I take off my gray uniform, shirt and shoes, and as I stand in my underclothes the Captain feels me all over from head to toes to find out whether I have concealed about me a weapon or instrument of any kind. I presume the idea is to guard against suicide.
After I have been thoroughly searched I clothe myself in the soiled old shirt and trousers, put on the felt shoes, throw the coat over my shoulder and take my cap in my hand. I can not, for the life of me, see what use can be made of a cap in a dark cell. Before I hand over my own trousers to the Captain I take my handkerchief out of the pocket.
"You can't have that," says the Captain gruffly; and he snatches the handkerchief out of my hand.
Suicide again, I suppose. But has it never occurred to anyone responsible for this System that a man can strangle himself more easily with his undershirt or drawers than with his handkerchief?
Ah! I recall it now--the case of that poor fellow who committed suicide down in this place several years ago. It was with his handkerchief that he strangled himself; so I have been told.
The official remedy, therefore, for suicide in the punishment cells is to take away your handkerchief.
In none too pleasant a frame of mind toward prison officialdom, I enter my iron cage. It is the first one of the eight and is absolutely empty of everything except a papier-mâché bucket. There is no seat, no bed, no mattress or bedding, no place to wash, no water to wash with, nothing--except the bucket. I presume I ought to be grateful even for that. But I wish it had a cover.
A convict trusty, who now appears within the radius of the electric light, hands me a round tin can, and the grated door is banged to and locked. I take my seat upon the floor and await developments.
Soon the trusty hands me, through an extra large slot in the door, a roll of pieces of newspaper, evidently intended for possible toilet purposes. There soon follows a slice of bread, and then there is poked through the slot the end of a long tin funnel which holds a precise measure of water. I hold my tin can to the end of the funnel and receive a gill--neither more nor less than exactly one gill--which is to last me through the night. I never appreciated before what a small quantity is measured by a gill. The water covers the bottom of my tin can to the depth of about an inch and a half.