One night, when the women were coming into the prison, I observed great commotion and disturbance among them. I heard a confused, mixed up, talk about beds being taken out.
Two or three of the women stepped out of the ranks, and looked up into their rooms, to see if their beds were taken out of them. Among the number was a woman by the name of Callahan.
I had heard of her as being a desperate character; but she had behaved well in the prison.
She was a tall, stout woman, with a loud voice. After she had looked into her room, and seen that her bed was gone, she turned to me, and asked,—
"What was my bed taken out for?"
"I didn't know that it was out."
She looked steadily at me for a moment; then, lowered her voice, and asked,—
"Do you mean to say that you didn't know that my bed was out?"
"Yes, Callahan, I meant to say that I did not know your bed was taken out. Perhaps you are mistaken, it may not be out."
"O, yes, it is out; I saw the naked bars."
"Come, Callahan, go along like a good woman! Go to your room first, and see, before you ask why it is done."
She went into her room. The other women were in theirs. I called,—
"Second Division!"
All of the rest shut their doors.
"Shut your door, Callahan!" I called pleasantly.
"No, ma'am, I will not. I don't mean anything against you; but I will not shut my door, nor sleep on the bars. Do you know who reported me, and what my bed is taken out for?"
"No, I do not."
I was obliged to leave her standing in her door, and go round to the other side of the prison to see the other prisoners slid in.
The moment I left Callahan, she began to rave. "By the Holy Jesus, I won't sleep on the bars. And I'll know who reported me, and what I'm reported for,—the miserable set of"—
"Callahan, stop!" I ran round and called.
Neither of the Shop Matrons appeared, and I was told that it was because they were afraid of Callahan's violence.
"No, I won't stop! I'll do something to make them lock me up. I won't sleep on the bars. It was Hardhack that reported me. I wish I'd struck her down!"
"No! no! it was Thingsly," said a voice that I did not know.
"Hardhack made the balls if Thingsly fried 'em. She's at the bottom of all the deviltry there is done here."
Then she commenced a tirade of vituperations and oaths that made my ears tingle.
In a few moments the Deputy made his appearance.
"Your No. 1 key," he said to me, and proceeded to Callahan's room.
I got it; and then followed him.
"Now, Mr. Deputy," she said to him, when he went up to her; "you know I won't sleep on the bars. You might as well lock me up first as last, if you are going to punish me. But you ought to tell me what it's for. I haven't done anything but speak in the walk, and all of 'em do that."
The Deputy made no reply; but I saw that he had buttoned up his coat as though he expected violence. She went peaceably to her solitary cell, however; but all of the way she begged the Deputy to tell her what he was locking her up for.
When she saw me standing by the Deputy, she asked me where Hardhack and Thingsly were.
"I don't know; they haven't been in the prison to-night."
"They're afraid to come; but I wouldn't hurt the poor little lambs. They know they're guilty, and they know I'm locked up for nothing."
"Shall I give her her bread and water to-night?" I asked the Deputy, as he turned to leave.
"Yes."
I knew the water would be grateful to the poor thing.
I wished to ask the Deputy if Callahan had told the truth; but my own consciousness told me that she had. I had learned to esteem the man, and I could not bear to hear him say that he was accessory to such injustice, although I knew that it was his duty as a subordinate officer to do as he had done.
I could not help questioning, Ought not the girl to be told what she is punished for? Has she been "admonished?" The poor thing had no redress for such injustice.
That was the point that she, too, was revolving in her mind. When I gave her the bread and water, she said to me,—
"Look here, now, don't you think they ought to tell me what I am punished for?"
"You must not ask me such questions. It isn't for me to sit in judgment upon what the Master does."
She was intent on finding out my opinions, so she put her questions in a different way.
"If you reported me, wouldn't you tell me what it was for?"
"Certainly! I should probably give you a good scolding before I had you punished."
"If you was going to punish me just as you were a mind to, for speaking on the walk, would you shut me up here two days and two nights for it?"
"Perhaps not; but how do you know that you are to stay here two days and two nights?"
"Because they are never shut up for any shorter time."
"O'Brien and McMullins were only in for one day and a night."
"That was because you begged 'em off. But nobody'll beg me off. Say! would you shut me up here for speaking on the walk?"
"Perhaps not; but you knew the rule, and disobeyed,—it is for disobedience that you are punished."
"Ever so many of them talked,—they all talk; but none of 'em got punished but me. They've got a spite against me,—is that right."
"Perhaps that is your jealousy, Callahan."
"No, it isn't. Four of us were talking together. If Thingsly saw one, she saw the whole of us."
"Perhaps it isn't for that you are punished."
"Won't you find out? Won't you ask Hardhack?"
"No, I don't wish to."
"Are you afraid of her?"
"No!"
"Do you like that woman?"
"She is nothing to me. But if I were to ask her a question, about what does not concern me, I might not get a civil answer."
I was fast arriving to the conclusion that it would be impossible for me to assist in carrying out such a system of government.
The next day I spoke to the Deputy about letting her out. He shook his head.
"If she was one of your women, and you had the care of her, I might."
When the two days were expired, he sent me round word to let Callahan out at six o'clock. With my watch in my hand I did not defer it a moment later. As I was waiting upon her to her room, I asked her,—
"Why had you rather go into solitary than sleep on the bars?"
"If I sleep on the bars, I lose just as much time, and have to work all the next day. If I can't have my bed to sleep in, I won't work for 'em."
"I shouldn't think there would be much rest in solitary."
"There ain't; but I don't earn any money for them either."
There was retaliation with calculation.
"Callahan, I turned the key on you in solitary, and kept you there,—why are you not angry with me?"
"You didn't do it out of spite—you never did me any wrong. If they only punished me when I deserved it, I shouldn't be mad."
I did not know how to reprove the woman. "Callahan, be as good a woman in the shop as you are with me."
"I'll try to; but they wake up the devil in me. I wish you would get me into the kitchen."
"I'll try."
The windows of the kitchen were of ground glass. They were made to let down at the top, but could not be raised at the bottom.
When they were let down, I noticed that the younger women, if I were out of the way a moment, sprang upon the window-seat, which was a deep recess, and stood looking out. I inferred from the manner of doing it, and the apprehensive look they gave me, when detected, that it was breaking the rules to do so.
But no one informed me of such a rule, and I did not think it necessary to inquire. I could see no possible harm that could come to them from looking through the bars upon the grass, and trees, and flowers of the grounds. Positive good might arise from changing the tenor of their thoughts. If they stood longer than I thought best, I sent them to do something for me.
One day, Annie O'Brien had mounted the window-seat, in my absence from the kitchen, and when I went back, was exercising her powers of description upon what she saw, for the entertainment of the others.
The window through which she was looking, commanded a view of the yard, the office, and the walk through which the public found entrance to the buildings.
"An arrival, an arrival!" called Annie, in a loud whisper.
"Who is it? Is it anybody that we know?" asked one of the girls that had been brought in with her.
I stood behind the furnace a moment to notice what was going on.
"Yes, there is Tom Ticket. I wonder what he has been doing."
"Nothing new, of course! They wanted a carpenter down here, so they sent up for him. The carpenter was discharged the other day, and I heard one of the men say they'd have another down in a few days,—they knew just where to lay their hands on one of the best in the city."
"Do you mean to say, Lissett, that they can have a man brought down here a prisoner, because they want a carpenter?" I asked.
"Yes, ma'am. They know he drinks, and can prove it, but they don't want too many at a time, so they let him run till they want him; then, they have him taken up, and fetched down here."
My face must have expressed the utter abhorrence I felt of such work. O let us cleanse our whited sepulchres! Is there not work enough within our own borders to employ our Christian men and reforming women! We need not go abroad for workwith such festering sores in our own vitals. For very shame let us cleanse these places!—were my thoughts.
Here was another occasion for glib Annie O'Brien to hold forth; and such occasions were never slighted by her.
"Half that come in here," she said, "are not doing anything when they come. My coming, when I came, was a put up job."
"What do you mean by that?"
"A policeman was hired to take me up. I was sitting in a store, about nine o'clock in the evening, when he came in and told me to follow him."
"Who put him up to it?"
"A man that kept a saloon paid him five dollars, and he did it. Any of the policemen will take a person up for five dollars. When I came here I wasn't doing anything out of the way; but, of course, they knew what I had done."
"What did the saloon man want you taken up for?"
"Because I wouldn't tend for him. He had tried to get me in there, and I wouldn't go."
"Why wouldn't you go? Wouldn't it have been better for you to earn an honest living?"
"An honest living! I'd had to gone with any man he said if I'd gone there, and I rather choose my own friends."
"O, Annie, how can you stand there, and tell this over? I should think your heart would burst with grief when you think of it!"
"O pshaw! it's nothing when you get used to it!" said Lissett, and snapping her fingers at the imagination that O'Brien had called up, she flounced out of the room. But for all that, I saw that she choked as she said it, and the tears came in her eyes.
"I hadn't got quite so used to it as to go to that pitch," said O'Brien.
And where are the men that make these women what they are? I asked myself. Coolly walking the streets outside the terrors of the law. At that moment I could have locked all of mankind in solitary, and fed them on bread and water, without suffering one pang. Is there no help for this state of things, that the weak suffer for the sins of the strong? If man does not meet his punishment here he is borne on, by time, to judgment, where he will have no power to screen his guilty acts or shift his punishment upon the helpless.
That reflection did not satisfy me at the time. A more summary retribution would be better suited to the sin. One that would inflict immediate tribulation and anguish upon him, such as had fallen upon his victims.
Annie turned again to look out of the window.
"There is but one woman taking a ride in the fancy carriage of the government. Exercise in that carriage is excellent for dyspepsia."
"Do you know her?" asked Allen.
"No! she's a jail-bird, I know, by her looks. She's come from the Superior Court; she'll have a long sentence. She's coming through the kitchen."
Annie sprang down to look at her, and all of the rest followed her to the door which stood open, into the garden, for the men to bring in the bread for supper.
"Stand back! It isn't necessary for you to give her a welcome."
The newly arrived had her veil drawn tightly down over her face; but I could see that she was young, and very good looking.
In the absence of the female Receiving Officer I took her from the Clerk, and waited upon her to the reception room where she was stripped of her own clothes, and put into a bathing-tub. When she was thoroughly scrubbed and dried, she was arrayed in the uniform of the place, and sent to the shop.
There her capabilities were tried, and she was assigned to the work for which she was best adapted.
The clothes that she had taken off were carefully folded, put in a bag by themselves, and labeled, to restore to her when she went out of the prison.
When I returned to the kitchen, my girls had found out who the new prisoner was, how long a sentence she had, and what was the offense for which she had been committed.
How the facts got circulation in so short a time, was a mystery to me.
In deciding upon the capabilities of the prisoners Mrs. Supervisor made herself useful.
Her first care was to find out how long a sentence a woman had. That determined one qualification for her own service. If the sentence were for two or three years, and there was to be a vacancy in her own family, the woman was eligible to a place there, provided she could be trained into the work required.
This care was taken to save herself and her Housekeeper the trouble of changing.
To oversee her housekeeping was the Supervisor's pet employment, and it was fortunate for the Housekeeper that the government super-official had one pet. Through that partiality, she got two hours and a half more sleep in the morning than the rest of us.
She was not called till half past six; but I unlocked her women at the same time that I did the others.
I was glad she could be so favored; but I could not see the justice of such an arrangement.
I found, in the course of time, that it was a system of mutual favor. I went in to breakfast one morning, and there was no milk on the table.
Katie, the table girl, went to the refrigerator, that stood in the room, to get me some. She had just laid her hand upon the bowl when the Housekeeper, with a quick motion, arrested her.
"I must have that cream for the Master's breakfast!" she whispered.
She took the bowl, removed the cream into one pitcher, poured the skimmed milk into the one Katie held in her hand, and sent it to me.
I was not particularly anxious to drink skimmed milk in my tea so that the Master might have cream; but I supposed it was in some way to contribute to the support of the institution; or that there was an order of the Board to that effect, so I made no complaint. Indeed it was my policy not to appear to notice what was going on in such trifling matters,—trifling to the Supervisor, probably, whatever they might have been to the inferior officers.
Before I knew the Housekeeper's hour of rising, I went into her kitchen, on an errand, several times before she was up.
I always found the women working on nice embroidery. They could not attend to their housework because the Housekeeper had the keys, and was not up to unlock the stores and give out the things to work with. But there could be no relaxation of their labor on that account. They must be up and at work.
One morning, Mary Hartwell asked me to look on the list, and see if her name were there.
The names of the women who were going out during the month, with the date of the day that they were to be discharged, was handed to the Receiving Matron, the first of the month.
The women were very accurate, usually, in keeping account of their own time, still they were anxious to have their own calculations confirmed by knowing that their names were entered on the discharge list.
"If you will please look for me, I will do something for you after I go out."
"Something for me, Mary! O no! I will look for you when I go to the wash-room to-day."
Her remark called my attention to her work. I saw that she was doing a beautiful piece of embroidery. When she saw that I noticed it, she held it up and exhibited it with a great deal of pride.
It was a night-gown yoke, in linen, of an elegant and elaborate pattern.
"Who are you doing this for?" I asked.
"This is for Mrs. Means." That was the Housekeeper.
That is what I call you up two hours and a half before she rises, to do, I thought.
"How many of you are there that can do such work?" I asked.
"Five of us can do this kind, and we can all do fine stitching, or crochet, or some kind of fine needlework."
There were ten of them to do the work in the Housekeeper's rooms, and those of the Supervisor. Quite an array of talent!
"You ought to see Ann Horton's work. She does all kinds beautifully. She stays up-stairs, and works all of the time. She had a sentence of three years; it's most out now. It would do your eyes good to see the piles and piles of nice things she has done for the Master's wife and the young ladies. The pillow-cases, and the yokes, and bands, and skirts."
"Has she been doing embroidery all of the time for three years?"
"Yes, ma'am, and nice sewing."
I thought three years of hard labor, from five in the morning till eight at night, must accumulate quite an amount in value, of such work, beside what was done at intervals of two or three hours at a time, by the other nine women.
Supervisor might have exercised her thrift in supporting the institution, very profitably, by selling that embroidery as she proposed to do the moth-eaten rags. In doing that she might obviate the necessity of giving the officers skimmed milk in their tea.
I inferred that that three years' labor was a perquisite belonging to the office of Supervisor. In addition to her salary she was making a profitable affair of her sinecure situation. Far more advantage would accrue to her than to the institution in having such an incumbent.
Supervisor of what? Of her own housekeeping. The very best of employments for a woman if she has a family.
It was Sunday morning. Sunday was our busiest day, because our meals came so near together.
We were allowed one hour more of sleep on this morning than on the others. I had waked at the usual hour, but settled myself comfortably to rest again hoping to obtain it. Tinkle, tinkle, went the bell over my head. I paid no heed to it for a moment. Rattle, rattle, rattle went the noisy thing for full ten minutes. By that time, vexation had expelled all drowsiness.
I vowed, in my own mind, that I would muffle it the next Saturday night, in retaliation for the unseasonable summons. At first I determined to disregard the call. It must have rung from habit.
The next thought that suggested itself brought me to my feet. Perhaps a new order had been issued, and subjected to the approval of the Board at that early hour. In that case the august mandate was not to be disregarded. I rose, unlocked my women, and set them to work.
The ringing of the bell so early proved to be a mistake of the watchman, who was a new hand, whofearing he should be late, gave me that untimely warning. I judged, from that circumstance, that the orders were as distinctly given, and the duties as definitely arranged on the other side as on ours.
I grudged that hour of lost repose both for myself and my women. I was hungry for rest; and my women were worked to sheer exhaustion.
Sunday all of the women were unlocked at six o'clock. They were called out of their rooms, in the same order as on other days, left their skillet pans, and the quarts in which they had taken their suppers to their cells the night before, at the slide, as they went out. They were marched to the shop to wash and be dressed for chapel. While they were gone, their dishes were washed, and their breakfasts put into them to be taken to their rooms when they returned to them.
At nine they were marched to chapel, where they remained till half-past eleven or twelve, when they returned to take their dinners, and remain in their cells till half-past one. Then, they went to chapel again, and returned at three to take their suppers to their rooms, and be locked in.
After that the presence of only one Matron was required in the prison. One of the other three was required to remain on the premises. Two might go where they liked.
Sunday breakfast and supper was of bread, mush, and rye coffee, the same as other days. The dinner was of roast beef, which was cooked at the bake-house, and sent in to us to be carved and served.
The gravy was to be made in the kitchen, and the potatoes steamed: the meat and potatoes put into the pans, and the gravy poured over them.
To get that meat to its right destination required sharp care on my part. There were extra women sent in from the wash-room to help on Sunday. They, with my own, were possessed with a disposition to get possession of the greater part of that rarity.
They got up all sorts of inventions to get me out of the room, while it was being sliced, in order to secrete a part of it for their own use, the next day, and for that of their favorites among the prisoners.
At first they had been able to impose upon my ignorance, but at this time I had learned just how much two hundred and eighty pounds of meat would divide to about four hundred people. I had learned their "tricks and their manners" also, so that it had become impossible for them to draw me from my object, which was, to see it equally divided.
"An' sure ma'am," said Bridget O'Halloran; "we're wanting the pails from the hospital."
In order to get the pails I must go to the outside door, blow my whistle to call a runner, wait till he came, and then order my pails. The hint was just in season. Allen had taken the first piece on her fork to commence carving. I said to her,—
"Don't cut that meat till I come back, not one slice."
I then ordered in the pails, and bread—everything that would be wanted before dinner, and tookmy station at the table with the determination not to be drawn away from it upon any pretense.
The smell of the meat to the poor, half-fed things was very savory, and they came around picking up the bits which fell off while it was being carved.
"Please ma'am, give me a bone,—just the least bit of bone!" was the cry perpetually in my ears. And the bones I was forced to give to their importunity as fast as they were freed from the meat.
To keep their fingers from that meat was like fighting eagles from a dead carcass.
Bridget O'Halloran's ways were suspicious. I thought she had eluded my vigilance, and secreted some of it in spite of me. I kept watch of her motions for the rest of the day.
I noticed that she visited the shed very frequently. If I wanted her I was continually obliged to send for her. At last I thought I would go myself and see what attraction that old shed had become so suddenly possessed of.
When I discovered her she was stooping down in the middle of the building without any apparent object in view.
"Bridget—I want you in the kitchen at this moment!"
She was fumbling about her stocking. I stood looking at her while she was apparently arranging it.
"What is the matter with your stocking, Bridget?"
"Nothing, ma'am!"
She colored, was confused, and started with the top of it in her hand. I let her pass on before me so as to get a better prospect of what was going on.
From the glimpse that I got of her leg I thought she had been following the fashion—in adopting false calves. In hurrying her I had spoiled the proper adjustment of them, and they had slipped to her ankles. I intended to examine into the case when I reached the kitchen; but an explanation came by way of accident.
In order to make more speed, as I hurried her on before me, she let go the top of her stocking, the weight of what was in it brought it down over her shoe, and out fell two or three slices of meat. The cause of her clumsiness in moving was explained, also of her frequent absences. She had slily slipped away slice after slice, one at a time, and gone into the shed to secrete them in that safe place.
Under my eyes, as I stood looking at that meat, she had done it.
"Stop! pick up your meat, Bridget!"
"It's no matter, ma'am!"
Her face was ablaze with disappointment and smothered anger, and tears filled her eyes.
"Stop, and pick up that meat!"
She did so.
"Now look me in the face!"
That was a hard command for her to fulfill; but she looked up at me.
"Caught in the act of stealing! You do not intend to treat me any better than you do any one else?"
"I did not mean it against you,—indeed I didn't!"
"Every rule that you disobey is something done against me."
"I suppose you will report me; but I was awful hungry."
"The rest of the prisoners are awful hungry; you are no worse off than they when you share equally with them; but if you rob them, in order to help yourself to more than they have, you make them worse off."
"I did not think of that. I work hard, and I earn a good living, and I mean to get it if I could. It's a shame for me to go hungry when I work so hard."
"If you steal food here, Bridget, you steal it from your fellow-prisoners, not from the institution. There is just so much allowed for you all, and the rest won't get any more, in any way, if you take it from them. They must go without if you have it; and they work just as hard as you, and get no more for it."
"It makes me awful mad to think I work so hard, and don't get any pay for it."
"Then you ought not to come here. You have been here before, and you knew just how it was before you did the wrong which brought you here. You were sent here to work hard, for nothing, for a punishment."
"Others do worse than I, and they don't come here. If those that put me here had their dues they'd be here too!"
That was the continual rejoinder.
"May be; but how are you going to help that? You will have about as much as you can do to attend to your own case. Only think of what you have been doing; robbing another person as badly off as you are. You ought to have pity on each other, if no one else has pity on you! You ought to respect the rights of your fellow-prisoners,—they have done you no harm!"
"I will; but I was so hungry and the meat smelt so good; and I did not think of them. If you worked as I do, and was real hungry, and saw the meat, wouldn't you take it?"
"I don't know, Bridget; I have not had the temptation."
The word temptation sounded out from the other words that I had been using, fearfully loud when I pronounced it. A nice slice of roast beef was a strong temptation to those hungry women. They were allowed enough to tantalize but not to satisfy them.
By being kept without enough to satisfy their hunger they were led into sin, if it be a sin for them to help themselves to more than their share. They were led to disobey the rules, which involved punishment if they were detected. It would certainly undermine their health to work so many hoursas they were obliged to without a suitable amount of food to produce recuperation.
"Are you hungry enough to eat that meat after it has been in your stocking, and on this floor?"
"Yes, ma'am; it ain't hurt it any. I'll eat it if you'll give it to me."
"Eat it!"
She brushed the dust off it with her hand, tore it apart with her fingers, and put it in her mouth.
"Bridget, don't ever take any more, and secrete it without my knowledge."
"No, ma'am; and you wont report me now."
"I gave you the meat. How can I report you?"
"Thank you!"
"If you are ever so hungry, don't you put any away for yourself without asking me!"
"No, ma'am!"
Perhaps she will not. The fear of punishment, in a solitary cell, had not deterred her from taking the meat. Perhaps pity for her fellow-prisoners would not; nor the desire to please me.
That evening I heard the Matrons discussing the music by the quartette choir in the chapel of the prison.
"You have a hired choir?" I asked.
"Yes, and an organ?"
That information sounded strangely in contrast with the scanty meals and the solitary cells.
Where does the praise of God come in?
After the kitchen was put in order, that Sunday afternoon, I gathered the women around me, and read a story to them, from a religious newspaper.
I also read them one of the Saviour's parables. Then, I talked with them so as to find out what ideas they entertained of themselves, and the lives they had led.
"What are you in here for, Sarah?" I asked of a smart, bright, active woman. As she was among convicts she was called bold; but if she were working outside she would be called a smart, capable woman. If any notice were taken of her ways she would be just remarked as independent.
"For shoplifting, ma'am;" and with a toss of her head, that was intended to ward off reproof, she added, "When I go out of here I will do just so again. I'll take five dollars for every day they've left me here."
"Then you will get detected, and brought back again."
"No, ma'am! I'll look out for that."
"You cannot; you may be sure your sin will findyou out. If you break God's commandment, 'Thou shalt not steal,' his eye is on you, He will see it, and surely punish you for it. It may be by coming here, and it may be in some other way."
"I'll risk all He'll do to me if I don't fall into the hands of the police, and get in here."
"That's my case," said Bridget. "The Lord knows just how poor we are, and how hard it is for us to get along; and He knows how the rich folks crowds on us, and He pities us. And He knows how they lie, and cheat, and steal from each other,—and He won't punish us any more nor He does them."
"It will make no difference to you what they do to each other, or what He does to them. You will not have to answer for their misconduct, nor be punished for it. You will only suffer for the commands which you break."
"We shall get into their company once where they can't put on airs over us; and that'll be a great comfort. I hope I shall be there when some of 'em go to judgment."
"If you are you may have enough to do to attend to your own affairs."
"If I was in the lower end of the d—l's kitchen, I shouldn't be too busy to see them sprinkled with brimstone."
"Hush, Bridget! that is revenge!"
"We can't help it," said the ever ready O'Brien. "I'd like to pay them back what they've done to me.Don't you suppose we've got human feelings? Only think what that miserable Hardhack has made me suffer in solitary. Wouldn't I make her suffer back again? I'd beat her till she couldn't stand, the first time I meet her, if it wasn't for getting another sentence. One girl did give her an awful pommeling, and scratched her face; and she got another six months for it."
"O Annie, that is a bad temper!" but I thought I would study her still further. "I don't see why just the idea of being punished should make you so angry. I had you punished. What would tempt you to strike me?"
"Nothing on earth, ma'am! I would stand between you and a blow if it broke my head."
"But I had you locked in solitary."
"Yes, ma'am, and you was sorry for it, and I deserved it. But when they lock me up for nothing it makes me mad."
"Who is to be judge of when you deserve it? It would not do to leave it to you. You would never think you deserved it."
"You are mistaken there, ma'am. Didn't I tell you to report me when I was locked up? Didn't I say that I deserved it? You might have some of us locked up every day, if you were a mind to; but it wouldn't make us a bit better."
"It would make me very unhappy to do that. It would make me sick at heart to see you such bad women as that."
"We know it, and that keeps us from a great many things. But you might, for what we do, if you had a mind to, just to show your authority. You don't get mad, and we don't. You try to make us better, and we wouldn't any of us be mean enough to do wrong on purpose."
"I could not have you punished when I see that you are trying to do right. It is when you do wrong, and are determined to do wrong, that I shall have you punished. I see that you are improving in governing your temper, Annie. You don't get angry so easily as you used to, and you don't give way to it when you are angry, as you did two or three weeks ago."
"I don't think I do; but I should if you got mad and scolded me. If I do anything wrong, you turn round so calm, and talk to me so, it makes me ashamed; and I think of it when I want to do it again, and it keeps me from it, because I know you'd make me ashamed again. You have the upper hands of me. When I was in the shop, Hardhack would get mad and scold me, and that would make me mad, and I would sauce her; and then I got punished. If she hadn't got mad first I shouldn't."
It occurred to me that the officers of the institution would do well to study the rule of the Board which directs that "no irritating language" be used to the prisoners. The provision was a good one. It needed an additional quality, the oversight which compelled it to be carried out.
"If I were to get angry and scold I could hardlyhave confidence to teach you to be gentle and good-tempered. Now, Sarah, as you are only here Sunday, let us talk about the crime that brought you into this place."
"It wasn't a crime, ma'am. I'm sure I only took from the rich. I never lifted from any but the big stores where they lie and steal and make fortunes. I never went into any of the little small places, where they are trying hard for a living. I wouldn't be guilty of such a mean thing."
"Honor among thieves," says the old proverb.
"But it did not belong to you, without regard to the way they got it. You gave nothing in return for it."
"It did not belong to them, either. It belonged to me as much as it did to them. It would be hard telling who the right owner is. I thought I might as well have my share."
"I do not see that you had any share in it. You were taking that for which you made no return to any one, and that was stealing."
"If it had belonged to them it would be stealing. They take it, and dress their children up, and make a great show on it. My children are as good as theirs. Don't you suppose I want them drest up as nice when they go to school, and look like other children? I can't earn the things if I work ever so hard, so I lift from those that cheat out of others."
"Do you see what examples you are setting them? You are bringing them up to be thieves; and instead of the fine things which you covet for them, they will be drest in the same uniform that you are."
"Never, ma'am; never! my children shall never be thieves!"
"But they will do as you do."
"No, ma'am, they will not do as I do. They shall not. They go to day-school, and to Sunday-school, and say their prayers at night. They will never do as their mother does!"
In saying that she choked down the sobs that rose in her throat, and brushed off the tears that were gathered in her eyes, just ready to run over the hardy old cheeks.
"If they grow up to think differently from what you do,—to look upon the sin of stealing as it really is,—they will be greatly grieved that you have committed such acts. They will be ashamed of the clothes you have stolen for them. Every time they look at them they will think, my mother stole this dress. They will think everybody knows that she stole it. They will be ashamed to look any one in the face. The other children will taunt them with it, and they will be miserable, and they will turn it back upon you. They will blush for their mother; then, how can they respect or love her!"
If there were a tender spot in that mother's heart I meant to probe it, and I succeeded. She covered her face with her hands, and her chest heaved. The big tears made their way through her fingers. She was determined to brave it out. In a very few moments she mastered her emotions, and answered me,—
"They don't know what I do, and they never shall know it."
"Don't they know where you are now?"
"No, ma'am!"
"Where do they think you are?"
"Gone a journey."
"You may deceive them that way for a time; but you are only adding sin to sin. God says 'the iniquities of the parents shall be visited upon the children.' You may be sure that they will know it in the end. It was put in the papers when you came here. It is impossible to conceal what you have done, and where your sin has brought you."
"I didn't come here in my own name."
"Every one in here knows your real name; so do all of your acquaintances outside. You cannot save your children the knowledge and disgrace of your crime. Then, consider what you suffer from it."
"I don't care what I suffer, if I can only get the things for them. Talking is one thing, and living another. My children shall look as well as the best of them they go with."
That one idea had been ground into her mind by the force of her associations—the one idea of dress. It was in those above, around, below her. She had adopted it unconsciously, irresistibly.
The mother's love and pride were in that woman's heart in all their strength, and they had been developed by the circumstances around her. She did not care what she suffered if they could only be suppliedwith the good things which she valued because she saw the whole world setting the high price upon them. Body and soul might be the sacrifice; no matter, so she obtained them. Into what a strangely perverted channel had that mother's love run. Was that noblest, best of woman's instincts to destroy that woman's human life, and ruin her soul? God knows! He also knows how much of her sin rests upon those who profess to be following after better things; but have set her the example to make the obtaining of dress the business of her life; and placed the temptation in her way to do it dishonestly.
How much of the guilt he who causes his brother to offend ought to bear, must be decided by the Higher Judgment.
"If God had seen fit to gratify your pride, in your children, He would have provided a way for you in which you could have done it honestly. As he did not, you ought to have submitted to your lot, and done the best that you could."
How hollow those words sounded to me as they came from my lips. How easy it is to preach sound doctrine. How hard to make an impression, with it, upon minds and hearts established in their own opinions of right and wrong, and persistent in the determination to follow the wrong! If I could have had that woman under my influence a year, I might have led her into different views and ways. She was not wholly hardened, as her tears showed.
"God did intend that I should have it, and that was His way of giving it to me. He made me light-fingered, and gave me a chance to help myself. I'm willing to leave it to Him. I don't believe He will judge me any harder than He will those I took it from."
She fell back again upon what others do. I had made no progress in dispossessing her of the idea that the wrong of another mitigated her own.
"The command reads, 'Thoushalt not steal.' If the men that keep those large stores steal, you are not responsible for it. It is only for what you do that you will be called to give an account."
"Line upon line," I thought. "I hope you will never come in here again."
"I never mean to," and she nodded her head as much as to say, I'll be bright enough to avoid that.
"I hope you will never again do the things that brought you here."
"I shall, ma'am. For every day I'm in here, I'll have five dollars out of 'em."
She did not say this so vauntingly as she had made the assertion at first. Still there was the spirit of retaliation, of revenge, upon some one for her punishment.
"In doing that, who do you think you will spite?"
She stopped to think a moment. The question had taken her at unawares.
"I don't know. Them that put me here."
"But if you go into their store, they will know you, and watch you, and you will get caught again."
"Then I'll have it out of some of the rest of them."
"How will that spite the ones that sent you here?"
"They're all alike. It won't make any difference which I take it from."
"They are not all alike, any more than you and I are alike because we, just now, happen to be in the same place. If you go out of here and steal again, you spite yourself, and the punishment for it will fall upon your own head, and on the heads of those poor children that you have brought into the world. Those poor little things that are bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh. Does not the mother-heart melt within you in pity for those children when they come to find out that their mother is a thief? O Sarah, if you are not afraid of God's judgment, which is the most fearful thing that can overtake you, let your children be in your thoughts when you go to take what is not your own, and turn you from your wicked purpose."
"She tells ye the truth," said McMullins. "And only think of me! Here I am, the mither of five beautiful chilter as ye ever set eyes on. And me heart is sick after them. The lads are with the father, and the little girls are in the alms house. Only think what a mither I am! I have ruined meself for life, and damned me soul to hell forever."
"I don't believe anything about a hell," said Lissett. But she moved uneasily on her seat. It was easy to shake off the terror at the end of her tongue;but it was to be seen that she was haunted by a fear of it in a conscience not quite seared.
"Indade, there is. The praist has always told me that, and I've got it already whin I think what a mither I've been. God pity! God pity me!" This she said amidst sobs and tears.
"What kind of a wife were you, McMullins?"
"I don't care so much for the old man, he used to bate me sometimes, and he says he'll never live wid me any more. The minister went to see him for me, and he told him I had disgraced him; that he was fond of me once, but I had disgraced him, and put the chilter in the almshouse, and he would live wid me no more. Do you think he will? Only think what a miserable wife I've been! God pity me!"
"What did you come in here for McMullins?"
"It was all for a gallon measure, and a pint of beer. I wint in a store, and there stood a gallon measure, and a pint of ale widin it. An' sure I drank the beer like a sinsible woman; but I didn't know what to do wid the gallon measure, and I carried it to a policeman, and told him to take it. An' sure he brought me wid it to the watch-house, and thin, to the court, an' sure they gave me a year. Wasn't it too bad to give me the making of a year in here for jist a pint of beer and a gallon measure? Wasn't it a long sintence for a pint of beer, and a gallon measure?"
"I think you must have had something before you took the pint of beer and the gallon measure?"
"An' sure I had; but it was on that I lost my sinses, and got me sintence."
"You have been here before, havn't you?"
"An' sure I have."
"You were put here, probably, to keep you out of the way of temptation. If you were out you would, probably, take another pint of beer and gallon measure the first thing you did."
"I don't believe I could help it."
"I don't think you could."
I turned to one of the other women and asked: "What are you in here for, O'Sullivan?"
"For a home," said the slide woman, sharply.
"You must have a curious taste to choose this for a home."
"I had no other. The man what's the father of my child told me to steal a dress, and get in here, and be taken care of. I stole the dress, and he informed on me, and I came here."
"Why didn't he take care of you himself, after bringing that trouble upon you?"
"He couldn't. He give me all his earnings; but couldn't get work enough to do it all."
"An' sure he's nothing but a miserable drunkard hisself," said McMullins.
"It don't become the likes of you to say much about it if he is!" snapped back O'Sullivan.
A poor, old reprobate, from the wash-house, whose hair was once red, now gray, sat next.
"What are you here for, granny?" I asked.
"An' sure they swore a theft on me. I didn't desarve it. I lived with a German family on Rust Street. They missed a solid hundred dollars, and I never saw it no more nor a child unborn. But they got the sintence of ten years on me."
"How long have you been here, granny?"
"Since seven years last Christmas."
A long sentence, if it is the first one. I was sure it was not. A long life full of transgressions of the law stretched itself upon her past history.
"What are you here for, Nellie?" I asked a girl not twenty.
"A handsome Balmoral skirt took my fancy, and I'm here for it. I took a sup of liquor, and I was as rich as a Jew. I thought the Balmoral and all that I saw was mine."
"It is glorious to feel so rich!" said Lissett. "I mean to get a sup of liquor before I get back into the city."
"And be brought directly back here again."
"I shall have that one time on them."
"On yourself, you mean. It is all on yourself. The law does not suffer, nor do those who execute it, for your being here."
It was evidently a new aspect of the subject that they were the greatest sufferers for their misdoing.
"It plagues them, or they wouldn't put me here."
"It is not because you plague them; it is because that you injure others that you are put here."
The spirit of revenge, upon some one, for the punishment they were receiving, was the one that was uppermost in their minds. Revenge against those whom they had injured in the beginning; against those who made the laws, or the officials who executed them. Their idea of revenge was to commit the same deed again.
"Don't you all feel ashamed of what you have done," I asked, "when you think of it?"
"Yes, we do, that's the truth," said Annie O'Brien. "But's of no use. Nobody will ever think anything of us again, after we have been in here, and its no use to try to do any better; and we just do as bad as we can."
"But the All-seeing Eye is watching you, and, if you try to do right, will help you along. And in the life to come, where all hearts are known, you will get your recompense. Then, if you are really trying to do right you will be thought of and loved."
"It is a great while to wait for that, and it is hard."
"I know it is hard; but it cannot be long. It may be that we go at any moment; and then, it is forever and forever."
"If we could only keep that in our minds—but we forget it."
"You cannot of yourself. But if you ask the Father of your spirit to take your thoughts under his control, He will, and help you to think."
Poor things! They were ignorant of the way to control themselves. They had few to teach them in it, and none to help them in their personal efforts to overcome the evil dispositions so long indulged in.
That night, when I went into the hospital, for the closing inspection, the nurse was grumbling about the trouble one of the women had given her.
"Indeed, ma'am, this is the awfullest place a woman can get into!"
I thought I would give her a hint that it was her own misdoings that brought her there.
"What brought you in here, Mary?" I asked.
"I made my fingers too nimble with a man's pocket-book."
"You did! then you don't deserve a very good place, do you?"
"I have got my pay for it."
"How came you to do such a thing?"
"He left some money with me to keep, and I did keep it so as he couldn't get it again. He got drunk, and I thought perhaps he wouldn't remember it again."
"Men don't forget their money so easily."
"So I found to my cost."
"What did you do with the money?"
"I spent it for things that I wanted."
"You will hardly try that again if you ever have the chance."
"No, ma'am! I could have earned the two hundred and eighty dollars that I took in half the time I have been here, and had my liberty too."
"You knew it was wrong when you took the money and used it?"
"Yes, ma'am; but I wanted the things, and themoney was in my hand to buy 'em. The things would be of use; and I knew that drunken fellow would waste it if he had it."
Another specimen of specious reasoning; nor is that kind of reasoning confined to convicts.
"It was not yours; you had no right to it, and that ought to have been sufficient for you. If he wasted it in drunkenness that was his sin, not yours. You could have restrained him through the laws that punish drunkenness. You could have told him how wrong he was doing, and set him a better example. Instead of that you stole, and he got drunk. You made yourself as bad as he."
"I did not think of that."
"I hope this has taught you a lesson that you will never forget,—one that will make you think. Before you had this punishment you had not the strength to resist the temptation to take the money. Now you will always remember what you have suffered here, and you will not be likely to do it again."
"No, ma'am, I don't think I shall. This is harder than working for a living outside, besides the rough handling we get. A poor living at that, and poorer clothes. And you officers don't fare much better. You get a little better feed, and a better bed, and a little pay; but not so much rest; and you are in as close confinement as we are."
"But we are not prisoners; we can go if we like."
"What do you stay here for; you don't seem fit for such work, and you might earn a great deal more outside, and not work so hard?"
"I may be able to teach a few of you, poor things, to live right when you go outside, and that will be better to me than money."
"God bless you! that is what we want. There is many a one of us would be glad to live right if we knew how."
"There are some that only grow harder for coming here, and do as bad again, and come back."
"O, yes! they think they're prison birds, and there's nothing more for 'em in this world, and they don't care. Nobody likes to have such as we about 'em."
"But there are people that would help you to lead a better life, and earn an honest living, if you could find them."
"They might find us, but it is hard for us to find them."
That was a very true remark. Our prisons are prominent institutions in the land. It is easy for any one who is interested in the cause of humanity to find them; but to get access to them is a more difficult undertaking, as many can testify who have attempted it. I leave them to tell their own tale, and let it bear its own testimony. It is easy to find the poor wretches who are compelled to take up their abode within them, and do them good if one wills.
What a page of life was revealed to me in that one day! What a work is there here for you to do, O women of this broad land, for your fellow woman, if you will address yourselves to it!
It required the exercise of a large share of physical courage to enter, and examine into the condition of the private apartments of my boarders.
I shrank away from the task in loathing. Low, narrow, confined, they were like the cages of wild animals.
The human odor of the occupants had penetrated the walls and made the air noisome. They were ventilated through the bars of the door, and an aperture of five or six inches in diameter in the inner wall of the cell; but being used for all purposes, they would have remained uncleansed had every care been taken.
I went to the door of one, and looked in. I shivered, dreaded to enter, turned away. I went along to another. It looked comparatively tidy. A little white cloth embroidered around the edge with gay-colored thread, was laid carefully over the box. I stood and looked in while I reasoned with myself to screw my courage to the sticking point.
I put my head within the door, the bugs were crawling along the walls, and the white-wash wasspotted with marks of the violent death which had befallen many of them the night before. Again I shrank back in disgust. I called the white-wash woman to come with her brush and cover up the filthy sight, if she could not cleanse the dirt away.
If the sight is so revolting, what must it be to sleep among them, to be lodged with, and fed upon by them. I worked up my feelings of pity for the poor prisoners till my disgust was partially overcome.
The rats and mice can come in at the open doors, and there is no obstacle to such ingress of bed-bugs. Indeed such armies of them as I beheld could hardly have made their entrance in any other way. There they were in swarms, and had planted their colonies upon the solid brick and mortar, granite and iron, industriously, as the busy bee prepares her dormitory.
There is no ill to which the flesh is heir which has not been endured by the flesh. What has been endured by one flesh may be by another. In this case under modifying circumstances. Truly I can bear the sight of these vermin, and attend to their destruction with much less suffering than those poor women can be made their prey night after night.
My indignation was aroused against those who had charge of this place, and who, in their neglect, had allowed these dens for the confinement of human beings to become breeding nests of vermin. That indignation gave me courage and energy for my task. I set one of my sweeps to the work of slaughter. I stood by and directed the cleansing with shivers of disgust creeping along my flesh, and thrills of indignation stirring my heart.
When the Deputy came round, I gave vent to my feelings in a side-thrust of sarcasm. I stated to him the condition in which I found the cells, and then asked,—
"Did these bed-bugs get a sentence here for life; or did they come, a special beneficence to the prisoners, by an order approved by the Board?"
"We have the beds taken down, and filled with new straw in the spring, and the cells white-washed, and the frames washed. It has just been done, you know."
"To what purpose you can see. It could not have been properly done. If it had they would not have recruited so quickly."
"I will give you a bed-bug woman, whose special business it shall be to look after and exterminate them."
"Some poor old cripple, I suppose, who would be an additional care. It is no matter about the woman."
I was vexed that the cells had been allowed to get into such a condition. "It is very disagreeable to make them clean. I can keep Berry at the work. If I do not keep her hands busy her tongue is hatching mischief. If I do not keep her at work I can't keep the track of her. She is over to the wash-house, down to the shop, or hospital, gossiping, and carrying news."
Berry was the white-wash woman. After the other two "sweeps," or prison chambermaids, had swept the cells, and walks, her work was to go around with her white-wash brush, and cover up any soil or stains which had been left upon them.
"Suit yourself. I will do all I can for you."
"Thank you! If I could have one smart, healthy woman in the kitchen, it would help me very much."
"O, a smart woman! we must have the smart women in the shop. We can't spare you a shop hand."
"I have enough that are maimed and halt, and blind, now."
"You know a greenback covers every bundle of contract work that is done in the shop," he said, with a knowing wink.
"And the women must be made to help support the institution. There may be various ways of doing that. Greenbacks may look very nice to you men; but will not the health and reformation of those woman be as much money in the treasury of the state as the greenbacks which cover that contract work?"
"That is the Master's order. He is bound up in that contract work. He knows just how much each woman does. He examines the tickets himself, every morning."
"Would you work the women in that way if you were Master here?"
"I am not."
"Just let me tell you what an able-bodied corps I have in the kitchen. Old Allen, the steam woman, has a broken wrist. The cook is lame in one of her hips. One of the sink women has fits; the women say, the other is a 'poor weak thing.' One of the slide women is in that condition which some women, of the class that are here, find themselves without a lord, and always demands consideration. Another has just got up from her confinement. One of the sweeps is blind of one eye, and can't see with the other. The only able-bodied woman that I have complains that I put every hard thing upon her to do."
The Deputy laughed good humoredly at my description, and said,—
"I will see what I can do for you; but I'm sure the Master will not be willing to spare you one of his shop hands."
To get a large amount of contract work done, and show the figures that were received for it, was the Master's way of recommending himself to the Board of Directors; and it was what enabled him to keep his place.
It must be an apparent fact to the most shallow comprehension, that dollars and cents are essential to the welfare of humanity; but there are various ways of calculating their benefit.
The "almighty dollar" enlarges and increases in value, as it is contemplated, and its advantages dwelt upon. In the same ratio does an appreciation of human suffering decrease as it becomes familiarto the observation. The Master had evidently been through the mental process in both directions. The dollar had grown till it covered the whole surface of human life; the suffering had diminished till it became a mere speck in the distant view which he took of it.
"Let me have Callahan?" I proposed.
"I don't believe it would be best," and he shook his head wisely. "You would get along with her, and she would make you no trouble; but it wouldn't be a week before she would be in a broil with the other women, and I should be obliged to lock her up."
"When she was in here before, she was in the kitchen four months, without being locked up, wasn't she? She gets locked up where she is now."
He saw that I was informed upon Callahan's past history. She did a great deal of work in the shop; the Master would not be willing to spare her. He knew that to transfer her to the kitchen would be to interfere with Mrs. Hardhack's plan of breaking her temper, and she would resist her removal. His influence was not strong enough to overcome that of the two combined. He shook his head,—
"I'm afraid I cannot, and I do not think it would be best." He understood how to make his refusal palatable. "I think you are getting along well. I have been intending to tell you that I am satisfied with your management. The kitchen is clean and quiet; and the meals are prompt, much more so than they were for a long time before you came. They are well cooked, too."
"Thank you! but my women are worked beyond endurance. It makes my heart ache to see those poor cripples lifting out tubs of swill that two men could scarce handle; and bucketful after bucketful of that large, heavy coal from the cellar, with all of their other lifting and scrubbing."
"I'll see what can I do about sending you another woman. Do the best you can!"
"I will certainly do that."