Cella

“ On March 2, as a result of my pleading to be dismissed from the hospital, I was put to sleep in a separate cell along the passage of our ward. This cell had a floor of unpolished wooden boards, contained a fixed iron bedstead, movable washing stand furnished with tin utensils, a wooden chair, a square plank fixed to the wall near the door as a table, and a corner shelf under the window to hold Bible, prayer and hymn book, prayer card, list of rules, salt cellar, toilet paper, slate and slate pencil. ”

“ Some of the vacant cells were occasionally used for temporary imprisonment. Three nuns were confined in them, to my knowledge, for disobedience to the Superior, as she called it. They did not join the rest in singing in the evening, being exhausted in the various exertions of the day. The Superior ordered them to sing: and, as they did not comply, after the command had been twice repeated, she ordered them away to the cells.
They were immediately taken down into the cellar, placed in separate dungeons, and the door shut and barred upon them. ”

“ Yes, I've tried every possible isolating material that might prevent the Absolute from getting out of the cellar. Ashes, sand, metal walls, nothing can keep it back. I've even tried covering the cellar with the work of Professor Krejči, Spencer, Haeckel, and all the Positivists you can think of: would you believe it, the Absolute goes calmly through even that stuff! ”

“ the place known at her grandfather's as the cellar, where the fresh made cheeses and the new milk were kept, was a pleasant and inviting place; ”

“ Willis a prisoner, and a sullen, defiant prisoner, who refused to speak or answer questions; St. George raving hideously and cursing frightfully; the woman, beautiful as a marble statue, and colorless as death.
When they had all gone, The Thinking Machine went back into the bedroom and examined more carefully the little closet in which he had found the artist and Grace Field. It was practically a padded cell, relatively six feet each way. Heavy cushions of felt two or three inches thick covered the interior of the little room closely. ”

“ All round the court are strong stone cells, where the furious are confined. He took us into an empty one, where a Franciscan friar had been lodged. He had contrived to pull down part of the wall, and to make a large hole into his neighbor's cell adjoining. Fancy one madman seeing the head of another appear through a hole in his cell! The whole cell was covered with crosses of every dimension, drawn with a piece of coal. They had been obliged to remove him into another in the gallery above, where he had already begun a new work of destruction. ”

“ There were then, The Thinking Machine recalled, seven doors to be overcome before one could pass from Cell 13 into the outer world, a free man. But against this was the fact that he was rarely interrupted. A jailer appeared at his cell door at six in the morning with a breakfast of prison fare; he would come again at noon, and again at six in the afternoon. At nine o'clock at night would come the inspection tour. That would be all. ”

“ We were ten men, all counted. I set out, firmly resolved not to let myself be taken and imprisoned alive. When we appeared before the judges for criminal affairs, I found Caterina and her mother waiting; and on the moment of my arrival, the two women were laughing with their advocate. I pushed my way in, and called boldly for the judge, who was seated, blown out big and fat, upon a tribunal high above the rest. On catching sight of me, he threatened with his head, and spoke in a subdued voice: "Although your name is Benvenuto, this time you are an ill-comer." ”

“ The cells of the men are arranged in tiers, [Pg 176] and are certainly very different looking habitations to those of the women, and greatly inferior in size and airiness to the cells at Philadelphia, where, in addition to the grating in front of the cell, there was a door behind leading into a small enclosure or court. Here the only opening in the cell is by a door into a long gallery, and the cells were much smaller than either at Philadelphia or at Kingston; but the prisoners only inhabit these cells at night, the solitary system not being adopted or approved of here. ”

“ Some people would think it strange that I should still regard that cell—in which I spent nearly a year of solitary confinement—with affection; but it is true. Man is a domestic animal, and to a prisoner, with "20 years" on his door, the cell is Home. I look back with fond regard to a great many cells and a great many prisons in England and Australia, which are associated to my mind in a way not to be wholly understood by any one but myself. ”

“ The guard went as directed, while Dr. Ransome and Mr. Fielding examined the letter.
"It's Van Dusen's handwriting; there's no question of that," said Dr. Ransome. "I've seen too much of it."
Just then the buzz on the telephone from the outer gate sounded, and the warden, in a semi-trance, picked up the receiver.
"Hello! Two reporters, eh? Let 'em come in." He turned suddenly to the doctor and Mr. Fielding. "Why, the man can't be out. He must be in his cell."
Just at that moment the guard returned.
"He's still in his cell, sir," he reported. "I saw him. He's lying down." ”

“ I will now describe in as few words as I possibly can, but with absolute accuracy and detail, the cell in which Mr Wilde spends his time and the manner in which he lives. The cell in which Oscar is incarcerated is not an ordinary one—that is, it is not one that is used by any condemned or ordinary prisoner under remand. The cell is known in prison parlance as a 'special cell,' for the use of which a fee is payable to the authorities, and is the same one as was occupied by a certain well-known Duchess some few months back when she was committed by the Queen's Bench Judges for contempt of court. ”

“ He would search Cell 13 as a cell was never before searched in this world. When a man could write at will, and change money, and do other wholly inexplicable things, there was something radically wrong with his prison. He planned to enter the cell at night -- three o'clock would be an excellent time. The Thinking Machine must do all the weird things he did sometime. Night seemed the most reasonable.
Thus it happened that the warden stealthily descended upon Cell 13 that night at three -o'clock. ”

“ Ransome was thoughtful for a moment as he smoked.
"Well, say prison walls," he replied. "No man can _think_ himself out of a cell. If he could, there would be no prisoners."
"A man can so apply his brain and ingenuity that he can leave a cell, which is the same thing," snapped The Thinking Machine.
Dr. Ransome was slightly amused.
"Let's suppose a case," he said, after a moment. "Take a cell where prisoners under sentence of death are confined--men who are desperate and, maddened by fear, would take any chance to escape--suppose you were locked in such a cell. Could you escape?" ”

“ If there is any one man in the world who could get at the bottom of it, could solve the mystery of the lion's change, the lion's smile, you are that man, sir, you. That is the misfortune: that you could do it, and yet I cannot expect it, cannot avail myself of this great opportunity. Look! I am doing it all on my own initiative, sir, for the sake of Zelie and that dear, lovable old chap, her father. I have saved fifty-eight pounds, Mr. Cleek. I had hoped that that might tempt a clever detective to take up the case; but what is such a sum to such a man as you? ”

“ Fielding.
"Yes, tell us how," said the warden.
The Thinking Machine readjusted his glasses, took a couple of preparatory squints at his audience, and began the story. He told it from the beginning logically; and no man ever talked to more interested listeners.
"My agreement was," he began, "to go into a cell, carrying nothing except what was necessary to wear, and to leave that cell within a week. I had never seen Chisholm Prison. When I went into the cell I asked for tooth powder, two ten and one five-dollar bills, and also to have my shoes blacked. ”

“ The Thinking Machine was down on his hands and knees in a corner of the cell, and from that same corner came several frightened squeaks. The jailer looked on interestedly.
"Ah, I've got you," he heard the prisoner say.
"Got what?" he asked, sharply.
"One of these rats," was the reply. "See?" And between the scientist's long fingers the jailer saw a small gray rat struggling. The prisoner brought it over to the light and looked at it closely. "It's a water rat," he said.
"Ain't you got anything better to do than to catch rats?" asked the jailer. ”

“ Prison cells are ideal for objective thinking. There is a quality about their drab walls that brings you face to face with reality.
The Coliseum cell in which I was confined possessed the ultimate in drab walls. The reality with which I was faced was the ultimate in unpleasantness....
On our wedding night, Julia had told me that she had worked at Marriage Administration Headquarters for three years. But when I mentioned Taigue's concern over her, she was amazed. She said she hardly even knew him, that he had never spoken a word to her, had never—to her knowledge—even looked at her. ”

“ The [pg 270] cell was somehow suggestive of a prison, and yet I am not sure that there was as much comfort to be found in it as a prison cell affords in these humanitarian times. Everything about the Grande Chartreuse is of Spartan-like simplicity. There the body is mortified for the soul's sake, and nothing that could pander in the least degree to luxurious tastes is allowed. As I was to learn afterwards, even such barren comfort as is afforded by this "Visitor's Cell" is unknown in the cells occupied by the monks. ”

“ The cell had been built for many years. Scores of men must have passed their last hours there. It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead bodies—the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous veil. ”

“ In the wall of every cell there was a minute hole, about two inches square on the exterior, cut in the solid stone. The opening, which grew wide towards the interior of the cell, was in the shape of a wedge. A warder outside could see a large part of the cell, while the prisoner could only see the eye of the warder. As the officers wore woollen slippers, they could observe the prisoners without being heard or seen.
At this opening, Alice Walmsley thought, the governor had stopped as he passed, and had looked into her cell. ”

“ I saluted him, and turned to go away; he called me back. ’Ah, I forgot,’ he said. ’Give me the map of the third floor.’ I gave it to him, and he spread it upon the table. ’Here, Gesius,’ he said, see this cell. He laid his finger on the one numbered V. ’There are three men confined in that cell, desperate characters, who by some means got hold of a state secret, and suffer for their curiosity, which'—he looked at me severely—'in such matters is worse than a crime. Accordingly, they are blind and tongueless, and are placed there for life. ”

“ Lem, a bit suspicious now, stood up. He eyed the magistrate.
“What you goin' to do with me?” he demanded. “Lock me up? I don't want no funny-business! I want to be put in a cell, that's all! Savvy?”
“Oh, certainly, certainly!” the Doctor conceded. “A nice big cell, the best we've got. Right at your disposal, now. Just step this way, please.” To the magistrate he added, in an undertone: “Better keep back; we can handle him, all right. He trusts us, but not you. I advise you to keep out of the way.” ”

“ I was removed from one cell to another every morning and evening. All through the winter I was forced to either sit on a bucket or stand up, but would not be allowed to move about in my cell. The cells, in which poor Chambers complained he was not allowed to walk about, were not spacious, being nine or ten feet long by about eight feet wide, with stone floors, bare walls, and, for sole furniture, a bedstead of three planks a few inches from the floor, and a water bucket which had to serve as a chair when the prisoner was at work picking oakum or coir. ”

“ Usually, he must share a cell with at least one other inmate, and at times three or more inmates are kept in the same cell which is equipped with extremely limited facilities. Assuming, and the court is not at all sure that the assumption is valid, that all of the isolation cells are equipped with two bunks, it follows that if three [*276] or four men are put in the same cell, and that frequently happens, one or two of them are going to have to sleep on the floor. ”

“ When the warrant for the prisoner’s execution arrives, he is removed to the cells, and confined in one of them until he leaves it for the scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in the yard; but both in the walks and in his cell, he is constantly attended by a turnkey, who never leaves him on any pretence.” The cell was “a stone dungeon eight feet long by six feet wide, with a bench at the upper end, under which were a common rug, a Bible and a prayer-book. ”

“ Twenty hours out of each twenty-four must be spent locked in the insanitary, dirty, crowded cell. All meals are served to the men in their cells. The time for exercise, 9.30-11.30 a. m. and 3.30-5.30 p. m., they stand or walk around or sit down on the floor of the ‘bull pen’ or ‘exercise corridor.’ In the ‘old jail’ this ‘pen’ includes all the floor space of the cell house not occupied by the cell block. It is a big room swarming with men. In the departments of the ‘new’ it is the corridor into which the cells open. The cells are kept locked during the four exercise hours. ”

“ I asked a boy two weeks ago, a young man, and he said, “Warden, to get away from that cell; for,” he said, “to sit there on Sunday, every evening and on holidays and have that 49 cell gate staring you in the face, it is hell;” and he didn’t say it to be irreverent or disrespectful, but it was his pent-up emotions. I believe there is something debasing—debasing to a man’s personal manhood—about life in a cell that no one can describe. Our men plow, they harrow, they sow the grain, they reap it; there is no guard with them at all. ”