Woman in Prison. Caroline H. Woods

I had ever been in, each Matron had a nice bed-room to herself, in a comfortable part of the house, and most of them comfortable sitting-rooms attached. It never occurred to me that a female officer, in any public institution, could be requested to occupy such a room. However I could bring myself to it for the sake of carrying out the purpose that induced me to take the place.

      I stood a moment, and looked all round the room. I then examined the bed. It was clean, and looked comfortable.

      "Is this all the room, and are these all the comforts we are to have?" I asked of the Receiving Matron.

      "You see all," she replied. "If we had more, we should have no time to enjoy them."

      "Rather a sorry prospect if one is to take herself into consideration at all. Is there a bath-room that we can use? To take a bath would be really refreshing, and help me to sleep to-night, I am so tired."

      "I am tired all of the time, and there is no chance to rest. We must rise at four in the morning, and be on the spring every moment till eight in the evening; you will be on duty till nine, because you receive the keys at that hour."

      "Every day?"

      "Every day!"

      "There is usually a Relief Matron in such institutions, so that the other Matrons can have rest."

      "There used to be one here; but, instead of that, there is an Assistant Matron in the shop."

      "Then the Shop Matron has all of the relief, and the others none. Why is that?"

      "They want to get as much work done in the shop as possible, to support the institution, the Master says. When I get tired, and feel like grumbling, I tell them it is money taken out of our flesh and blood to make the institution rich."

      "It is probably the way the Master takes to recommend himself to the Board of Directors. They like him for his thrift in managing."

      "I don't know where the money goes; but I know we are worked to death. I am dying by inches."

      "Why must I be up an hour later than the rest to receive the keys?"

      "Because you have them in charge during the night, those that stay in the prison. If you are out, I take them."

      "Out! What time have I to go out?"

      "Three evenings in the week, after the prisoners are locked up, if you wish."

      "What time have I then?"

      "You can be gone till four o'clock in the morning, if you like."

      "When shall I sleep?"

      "You can make your own arrangements for that. Perhaps on the way, if you take a horse car."

      "I am afraid to go out evenings alone; but in that relief I can get a bath."

      "I forgot your question about the bath-room. There is none, that I know of, for the officers' use. There is one in the house for the Master's family. I don't know whether the Matrons that lodge there are allowed to use it."

      "Then some of the Matrons are lodged comfortably in the house. Why is that distinction made?"

      "I don't know. There are bathing-tubs, for the prisoners, in my wash-house. I never use them; but if you wish to, you can. They are scrubbed out clean."

      "I must be up from four A. M., 'till nine P. M. That makes seventeen hours of labor."

      "Sometimes you will be required to sit up one, two, or three hours later."

      "Why?"

      "The Master's wife or daughters may have company, and keep the women up-stairs. We have to sit up and wait for them to come in, so as to lock them up."

      "And be up all the same at four next morning?"

      "Yes."

      "Do the Master's wife and daughters get up at four the next morning, after sitting up so late, and go to work?"

      "Of course not."

      "If the wife is Head Matron, has she not her duties to do in the morning as well as we? And ought she not to see that the other officers are not worked like that? If she possesses the common feelings of humanity, she would provide some relief, if it were in her power."

      "There is not much humanity in exercise here. We are all too hard worked to think of any one but ourselves."

      "I should think that might be your case."

      "I often tell them it is as much a House of Correction for the officers as the prisoners."

      "Ten hours of labor is now considered a good day's work. To drag the convicts from sunrise to sunset only exhausts them. They do not get through with as much work as they would do in ten hours, and the intervening time given to rest."

      "That has been an established rule here for fifty years or more."

      "It is certainly a very antiquated idea, all of a half century old. I recollect hearing my grandfather say that people worked that way when he was a boy. But people's ideas have changed since that time, and the people of this generation consider such demands of labor very unreasonable."

      "The only changes here have been to make things harder. They will put upon you all they can make you do."

      If she had been telling the truth that was a plain, but correct statement of facts.

      "How long has the present Master had charge here?"

      "Forty-five or fifty years."

      "It is no wonder that his heart has become like the nether millstone. No man ought to remain in such a place such a length of time. The best human heart that ever beat would become ossified, if it ever entertained human feelings, if compelled to exercise such continued tyrannous exactions."

      "I don't know whether he ever had human feelings—he does not exercise much humanity, as I regard it, now."

      "But he does not make the laws for the regulation of the institution. There must be State laws and a Board of Overseers to which he is accountable. There must be printed regulations for the management of this prison. I will get them from the Deputy to-morrow."

      "If you can, you will accomplish more than the rest of us have been able to do."

      "I can try."

      "You can try, and I hope you will succeed. The rest of us have been told that there were no printed rules that would do us any good. It may be a benefit to the rest of us if you succeed."

      I lay down upon my bed. Sleep was out of the question. The effluvia of a hundred human bodies came up through our open door, rank with nauseous odor. I got up and opened our one window to its utmost extent, first asking my room-mate if it would be disagreeable to her to have it left so.

      Fatigue even would not overcome the noise of the rattling buckets, the snoring, coughing, and groaning of the tired women. If I closed my eyes, my head was in confusion. I was going up, up, up over the stone steps, and looking over the rails down the dizzy height, to the stone floor below.

      I lay thinking over my prison prospects. Seventeen hours of regular labor, to which might be added occasionally, one, two, or three more. The other seven, with the noise of that prison ringing in my ears, and the care of it, if accident or sickness intervene. How long can any constitution bear such a strain? Surely the Board of Directors cannot understand how things are managed here. They cannot understand the amount of work which is demanded by the Master of his female Prison Matron. One other was no more favored, by her own account.

      I was glad when the four o'clock bell rung me up to my duties.

III.

       SECOND DAY IN PRISON.

       Table of Contents

      There was a