e 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.

And then--leave you your underclothes.

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-mache 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.

And three gills of water is all the inmates of this place are allowed in
twenty-four hours.

And up to the time that Warden Rattigan took office and first visited the
jail, all the water a man here was allowed in twenty-four hours was one
gill!

No wonder the men down here go insane! No wonder they commit suicide!

The electric light, held close to the grated door of my iron cage, has
enabled me thus far to see the operations of Captain Martin and the
trusty. Now they pass along to the other cells, and I can see nothing
except the fragments of their moving shadows on the wall opposite. But
they are stopping at the doors of the other cells, and are evidently
giving out more bread and gills of water. So there must be other
prisoners; I shall not be alone in the darkness, thank Heaven!

Having finished their duties, the trusty departs and the Captain follows;
after extinguishing the electric light. The iron door turns on its hinges
and is slammed shut; th