her misfortune. "I thought I would like a dance
to a man playing music in the streets, and while
I and a lot of us were dancing, the little beggar
tumbled in. It wasn't my fault, cos it wasn't
my doings; and I've no business to be here."

As she had been badly treated in her conviction,
she thought, she was determined to "have
it out" of the prison people; and, accordingly,
she led them a life of turmoil and anxiety, and
was no sooner out of one difficulty than she was
in another. She, too, "palled-in" like the rest; and
one day there was a terrific scene in consequence
of a sudden fit of jealousy, when a woman
told her that Tarrant, her then friend, had thrown
her over for a new pal; "she says you ain't her
sort."

Weynuuoth asked no more. She rose, shook
herself like a dog, and dashing down the
staircase to the ward where poor Tarrant was
confined, pounced upon her with the intention
of murdering her, if she could. "Then a
commotion in the prison ward, the matrons
mustering their flocks of black sheep, and locking
them in to prevent further mischief; others
rushing to the rescue of Tarrant, fighting and
swearing her hardest beneath her injuries;
the men rang for, and Weynuuoth, finally a
prisoner, fighting to the last with her captors,
and making the walls ring with her oaths, as she
was borne off to 'solitary'."  She wound up her
service in Brixton by a summary attack on the
deputy-superintendent; for which offence all
privileges were rescinded, and the fierce and
obstinate woman went back to her first estate
—the grim, solitary system, for which Millbank is
distinguished. At the end of ten years she was
restored to society, no more thoughtful nor
repentant than when she left it. As she arrived,
so she passed through the prison doors, with the
same defiant, dogged spirit, the same brutalisation
of look and character, a mere wild animal
in the form of a woman.

Another "life-woman"—convicted for arson
—was Ink-bottle Smith, so called because of
her inveterate desire for ink. Not a desperate
nor repulsive woman, this; on the contrary, she
was a little sharp mortal, with a thin cunning
face and a spare attenuated form; a brisk and
bustling little woman, quick in all her movements,
and neatness itself both in her person
and her cell; a restless busy little woman, the
go-between of all the "pals" needing that
friendly office, handing "stiffs" about the prison
with the utmost adroitness, and with a mania
for writing. She would risk the loss of her
badges for ink; she would have braved "the
dark" for ink. Ink-bottle Smith, or Pen-and-ink
Smith, as she was called, was seldom at a
loss for her favourite fluid, or means whereby
to hold it. She used to take her thimble with
her to school, and bring it back, full of ink,
concealed in her hair; making an inkstand of
the crumb of her loaf and this thimble, which
was sometimes discovered and confiscated, and
sometimes not, else those volumes of "stiffs,"
which she was so fond of writing, could not
have been composed. She would sacrifice the
water in her cell that she might have a little
modicum of black fluid at the bottom of her
pint; and once she filled her mouth with ink,
but was found out by the matron on duty,
who, suspecting something wrong, stopped and
scrutinised her, when a small black rivulet was
seen to ooze from one corner of her lips and
meander down her chin.

"Don't make a report of this, miss," urged
Smith, afterwards. "I've suffered orfully, and
nearly pisoned myself. Oh!" she added, with
a grin from ear to ear, "if you'd sent for the
doctor, and he'd looked at my tongue, wouldn't
he have jumped!"

Ink-bottle Smith was an adept at picking and
stealing. She had quite a jackdaw's nest of
odds and ends concealed in her cell; and woe
to the luckless wight who left her cell-door
open, and who had "savings" of her own to be
cleared off—Smith was sure to dart in and make
a clean raid of everything. If her treasures were
very choice, and the general cleaning-day of the
cells near at hand, she would sew them up in
her dress or stays; but if the cleaning-day came
unawares, and her jackdaw's nest was discovered,
she would surrender her hoards with perfect
coolness and self-possession, wondering very
much how they all got there, and who could
have put them. She never could make out how
her cell got so "littery;" the women passing
her door "must chuck their rubbish in at her."

Another woman, Strachan, had two manias—
the one for perpetual flittings, passing from one
cell to another with all the dignity of a householder
removing by the van-load; and the other
for long aprons, longer than were allowed by the
rules and regulations. She was always stealing
the longest aprons and letting out the tucks to
make them still more imposing; and always
striving to decorate her cell out of prison
likeness. Another woman, Mary Mox, had a
fancy for setting fire to her cell, or rather
to the things in it, that there might be a
stir and a commotion, and so the dead level
of the monotonous life might be broken up.
Mary smashed her windows, too, as a matter of
course; and when they were paned with calico
instead of glass to prevent a recurrence of
the offence, she set fire to the cloth, and had a
"jolly spree" in consequence. She was cured
of her propensity to set her cell in a blaze by
being once left to cough and choke in the
smoke until she became alarmed; when she was
led off to the dark, frightened and subdued.
Once, Miss Mary was in the dark, as usual,
undergoing punishment for some of her customary
vagaries. She had been very noisy, kicking at the
door with her huge feet—they were like a navvy's
feet—when suddenly she became quite silent,
and then a feeble voice called out, "Miss!
Miss!" as a matron passed the cell.

"Well, what is it?" asked the matron, doubtfully.

"I want to see the doctor," says Mox; " I'm
dreadful bad!"

After some more parley the doctor was
brought, and the trap was opened; when Mox