Page:Hubert W. Peet - 112 Days' Hard Labour, Being Some Reflections On the First of My Sentences as a Conscientious Objector - 1917.pdf/7

 All garments are dated, and one day I noted a cape that had been in use for 21 years! I have also seen a man with his trousers turned up at least eight inches to make them fit.

The great luxury of prison life is the weekly bath. The bath-house resembles a loose-box stable with a bath for each man. One can have as much warm water as one wants without the worry of thinking whether the kitchen boiler is empty or not! How chills and colds are avoided is extraordinary, for one comes straight out of a hot bath, for instance, into the snow and east wind without putting on an overcoat; while once, when unfortunate enough to be in the box next the door, I was nearly blown out of the water by the wind that blew in on the advent of new bathers every few minutes.

Oddities of the Exercise Ground

This a monotonous perambulation in single file round an asphalted circle, vigilant warders keeping their ears open for surreptitious conversation the while. Exercise provides, however, the chance of seeing at least the faces of one’s friends, and the solemnity and dullness of the proceedings was relieved by many a touch of humour, such as the sight of Councillor, the I.L.P. Parliamentary candidate for East Bristol, being threatened with dire punishment by the warder known as “Kaiser Bill,” or “Brer Fox,” for light-heartedly attempting to slide on the slippery “strait and narrow” exercise circle, or the sight of , Editor of the “Labour Leader,” and J. H. Hudson, Labour candidate for Clitheroe, cheerily marching along with the navvy gang.

A sense of humour evoked by trivial incidents is of inestimable value in prison. It tonics the whole man. It creates to be sure a special temptation—to try to share the zest with one’s fellows.

What struck me most forcibly in my earliest experience of prison exercises was that Bertillon’s theories criminal physiognomy must be all wrong. Never had I seen such a disreputable-looking company—sallow, red-nosed, scrubby-bearded, and most amazingly garbed, the clothes bursting across the backs of some and hanging loosely around others. Some shuffled along with ill-fitting footwear; some obviously fagged by even this slight physical effort. A few enwrapped and shrouded in ascetic contemplation as if they were old-world mendicant monks walking round and round some monastery garden. If, however, the prisoner face and mien as noted in the exercise ground seemed to be stamped with some features common to all, in chapel the case was different. Juxtaposition in that more compacted crowd made differences in type more evident. But whether on the exercise ground or in the chapel one could not but be somewhat thankful for the utter absence of mirrors. Happily prisoners cannot “see oorsels as ithers see us.”

Shaving and haircutting take place occasionally at the hands