e, how his own suffering had made him, as
Shakespeare says, "pregnant to good pity," and also because it tells us
what life was like in an English prison in our time. Oscar wrote:

"I saw the three children myself on the Monday preceding my release.
They had just been convicted, and were standing in a row in the central
hall in their prison dress carrying their sheets under their arms,
previous to their being sent to the cells allotted to them.... They were
quite small children, the youngest--the one to whom the warder gave the
biscuits--being a tiny chap, for whom they had evidently been unable to
find clothes small enough to fit. I had, of course, seen many children
in prison during the two years during which I was myself confined.
Wandsworth prison, especially, contained always a large number of
children. But the little child I saw on the afternoon of Monday, the
17th, at Reading, was tinier than any one of them. I need not say how
utterly distressed I was to see these children at Reading, for I knew
the treatment in store for them. The cruelty that is practised by day
and night on children in English prisons is incredible except to those
that have witnessed it and are aware of the brutality of the system.

"People nowadays do not understand what cruelty is.... Ordinary cruelty
is simply stupidity.

"The prison treatment of children is terrible, primarily from people not
understanding the peculiar psychology of the child's nature. A child can
understand a punishment inflicted by an individual, such as a parent, or
guardian, and bear it with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it
cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by society. It cannot
realise what society is....

"The terror of a child in prison is quite limitless. I remember once in
Reading, as I was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly lit cell
opposite mine a small boy. Two warders--not unkindly men--were talking
to him, with some sternness apparently, or perhaps giving him some
useful advice about his conduct. One was in the cell with him, the other
was standing outside. The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer
terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted animal. The next
morning I heard him at breakfast time crying, and calling to be let out.
His cry was for his parents. From time to time I could hear the deep
voice of the warder on duty telling him to keep quiet. Yet he was not
even convicted of whatever little offence he ha