"What I wanted to call your attention to, particularly, was this box of
old clothes. I think it must have been here two or three years."
I wondered if it had been two or three years since she had been in that
room.
"They are cloth caps," she went on, "there may be an old coat or pair of
pants among them. I don't think they will be of any use,--they might as
well be sold, and the pay go towards the support of the institution."
I looked into the box. There might have been twenty pounds of woolen
rags, originally; but they were nearly chowdered into dust by moths.
I saw by that one interview the occasion of the reticence of the Deputy,
with regard to the Head Matron.
The first moment of leisure I got, that afternoon, I examined the
printed "Rules and Regulations," by the Board of Directors, which the
Deputy had brought me. They were printed eight or ten years before, but
sensible and humane so far as they went.
There were no directions to regulate the details of duty; but all of the
Master's orders were subject to the approval of the Board. I did not see
how it could be possible to carry that article out, practically, when
many of them were changed almost every day.
One order that I noticed gave me great satisfaction, and had it been
observed, would have created a very different state of things in the
prison from what then obtained. It was, that "no irritating language"
should be used to the prisoners. Had that rule been observed, there
would have been comparatively few "in solitary," to the number which
came under my observation.
I came to the conclusion that if the rules which governed the
institution had been subjected to the approval of the Board of
Directors, that august body must entertain a very imperfect idea of
their practical working.
One of my orders was to stand at the ration table, in the kitchen, while
the meals were passed out. Another was to be in the prison, at the same
time, on duty, which shut me out of the kitchen entirely.
The trouble that arose from the conflicting orders was this. After I
left the kitchen, the food for the meals was under the control of the
prisoners, and they secreted what part of it they pleased for themselves
and their favorites.
Before I left the kitchen I saw the meat sliced, and an equal portion
placed in each pan. After I left, and there was no one to watch it, the
women abstracted a part of it from some of the pans, or changed it from
one pan to another.
I was allowed about two hundred and eighty pounds of meat for the four
hundred prisoners, bones included. After this was sliced, it was divided
to each pan as nearly equally alike as possible. To this was added three
or four potatoes, with the skins on, and the gravy or soup was then
poured over them.
These pans were arranged in rows across the ration table, to be passed
out, through a slide, to the men, as they were marched into prison, on
their side; and to the women, on their side. The kitchen was between the
prisons.
After the pans were arranged on the table, and the dinners put into
them, I was obliged to go out into the prison to receive the women, and
see them slid into their cells. The slide door was shut upon me, and the
convicts were left alone with the food to hand it out.
Was it strange, with this opportunity placed in their way, that they
should help themselves to the meat which had been divided to the others?
My order was to detect the thief and report her. That was much easier
said than done. My opinion was that they all took it.
It was a question strongly debated in my mind, who was most at fault,
those poor, half-starved things, for taking the meat when the
opportunity was given them, or those who put the temptation in their
way?
I did not decide it in season to have any of them punished for breaking
the rule.
When the convicts got angry with each other, they would report on the
one they were offended with; but it was an established rule that the
testimony of one prisoner was not to be taken against another, and I had
not the least inclination to break the rule.
I did discover one of the thieves at last; but I took my own way to
punish her.
The steam woman got angry with one of the slide women, and reported her
to me one day when the dinner came short.
"Never mind now, Allen; but the next time you see her take it, tell me
where she hides the meat. I will go find it; and then, she can't turn it
on you for betraying her."