CONVICT LABOR FOR ROAD WORK. 125 
purpose, but at the large camps a longer time is necessary. After 
being laundered, the clothing is sorted and placed in pigeonholes or 
on shelves until given out again at the end of the week. Necessary 
clothing repairs are made by the laundrymen. At a few camps there 
are no definite rules in regard to washing the clothes, and each man 
does his own wash in his leisure time. In such cases Sunday morning 
usually is chosen for laundry work, but there is no assurance that all 
the men are desirous of keeping their clothing decently clean. 
The better camps provide laundry sheds or tents equipped with 
clothes-washing machines, scrubbing boards, wringers, and other 
paraphernalia. Water is heated in iron heaters made especially for 
the purpose and consisting of a firebox and large iron caldron. Boil- 
ing water is drawn from the heaters into metal tubs, in which the 
clothes are washed with soap. Lines are strung in the sun for the pur- 
pose of drying the clothes. In other cases the laundry rooms are 
provided with cookstoves, on which water is heated in wash boilers 
or metal tubs. 
At one camp a ditch was dug from a rapidly-flowing mountain 
stream to the laundry tent, and then led back to the stream at a 
point lower down. By this means a plentiful supply of running 
water was obtained easily. 
At some camps a large iron kettle is suspended over a fire out of 
doors for heating the water for laundry and bathing purposes, or 
metal washtubs may be placed directly over the open fires and the 
clothing boiled out in that way. In such cases the laundry work is 
all done out of doors, without overhead protection. 
In the process of laundering, the clothing should first be soaked in 
cold or tepid water. This removes a certain amount of the dirt and 
filth which would not come out so easily if heated first, and the 
water becomes laden with germs from the skin and body which may 
be very dangerous. It is important, therefore, that this water should 
be disposed of in such a way that it will not pollute the soil or the 
water supply of the camp. 1 After the preliminary soaking the clothing 
should be boiled with soap, and then rinsed in pure water until clean. 
Boiling destroys any germs which may be in the clothing, but it does 
not remove the bad-smelling substances absorbed from the skin. 
Rinsing in a sufficient amount of pure water (preferably running 
water) will accomplish this and at the same time remove the soap, 
which might prove irritating to the skin if allowed to remain. Prop- 
erly laundered clothing should have no other than a clean, sweet 
smell. 
Convicts entering a camp from the jails are sometimes in a filthy 
condition and loaded with vermin. In order to guard against the 
introduction of disease germs and vermin, every new man who is 
i See Disposal of Wastes, p. 104. 
