We drew up before a frowning pile of buildings, the windows of which are heavily grated, before whose entrances men with rifles stood on guard. We were immediately conducted to the office of the prison-director; he had something to say to us. He was a very humane man and most eager to impress us with his humanity. He had sent for us to warn us that we were about to encounter sights which would probably shock us. Since the war the crime-wave had been on the increase in all countries—especially in those which were most hungry. People seemed to be losing their faculty for distinguishing between mine and thine. This was the case in Austria, with the consequence that the supply of gaols could not cope with the demand of the criminals. All the gaols were overcrowded. This one was. Cells which had been built to hold one prisoner, now contained four; those built to hold nine contained as many as thirty. Of course the sanitary accommodations were insufficient. He did not want us to believe that what we were about to see was typical of Austrian efficiency. We should discover that only one prisoner out of four had a bed; that their personal linen was changed only once a month and that the cells were verminous. We should also discover that the greater part of the prisoners had not been brought to trial—many of them had been awaiting their trial three months. These lamentable conditions had produced frequent riots, which had only been quelled by flooding the cells to the depth of a yard. Still worse, children were displaying an increasing tendency to theft. Of course, that might be due to starvation. In pre-war days they had been dealt with in juvenile-court, but now all children of fourteen and up had to be herded with adults. There were so many of them. That was the trouble. Under the circumstances what else could be done? He bade us good-bye with a courtly politeness. His last words were a petition that we would not be shocked. But we were. And who would not he? Two-thirds of the crimes which had brought these three thousand unfortunates to this pass, fathers, mothers and children, had been stealings incited by hunger. There was one ward of mothers who had stolen to preserve their little ones and were again expecting to become mothers. They were among the very few of the prisoners who were segregated. They sat on the edge of cots in their grated cells, dismally weeping, wondering no doubt what was happening to the children they had left. Mary, refused admittance to the inn at Bethlehem, has stood in men's minds as the acme of maternal tragedy; but her neglect does not compare with the callous usage of these Viennese, captive mothers. And yet, as the director had said, economic conditions being what they were, what else could you do with them? You couldn't let them go on filching merely because they were mothers.