It was a warm, dull, depressing day, one of those days when an institution such as a hospital assumes a peculiarly callous, dejected and sour appearance. I went with the escort into the waiting-room, where there were two copper baths. There were two patients with their escort in the room already, not convicts, but men awaiting their trial. A hospital assistant came in, scanned us indolently with an air of authority, and still more indolently went to inform the doctor on duty. The latter soon made his appearance. He examined us, treated us very kindly, and gave each of us a medical chart with our name on it. The further description of the illness, the medicines and diet prescribed, were left for the doctor who was in charge of the convict wards. I had heard before that the convicts were never tired of praising the doctors. “They are like fathers to us,” they said in answer to my inquiries when I was going to the hospital. Meanwhile we had changed our clothes. The clothes we had come in were taken from us and we were dressed up in hospital underlinen and provided with long stockings, slippers, nightcaps and thick cloth dressing-gowns of dark brown colour, lined with something that might have been coarse linen or might have been sticking-plaster.