re are very young girls— ''We have had girls in the past—haven''t we, Miss
Ridley?—of twelve and thirteen''—then the matron sets them walking in a circle of
their own.
''How quietly they walk!'' I said. She told me then that the women must keep
silent, in all parts of the prison; that they are forbidden to speak, to whistle, to
sing, hum ''or make any kind of voluntary noise'' unless at the express request of a
matron or Visitor.
''And how long must they walk for?'' I asked her then.— They must walk for
an hour. ''And if it should rain?''—If it should rain, the exercise must be forfeited.
Those were bad days for the matrons, she said, for then the long confinement made
the women ''fidget and turn saucy''. As she spoke she
peered harder at the prisoners: one of the loops had begun to slow, and now
turned out of sequence with the circles in the other yards. She said, ''There
is''—and here she named some woman—''making the pace of her line grow slack.
Be sure to speak with her, Miss Ridley, when you make your round.''
I thought it marvellous that she could tell one woman from another; when I told
her that, however, she smiled. She said, that she had seen the prisoners walking the
yards every day of their terms there, ''and I have been seven years as principal at
Millbank, and before that was chief matron here''—before that, she told me, she