Читать книгу Glimpses into the Abyss - Mary Higgs - Страница 21

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"On going in you have your bread, and before you have time to eat it you are taken to the room for undressing. This is not very large, only for nine or ten to sit down, and there were many that night. You will see that room was limited. There were two dirty-looking baths there, but how many made use of them I could not say. I did not. Your clothes are tied into a bundle and put all together into a heap in the room you undress in. Your clothes may be good and clean and free from vermin when you undress, but what will they be like in the morning?

"You have a shirt and two rugs given you, and go to the sleeping room on the boards. Some have a board for their head. I had not. It is a large room, and it need be, for there were twenty-four of us in it. It is infested with bugs. The shirts and rugs, I should say, have not been washed for months, and are full of vermin. Mine was, and the complaint was general, so I suppose they were all alike. Sleep is impossible. You get up, have your bread and cold water, and are put on the pump, eight on and eight off, every half-hour. There are two pumps kept continually going all day, so it cannot be for the want of water that dirt reigns supreme. Cheese and bread for dinner, bread and bread for supper, and then the awful night to go through again. Get up and have some bread and water. Then you are turned out. It was raining in torrents. I was soaked in twenty minutes after I had left."

Walking north in the vain search for work, my correspondent crossed to Lancashire and encountered the following experience.