Chapter IV: Part 4

"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 hardly have 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 supplied with 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, '_Thou_ shalt 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 the money 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!

XIV.

INSPECTION OF PRIVATE APARTMENTS.

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 was spotted 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 familiar to 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."

After he had gone out, O'Brien said to me,--

"The Deputy wouldn't be hard on us, if he could help it."

I did the best I could. I told them I was sorry to make them work so hard; but I could not help it. I asked them to do things, when I could possibly do it, rather than give a command.

When I had time I gave them a reason, for an order, and however tired they might be, that was sure to secure ready and prompt acquiescence.

"You must get on more steam as quick as you can, because we are a little behind time with our dinner," was sure to set Allen's fire going at once.

If I came in, and found them sitting down, idly gossiping away the time before their work was done, I had only to say,--

"Now, girls, start round, and get your work done; then, you can sit down and talk. A clean room is so much pleasanter than a dirty one to me, and I want my place to look the nicest of any one in the institution, and you wish me to have the credit of its being so. You like to have all of the visitors taken in to see the kitchen because it looks so nice."

They would put the work about very quickly. Scrub and dust, and make the old kitchen shine like a new one in a twinkling.

They were keen enough to fathom character, and took no advantage of my manner. They were conciliated; but did not lose the restraint of authority. They knew it was there, and could be used if necessary.

They never gave me impertinence; nor refused to obey when an order came directly from me.

That inspection day was a literal washing of the great Master's feet; not with my tears of penitence, but with the bitter remnants of pride and anger subdued to patience? My work was even more humiliating. It was that of the dogs, at the temple gate, cleansing the sores of the vagrant Lazarus.

The prisoners were allowed the condiments of salt, pepper, and vinegar. Their boxes and bottles were filled every Thursday. That was to last till the next Thursday. If they were wasted, or extravagantly used, they were obliged to go without till the replenishing day came. To attend to that was one of the duties of the chambermaids.

I was obliged to look after it or they would scatter and waste their allowance, and then play off on me. They would call to me,--

"I want salt; there was none put in my box."

That would be done from pure mischief, to get the sweeps a scolding. But I gave them little chance to carry out their mischief in that way. I had the answer ready,--

"It was put there. I have been in every room to-day and saw it there. If it is gone you have wasted it, and must go without."

"I haven't wasted it."

"Wasn't it your pepper and salt that was strewed on the shop-floor to-day?"

That hint that I was after them, and knew what they were about, was sufficient. There were no more complaints made.

Every woman was obliged to make, and tie up, her own bed. The prison women swept the rooms every morning. That gave them an opportunity to secrete many a nice bit for their friends. Indeed my sweeps ran a regular underground bakery express from the Masters kitchen, and also from the prisoners'.

Many a nice biscuit and slice of cake went from the range to the cells, and bread from my table was provided against mush morning, and brown-bread breakfasts.

Onions were a favorite vegetable, but their telltale odor enabled me to detect them easily.

One evening, I passed a cell where they gave out unmistakable evidence of their presence. I called to one of the sweeps,--

"Ellen, the gardener has made a mistake! He has put the onions, for the soup to-morrow, in one of those cells. Won't you take them out, and put them in the cellar. If one of the other Matrons, or the Deputy, were to come in, they would smell them as plainly as I do, and they might think you put them there for some one to eat privately, and get you reported."

That hint was sufficient; I never smelt onions in the cells again.

The officers professed to take no report from one prisoner against another; but when they got angry with a prisoner, and wished to remove her from their department, they did not scruple to avail themselves of information obtained in that way. Berry, my white-washer, was an apt agent. Sly, artful, and treacherous, she pretended sympathy, and got possession of knowledge which was Mrs. Hardhack's principal clew to find out what was going on in the kitchen and prison.

The other women understood, and avoided her. That made her angry, and the more watchful and treacherous.

One day she found a biscuit from the officers' table in a cell. She reasoned that Flannagan must have put it there, because Flannagan and the girl in whose cell she found it were great friends. That morning the Housekeeper had been fretted with Flannagan, and Berry had got wind of it. Here was the opportunity to exercise her vocation. She slipped the biscuit under her apron, took it into the officers' kitchen, and showed it to the Housekeeper.

Flannagan must have done it, because she had given offense in the morning; and she was forthwith dismissed to the shop.

A woman who came in a few days before, on a long sentence, had been discovered to be a nice needle-woman, smart and pretty; whereas Flannagan was plain and slow. Occasion was thus made to effect the change, so my women said. And what they failed to find out in that institution was beyond investigation.

XV.

A DAY OF ODDS AND ENDS.

The day commenced at odds. In the morning Mrs. Hardhack came flying into the kitchen, and demanded, from O'Brien, something for one of her girls to eat.

"She has fainted away for the want of food! She has had no breakfast! How did you dare to keep her breakfast from her!"

O'Brien kept her temper wonderfully. She answered very quietly,--

"I'm sure she had the same as the rest if she had been a mind to taken it."

"How do you dare to stand there and answer me in that way? I'll have you punished if you dare to open your mouth again."

O'Brien's face grew red, she opened her lips to retort just as I arrived to where they stood. I stepped between them.

"O'Brien, will you get a bucket of coal? I want more steam as soon as I can have it."

"Yes, ma'am," and she started away; but she looked up at me as she went as much to say, you have saved me.

I turned to Mrs. Hardhack.

"I'm sorry one of your girls couldn't eat her breakfast; you know it is impossible for me to get anything aside from the Master's orders, and what the rest have. I'll see if I can find her something."

"We have got so much contract work to get done to-night, and, if the women faint away, they can't do it."

"I should be glad to provide them a good, substantial breakfast to work on; but I can't have my way about it. It is very cruel to feed them as they are fed here; and then, to work them as they are worked."

I thought, as I went to look up something for her to take to the poor girl, of the remark John Randolph made to his lady neighbor, when he entered her house and found her at work for the Greeks, "The Greeks are at your door." He had entered the house through a little army of naked, ignorant servants.

Do not the ladies of the United States need to be reminded that the Greeks are at their door? Are they not in every prison in the land?

I went into the pantry. There was a skillet pan standing on the shelf with a bone in it. I took it out and inquired,--

"Whose bone is this?"

"It is mine," said Lissett.

"Will you give it to the woman in the shop who fainted this morning because she had no breakfast?"

"Yes, ma'am!"

"Bring a slice of bread, and quart of coffee to go with it."

Handing it to Mrs. Hardhack, I dispatched her as quickly as possible. I was glad when she departed. Her visits to the kitchen were very disagreeable. She always managed to use the "irritating language," forbidden by the Board in their "Rules and Regulations," which stirred up the angry feelings of my women, and it took time and argument to get them settled down into calmness and quiet again.

"If it hadn't been for you, I should have been in solitary again," said O'Brien, after she left. "How I hate that woman!"

"And so do I, and so do I!" was echoed round the room.

"If you hate such ways never copy them!"

"What's the use in scolding us! She knows we can't help the victuals. If she wants to scold anybody she'd better scold the Master."

"He'd sauce her back again; and then, both of 'em would get locked up. Wouldn't you like to see 'em both locked up?" said Lissett.

"Yes, that I should!" was echoed all around.

"I'd like to cut the bread for 'em," said O'Brien. "The slices would be thin."

"I would draw small quarts of water," said Lissett.

"Hush, girls! Don't you know that you are now indulging in the very temper that looks so hateful to you when you see it in others."

Scarcely was I relieved of Mrs. Hardhack's anti-benign influence, when the Receiving Matron made her appearance, and asked, although in a very different manner,--

"Why didn't the women bring over their clothes?"

"What clothes?"

"Their sheets to be washed. This is their day. They take them from their beds when they get up, and carry them to the wash-house as they go down to the shop. My women, and the four who were sent up from the shop to help them, have lost an hour by the delay. I don't mind about mine; but the shop women will be late back; and then, I shall be complained of that I did not drive them hard enough, and get the work out of them sooner."

"I didn't know anything about it. If you had told me last night I would have attended to it. Some of the women asked me if they should take out their sheets; but I didn't know what they meant, and told them I would see. I will send the sweeps to gather them up immediately, and send them over."

"I forgot to tell you last night. They won't blame you but me; there is the trouble. I hate to have the Master come around, and find fault."

"Are you afraid of him?"

"No! I'm not a prisoner; but I always feel uncomfortable where he is, don't you?"

"I have only seen him once or twice; and then I was very much inclined to laugh at the pompous airs he put on; but a sense of propriety restrained me."

"I had a great deal rather not see him, especially, when he comes to find fault."

"He ought not to find fault with you in this instance. You are under no obligation to teach me the duties of my department. If you attend to the work in your own you do your duty."

"I know that, but I can't help myself. He says I am here to do whatever he orders me, and that I must do it if I stay. I am a widow, and have a boy to support, so I try to do all I can."

"He knows that?"

"Yes, they all know it."

"And he takes advantage of it to compel you to do his wife's work while he gets the pay for it."

"That is the plain English of the whole thing."

"But you can get more pay outside for less work than you do here."

"Perhaps so, if I knew how to find it; but I never have been so fortunate as to find it before."

I had gone out into the prison as I was talking with her, and stood at the door a moment after she had passed out; but there was no chance for rest during my watch. There came the sound of scolding and contention after me, and recalled me to the kitchen. I hurried back. The fear that some of them would get into a quarrel, beyond my reach to control, always haunted me.

"What is the matter?" I called out at the door.

"The cook is so slow we shall never get this swill out, and I am trying to hurry her," said the sink woman. "She hinders me so I shall never get my work done."

"I can't do no faster than I can," called back the sink woman. "It is no use hurrying me."

"Stop! both of you! Lissett, you know Jennie is slow, and you must have patience with her. Do I not have patience with you? You only make matters worse by fretting. Jennie, you are slow. When you carry swill with Lissett, go as fast as you can, so as not to hinder her; then rest when you get through."

"Do come along!" fretted Lissett, "You are enough to fret a saint."

"That can't be you, Lissett. Haven't I told you, many a time, that you ought to help each other along, instead of scolding and fretting at each other."

"It is hard work to drag her, and the swill tub too."

"Then go a little slower, and give her a chance to do her part. There is one thing that I wish to do myself, and that is the scolding, and I don't wish to have you take it out of my hands."

"If you do it all there won't get much of it done."

"There will be enough. I do not need help. And I can suit myself much better in doing it than any one else can suit me. In future, Lissett, you and Annie O'Brien will carry the swill together. Then you can both work as fast as you please. Jennie, you and Allen may carry together; you can be as slow as you please. I wish to hear no more trouble over the swill."

I intended to arrange their work so as to avoid all collision; but I sometimes failed. When I had put those, whom I thought to be the best of friends, at work together, some little difference would arise and separate them.

Directly I had a call in the prison. Berry could not get on with her white-washing, because Maggie had not done her sweeping, and came to me with a complaint,--

"Maggie won't sweep, and that keeps me waiting. Won't you tell her to sweep so I can white-wash?"

"Maggie, why don't you sweep so that Berry can white-wash?"

"I am, ma'am, as fast as I can. I have got all of the rooms to do before I do the floor."

"You need not wait, Berry. Take a broom and help her."

That was something that Berry did not calculate upon.

"If Maggie would get up in season she could get her work done herself; she loves her bed too well."

"I have told you of a way to get your work done if you do not wish to wait."

"You favor Maggie too much, and the other Matrons all say so. You ought to get her up in the morning, they all say."

"Take a broom and sweep that platform! Don't bring any tales to me from the other Matrons! When I wish you to teach me how to treat the women, I will ask you."

Berry chose to consider herself a very much injured woman, and began to snivel and grumble.

"I am going down to the shop to work. Maggie is so saucy I can't get along with her." She dared not express her disaffection towards me.

"Well, Berry, when you find yourself so much your own mistress as to go where you please, I will give you 'a character,' and you may go to the shop to work."

"What kind of a character?" asked O'Brien, who happened along at that moment.

"A good one. You are a pretty good woman, Berry. There is one fault which I think might be corrected by going to the shop. You are very much disposed to tattle, and that sometimes makes mischief. If you go to the shop, where you are not allowed to speak at all, you can't do that kind of mischief. That would save me, if it did not yourself, a great deal of trouble."

I heard no more about going to the shop.

The kitchen was quiet after dinner and the work, before supper, done. I threw my head back, in the large chair in which I was resting, and drowsed.

The women sat buzzing, on low stools, just behind me. I had been too sleepy to notice what they were saying; finally a word or two that I heard attracted me to listen.

"Was you here, O'Brien?" asked Maggie; "when Ida Jones was pulled into the hospital by the hair of her head?"

"Yes, I was, and I saw it with my two eyes. The Master pulled her by the hair of her head, and kicked her as he went along the walk; and she a poor, half-witted thing too. That was six weeks ago, and she has been in the hospital ever since."

I was wide awake--thoroughly aroused when that story was completed.

"Maggie Murray, do you mean to say that you saw the Master pull Ida Jones along the walk, by the hair of her head, and kick her as he pulled her? You ought to be very careful how you tell such stories, unless they are true."

"It is the truth, ma'am!" said several of them in a breath.

"He took her by her pug, like this," and she took hold of the coil of hair on the back of O'Brien's head, "and dragged her along. We all saw it, and the Housekeeper saw it, and she said he ought to be reported to the Board. And that Matron, that skinny person, I forget her name, that was here, she saw it. There were a plenty that saw it. When you go down to the hospital, you can ask Ida what is the matter, and she will tell you so too."

"What did he do it for?"

"She said she was dead with work--she could not sit at it another minute--she was ready to fall; and Hardhack reported her; and the Master was so mad,--some of 'em said so drunk,--he dragged her himself out of the shop, all of the way to the Hospital."

My face must have expressed the horror that I felt.

"Indeed it is the truth, ma'am!" said O'Brien. "The Master was crazy to get a lot of work done that night, and it made him awful mad to lose a hand."

I asked myself if it were possible that that man would dare to abuse the trust reposed in him in that manner. Certainly! The whole system of secrecy upon which our prisons are managed is just calculated to screen such conduct, and to induce the practice of it, if there be a tendency, in the disposition of the man who has charge, to do it. If the testimony of prisoners is not to be relied upon, a Master could make it for the interest of his officers to remain silent. Some might look at it in the same light that he did, and feel perfectly satisfied.

Why should not a prisoner's testimony be taken in a matter where he is concerned? He has been tried and convicted of an offense. Is that fact a conviction in every other case where he may have difficulty with another person?

If prisoners are entirely unworthy of trust, how does it happen that such a man, once a convict himself, according to the traditions of that prison, has charge there, and the unlimited confidence of the Board?

I noticed, in making out the report of inmates, that there were not so many women as men in prison. There was satisfaction in obtaining that fact, because I had entertained the idea that women were more frequently punished for their offenses than men.

It was a mistake, except in the one crime of licentiousness. In that man goes comparatively free, and woman is the only sufferer in what is, to say the least, their mutual sin. I say, almost every woman will say, and with truth, for the sin that man leads her into.

Woman does not seek man, in that way, in the first instance. He draws her into the sin, and when she becomes abandoned, and the Penitentiary brings her up, she is no worse than he. She becomes a night-walker, and suffers for her violation of law. He is a night-walker also, as miserable and degraded a man as she is woman; but who prosecutes him, and gives him a sentence in the House of Correction! He continues a night-walker unmolested while she suffers for her sin.

He walks into the parlors of the intellectually cultivated, and socially refined,--I was about to say virtuous woman. There can be little virtue in such shaky morality. I can only say of the chaste woman, and she takes the hand of the night-walker, and greets him cordially, and makes him welcome, especially if he be rich,--the hand that leads her fellow woman to her social ruin if not to her eternal death.

If woman were to help make the laws, could she remedy this state of things,--would she? Would she take her husband, father, brother from his home to the Penitentiary? She must do that, in order to rid society of the pest of night-walking. She may do that now if she will. The law gives her the opportunity. Instead of lavishing her courtesies, as she now does, upon the male offender, she might extend her charity in kindly assistance to his victim, if she were disposed to do it.

To judge by the way she treats him now, if she were to assist in making laws would she not be still more unjust than she now is, to her own sex, and lenient to the other.

If man go unpunished, of human law, for this sin, justice will find him out sooner or later. God pity him when his retribution comes! The avenging of a guilty conscience will work him greater woe than the miseries of a prison can inflict.

As I sat in the prison this evening reviewing my day's work, I counted up my occupations.