it always made us wretched. There she
stood, several paces distant, behind a narrow
wire-net, where I could not even distinguish
her features. The first quarter of the half-
hour passed almost without a word; she wept
silently; and I ground my teeth, and held the
bars of my cage as if I would try to break
them. The half-hour past, she went away
without power to kiss me or press my hand,
and I was not to see her again till after
another long, long year!

I have said before that with the change of
the director our position became far more
disagreeable. The mercilessness with which
the director sent away every overseer, even
upon suspicion, made our keepers very shy.
No overseer was permitted to enter any cell
without the knowledge of the person to
whose section it belonged, he being answerable
for any disorder there detected.

No overseer was permitted to bring his
cloak into the house; it must be deposited in
the porter's room, to render it impossible
that any of them should smuggle anything
in or out. Every one who would bring
anything—even a shirt or a bottle—
outside the door, could not do so without
a written permission from the administration.
Nay, there was even a proposal to
search daily the pockets of the overseers!
Higher officials could pass with their cloaks,
although amongst them there were some of
the most likely men to thieve. One head
overseer stole like a raven, and great baskets
full of linen and other things went at each
time. The thefts were detected, and he was
dismissed.

It is not to be wondered at if there is theft
and peculation here and there by some
amongst a host of underpaid officials. Baden
has officers of every kind, and they can only
be paid badly. There are ministers of every
kind; even there is a Palmerston, who has
much business on his hands if the regent
wants a coat from Paris. But, there is no
person employed in Baden whose pay will
exceed five hundred pounds a-year.

The overseers in the house of correction
are paid very scantily indeed; even such as
are commissioned by the ministry have not
more than fifty shillings a-month; and it is
very hard, upon such a sum, to live with a
great family, even in Baden. For this
payment they have much to do, and their life is
almost as hard as that of the prisoners, nay,
even harder. Only a few of them are
permitted to stay at night with their families.
At half-past four, winter and summer, they
must be in the prison, and attend, each to his
thirty prisoners. Each of them must understand
some trade, and pass an examination.
From morning till night he labours up and
down the stairs, always in fear lest he neglect
any of the million particular orders and
arrangements, of which one part makes the
others puzzling. If he do not understand
these orders as the director means them to
be understood; if he do not submit without
word or gesture of displeasure to the
sovereign will of his petty despot; he may be
sure he will lose his bread, and his family
may go a-begging.

During the last four years I was in the
same wing, and had but one overseer, my
good and brave Sebastian. Has anybody
ever read a history of a prisoner without a
kind gaoler? Mine was most kind. His
father had been mutilated by the fall of
stones in a quarry, and died. He himself
had worked hard also as a quarryman, and,
by labouring in the heat of the sun with
covered head, he had lost nearly all his hair.
His father left him a small freehold in a
village not far from the Neckar, where he
lived till he must needs become a soldier.
He had learned basket-making; but the failing
of the potato crops for several years
pressed too hard upon him, and he found it
difficult to keep himself and family; therefore
he tried to get a place as overseer in the
house of correction.

Having no other occupation, and being always
accustomed to observe other people, I studied
with the utmost care this man, and at last
knew him so well, that he could not even
conceal a thought before me. Very often I
amused myself by telling him his secret
wishes, to his utmost wonder. He was to
me as if he had been made of glass; but
indeed this honest soul could bear to be of
glass; the more one saw through it, the
more one loved it.

Of course I studied the other officers of
the house also. The director improved with
the years; and if I had any reason to
complain of him, I will not do so, knowing very
well that I often provoked him unnecessarily:
urged to do so by my irritable
state. Many others in his place would have
behaved far otherwise. He angered me very
much; but he was not ill-natured, and his
behaviour was always gentlemanly. He has
written several works about prisons and the
solitary system. His last appeared in eighteen
hundred and fifty-five. It is very well written,
and there are many valuable things in
it; but, even for this reason it would be the
more necessary to point out its errors. I
will only remark, that all such books, written
by government officers, ought to be read
with the utmost suspicion. The statistics of
the prison are illusory. I wish the overseers
had to write annotations frankly on the
work of their director. They would make a
curious appendix.

To explain how I kept up my courage, I
must not tell either my religion or my
character; but I can tell what means I employed
besides to overcome the dreaded horrors of
confinement. The first rule is to throw away,
as soon as possible, every hope:

       Hope, eager hope, the assassin of our joys,
       All present blessings treading under foot,
       Is scarce a milder tyrant than despair.