Inmates in the third grade wear black and white striped suits. They are
denied tobacco, writing and visiting privileges and their meals are served
in their cells, which are located in one portion of the cellhouse. In none
of the grades are prisoners required to march with the “lock‐step,” and
excepting those in the third grade, all are permitted to wear their hair
long enough to comb during good behavior. The prisoner, after his bath, is
again brought into the cellhouse and the captain has one of the inmate
barbers clip his hair and shave him. If the new arrival belongs to the
respectable class, wearing a mustache and dressed well he will hardly
recognize himself if he should chance to look into a mirror. In a few
moments the proud American citizen has been supplanted by the convict.
Those who belong to the so‐called “criminal” class are not affected upon
donning the prison uniform, but it is different with the first offender.
If he is a proud, sensitive man the change is great enough to almost
wrench his heart strings asunder. Many a new arrival, spending his first
night in his cell, with its iron bed, whitewashed walls, scant
furnishings, iron floor and the dimensions of the room only five by seven
feet, has been known to break down completely. After such an ordeal (not
your make‐believe imprisonment, where some author has himself locked up
for an hour or so to gain local coloring for a novel) one gets a clear
idea of what prison life really is and places a higher valuation on the
liberty that he so recklessly trampled under foot in his mad rush for
riches, position and fame.
After the tonsorial artist has completed his task the prisoner is
conducted to the deputy warden’s office, where he is weighed, asked
innumerable questions, etc., instructed as to the rules of the
institution, measured according to the Bertillon system, which is the
standard adopted in this country and throughout Europe.