There was no sign of medical inspection, nor any attempt at separation of the sick from the well. I should judge one hundred men to have been in the two dormitories that night. There were boys not more than fifteen years old sleeping by the side of men of seventy. The beds were shoved absolutely tight together, which gave the appearance of all sleeping in one bed. When it became necessary for any one of them to get up during the night he was forced to crawl over the next men or over the head or foot of the bed. As there were no cuspidors, the men expectorated into space without thought or care of where it fell. Two men came in and took beds next to mine. The one on my right was an intelligent workingman, the one on my left was a drunkard with a horribly offensive breath from disease and rum. The beds had no mattresses,--a blanket was simply thrown over the woven wires,--and as I sank down on one, it became a string beneath me. A blanket was our only covering, and the pillows, filled with excelsior, were as hard as boards. I said to the man on my right: "Did you have any supper to-night?" "No, I didn't, and I feel pretty weak and hungry. I spent my last thirty cents this morning for a breakfast, and what do you think I got for it? I got a piece of beefsteak four inches square so tough I could scarcely eat it, and some potatoes fried in rancid lard." I made no reply and the exhausted and half-starved man fell asleep. "I wish I had a couple of drinks of whiskey," said the man on my left. "Oh," I replied, "you don't want much; one drink would do me." "Yes, but I've got beyond that," he said; "it takes a good many drinks to do me, and they can't come too fast, either." Then, with a sigh, he added, "My dear old Daddy, God bless him, I have one thing to blame him for. He taught me to drink, and here I am in this charity business--a drunkard." And he, too, turned over and fell asleep. But I could not sleep; asthmatics and consumptives were coughing constantly, and the wreckage around me was too much for my sympathies. The coming of the daylight through the windows was a welcome sight. I got up and went to the drinking place, and asked a burly looking attendant if it was time to get up. "Naw, taint!" he snapped, with a wicked scowl. When I went back to bed I saw this man lock the two doors leading from our dormitory to the outside toilet rooms, and for half an hour the men were obliged to use the basin at the drinking place for sanitary convenience! When the doors were finally unlocked, supposing it to be the signal for us to get up, I went with hat and shoes in my hands and sat down in a chair by the door. When the attendant to whom I had spoken earlier, came up the stairs and saw me there, without a moment's warning he seized me by the wrists, jerked me to my feet, and giving me a shove thrust me in a most brutal manner through the door, exclaiming: "Now, will you stay in there until you are told to come out?"