Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 30

I had one mouse which to its other accomplishments added the following: It would lie in the palm of my open hand, with its four legs up in the air, pretending to be dead, only the little creature kept its bright eyes wide open, fixed on my face. As soon as I said, "Come to life!" it would spring up, rush along my arm and disappear into my bosom like a flash.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 1 Austin ----. 2 Geo. McDonald. 3 Officer. 4 Geo. Bidwell.

5 Officer. 6 Noyes. 7 Mr. Straight, Q.C. McDONALD SPEAKING TO MR.

STRAIGHT, Q.C., DURING THE TRIAL.]

I had a mouse trained the same as the one above described, and was in dread lest a warder should see and destroy it. Therefore, in the hope of getting a guarantee for its safety, one day when the medical officer on his round came to my cell with his retinue I put my mouse through the "dead dog" performance. The little fellow lay exposed in my hand with one of its twinkling eyes fixed on me, and the other on these strangers.

Such was its confidence in me that it went through the performance perfectly, and when I gave the signal in an instant it was in my (as the poor thing believed) protecting bosom. The doctors laughed, and the retinue of course followed suit--if they had frowned the latter would have done likewise. The doctors appeared so pleased that I felt certain they would order the warder, as was in their power, to let me keep my harmless pet, the sole companion of my solitude and misery, unmolested.

They went outside the cell and lingered; in a moment then the warder came in, and after a struggle got the mouse out of my bosom and put his heel upon it. I am not ashamed to confess that I cried over the loss of this poor little victim of overconfidence in human beings.

I once procured a beetle with red stripes across its wing-sheaths, and trained it to show some degree of intelligence. This was for months the sole companion of my solitude, but it was at last discovered in my possession and taken away.

I made friends with the flies, and found that they displayed no small degree of intelligence. I soon had a dozen tamed, and in the course of my long observations I discovered, among other things, that the males were very tyrannical over the fair s.e.x, and tried to prevent them from getting any of the food. In the Summer mornings at daylight they would gather on the wall next my bed and wait patiently until I placed a little chewed bread on the back of my hand, when instantly there was a rush, and the first one who got possession, if a male, tried to prevent the rest from alighting, and would dart at the nearest, chasing it in zig-zags far away. In the mean time another would have attained possession, and it went for the next corner, and for a long time there would be a succession of fierce encounters, until at last all had made good their footing and feasted harmoniously; for as fast as one succeeded in alighting it was let alone. Sometimes a male would take possession of my forehead, and, in case I left him unmolested, he would keep off intruders on what he evidently considered his domain by darting at them in a ferocious manner. On one occasion I noticed a fly that had one of its hind legs turned up, apparently out of joint. As it was feeding on my hand I tried to put my finger on the leg to press it down.

During three or four such attempts it moved away, after which it appeared to recognize my kind intention and stood perfectly still while I pressed on the leg. It may be unnecessary to add that I failed in performing a successful surgical operation.

As the Winter approached the flies began to lose their legs and wings; those that lost their wings would walk along the wall until they came to the usual waiting spot, and as soon as I put a finger against the wall the maimed creature would crawl to the usual place on my hand for breakfast. Indeed, the long years of solitude had produced in me such an unutterable longing for the companionship of something which had life that I never destroyed any kind of insect which found its way into my cell--even when mosquitoes lit on my face I always let them have their fill undisturbed, and felt well repaid by getting a glimpse of them as they flew and with the music of their buzzing.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

THE DAYS O' SUMMER MERRILY SPENT IN THE LAND OF THE HEATHER.

In the cell next to mine was a prison genius named Heep, who was one of the most singular characters I ever met. As I shall have occasion to speak of him frequently, I may as well give here a sketch of his life as related to me by himself. He was born in the town of Macclesfield, near Manchester, in 1852, of respectable mechanics, or tradespeople as they are called in England. His father died when Heep was about 5 years of age, and after a time his mother married a carpenter and joiner of the place.

Young Heep was a lively child, up to all sorts of tricks, and does not remember the time since he could walk that he was not in some mischief, and, as he remarked, "took to all sorts of deviltry as naturally as a duck to water." As long as his father lived there was not much check on his mischievous propensities, but his stepfather proved to be a severe and stern judge, and brought him to book for every irregularity, thrashing him most unmercifully for each offense. His mother could not have filled her maternal duty very judiciously, judging from the fact that before he was 12 years old she set him to follow and watch his stepfather to the house of a woman of whom she was jealous. The boy possessed great natural abilities, and in good hands would have turned out something different than a life-long prison drudge. He was handsome, genteel in appearance, an apt scholar, though very self-willed and headstrong, and as he grew up his naturally hot temper became uncontrollable. At an early age he had discovered that by threats of self-injury he could bend his parents to his wishes, but found in his stepfather one who would put up with no nonsense; even when he cut himself so as to bleed freely, instead of the coveted indulgence it only procured him an additional thrashing.

At 15 he had become ungovernable at home, and his father had him put in the county insane asylum, where he remained a year and a half. While there he caused so much trouble that the attendants were only too glad when he escaped and went to Liverpool. Here he succeeded in getting a situation with a dealer in bric-a-brac, rare books and antiquities. In a short time the proprietor placed so much confidence in his integrity that he gave him the charge of his place during his own absences, and young Heep was not long in taking advantage of his position to rob his employer by taking a book or other article which he sold to some one of his master's customers. This went on for some time until on one occasion he took the book to a shop kept by a woman to whom he had previously sold several articles and offered it for a sovereign. She examined it and found that it was an ancient, illuminated Greek ma.n.u.script, worth fifty times more than the price young Heep asked for it, and, suspecting something wrong, she told him to come again for the money the next evening. At the appointed time he entered the place and was confronted by his master, who contented himself with upbraiding him for his perfidy and discharging him from his service.

At this period of his career he had contracted vicious habits, the most pernicious for him being that of drink, for when sober he was in his right mind, but the moment the drink was in his common sense departed, and he became a raving maniac, ready to fight or perpetrate any other act of folly. Up to this time he had never been tempted to steal only in order to supply means for improper indulgences.

Not long after being discharged from his situation he was found by the police acting in so insane a manner under the influence of drink that the magistrate before whom he was taken had him sent to the Raynell lunatic asylum. Here, being perfectly reckless, he carried on all sorts of games which made him obnoxious, although making himself very useful in work which he liked, such as gardening, etc. He also took up fancy painting and soon became a skillful copyist of prints of any description, enlarging or reducing, and painting them in oil or water colors. He also became a good decorator and scene painter, besides devoting time to various studies, including music.

At last he found means to effect his escape and lay in hiding until night; then as he had on the asylum clothes, which would betray him, he went back and got in through the window of the tailors' shop, which was in an isolated building, and exchanged the clothes he had on for a suit belonging to one of the attendants. Thinking himself now safe from recognition he started off across the country, but had not gone more than twenty miles when, in pa.s.sing through a small town, a policeman who had just heard of the escape from Raynell arrested him on suspicion.

The Raynell authorities sent some one to identify him; he was taken back, tried on the charge of stealing the attendant's suit of clothes, which he still had on, was convicted by the usual intelligent jury and sentenced to five years' penal servitude.

He finished his term of imprisonment at Chatham, and instead of being set at liberty was sent under guard back to the asylum!

According to English law, if a person confined in a lunatic asylum escapes and keeps away fourteen days he cannot after that be arrested, unless he commits fresh acts of insanity.

After several futile attempts he at last made good his escape and obtained work with a farmer, where he remained safe for thirteen days, and was congratulating himself that in less than another day he would be free, when his thoughts were broken off by the appearance of two attendants who seized and carried him back to the asylum.

The events above narrated had driven him into a state of desperation at what he felt to be gross injustice, and he carried on in such a way that the doctor ordered his head to be shaved and blistered as a punishment, the straitjacket and all other coercive measures having been of no avail. The night watchman had orders to watch him closely, but he kept so sharp an eye on the watchman that he caught him asleep, and, creeping to the closet window, which he had previously tampered with, crept out, and after climbing the low wall found himself on a raw November night, with the rain falling in torrents, a stark-naked, head-shaved-and-blistered but once more a free man. In this condition he wandered on throughout the night, and just before daylight he entered a cemetery to find that refuge among the dead of which he thought himself so cruelly deprived by the living.

Beneath the entrance to the church there was a pa.s.sage which led to some family vaults in the bas.e.m.e.nt, and he crept down the pa.s.sage to seek some shelter for his nude body from the driving rain, which had chilled him through. While groping about in the dark his hand rested on something soft, which, to his unbounded delight, proved to be an old coat which had probably been left there by the s.e.xton and forgotten. He remained hidden all day, and traveled through the fields all night, during which he found a scarecrow, from which he transferred to his own person its old hat and trousers.

He said that although so hungry, he never had felt so happy as he did at finding himself once more dressed up. After proceeding a few miles farther, he ventured into a laborer's cottage in quest of food, which was given him, and with it a pair of old boots. As dilapidated, ragged, vagabond-looking, honest people are common in England, no questions were asked, and he proceeded on his way rejoicing in that freedom of which he had been deprived for ten years or more.

Amid all his pranks he had never been charged with idleness, and now worked at odd jobs about the farms until he had procured a decent suit of clothes, when he applied to a master house painter for work as a journeyman, though he had never done anything of that kind. The master, pleased with his appearance, gave him a trial, but the first job showed such ignorance of the art of house painting that he was forthwith discharged with half a day's wages. However, he had picked up some valuable hints, and being very apt by the time he had been more or less summarily discharged from half a dozen places he had become a good workman, and henceforth had no trouble about retaining any situation as long as he refrained from beer and restrained his temper; but at the slightest fault-finding on the part of the master he would fly into a pa.s.sion and throw up the situation, and this, especially, if he suspected that anything had leaked out about his imprisonment.

While at work with a companion at painting the interior of a gentleman's residence near Bradford a word or two was dropped which made him believe his fellow workman had become aware of his being an ex-convict. Quitting work, he went to a public house, pa.s.sing the rest of the day in carousing. About midnight, while on his way to his boarding house, it occurred to him that he had noticed a good many valuable things about the gentleman's house which he could obtain. No sooner thought than done; the entrance was in a moment gained; he had just consciousness enough left to gather a few things, then lie down by the side of them and fell into a drunkard's sleep, in which the servants found him when they came down in the morning. A constable was sent for, he was given in charge, tried, convicted of the crime of burglary and sentenced to seven years' penal servitude.

His former term of five years had made him proficient in all the dodges of prison life, and he felt justified in his own mind in using all his craft in order to put in his seven years as easily as possible. As he had been in Raynell asylum, he knew that by "putting on the balmy" so as to be sent to the lunatic department he would not be subjected to the prison rules and be as well off as he had been in the free asylum.

Persistent attempts at suicide by cutting himself in the arms and legs with a piece of gla.s.s so as to bleed freely accomplished his purpose.

Being placed with the other convict lunatics, he made himself useful, but on account of his bad temper and overbearing, quarrelsome disposition, obnoxious to his fellow prisoners.

Eventually he was discharged with an eighteen months' ticket-of-leave and $2.50 as capital for a new departure.

He went to Liverpool, procured a pa.s.sage on board a freight steamer to America, which he paid for by working at painting. Landing at New York, he made his way to Norfolk, Va., where he procured work as a painter.

Owing to his infirmity of temper he did not keep his place long, and after knocking about for a few months he took a freak to return to England--the last place of all for any man who has once been a prisoner.

[Ill.u.s.tration: George Bidwell

AFTER IMPRISONMENT. (From Photo. by Stuart, Hartford.)]

Once more in his native land, he procured work without difficulty at house painting, but, as usual, remained in one place but a very short time. His earnings, like those of a great majority of the working cla.s.s in England, were squandered in the public house.

Soon after the events just recorded, Heep concluded to visit his old home in Macclesfield. He accordingly threw up his situation, and arrived at the railway station an hour before the train was due. In order to while away the time he entered a public house and drank several gla.s.ses of ale. The compartment which he entered happened to be empty, and as usual whenever he indulged his appet.i.te for anything containing alcohol, he was soon quite out of his mind and fancied that some one on the train was coming to murder him, and leaped headlong from the train, which was going at the rate of forty miles an hour. This came to a standstill, he was taken on board again, not seriously injured, and left at Wrexham in Denbighshire, from which he was sent to the Denbigh Insane Asylum. This being a Welsh inst.i.tution, did not, according to Heep, possess those facilities for enjoying life which were so liberally supplied to the inmates of the Raynell asylum near Liverpool. Accordingly he behaved himself with so much propriety that the doctor discharged him as cured.

Not long after his return he got work near Manchester at painting in a block of new houses where the plumbers were at work putting in the gas and water pipes. On a Sat.u.r.day, when he left work at noon, he met a young plumber who was out of a job. This man said he knew where he could earn a sovereign if he had tools to do a job in a butcher shop, and told Heep that if he would go to the houses where he had been painting and borrow a few plumbers' tools and a.s.sist him he would divide the amount.

Heep went back, but finding that the master plumber and all his men had gone (Sat.u.r.day afternoon in England being a half-holiday for laborers), he took the few tools required, went and finished the job by 7 p.m.; then instead of taking the tools back, they went into a public house where they caroused till midnight, when they separated, Heep taking the tools to his boarding house. On Monday he started early, so as to get the tools back before the other workmen arrived. On nearing the houses he pa.s.sed a policeman who walked a little lame. He turned his head to look back, and the policeman happened to do the same thing, and seeing Heep looking at him his suspicions were aroused. Turning back, he came up and asked him what he had in the two bosses (tool baskets). Heep informed him, and on further questioning showed him the key to the house from which he had taken the tools, and asked him to accompany him there, which he did. They entered, Heep putting back the tools, and showed the policeman where he had been painting and wished him to stay until the master came in half an hour. This the policeman declined to do, and took the tools and told Heep to come to the police station.

Heep lost his temper and began cursing him. The policeman went to the door, and seeing another just pa.s.sing beckoned him in, and the two marched him to the station. The plumber was sent for, and was induced to make a charge against Heep and value the stolen goods at ten shillings.

Seeing that the police were bound to make a case against him, he seized the plumber's knife and cut his throat, severing the windpipe. The doctor was sent for, he was transferred to the jail hospital, and in the course of two or three weeks was well enough to appear before the magistrate, though he could not speak, and was bound over for trial.

In the mean time the police had discovered that he had served two penal terms, on the strength of which, when convicted, the magistrate sentenced him to ten years' penal servitude.

At the trial he had not yet recovered the use of his voice, nor did he have any one to defend him, for at that time, unlike the present, the Crown did not furnish a lawyer for the defense of those who were unable to employ one at their own expense. When the magistrate was about to p.r.o.nounce the sentence, he said that as the prisoner had escaped from ordinary asylums he should send him to a place from which he could not escape--meaning a prison.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BANK OF ENGLAND SCENE.--VISITOR HOLDING 1,000,000 ($5,000,000) BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES.]

CHAPTER XL.

WE WILL FERRY YOU OVER JORDAN THAT ROLLS BETWEEN.

Once convicted of a crime in England it is impossible, unless a man has money or friends, for him to obtain an honest livelihood unless he is the happy possessor of a trade. All the great corporations demand references that will cover a series of years of the applicant's life, and, above all, strict inquiry is made as to his last employer. This cuts the ground out from under the feet of the unfortunate, and feeling that England can no longer be a home to him he turns his eyes as a matter of course to America.

A fair percentage of the prisoners are men who perhaps under great temptation, or while under the influence of drink, have broken the laws, but yet are honorably minded and resolved in future to lead an honest life. Such are not undesirable citizens; but there is another cla.s.s, that of the professional criminal; with these the prisons swarm, and, worse yet, the slums and saloons of the great cities are breeding thousands more that will take the places of those now on the stage.

The conditions of society in England are such that the procession of criminals is an unending one. The society that creates the criminal also has established a system of police repression that makes the life history of society's victim one of misery, until such time when the criminal, growing wise by experience, shakes the dust of English soil off from his feet and transfers himself, a moral ruin, to our country, here to become a curse and a burden.