The Convict Uniform
In the grasp of what seemed to me a horrible nightmare, I found myself in a cell with barred windows, a bed, and a chair. Without, the stillness of death reigned. I remained there perhaps half an hour when the door opened and I was commanded by a female warder to follow her. In a daze I obeyed mechanically. We crossed the same yard again and entered a door that led into a room containing only a fireplace, a table, and a bath. Here I was told to take off my clothes, as those I had traveled in had to be sent back to the prison at Liverpool, where they belonged.
When I was dressed in the uniform to which the greatest stigma and disgrace is attached, I was told to sit down. The warder then stepped quickly forward, and with a pair of scissors cut off my hair to the nape of my neck. This act seemed, above all others, to bring me to a sense of my degradation, my utter helplessness; and the iron of the awful tragedy, of which I was the innocent victim, entered my soul. I was then weighed and my height taken. My weight was one hundred and twelve pounds, and my height five feet three inches.
Once more I was bidden to follow my guide. We recrossed the yard and entered the infirmary. Here I was locked in the cell already mentioned. At last I could be alone after the anguish and torture of the day. I prayed for sleep that I might lose consciousness of my intolerable anguish. But sleep, that gentle nurse of the sad and suffering, came not. What a night! I shudder even now at the memory of it. Physically exhausted, smarting with the thought of the cruel, heartless way in which I had been beaten down and trodden under foot, I felt that mortal death would have been more merciful than the living death to which I was condemned. In the adjoining cell an insane woman was raving and weeping throughout the night, and I wondered whether in the years to come I should become like her.
The next day I was visited by the governor on his official rounds. Then the doctor came and made a medical examination, and ordered me to be detained in the infirmary until further orders. My mind is a blank as to what happened for some time afterward. My next remembrance is being told by a coarse-looking, harsh-spoken female warder to get ready to go into the prison. Once more I was led across the big yard, and then I stood within the walls that were to be for years my tomb. Outside the sun was shining and the birds were singing.
In Solitary Confinement
Without, picture a vast outline of frowning masonry. Within, when I had passed the double outer gates and had been locked out and locked in in succession, I found myself in a central hall, from which ran cage-like galleries divided into tiers and landings, with a row of small cells on either side. The floors are of stone, the landings of slate, the railings of steel, and the stairs of iron. Wire netting is stretched over the lowest tier to prevent prisoners from throwing themselves over in one of those frenzies of rage and despair of which every prison has its record. Within their walls can be found, above all places, that most degrading, heart-breaking product of civilization, a human automaton. All will, all initiative, all individuality, all friendship, all the things that make human beings attractive to one another, are absent. Suffering there is dumb, and when it goes beyond endurance—alas!
I followed the warder to a door, perhaps not more than two feet in width. She unlocked it and said, “Pass in.” I stepped forward, but started back in horror. Through the open door I saw, by the dim light of a small window that was never cleaned, a cell seven feet by four.
“Oh, don’t put me in there!” I cried. “I can not bear it.”
For answer the warder took me roughly by the shoulder, gave me a push, and shut the door. There was nothing to sit upon but the cold slate floor. I sank to my knees. I felt suffocated. It seemed that the walls were drawing nearer and nearer together, and presently the life would be crushed out of me. I sprang to my feet and beat wildly with my hands against the door. “For God’s sake let me out! Let me out!” But my voice could not penetrate that massive barrier, and exhausted I sank once more to the floor. I can not recall those nine months of solitary confinement without a feeling of horror. My cell contained only a hammock rolled up in a corner, and three shelves let into the wall—no table nor stool. For a seat I was compelled to place my bedclothes on the floor.