“Lord save us, it’s the major!” was the affrighted reply. They knew my voice and obeyed, creeping up the stairs one by one, till all, a dozen nearly, stood ranged in a row before me, and I desired the matron to take their names down, then to lock up each woman in her own cell. Next moment they were off, running for their lives in an entirely opposite direction. With a suddenness that was startling they broke away and made for the staircase, and up it to the top story of the prison building, above the highest ward, and into the close gallery just under the roof, whence they could reach the skylights and clamber out on to the slates. We knew they had reached the upper air, for their shouts were heard all over the prison, and they could be seen from the yards below, from the neighbouring streets indeed, dancing and performing wild antics on the roof above. We were all greatly puzzled how to deal with them. Persuasion was futile and it would be both difficult and dangerous to climb along the sloping roof, seize each woman in turn, and drag her down. After much debate I decided to leave them where they were—a “night out” would cool their blood, and they could neither do nor come to great harm in the alley under the roof, to which they would no doubt return of their own accord. Meanwhile I sent to a friendly magistrate hard by, begging him to meet me at the prison next day early, for I wished to have recourse to his powers of punishment, having none myself. I made other preparations to deal with my mutineers, and, passing on to an adjacent town, saw the Governor of the prison there, requisitioned from him all his “figure-of-eight” handcuffs, and carried them back with me next morning in a bag. The situation remained unchanged; the women were still under the roof, but no longer had access to the slates, for by means of a ladder the skylights had been reached and secured from the outside. Then the male officers went upstairs and, after a sharp scuffle, extracted the women from the alley under the roof, and brought them one by one to their cells. No sooner were they incarcerated than the magistrate and I visited them, and he ordered each woman to be handcuffed, as the law permits when fears are entertained that she will do herself or another mischief. There was never another outbreak among the female prisoners there.[6]