Supervisor grew impatient, and the more impatient she was the colder she grew. Her comfort was the first thing to be attended to in that institution. The prisoners might go without their breakfast,--the Matrons might faint away for want of food,--it was only paying her proper respect to light her fire, as soon as the order was given. I was in her power, she could retaliate upon me. That evening I met her in the officers' dining-room, and asked her if she wished me to keep a three hours and a half watch before breakfast. She replied,-- "It has been done thirty-three years." "Great changes have taken place in the world during the last thirty-three years, and many more might be effected with advantage," I remarked. "I don't see how you can find time to go to breakfast at that hour." "I should not find time at any hour unless I took it." "That is so; but they were dishing out when I went down. You ought to be there when they are dishing out." "I suppose so; but I have an order to be in the prison a large part of the time, at all three of the meals, when they are dishing out, and they are obliged to do it without my oversight." Doing your duty, I would have liked to have added. "Most of the officers like to go to table with the others for company." "I did not come here for society. In wishing to breakfast earlier, I was not consulting my taste, but trying to take care of my health. Unless I am made somewhat comfortable, I shall break down, and be obliged to leave." "Comfortable!" she echoed. I was not surprised that the word sounded so strangely to her, connected with any other person than herself. Discipline had become a mania, and it was applied as severely to the officers as the prisoners, so far as it was in her power to effect it. The whole study, it appeared to me, was to keep them on duty all day, without relaxation; and they were cut off from every means of enjoyment which was not connected with their care. There was a common sitting-room where the male officers and Matrons sat and talked together, when they were not on duty, when I went there; but that was taken away, and made into a bed-room, so that there was no place for them to meet except in their own bed-rooms, the halls, or on the grounds. If human ingenuity were to set itself to work to invent a position of unmitigated discomfort, that prison life would give some excellent hints. The heads of the establishment were certainly very keen in discovering ways to circumscribe the comforts of its inmates. I made a statement of my circumstances to Supervisor; not with any expectation of obtaining any consideration, but merely to place my view of things before her. "You cannot wonder that I do not consider that I am made comfortable when you think of my seventeen hours of labor in the day, to which is added the care of the prison, nights." "The care of the prison, nights!" she echoed, and turned up her nose in disdain.