The Sun.
London, England, 1862-08-07 00:00:00

FEMALE PRISONERS AT MILLBANK.

(From Female Life in Prison. By a Prison Matron.)
The first inexorable rule to which the new pri-
soner has to submit, and which is a trial that is
always one of the hardest to bear, is that of having
the hair cut out. With the woman new to the
rules, a comer who has not sat in that room before,
with the scissors of Atropos snipping round her
head, it is seldom performed without a remon-
strance. Women whose hearts have not quailed
perhaps, at the murder of their infants, or the poi-
soning of their husbands, clasp their hands in
horror at this sacrifice of their natural adornment;
weep, beg, pray, occasionally assume a defiant atti-
tude and resist to the last, and are finally overcome
by force. It is one of the most painful tasks of the
prison, this hair-cutting operation—moreover it is,
in my opinion at least, a test of character. One
woman will be resigned to her fate in the instant,
and with a Socratic stoicism will compress her lips
and submit herself to the shears, and march away
to her bath in a business-like manner_ A second
will have a shivering fit over it, a third will weep
passionately, and a fourth will pray to be spared
the indignity; and implore the matron on her
knees to go to the lady-superintendent and state
her case for her. Some women are impressed with
the idea that coaxing will go a long way to-
wards softening the matron's heart, or at least ob-
tain a variation in the rules, and a less length of
hair from their heads ; and consequently bestow
many "My dears," and " God bless you's" on the
operator. The greatest trouble in my experience
of prison life was with an old woman of 60 years
of age, and with about the same number of grey
hairs to her head_ She was an old prison-bird—
had spent two-thirds of her life in prison, and was
as vain of her personal appearance as any girl of
seventeen. " No, Miss B." she said to the operator
after catching sight of the scissors, and drawing
herself up with the haughtiness of a duchess—" not
this time, if you please, Miss B. It can't be done."
But Miss B. replied it could be done, and was ab-
solutely necessary to be done before the prisoner
left the room. " Things have altered a little, Miss
8., since I saw you last, I can assure you. You've
no power to touch a hair of my head, mum."
" How's that ?" "If you please, mum, I'm mar-
ried," and the old woman regarded the matron with
undisguised triumph. " And what's that to do
with it ?—sit down—you really must sit down."
" What's that to do with it ?" shrieked the old
woman, indignantly; " Why, it's my husband's
hair now, and you daren't touch it, according to
law. It belongs to my husband, not to me, and
you've no right to touch it. Lord bless you, the
Queen of England daren't lay a finger on it now."
And the old woman's staunch faith in the law of her
country to protect her grey hairs, would in any
other place, under any other circumstance, have
been supremely ludicrous. Argument with her was
useless—she did not see that anything more was
required after an expression of her opinion—she
would not object to the bath, because the law had
nothing to say in the matter of baths to married
women, but her hair couldn't be touched by any
mortal power. When there were signs of being
uninfluenced by her eloquent exposition, she de-
manded to see the governor—he knew the law of
England, of course—and when her hair was cut to
the statutable length, she vowed to make a full
statement of the ease to the directors, on the
next board meeting, and please put her name
down to see those directors at once. Such an
infamous violation of the laws of her country
she had never been a witness to in her time.
And strange as it may appear, the plea of mar-
riage has latterly been very often urged
by prisoners, under the same circumstance.
" It's their husband's hair" has now become a
constant reason why the rules of the prison should
be waived in their particular cases_ And when it
is not urged as a plea, women,whom a repetition of
crime has brought back to the old quarters, gener-
ally offer, as their first piece of information,
they have been married since their incarcera-
tion. 1"
tion. There is a peculiar craving tobet
consideredi
an " honest married woman," and husband,
more h ud,
more often than otherwise,
is alleged to be in the
army, probably out of compliment
deputy. Theret to the military
character of the governor and his
have been times, as I have already indirectly men-
tioned, when some
woman' resisting all idea of dis-
cipline,uwain her determination not
to have her hair cut-
will stoutly maintain
woman, if
omen,my memory
do not fail me, from Stafford gaol, persisted in awl..
efforts of the matron, and re-
fing at all persuasive
to by a torrent of vituperation.
re-
plying there
powerful woman,withthe She
rwa-rs
17 tally
tigress and the limbs of an athlete, and one glance
was ancient to convince the matrons in attendance
that it was beyond their power to master her. On
such occasions the guards on duty in the outer
yards, or in the men's prison, are summoned to put
the handcuffs on while the necessary ceremony is
gone through. In this case it required three men
to secure her wrists While her hair was cut the re-
quisite length, she struggling, and cursing, and
swearing long after the
when she was in her refractory cell, and the gas
was burning feebly
on night duty was gliding noiselessly along the
passages, and the clock in the yard was chiming the
early hours of morning. I can remember one pri-
soner delirious for a day and night after the ope-
ration—the mortification of losing her hair, or the
impression made upon a nature more highly sensi-
tive than ordinary, tending to that nnfrequent re-
sult. She was a young, fair Scotch girl, and her
"Dinna cut my hair-oh, dinna cut my hair,"
rang along the deserted corridors With a plaintive
earnestness.

The cotton Mill of Messrs, Arrowsmith and Sons,
in Bolton,
was nearly destroyed by fire on Monday, w'for-
tunately adding to the general distress of Bolton by throw-
ing 200 people out of
employment. The fire was
.
discovered
soon after it broke out, but the flames spread withsuch
amazing rapidity that the whole part of the old building,
with a considerable amount of property and machniery,
were destroyed. A policeman fractured his ankle severely
thro:ghtlafall Whilst riding for the' re engines.