I was kept in the hall during the months of my penal punishment, and also for twelve months thereafter, since at that time a “report” always carried with it a loss of the privilege of working in the kitchen. When I had an opportunity, in “association time,” of speaking to the prisoner who had got me into this trouble, and reproached her for the injury she had done me, she frankly confessed her deed, but excused herself by saying that she did not expect I would be punished; that she was tempted to do it because at that time her case was under consideration at the Home Office, and that she had received the promise of an early discharge if she did not have any “reports.” She well knew that if this worsted had been found in her cell this promise would have been revoked. As she was a “life woman,” and had served a long time, I had not the heart to deprive her of this, perhaps her only chance of freedom, through a vindication of myself. A week later I had the satisfaction of knowing that my silence had been the means of her liberation. FORMS OF PUNISHMENT The punishment of prisoners at Woking consisted of: 1. Loss of marks, termed in prison parlance, “remission on her sentence,” but without confinement in the penal ward. 2. Solitary confinement for twenty-four hours in the penal ward, with loss of marks. 3. Solitary confinement, with loss of marks, on bread and water from one to three days. 4. Solitary confinement, with loss of marks, on bread and water for three days, either in a strait-jacket or “hobbles.” Hobbling consists in binding the wrists and ankles of a prisoner, then strapping them together behind her back. This position causes great suffering, is barbarous, and can be enforced only by the doctor’s orders. 5. To the above was sometimes added, in violent cases, shearing and blistering of the head, or confinement in the dark cell. The dark cell was underground, and consisted of four walls, a ceiling, and a floor, with double doors, in which not a ray of light penetrated. No. 5 punishment was abolished at Aylesbury, but in that prison even to give a piece of bread to a fellow prisoner is still a punishable offense. THE TRUE AIM OF PUNISHMENT Punishment should be carried out in a humane, sympathetic spirit, and not in a dehumanizing or tyrannous manner. It should be remedial in character, and not degrading and deteriorating. It should be the aim and object of the prison system to send a prisoner back into the world capable of rehabilitating himself or herself and becoming a useful citizen. The punishment in a convict prison, within my knowledge, is carried out in an oppressive way, the delinquent is left entirely to herself to work out her own salvation, and in nine cases out of ten she works out her own destruction instead, and leaves prison hardened, rancorous, and demoralized. THE EVIL OF COLLECTIVE PUNISHMENT