The taciturn young officer takes me downstairs and across the yard. I am conscious of many pairs of eyes looking out from windows and doors, and the few prisoners scattered about the yard singly or in groups stare with interest. My guide accompanies me to one of the buildings about halfway down on the left, which proves to be the tailor shop. Here in a corner of the shop, without any screens and in full view of all passers in and out, are three porcelain-lined iron bathtubs side by side, looking very white and clean. I am directed to take off my clothes, which I do, and then ordered to get into one of the tubs, in which a negro prisoner has drawn a warm bath. I obey and make use of the soap, and later of the towel which the attendant hands me. After I am dry I am given my prison clothes—a suit of underwear, a pair of socks, a cotton shirt with narrow blue and white stripes, and a suit of rough gray cloth. There is also a pair of very thick and heavy shoes. All the clothes are new. My coat fastens down the front with five light metal buttons, on which are the words State Prison in raised letters. The seven smaller buttons of the waistcoat are similar. My uniform is not exactly a first-class fit, but good enough for the purpose. A cap, rough gray to match the suit, together with a stiff new gray towel and a cake of white soap, completes my outfit. I am ordered to remove my wedding ring, but the officer explains that I am to be allowed to retain it. This is the first exception made in my case.
The rest of my belongings are bundled up and disappear from sight. All that is left of my former self is what can’t very well be eradicated. So far as is humanly possible, I am precisely like the other 1,329 gray figures which to-day inhabit this abnormal world within the walls.
We return to the administration building and I am taken to the office of the Principal Keeper, where are propounded to me a series of questions, the answers to which are duly entered on the records: name, age, occupation, married or single, Protestant or Catholic, parents living or dead, any children, character of my crime, is this my first term, have I ever gone under any other name, temperate or intemperate, and so forth and so on. Some of these questions have already been answered at the front office, and the officer holds the paper in his hand; but I answer them again, suppressing such facts as I do not wish to have a matter of record.[3]
After my history has been duly taken, I am handed a copy of the rules of the prison; and the Principal Keeper facing me across a small desk makes a neat little speech, giving friendly advice as to my conduct while in the institution. It is excellent advice, as far as it goes, and for it I thank him respectfully.
Then clearing his throat he says slowly and ponderously, “Brown, after you have had your medical examination, you will be put to work in the basket-shop, under Captain Lamb. He will give you full instructions concerning your place in his company and your work.”
It is on the tip of my tongue to say, “But it was all arranged with the Warden that I should be put first with the Idle Company.” Fortunately, however, I catch myself just in time. It is not for a convict to offer objections or to argue with the P. K. So I utter another brief but respectful, “Thank you, sir,” and feel a certain relief at the postponement of my acquaintance with the “toughest bunch of fellows in the Prison.” The Warden returns to-morrow, and an exchange can then be made if it is thought advisable; in the meantime it is my business to do exactly what I am told.
From the Principal Keeper’s office I am taken next door to the Chaplain. Here my reception is in marked contrast to the previous official frigidities. I fear that this is partially due to the Chaplain’s failure quite to realize that it is only Thomas Brown, a stranger and a new arrival, whom he takes so warmly by the hand. My evident embarrassment evidently embarrasses him, for I am beginning to enter so much into the spirit of the place that I almost feel as if I had been detected in an attempt to conceal my identity. The Chaplain turns me over to a convict stenographer who plies me with another series of questions, and I give my statistics for a third time. I can only hope that my answers to these various sets of questions are fairly uniform, or else that they will not be compared too closely.
The Chaplain and his assistant (a very nice-looking prisoner named Dickinson, whose acquaintance I made yesterday) inquire as to what books I should like to read, and I am shown a typewritten list from which to choose. I am hardly in a mental state to do so, but manage to make a selection. Unfortunately nothing I want seems available; but Dickinson promises to get one of the books later, and in the meantime I am presented with a Bible. Then I am taken upstairs and left with the Doctor.
The Doctor puts me through another series of questions, the fourth; many of them duplicates of the others. Then he starts on a careful physical examination which he does not finish as it is getting too near dinner time. The officer returns for me, and laden with my complete prison baggage—one towel, a cake of soap and a Bible—I am conducted to the north wing, up a short flight of iron stairs and along a narrow wooden gallery with an iron bar for a rail, to my cell on the second tier, Number 15. It has already been described. I remain here while the officer goes to get the small handbag left at the Warden’s office, containing a few things which I am to be allowed to have in my cell—writing paper, toothbrush, towels, sponges, toilet paper, and a razor. Most of the men are shaved twice a week by convict barbers in the different shops, and not even the barbers are allowed razors in their cells. As a new man I ought not to be allowed any of these luxuries, but this is exception number two.
The officer first returns with the wrong bag, but soon after with the right one, and I am then locked in until dinner time. Soon my keeper turns up, Captain Lamb, the head of the basket-shop. He introduces himself and then gives me instructions as to my immediate conduct; explains the marching signals, the seating at meals, et cetera. In obedience to his instructions, I take off my cap and coat to leave them in the cell; and when he soon passes along the gallery outside, unlocking the cells by pressing down the levers, I push open the grated door and follow close behind him. At the foot of the iron stairs he allots me a place toward the end of the line; and at the word of command we first shuffle and then march in double file along the stone corridors, and in single file into the mess-hall. As we enter, the Principal Keeper stands at the door. I had been warned to place my right hand on my left breast, by way of salute; but the prisoner behind me, fearing I have forgotten, gives me a friendly poke, and I assume the proper attitude of respect. Our line swings around to the right and marches past row after row of men in gray, all facing in the same direction and bending silently over their food.