May 24th.--After prayers, I saw Dawes. He was confined in the Old Gaol,and seven others were in the cell with him. He came out at my request,and stood leaning against the door-post. He was much changed from theman I remember. Seven years ago he was a stalwart, upright, handsomeman. He has become a beetle-browed, sullen, slouching ruffian. His hairis grey, though he cannot be more than forty years of age, and hisframe has lost that just proportion of parts which once made himalmost graceful. His face has also grown like other convict faces--howhideously alike they all are!--and, save for his black eyes and apeculiar trick he had of compressing his lips, I should not haverecognized him. How habitual sin and misery suffice to brutalize "thehuman face divine"! I said but little, for the other prisoners werelistening, eager, as it appeared to me, to witness my discomfiture.It is evident that Rufus Dawes had been accustomed to meet theministrations of my predecessors with insolence. I spoke to him fora few minutes, only saying how foolish it was to rebel against anauthority superior in strength to himself. He did not answer, and theonly emotion he evinced during the interview was when I reminded himthat we had met before. He shrugged one shoulder, as if in pain oranger, and seemed about to speak, but, casting his eyes upon the groupin the cell, relapsed into silence again. I must get speech with himalone. One can do nothing with a man if seven other devils worse thanhimself are locked up with him.
I sent for Hankey, and asked him about cells. He says that the gaol iscrowded to suffocation. "Solitary confinement" is a mere name. There aresix men, each sentenced to solitary confinement, in a cell together. Thecell is called the "nunnery". It is small, and the six men were naked tothe waist when I entered, the perspiration pouring in streams off theirnaked bodies! It is disgusting to write of such things.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 70