If you came into the prison on Wednesday, the first day for you to exercise will be Saturday. How long it seems since you were last in the outside world, since you saw the sky and the sunshine and felt the pure fresh air against your cheek! How vividly everything strikes you now. Every detail stands out in your mind with never-to-be-forgotten clearness. Perhaps it is a showery Autumn day. The blue sky is flecked with quickly driving clouds. The sun shines brightly and lights up the puddles on the ground and the raindrops still hanging from the eaves and window ledges. The wind comes in little playful gusts. The free pigeons are flying about in happy confidence. You notice every variation in their glossy plumage. Some are grey with purple throats, some have black markings on their wings, some are a pale brown colour, some nearly white; one is a deep purple, almost black, with shining white bars on his wings and tail. All are varied--no two are alike. The gaunt prison buildings surround everything, but in all this shimmering brightness, in this sweet, free air, they have lost for the moment their gloomy terror. Now, your eye lights on your fellow prisoners. You are brought back to the dreary truth of prison life. With measured tread, and dull listless step, they shuffle on. Their heads are bent, their eyes cast down. They do not see the sun and the brightness, the precious sky or the hovering birds. They do not even see the ground at their feet, for they pass over sunk stones, through wet and mud, though there be dry ground on either side. The prison system has eaten into their hearts. They have lost hope, and the sight of nature has no power to make them glad. It may be that when next you walk with them you will feel as they do. These gloomy overshadowing walls and the remembrance of your narrow cell, with its endless twilight and dreary, useless tasks may have filled your mind and driven away all other thoughts. Once inside, the last break in the day will be supper at five o'clock (like breakfast, six ounces of bread and a pint of gruel), except that just before the light goes out at night, comes a noisy knocking at every door, and the cry, "Are you all right?" Then darkness, a long, sleepless night, and the awakening to another day like yesterday and like to-morrow. FOOTNOTES: [13] The Secretarial duties had now increased so greatly that no one person could cope with them without giving the whole of her time to the work. As I was unable to do this, I had been obliged to resign. [14] Some days afterwards it was condemned and I had a somewhat better one given to me. [15] We afterwards learnt that one clean handkerchief was supplied each week. We had no pockets to keep them in. [16] Each prisoner, on the day of entering is according to prison rules to be given a supper consisting of six ounces of meat and one pint of cocoa.