Missouri Valley times. [volume] (Missouri Valley, Iowa) 1874-1931, 1901-05-16
MIRRORS ON THE BAN LIST.
Canvicts In British Prisons Denied tho Use
of LEOAin.. (iIasseS.

Convcts In British Prisons Denied the Use
of Looking Glasses.
London TIT Bits. What" exclalms
the astonishcd reader, lis it possible
that there are any civilized persons on
the face of the earth who are not In the
habit of beholding their visages re-
Gected from time to time In a mirror OF
some kind? Surely this cannot be so.
Wrong. quite wrong. gentle reader, for
at the present time, strange as 1t may
appear. there are hundreds of men and
women in the United Kingdom who
have not gazed into u mirror for years.
The convicts confined In her ma
iesty's prisons form members of this
community. From the moment of a
conNicts entrance to q Jail to the mo-
ment of his exit he is not permitted to
have the use of a mirror of any kind,
the smallest piece of glass being rigidly
denied to him. To the women convicts
this absence of Il mirror forms one of
the chief hardshps of confinement. and
many female warder can tell piteous
tales of women who have actually fall
en- upon their knees and sobbed out en-
treaties for the loan of morsel OF
nlilror-"just for a second" All these
cntreaties have perforce to be disre-
garded-and 1t therefore comes about
that many q female convict passes
three or four years without being per
mitted to gaze upon her own features.
1t must not be imagined, however,
that it is merely wearers of the gov
eminent broad arrow uniform who
are thus deprived of the pleasure of
scanning their faces in the glass. for,
incredible as 1t may seem, there have
been many Instances of eccentric in
dividuals who. for some reason or an
other have vowed never to look into q
mirror as long as life endured.
Such a case occurred some years ago
at Csrassonne. In France, where a
young and beautifully widow, much given
to frivolities. lost her only child boy
Of 3. while dressing her hair before the
mirror for a ball to which she was
about to wend her way. The child left
to himself. wandered into the roadway
and was run over and killed by pass
ing dray. and the mother, heartbroken
by the shocking affair, which she at
tributed to her own neglect, vowed
that she would never again look into
mirror.
She kept her word, and until the day
Of her death, which occurred about
three years later. She did not behold
her face on a single OCCASION Every
mirror was removed from the fiat
which she occupied-nor We're silver
dishes brought to her table, lest she
should see her features reflected there
in.
In one of the Midland counties of
England, not so very long ago, there
passed away Il farmer who had not be-
held his own face for nearly fifteen
years. The farmer in question was SUI
perstitous to the point of credulity,
and on Il certain occasion a gypsy In
formed him that he would die while
gazing into a mirror. Terrified by this
weird prediction, the weak minded
man resolved that he would never
again scan his features In the glass
and rightly kept his word, dying even
tually at the ripe age of IS.
a young italian peasant woman who
welded Il sailor told him on the eve of
his departure for long voyage that
she would not look upon her feature
In the mirror until he returned to her
safe and sound. The unfortunate mans
vessel was wrecked In the Gulf of Mex
leo, all aboard the ship being drowned,
but the distracted widow refused to
believe that her husband was dead and
vowed she would adhere to her resolve
regarding the non-use of mirror for
another year. AS each year passed the
vow was renewed, but oventually a
new sutton came upon the scene and
paid court to the woman, with the re-
suit that she married him in due
course and looked once more upon her
comely face after lapse of six years.
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