I explained to him that I was not used to such uncleanliness; but
of course he could not help me. Then I laid the matter before the
Deputy-Governor, who told an officer to take me to the bath-room
at the base of the debtor's wing, where I enjoyed a good scrub.
On returning to the criminal part of the prison I had my hair cut,
a prisoner officiating as barber. Despite the rule of silence,
I gave him verbal instructions how to proceed, otherwise he would
have given me the regular prison crop. During the rest of my term
I always had my hair trimmed in my own fashion. The prison crop,
I may observe, is rather a custom than a rule; the regulations
require only such hair-cutting and shaving as is necessary for
health and cleanliness, but the criminal population affect short
hair, and the difficulty is not to bring them under, but to keep
them out of, the barber's hands.
Prison barbers are generally amateurs. Of course the officers are
above such work, and unless a member of the tonsorial profession
happens to be in residence, the scissors are wielded by the first
man who fancies himself a natural adept at the business. The last
barber I saw in Holloway Gaol was a coachman, whose only qualification
for the work was that he had clipped horses' legs. He wore a blue
apron round a corpulent waist, and looked remarkably like a pork-butcher.
He walked round the victim like an artist engaged on a bust, and his
habit was to work steadily away at one spot until the skin showed
like a piece of white plaster, after which he labored at another
spot, and so on, until the task was finished.
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