to preserve in the convict mind, even in the act of worship, the idea of punishment in a perfectly lively and healthy condition.