A very few days after I entered the institution, I gave up looking for
any consideration from any one but the Deputy.
It was a rule of the place to shift every labor, when it could be
effected, by the one to whom it belonged, upon some other person. That
is, in the female department. The example set by the Head Matron was
considered worthy of imitation, and copied with an accuracy deserved by
a better one.
To impose upon an officer, ignorant of the ways of the place, was a
favorite entertainment of some of the others.
They commenced to hand me along from one to another when I wished for
things to use, or for information, giving me a long chase to find it;
but a short time, only, was required to extinguish that entertainment. I
refused to take orders or information from any one but the Deputy.
My inquiries of him, and statements of what I had been told, exposed
them. They got reproof instead of entertainment, which, of course,
created resentment that vented itself in a thousand of those little
annoying inventions in which unamiable women are so ingenious.
The reprisals Mrs. Hardhack made did not always redound to my
inconvenience alone,--my women came in for a share in the retaliation. A
new Receiving Matron was told to take no trouble about the dresses of my
women in the kitchen,--it was no matter how they looked. The shorter she
kept them, the better the Master would like it. The less they had to
wear the more money would be saved to the institution. In consequence,
dresses sufficient to make them decent were withheld.