The board was a deal more comfortable than the stones,
and occasionally some flag-stone plebeian like me would try to creep to a
place on it; and then the aristocrats would hammer him good and make him
think a flag pavement was a nice enough place after all.
I lay quiet in my corner, stroking my bruises, and listening to the
revelations the prisoners made to each other--and to me for some that
were near me talked to me a good deal. I had long had an idea that
Americans, being free, had no need of prisons, which are a contrivance of
despots for keeping restless patriots out of mischief. So I was
considerably surprised to find out my mistake.
Ours was a big general cell, it seemed, for the temporary accommodation
of all comers whose crimes were trifling. Among us they were two
Americans, two "Greasers" (Mexicans), a Frenchman, a German, four
Irishmen, a Chilenean (and, in the next cell, only separated from us by a
grating, two women), all drunk, and all more or less noisy; and as night
fell and advanced, they grew more and more discontented and disorderly,
occasionally; shaking the prison bars and glaring through them at the
slowly pacing officer, and cursing him with all their hearts. The two
women were nearly middle-aged, and they had only had enough liquor to
stimulate instead of stupefy them.
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