But groups of visitors used to appear in the dining room occasionally;
they were lined up along the wall adjoining the door, and were not
allowed to walk between the tables, so that the only food they could see
was what was put on the tables nearest the door; and this was always of
a quality superior to the rest, and there was more of it per man. It was
one of the little tricks employed to maintain the entente cordiale, by
which the prisoners who sat at those tables benefited, and the visitors
went forth to sing the praises of our warm hearted warden. On the days
when the bread was sour or the meat stank, visitors were headed away
from the dining room, and their attention directed to more important
matters.
The hash, which often made the breakfast, was composed of fragments of
gristle and refuse left on the prisoners' plates after dinner, mixed
with potatoes and rancid grease; this, and the soups and gravies, which
had a similar origin, gave out a most nauseating smell. The men would
gulp it down--it was that, or starve--trying to help it on its way with
all the condiments they could lay hands on; but the effect of it, and of
the food generally, upon the digestive tract was so disastrous in most
cases that they might better have left it alone. I myself retired from
the enterprise in my second or third week, and would have literally died
of inanition had not the doctor, moved by I know not what suggestion
(not mine), put me on the milk and oatmeal diet during the remainder of
my sojourn.
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