A lady superintendent thus described the “breaking out” to Mayhew:--“Sometimes they know when the fit is coming on, and will themselves ask to be locked up in the refractory wards. When they’re in these fits they’re terribly violent indeed; they tear up and break everything they can lay their hands on. The younger they are the worse they behave. The most violent age, I think, is from seventeen to two or three and twenty;--indeed they are like fiends at that age very often.” The medical officer told him that “4 per cent. of the whole of the prisoners, or 20 in 600, were subject to such fits of violent passion, and these were almost invariably from fifteen to twenty-five years of age.” “Women,” he added, “seldom injure themselves or those around them, though they will break their windows, and even occasionally tear their own clothing to ribbons.”[65] Miss Mary Carpenter, in her _Female Life in Prison_, reproduces what she tells us is a characteristic dialogue:-- “‘Miss G., I’m going to break out to-night.’ “‘Oh, nonsense; you won’t think of any such folly, I’m sure.’ “‘I’m sure I shall.’ “‘What for?’ “‘Well, I’ve made up my mind, that’s what for. I shall break out to-night--see if I don’t.’ “‘Has any one offended you or said anything?’ “‘N-no. But I _must_ break out. It’s so dull here. I’m sure to break out.’ “‘And then you’ll go to the “dark” [cell].’ “‘I want to go to the “dark.”’ “And the breaking out often occurs as promised; the glass shatters out of the window frames; strips of sheets and blankets are passed through or left in a heap in the cell; the guards are sent for, and there is a scuffling and fighting and scratching and screaming that Pandemonium might equal, nothing else.”