"Few incidents chequered the monotony of our existence. `Who has got a
piece of steel in his eye?'--`Who has gone to the hospital?'--`How many
came to-day in the carry-all?' were almost the only questions we could
ask. A man falling from the new prison, and breaking his bones in a
fashion not to be approved, was a conversational godsend. One day the
retiring tide left a small box on the sands at the bottom of the house
of correction wharf, which was picked up by a convict, and found to
contain the bequest of some woman who had `loved not wisely, but too
well,' namely, a pair of new-born infants. In my mind, their fate was
happy. If they never knew woman's tenderness, neither did they ever
know woman's falsehood. There is less pleasure than pain in this bad
world, and the earlier we take leave of it the better."
He complains of due regard not being paid to the cleanliness of the
prisoners:--
"A great defect in the police of the house was the want of baths. We
were shaved, or rather scraped, but once a week. Washing one's face and
hands in ice-cold water of a winter morning, is little better than no
ablution at all. The harbour water is interdicted, lest the convicts
should swim away, and in the stone-shop there are no conveniences for
bathing whatever: they would cost something! In the wool-shop, forty
men have one tubful of warm water once a-week. When I say that shirts
are worn a week in summer, and (as well as drawers) two or three weeks
in winter, it will at once be conceded that some farther provision for
personal cleanliness is imperatively demanded. I hope neither this nor
any other remark I may think fit to make will be taken as emanating from
a fault-finding spirit, since, while I pronounce upon the disease, I
suggest the remedy."