At Seven O'clock In The Morning We Are Led Into A Small
Yard Of About Thirty Yards Long And Eight
Wide, where
we must either stand, walk or seat ourselves upon the
cold earth (no seats or benches being afforded
Us), and
which at meal times serves as chair, table, etc., with
the additional consequence of having our food saturated
with sand, dust, and with every kind of disgusting filth
which the wind may happen to stir up within the yard.
We are locked in, about three o'clock in the afternoon,
four or five of us together, in a cell whose dimensions
are three feet by twelve, being thus debarred from the
free air of heaven for sixteen hours out of the twenty-four.
The food is of the very worst description ever used by
civilized beings. We are debarred the use of writing
materials, except for purposes of pressing necessity; are
never permitted to see a newspaper; and strictly prohibited
the use of tobacco and snuff. We have been subjected to
the annoyance of being stripped naked, a dozen men together,
when a process of 'searching' takes place that is debasing
to any human being, but perfectly revolting to men whose
sensibilities have never been blunted by familiarity with
crime - an ordeal of examination, and the coarse audacity
with which it is perpetrated, as would make manhood blush,
and which it would assuredly resent, as an outrage upon
common decency, in any other place than a prison. And again,
when the visiting justice makes his rounds, we are made
to stand bareheaded before him, as if - etc.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 159 of 192
Words from 42649 to 42916
of 51645
