If woman were to help make the laws, could she remedy this state of things,—would she? Would she take her husband, father, brother from his home to the Penitentiary? She must do that, in order to rid society of the pest of night-walking. She may do that now if she will. The law gives her the opportunity. Instead of lavishing her courtesies, as she now does, upon the male offender, she might extend her charity in kindly assistance to his victim, if she were disposed to do it.
To judge by the way she treats him now, if she were to assist in making laws would she not be still more unjust than she now is, to her own sex, and lenient to the other.
If man go unpunished, of human law, for this sin, justice will find him out sooner or later. God pity him when his retribution comes! The avenging of a guilty conscience will work him greater woe than the miseries of a prison can inflict.
As I sat in the prison this evening reviewing my day's work, I counted up my occupations.
I am Housekeeper, Engineer, Overseer, Jailer, Porter, Usher, Sentinel, and many others which I did not enumerate.
Irksome as was the handling of keys to me, it was quite an entertainment to see myself answering the knock of the gentlemen in striped uniform, letting them into my kitchen, and following them around, like a page after a prince; and then, letting them out. I hardly think they get such attendances in the outside world.
Rotation in duties, and reversion in offices was the order of the place. I was Usher to the prisoners; my sweeps were stationed on the stone stairs, when the prisoners were in their cells, and the kitchen door locked, to open it if there were a knock on the outside, and to lock it again after the officer who entered.
Sittings on the stone stairs could hardly have been comfortable accommodations. I was reminded of that fact this evening, by hearing Ellen whisper when she heard a knock,—
"I hate to get up,—I've just got my seat warm."
"Every back is fitted to its burden," is an old proverb. I wondered if those prisoners had been provided by a beneficent Providence, of some kind, with an extra amount of animal heat, in order to warm up the stones they lived on during their incarceration.