In one of the fields I saw a long line of women hoeing the ridges for corn, and at one end of the line stood a white-clad surveillant, revolver on hip. For the fiftieth time my English prejudices were shocked when I learnt that these were a detachment of the female relégués; and I wondered what would be thought at home if the lady-guests at Aylesbury were turned out to work in the fields under the charge of a male warder. Here it was quite a matter of course.
“Wait till you have made the acquaintance of the ladies,” laughed the Commandant, in reply to a rather injudicious question, “and you will see that they want some watching.”
IX
USE FOR THE USELESS
From the farm of Uro, after a drink of delicious milk, which, for some reason or other, took me back instantly to far-away England, we went on a few miles along the road to the ateliers, or workshops, where all kinds of industries, from boot-making to waggon-building, were being carried on in a somewhat leisurely style, and under what seemed to me very slight supervision.
“This is a hard school for them to learn and us to teach in,” said the Commandant. “The forçats generally know a trade and are accustomed to work, if they have not been gentlemen; but these have been brought up to hate the name of work. Yet you see we have made something of them. Everything that is used on the island is made here. In fact, we make something which will be used a long way from here.”
I saw this later on during our visit to the prison, which was too similar to the others to need any description. About a score of the occupants of a big shed within the walls were busy plaiting a long, reedy grass which others, squatted about the yard, were stripping and preparing for them. They had to get through so much a day or their rations were docked. The unhappy wastrels didn’t seem to like the regime at all, but they worked, if only for their stomachs’ sake.
When we left the prison we went to a long shed, where the plaits were being worked up into matting—miles of it there appeared to be—and when I asked what it was all for, I learnt that it was destined to be trodden by the millions of careless feet which would saunter through the halls and corridors of the Paris Exhibition.
This was the contribution of this far-away spot to the great show. Of course, those who were making it knew what it was for. Perhaps their thoughts—if they had any by this time, beyond their daily meat and drink, or any dreams of delight, beyond the little luxuries that their hard-earned pence could buy them at the canteen—were travelling even as they stitched back to the elysium of crime and idleness which they would never see again. From what I saw and heard I doubt not that many a bitter thought was woven in with the miles of matting which afterwards covered the exhibition floors.