The place is perhaps hardly less silent than a cloister; but the
peace of the cloister is utterly absent. An atmosphere of animosity and
contention pervades all--a constant apprehension of sinister things
liable to happen, a breathless struggle, the sullenness of hate, the
whispering of treachery. The eyes of officials peer, watch and threaten;
those of the convicts are downcast but privily rebellious, or
deprecatingly servile.
It is the everlasting pregnancy of war between slave and master, quite
different from submission to rightful authority. Whatever the law may
say, the rightfulness of prison authority is never admitted by
prisoners. Honest authority is tranquil and secure; prison authority
goes armed, conscious of its unrighteousness, and there is unremitting
nervous stress on both sides. Both sides seem secretly to await a signal
to sudden conflict.
At dinner, soon after my arrival, amid the omnipresent murmurous palaver
of conversation, there fell an unusual noise. The unusual is always
formidable in jail. The noise was nothing in itself, and would have
passed unheeded in a hotel dining-room. But over us, crowded together
there, spread an instant hush. All knew that men had been stabbed,
frenzied affrays had broken out in that room. What was it now? The guard
in the window stiffened and poised his rifle. The guards on the floor
caught their breath, but assumed a confident air.
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