ally. There are blank forms which cover everything,
from provisioning the prison to bathing the men, and these must be
filled in and signed by the warder in charge of the particular work
being done. For example, every week he must fill in the proper form and
certify that every man in his ward has had a bath. I have known men to
go unbathed for many months, simply because they did not wish to bathe,
and it saved the warder trouble--nearly all others in the ward only
bathed about once a month, and yet at the stated times the officer
filled up and signed the form, certifying to the superior authorities
that those in his ward had been bathed at the regulation times.

A great majority of the officers are soldiers who have been invalided or
pensioned off after doing the full term for which they enlisted--twelve
years--and of sailors in the same condition. In order to encourage
enlistment into the army and navy, the Government gives discharged
soldiers and sailors the preference in the civil service, apparently
heedless as to their moral qualifications. Indeed, it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain about these, for the very
nature and present requirements of these services tend to harden and
make men conscienceless, subservient and fawning toward their superiors,
and tyrannical to those in their power.

As to those in the prison service, there are many who would be good men
in a situation suited to their acquirements, and there are but a few of
those who are brought into immediate contact with the men--who, in fact,
virtually hold the power of life and death over them--whose influence is
of an elevating or reforming kind. Indeed, I have heard many of them
telling or exchanging obscene stories with prisoners, and using the
vilest language and bandying thieves' slang, in which they become
proficient. I am bold to say that at least one-half of all I have known
are in morals on a level with the average prisoner, or, as I have heard
more than one assistant warder say, "Too much of a coward to steal,
ashamed to beg and too lazy to work"--therefore became a soldier, then a
warder. This may, at the moment, have been spoken in a jesting way, but
it is none the less true.

What can be expected in the way of refinement and good morals from a
class of men who entered the army or navy, coming, as they did in most
cases, from the untaught and mind-debased multitude with which that land
of drink and debauchery swarms?

I