arrival of the guards, the locking-on of handcuffs,
and an ignominious dismissal to the "dark,"
where the noisy demon must be exorcised as it
best can be. These breaking-out women, though
not necessarily the worst in nature, are the most
difficult of all to deal with. It is not always
the result of ill-temper, or of having been
affronted by matron or mate— a very fruitful
source of violence and discontent— but often a
mere animal protest against the dead monotony
of their lives; an uncontrollable desire for
change of any kind, even a change to something
worse; a kind of brute instinct which, the more
unconscious and brutal it is, is all the more
difficult to suppress and turn aside. Sometimes
they will give the matron warning that they
intend to break out at such and such a time;
sometimes they will be suppressed for weeks
together, out of affection for some particular
officer. For, bad as the women are— and, as a class,
the prison matron says they are "desperately
wicked"— they often form the most passionate
attachments to certain matrons and officers, and
some of them have been known to break the
rules of Brixton and Fulham prisons— milder
though they are, and a step in advance towards
freedom and social esteem— only that they
might return to the old place and the old ward
where the one loved face shed the light of
humanity and sympathy on their hearts. And some
will go into the "dark," and bread-and-water
for a day or two, only to have a companion— if
they know that the cells are full, and that they
must therefore be associated; and some to bear
a favourite "pal " company, and not let her feel
lonely. Christmas-time is generally the most
excitable season, when breakings-out are rifest;
and on Christmas-day, when all the world
outside is merry and gay, the dark cells are always
full, and the wilder and more restless spirits are
at their worst.

Various and marked are the characters which
form the world within the wards. Some are sullen,
malicious, and revengeful; there are women who
will bear a particular officer a grudge for years,
waiting patiently for an opportunity of doing
some injury— perhaps attempting to murder—
in revenge for a fancied slight or petty wrong
done months or years ago. Others are crafty,
sly, and hypocritical: glib with Scripture phrases
and adepts at pious acting: women who get the
chaplain's good word, and the visiting ladies'
commendation: but who are utterly irreclaimable,
and all the more so because of their glib
pretence; others, again, are passionate and
impulsive, always ready for an outbreak, and with
no more steadiness of principle than children
or savages. These are by no means the worst
women, but very trying prisoners, and generally
in disgrace because of violated prison discipline;
the observance of which is not, however, the
whole duty of man, whatever visiting justices
and inspectors may say. The prison matron
knew some strange people while she was at her
post. There were the "Garnetts," mother and
daughter, tall thin angular women, taciturn
and grave, pious and well-conducted, who came
to Millbauk to serve out their time— four years'
penal servitude— on the charge of having starved
to death a younger daughter of the elder
prisoner's. They were lace-makers, and it was
deposed that the younger daughter had been
kept without food for two nights, because unable,
through illness, to do her pillow-lace, and that
her last words were, as she turned round to die,
"Oh, Lord Jesus, help me to do my work next
week!" for without work neither mother nor
sister would give her bread. On this evidence
the Garnetts were sent to prison, and the prison
matron had the charge of them. Cool
undemonstrative quiet women, gaunt and
emaciated, with famine written on their haggard
faces, and scored on every line of their bony
forms, civil to their matrons, shy and quiet
to the other prisoners, working out their
sentences each in her own cell with patience
and calmness— they impressed all who saw them
with the belief of their innocence— innocence at
least in intention. Once only, the mother made
allusion to the cause of her imprisonment.
Seeming to be more abstracted than usual one
day, the matron asked her if anything troubled
her, or if she wanted anything?

"Oh no, lady," she said, at, once.

"I thought you were dull."

"I'm very comfortable, thank you."

"You are not fretting about the length of
your sentence?" asked the matron, again.

"I've nothing to fret about, lady; I'm better
off here than I ever was in——— shire. We
were all starving there together; and my
husband, who was a shepherd, was very ill, and my
daughter was weak, too, and we had nothing to
give them— nothing at all to give them or
ourselves, and so my daughter died. But, lady, it
wasn't in our power to help her."

The matron felt sure that the old woman
spoke the truth. When mother and daughter
first parted, each to go to her separate cell, they
parted without word, look, or tear: they
made no inquiries after each other, and when
the mother was asked if she did not wish to hear
how her daughter was getting on, her only
answer was:

"She's getting on very well; she be a quiet
girl, and no trouble to you, I'm sure, lady."

The daughter, when asked the same question
about her mother, looked up from her coir-
picking, and said she "hoped mother hadn't been a
fidgeting." After some months' of
imprisonment, they met one day, as if by chance, in the
Millbank kitchen. One slight stare from each to
each, and then both were busied about their
duties, and never looked back again. After a
still longer term of probation, they were admitted
into the association class, and mother and
daughter were placed in the same cell.

"Well, Elizabeth," said the mother, coldly.

"Well, mother," said the daughter, just as
coldly.

Two minutes afterwards, they were seated
opposite each other at the table, both working away
assiduously, and neither addressing the other.
After a week's association, a matron asked the