On opening my door I found that outside all was hurry and confusion. In the dim light the women were scrambling for the dresses, which were lying in big heaps on the floor. The skirts of these dresses, like the petticoats--of which there were three--were of the same width at both top and bottom and they were gathered into wide bands which, though fastened with tapes were not made to draw up, and had to be overlapped in the most clumsy fashion in order to make them fit any but the very stoutest women. The bodices were so strangely cut that even when worn by very thin people they seemed bound to gape in front, especially as they were fastened with only one button at the neck. My bodice, the only one I could manage to get hold of, had several large rents, which had been roughly cobbled together with black cotton.[14] Every article of clothing was conspicuously stamped with the broad arrow, which was painted black on light garments, and white on those which were dark. I had scarcely fastened my dress when somebody called out to us all: "Look sharp and put on your shoes." These we had to take for ourselves from where they were bundled together on a wooden rack. None of them seemed to be in pairs and they were heavy and clumsy, with leather laces that, when one attempted to tie them, broke easily in the hand. Lastly, white cotton caps fastened under the chin with strings and stamped in black with the broad arrow, and the blue and white check aprons and handkerchiefs, both of which looked like dusters,[15] were given to us and we were led off on a long journey to the cells. It seemed a sort of skeleton building that we were taken through--the strangest place in which I had ever been. In every great oblong ward or block through which we passed, though there were many stories, one could see right down to the basement and up to the lofty roof. The stone floors of the corridors lined the walls all the way round, jutting out at the junctions of the stories like shelves some nine or ten feet apart, being protected on the outer edge by an iron wire trellis work four or five feet high, and having on the wall side rows and rows and rows of numbered doors studded with nails. The various stories were connected by flights of iron steps bordered by iron trellis work, and reaching in slanting lines from corridor to corridor. All the walls and doors were painted stone colour and all the iron work was painted black.