Despite the rule of
silence, I gave him verbal instructions how to proceed, otherwise he
would have given me the regular prison crop. During the rest of my term
I always had my hair trimmed in my own fashion. The prison crop, I may
observe, is rather a custom than a rule; the regulations require
only such hair-cutting and shaving as is necessary for health and
cleanliness, but the criminal population affect short hair, and the
difficulty is not to bring them under, but to keep them out of, the
barber's hands.

Prison barbers are generally amateurs. Of course the officers are above
such work, and unless a member of the tonsorial profession happens to
be in residence, the scissors are wielded by the first man who fancies
himself a natural adept at the business. The last barber I saw in
Holloway Gaol was a coachman, whose only qualification for the work was
that he had clipped horses' legs. He wore a blue apron round a corpulent
waist, and looked remarkably like a pork-butcher. He walked round the
victim like an artist engaged on a bust, and his habit was to work
steadily away at one spot until the skin showed like a piece of white
plaster, after which he labored at another spot, and so on, until the
task was finished. Seeing on my head an uncommon mass of hair, he made
many desperate solicitations to be allowed an opportunity of displaying
his skill, but I steadily resisted the appeal, although it evidently cut
him to the quick.

The bathing-house for the criminal prisoners has eight compartments. In
the ordinary course, I should have formed one of a detachment of that
number, but an exception was made in my case, and I was always taken to
bathe alone. Behind the bath-room were the dark cells. I was allowed to
inspect these miserable, black holes. They were damp and fetid, and when
the door was closed you were in Egyptian darkness. I cannot conceive
that such horrid punishment is necessary or justifiable. The prison
authorities have every inmate absolutely in their power, and if they are
obliged to resort to the black-hole, it must be from want of foresight
or the general imbecility of the system.

The flogging was always done outside the black-hole, in the bath-room
at the foot of the D wing. I have often heard screaming wretches
dragged along the corridor, and their cries of agony as their backs were
lacerated by the cat. Singularly, the dinner hour was always selected
for this performance, which must have been a gre