Barton County democrat. [volume] (Great Bend, Kan.) 1885-1915, 1892-02-11
VANITY HARD TO DOWN.
The Greatest Trial of Female Prisoner
In Their Prison Garb.

L. Their Prison Garb.
An ex-keeper of a penitentiary, being
asked the other day to describe some
of the characteristics of the female
prisoners in the wards, said that one of
the things that struck her most forci-
bly, was the way in which the personal
vanity of women prisoners remained
strong within most of them to the last,
no matter what other traits prison life
crushed out When bustles were fash
ionable many prisoners would sacrifice
the warmth of their petticoat even in
mid-winter in order to roll them up I'M
der their skirts to give them a fashion
able hump behind No man but the
chaplain and the warden saw them, and
then only occasionally, and what salts
faction it gave them that would offset
their shivering it is hard to see
The wearing of prison uniform is a
great blow to them Few of them.
when they enter, seem to expect that
1t never occurred to them that they
would have to take off all their orna-
ments and wear the ugly convict garh.
and they plead for a ribbon or ring
more pitifully than they would for
food But when it comes to cropping
tAC&A AdA4 SAO>C. l4dl - I-fG
touch; you'd think their hearts would
break. They may have remained
stolid and stoical all through the trial.
received their sentence, even. in
silence, but when it comes to cropping
off their treasured locks their plead
ings and prayers and tears and cries
would move a heart of stone
81 remember the case of one woman
l. 81
managed to excite and sustain the envy
OF nearly all her companions in mis-
fortune by keeping her short black
hair shining with oil. How she did it,
where she got the oil was q mystery
that set myself to find out It took
me long time to do it, but finally
was rewarded She used to let her
soup get perfectly cold Then she
that had risen to the top and use it on
her hair. Then she drank her soup.
Try to drink cold soup yourself, and
rifce she made for vanity's sake.
Another woman managed to rouge
| her cheeks, on which the prison life
was settling its inevitable pallor. This
caused even more stir than the oiled
hair did. and when coaxing failed &c
| draw her secret from her, the other
prisoners made charges of favoritism
against me, intimating that 1 let the
rosy-cheeked woman have privileges
| denied to others watched this pris
oner also for some time before / found
| that she could make her gums bleed
easily by scratching them with hel
nails, and this blood she applied to hel
cheeks with gratifying success
ITO do this, she had to have a look
ing-glass something prohibited by the
rules And yet she had one-a piece O
ordinary glass with black rag behind
it for quicksilver. When 1 found it OF
her bed, / remembe that weeks be
fore she had subjected herself to extr'
punishment by breaking a pane o
glass With piece of the broken pan,
she had constructed this primitive mir
ror, in which she got a distorted view
of her features that no doubt gave he
great comfort, though why it shoul
not rather depress her spirits to look a
herself, in such clothes and wit
cropped hair. 1 never could under
| stand IN V TrihuDe