the terrible oppression
of the night gives place to the confidence of a new day. I listen with a
relief that is almost pleasure to the familiar sounds of the six-o'clock
factory whistles; and the faithful old bell which has rung for fifty years
at the Osborne Works, and which I think I should recognize if I were to
hear it in Central Africa.

I partially dress, and then fold up my bed and arrange the mattress and
blankets over it, so as to get more room for further evolutions. The night
ache in my head is rather bad at first, but cold water on my face and the
back of my neck revives me greatly; and by the time my toilet is completed
and I am ready for the fray, I feel more nearly like myself. Before I am
fully dressed and ready, the lights are switched on, about six-thirty, I
judge; and soon the sounds of keys and iron hinges and bars and bolts are
heard again; and the noise of shuffling feet in the corridor below tells
that the day's routine has begun.[6]

The first night has been worse than I expected; and I dare say it will be
the worst of all, unless I find the punishment cells----However, I am not
yet quite certain that I shall try those.

Sufficient unto the day is the evil of the night before. I must throw off
the shadows and get a fresh hold. After all, in some ways it might have
been worse: the air in my cell was good; I had more blankets than I
needed; my bed was not very uncomfortable; and there were no vermin. This
last was really what I dreaded most. My cell is clean and well ventilated;
surely those are blessings which ought to counterbalance much else.

So I start the new day with courage and undiminished interest in my great
experiment.

* * * * *

One of my fellow prisoners, whose comment I quoted in Chapter II, makes
the following statement about the condition of the cells at Auburn. "The
cells on the second and basement tiers smell fairly well; but in summer
the stench from some of the cells is terrible." Due, of course, to long
use, no sewage, and no proper system of ventilation. In most of the cells
the small square hole which opens into some crude sort of ventilating flue
has long ago been plugged to prevent the inroads of vermin.

I seem to have been very fortunate in having a cell where discomfort was
reduced to a minimum.

The condition of some of the cells I have seen in Sing Sing Prison is
unspeakably bad. They are close, dark, damp, foul. To call them un