When the matron went to her lunch we were locked in our corridors but not in our cells. Ordinarily she took a nap afterwards, and the girls could usually count on her not being back until three or perhaps four o’clock. This gave them an opportunity to dry their shreds of tobacco under the radiator, then wrap them in toilet paper ready for smoking. At night when we were all locked in they struck the steel ribs from their corsets against the stone floor, and thus ignited pieces of cotton to give them lights. I could see tiny glowing points in the darkness as they puffed away greedily. Somehow, with the ingenuity born of necessity, these women also managed to have smuggled in to them occasional small news items. The first day one of the girls approached me and in a stage whisper demanded, “Cross your heart and hope to die you won’t tell.” I crossed my heart and hoped to die. She slipped into my hand a short clipping about my trial. Apparently others had been keeping up with events, because a few minutes later Lisa, a little colored girl, called out, “You’se eats, don’t yer?” A third asked me to explain to them what “sex hygiene” was all about. Accordingly I sought permission of Mrs. Sullivan to be allowed in their corridor during her dinner hour. “What for?” “The girls want me to tell them about sex hygiene.” “Ah, gwan wid ye,” she laughed. “They know bad enough already.” Some of the most lovely-looking girls were drug addicts. It seemed monstrous that the State could take such liberties with human lives as to convict them as criminals and sentence them to as much as three years for something which should have been considered disease. Other women were pickpockets, embezzlers, prostitutes, keepers of brothels, “Tiffany,” or high-class thieves, accomplices of safe blowers, and a few “transatlantic flyers,” who assisted in big hauls from Paris or London. The class snobbishness among the offenders interested me beyond words. No one cared how or where another had been reared, what kind of family background or education she had; the nature of her offense was the key to her social position. The one who picked pockets was scorned by the girl who helped herself to pearl or diamond necklaces; the shoplifter did not “sell her body.” The prisoners sometimes slid their arms in mine as we paced along in the yard. One took me to task. “I saw you walking with Gracie. You mustn’t associate with her.” “Why not?” “Do you know what she’s in here for? She’s a petty thief. Whenever she gets out she rides in street cars and steals money from the pocketbooks of poor people going to pay their rent, or women coming home with their husbands’ wages.” “And what are you here for?” “Oh, I steal from the rich; I take only from people who have jewelry and bank accounts.”