Caroline H. Woods

“ It is the right of every tax-payer to know what is done within our prison walls at all times. It is the duty of every Christian man to make himself acquainted with the moral bearing of the discipline which obtains within them.
It is the duty of every religious woman to see that her fellow woman is not trampled down in degradation and vice, lower than her own sins would carry her, by the heel of her master in discipline. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It should interest every man and woman as a matter of personal protection from the depredations of vice to know how convicts are treated, and to judge whether that treatment tends to reform the criminal, or to harden and lead him deeper into crime when he is let out into the world again to pursue his own ways.
Ought the punishment of criminals, who have been tried, convicted, and sentenced publicly, to be conducted in secret? It is to be presumed that the keeper of the prison is trusty. ”

“ I had been in the prison but a few days when Ellen, one of my "sweeps," crept softly round to me, and whispered in my ear,—
"You must be careful what you say! Mrs. Hardhack has just been in on the other side to listen. She creeps round like a cat, and you never know when she's coming, and there's no knowing what she'll tell, and she'll surely get you into trouble." ”

“ The air of that prison sent a chill over me like that of a tomb. Were not those cells the tomb of love, of hope, of peace, and respectability! In them lay buried all of this world's success, all that it values: how much of the inheritance of the life to come God knows. ”

“ I looked up at the cells. Human faces stared down upon me, through the bars, made ghastly by the flickering gas-light. There were human hearts, alive with all human emotions, beating beneath those horrid faces.
Directly in front of me, with no light, save one narrow, stinted ray, which glimmered through the key-hole, with no bed but the stone floor, no seat but the wooden bucket, nothing to lean against but the bare brick walls, lay a girl "in solitary."
No human being has life enough to stir up those cold stones to warmth, no change can soften them to comfort. ”

“ Their supper was a "skillet pan" of mush, or a slice of bread, and a quart of rye coffee, which was taken to their cells to be eaten after they were locked in their rooms—or stone dens, I called them in my indignation. The sight of those little, cramped stone cells recalled to my memory the pictures of dungeons, and imprisonments, and tortures which I had looked at in my childhood till my heart was racked with agony at the cruelties which they portrayed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is easier to be patient, and the time don't seem so long. Look here! Do you love Hardhack?"
"I know very little about her."
"I heard her in the kitchen scolding awhile ago, and you took it as cool as could be. If I'd been you I'd put her out. She has no right to come in your place and give orders. It sets me crazy to hear her."
"If I could not keep my own temper when I am annoyed, how could I teach you to keep yours?" [175]
"That's it," said O'Brien. "Hardhack gets mad in the shop, and scolds us, and we scold back; and then we get punished. I wish there was somebody to report her, too." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ If to teach her to control her temper were what was meant, a very unfit method was adopted to effect the purpose.
How can one person teach another to control his temper when he is ignorant of the way, and does not practice the government of his own?
When I was left alone in the prison, I sat down before Callahan's cell door. I thought over the object of punishment. Is it intended to deter the vicious from continuing in crime? That is the apparent object. Then, ought it not to be adapted to the crime, and administered by those who are free from the same faults? ”

“ 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. ”

“ I did not propose to transcend that rule.
"Now, remember, there is nothing more to be hid away from me."
"There isn't much danger, as long as you let us tell you all about it."
"I shall always let you tell me, before I get you punished; but you must always obey, and then there will be no punishment."
"I suppose it is only right that we should eat our share of peas with the rest, for they can't get even bread and coffee as we can."
"It is certainly wrong for you to take another prisoner's meat; and very mean, because, as you say, he has not the chance you have to get anything else. ”

“ Rotation in duties, and reversion in offices was the order of the place. I was Usher to the prisoners; my sweeps were stationed on the stone stairs, when the prisoners were in their cells, and the kitchen door locked, to open it if there were a knock on the outside, and to lock it again after the officer who entered.
Sittings on the stone stairs could hardly have been comfortable accommodations. I was reminded of that fact this evening, by hearing Ellen whisper when she heard a knock,—
"I hate to get up,—I've just got my seat warm."
"Every back is fitted to its burden," is an old proverb. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Some of the old ones have five or six blankets—they all have as many as they wish for. I have been to the doors, and asked every one of them if they wished for more. And now if any woman wants another blanket, speak! and she shall have it. You may be assured, every one of you, that you shall have every comfort, from me, that I am allowed to give you."
No one spoke. That time Mrs. Hardhack failed to stir up jealousy on the part of the shop women towards me; or create disturbance in the prison. ”

“ You have your watchman in prison, and go to your bed in the house. That prison is no place for a woman to sleep in, and the care of it is no work for a woman, who works all day,—and for no one else who is obliged to be on duty through the day."
"It is hardly fit work for a woman to sleep in a prison, and take care of it nights." ”

“ In a few moments I heard the measured tread of the Master. I did not raise my head till he had stood before me a moment or two. Then I looked up. I did not pay him the respect to rise. He looked at me a moment, and seemed to have some idea of my condition. He said gently, if anything could be said gently by one so rough—
"I should like to have you go to the wash-room while the Matron is at the officers' rooms. There is a gang of women at work there, and she cannot leave them alone very well." ”

“ There was a small bell hung directly over my head; the wire from it reached into the men's prison. It was rung by the watchman at four o'clock in the morning, to call me up.
I sprang out of bed at the first tinkle, threw a shawl around me, put my feet into my slippers, ran down, unlocked my steam woman to make her fire, and my cook to start her breakfast. I let them into the kitchen, and locked them in. Then, I went back to dress myself. ”

“ 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." [115]
"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!" ”

“ It is a constant drill, drill to labor under the ever impending punishment, which hangs over the prisoner, suspended by a breath of complaint by an officer. Is one kind of punishment the only cure for disobedience? Should it not be mitigated by mercy, or changed in character according to the circumstances, [40] or the peculiar disposition of the offender? How does the Great Lawgiver treat His convicts? Does He punish all offenders with the same unmitigated rigor? ”

“ 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! ”

“ I was fast getting initiated into the mysteries of prison life, and inured to its peculiarities. Unmoved, I might allow my hair to become a bed for rats and mice; but I could not spare the sleep.
I threw the creature from me, in a fret at being disturbed, and issued a peremptory order, independent of the Master, and without the approval of the Board, for all rats and mice to pay respect to my person, and my apartments, and trouble me no more. Then I turned over, and went to sleep again.
Adverse fate, or some other mysterious personage was on my track that night. ”

“ There was a common sitting-room where the male officers and Matrons sat and talked together, when they were not on duty, when I went there; but that was taken away, and made into a bed-room, so that there was no place for them to meet except in their own bed-rooms, the halls, or on the grounds.
If human ingenuity were to set itself to work to invent a position of unmitigated discomfort, that [188] prison life would give some excellent hints. The heads of the establishment were certainly very keen in discovering ways to circumscribe the comforts of its inmates. ”

“ As she passed through the prison, and saw the men at work, she gave me another illustration of her luminous capacity by remarking,—
"You must be careful and not let your women get with the men."
"Yes, ma'am."
She took me up the sixth flight of stairs into the roof of the prison, into a room where the receiving officer packs away the clothing that he takes off the convicts when they come into the prison. After showing me the dust on the floor, and cobwebs on the walls, she said,—
"You had better send one of your women up to clean it. I always begin at the top when I clean house." ”

“ Kindness begets kindness. There are few human beings so totally depraved, desperately wicked as some may be, who cannot be aroused into appreciation of kind treatment. I have never met with one who could not. So harshness in a superior begets harshness in an inferior; and constant fault finding either arouses anger from its injustice, or paralyzes all effort to do well.
As are the manners of those who lead, so are the manners of those who follow. As a matter of policy, to restrain crime without regard to the teaching of religion, those who have charge of convicts should be gentle and humane. ”