As my orders conflicted, and my work bothered me, I made another effort to find a head manager, or some printed regulations.

When the Deputy came in, on his morning rounds, I asked him,—

"Is the Master's wife Head Matron here?"

"Yes."

"Then why does she not come and teach me to manage my department, and see that I do my duty? I go to you, and you tell me the other matrons know. I go to them, and they tell me so many conflicting things that I am bothered more than helped. Then if I ask some of them one thing, they wish to manage the whole, and come in, and give orders that produce such an effect that I am obliged to give others to countermand them. They give them in such a way, too, that my women are all stirred up, and it takes me a long time to get them settled down again. This morning, one of them told Mrs. Martin that she needn't come in here putting on airs, and giving off orders, when she was no better than the rest of them. I pretended not to hear it, for I really thought she provoked the answer. If there is a Head Matron, she ought to come to my rescue."

"The Master's wife is Supervisor," said the good-natured fellow, after thinking a few moments. He was anxious to make it right on her part.

Superfudge! I thought to myself. I said,—

"I wish she would supervise my place into order. Have you any printed directions?"

"Yes. I don't think they would do you much good, but I will bring them to you."

He did not offer to bring the Supervisor to me, or to take me to her. As I got acquainted with the affairs of the institution, I found that she was emphatically super to all of them except her own housekeeping. She had brilliancy enough to look after that, and see that it was done well. She had the ability, and she exercised it, to come or send down when her parlor, which was directly over the prisoners' kitchen, was too cold, to have the furnace door shut, or if it was too warm, to have it opened.

About a week after I went there she came in, probably my repeated inquiries had been reported to her, and gave me an order to have a room cleaned in the attic of the prison. It was one morning when we were in the midst of house-cleaning with a gang of men whitewashing in the prison.

I told her I didn't think it possible to attend to it that day.

"I will show it to you now, because I have time."

I really had not time to look at it, as any one of common powers of observation would have seen; but, as she was my superior officer, I followed her without further remark.

As she passed through the prison, and saw the men at work, she gave me another illustration of her luminous capacity by remarking,—

"You must be careful and not let your women get with the men."

"Yes, ma'am."

She took me up the sixth flight of stairs into the roof of the prison, into a room where the receiving officer packs away the clothing that he takes off the convicts when they come into the prison. After showing me the dust on the floor, and cobwebs on the walls, she said,—

"You had better send one of your women up to clean it. I always begin at the top when I clean house."

"I don't see how I can spare one to-day. If the Deputy will send me in one to do it, I will do my best to oversee it. But you see how inconvenient that will be, it is so far up here, and there is so much going on in the kitchen."

"It won't be much to clean this."

I thought, but did not say it, it might appear differently to you if you were to do it. I should consider it a good day's work for two strong women.

I looked round with her, and listened to her suggestions.

"What I wanted to call your attention to, particularly, was this box of old clothes. I think it must have been here two or three years."

I wondered if it had been two or three years since she had been in that room.

"They are cloth caps," she went on, "there may be an old coat or pair of pants among them. I don't think they will be of any use,—they might as well be sold, and the pay go towards the support of the institution."

I looked into the box. There might have been twenty pounds of woolen rags, originally; but they were nearly chowdered into dust by moths.

I saw by that one interview the occasion of the reticence of the Deputy, with regard to the Head Matron.

The first moment of leisure I got, that afternoon, I examined the printed "Rules and Regulations," by the Board of Directors, which the Deputy had brought me. They were printed eight or ten years before, but sensible and humane so far as they went.

There were no directions to regulate the details of duty; but all of the Master's orders were subject to the approval of the Board. I did not see how it could be possible to carry that article out, practically, when many of them were changed almost every day.

One order that I noticed gave me great satisfaction, and had it been observed, would have created a very different state of things in the prison from what then obtained. It was, that "no irritating language" should be used to the prisoners. Had that rule been observed, there would have been comparatively few "in solitary," to the number which came under my observation.

I came to the conclusion that if the rules which governed the institution had been subjected to the approval of the Board of Directors, that august body must entertain a very imperfect idea of their practical working.

One of my orders was to stand at the ration table, in the kitchen, while the meals were passed out. Another was to be in the prison, at the same time, on duty, which shut me out of the kitchen entirely.

The trouble that arose from the conflicting orders was this. After I left the kitchen, the food for the meals was under the control of the prisoners, and they secreted what part of it they pleased for themselves and their favorites.

Before I left the kitchen I saw the meat sliced, and an equal portion placed in each pan. After I left, and there was no one to watch it, the women abstracted a part of it from some of the pans, or changed it from one pan to another.

I was allowed about two hundred and eighty pounds of meat for the four hundred prisoners, bones included. After this was sliced, it was divided to each pan as nearly equally alike as possible. To this was added three or four potatoes, with the skins on, and the gravy or soup was then poured over them.

These pans were arranged in rows across the ration table, to be passed out, through a slide, to the men, as they were marched into prison, on their side; and to the women, on their side. The kitchen was between the prisons.

After the pans were arranged on the table, and the dinners put into them, I was obliged to go out into the prison to receive the women, and see them slid into their cells. The slide door was shut upon me, and the convicts were left alone with the food to hand it out.

Was it strange, with this opportunity placed in their way, that they should help themselves to the meat which had been divided to the others?

My order was to detect the thief and report her. That was much easier said than done. My opinion was that they all took it.

It was a question strongly debated in my mind, who was most at fault, those poor, half-starved things, for taking the meat when the opportunity was given them, or those who put the temptation in their way?

I did not decide it in season to have any of them punished for breaking the rule.

When the convicts got angry with each other, they would report on the one they were offended with; but it was an established rule that the testimony of one prisoner was not to be taken against another, and I had not the least inclination to break the rule.

I did discover one of the thieves at last; but I took my own way to punish her.

The steam woman got angry with one of the slide women, and reported her to me one day when the dinner came short.

"Never mind now, Allen; but the next time you see her take it, tell me where she hides the meat. I will go find it; and then, she can't turn it on you for betraying her."

A day or two afterwards, Allen whispered to me,—

"You look on the top of the bread closet in the cellar, and you will find something."

I went down, mounted some false steps, and found a quart filled with slices of meat. I took it up into the kitchen, and asked,—

"Who hid this meat away on the top of the bread cupboard in the cellar?"

Not one of them answered.

"Will the one who did it be honest enough to own it; or will she be mean enough to let me lay the blame on some one else? Did you do it, Annie O'Brien?"

"No, ma'am."

"Will you tell me who did it?"

"I don't know, ma'am."

"Allen, did you do it?"

"No, ma'am."

I did not wish to ask her who did it, because she had told me.

"I am going to ask you all, and I hope no one will be mean enough to lie about it."

"I put it there," said O'Sullivan.

"Who did you put it away for?"

"For myself, because I don't like peas."

"Very well, O'Sullivan; but you were rather too generous to yourself. Half of that would have been enough for your dinner, and to punish you for being so selfish, you can't have any of it. I shall give it to the others. Your hiding it away down there, gave it very much the appearance of stealing. In future, when you wish to put anything away, show it to me, and then, put it away like an honest woman. But you are never to put anything away unless it is left over, after I have divided the meat. It would be very mean to take a double portion for yourself, and make the poor fellows on the other side go without."

I had been studying the Rules and Regulations of the Board, and discovered that I was to admonish once, before reporting for punishment. I did not propose to transcend that rule.

"Now, remember, there is nothing more to be hid away from me."

"There isn't much danger, as long as you let us tell you all about it."

"I shall always let you tell me, before I get you punished; but you must always obey, and then there will be no punishment."

"I suppose it is only right that we should eat our share of peas with the rest, for they can't get even bread and coffee as we can."

"It is certainly wrong for you to take another prisoner's meat; and very mean, because, as you say, he has not the chance you have to get anything else. Now, girls, will you promise not to hide things away, and try to cheat me any more?"

"I will, I will," was responded by the six. I did not expect them to do it without a great many more "admonishings."

"Now, girls, be on your guard, so that the temptation does not become too strong for you."

When the Deputy came in, I asked him whether the order for me to stand at the ration table in the kitchen, at meal time, had been approved by the Board.

"Of course it has."

"Has the order for me to be on duty in the prison at meal time, been approved by the Board?"

"Certainly!"

"You consider them a very intelligent body of men, do you not?"

"Of course,—they are my superior officers."

"How can they expect me to be in two different places at the same time?"

"I really don't know much about the arrangements on the women's side at meal times. My station is in the men's prison at that time."

"Yes, sir; and it is the place of our head officer to be stationed on this side, in the women's prison, at that time, and it is my place to be in the kitchen at meal time, to see that the meals go out properly, and that none of them are turned from the right channel."

The next day afforded him an illustration of what I said. The dinner fell short. He entered the kitchen at one door as I went in at another. He came hurrying up to me, and asked—"Why is this?"

"I don't know, sir! It was all right when I left the kitchen. Since that, I have no means of knowing what has been going on. I have been shut out in the prison, on duty."

He ordered in bread to supply the deficiency. In that case it was the mismanagement of the hash, by a new hand, when "dished out," which would have been prevented had I been there to oversee it.