In Jail with Charles Dickens Part 7

Of another old and hideous inst.i.tution which one cannot disa.s.sociate with the Tombs, in spite of the abolition of it which has been decreed by law, d.i.c.kens wrote:

"The prison yard, in which he pauses now, has been the scene of terrible performances. Into this narrow, grave-like place men are brought out to die. The wretched creature stands beneath the gibbet on the ground; the rope is about his neck; and when the sign is given a weight at its other end comes running down and swings him up into the air--a corpse. The law requires that there be present at this dismal spectacle the judge, the jury, and citizens to the amount of twenty-five. From the community it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad the thing remains a frightful mystery. Between the criminal and them the prison wall is interposed as a thick and gloomy veil. It is the curtain to his bed of death, his winding sheet and grave. From him it shuts out life and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence is often all sufficient to sustain. There are no bold eyes to make him bold; no ruffians to uphold a ruffian's name before. All beyond the pitiless stone wall is unknown s.p.a.ce."

At the time of d.i.c.kens's visit (1842) London was still the scene of public hangings, and the privacy with which the executions in the Tombs were conducted furnished him with a text for one of his protests against the existing state of things at home. The Tombs hangings were private, as he stated, but they were not unattended by morbid interest on the part of the mob. On the morning of an execution, the obscene streets all about would swarm with obscene life. From their festering dens in the Five Points, and from the remoter haunts of vice and crime which had grown up with the growth of the town, the social banditti came in a scowling, ribald and revolting legion. They camped on doorsteps before dawn, and all the groggeries drove a roaring trade. They beguiled the time with gloating reminiscences of their criminal lives, and watched the jail roof for a signal that the ghastly work within was done.

Curiously enough, nature had provided them with a sign as certain as the running up of the black flag upon the wall of Newgate. A great number of pigeons had found lodgment in the Tombs yard, nesting in cotes which had been put up for them along the inner jail walls and in the eaves of the buildings themselves. Long immunity from human aggressions had rendered them fearless, and when the audience gathered for an execution, under the gray shadow of the jail walls, the pigeons were equally certain to a.s.semble, cooing and pluming themselves in the sunlight above. When, at the fatal moment, the heavy thud of the executioner's axe denoted the severing of the cord which supported the counterweights and sent the victim whirling to his death, the birds, startled by the sound, would rise upward in flurried flight, circle about a couple of times and settle at their perches again. It was by this confused and frightened movement of the pigeons above the walls that the waiting rabble knew the unseen tragedy of the law was done.

A moment later the race of reporters and messenger boys from the prison gate to the newspaper offices close by would begin, and in half an hour all the ghastly details of the event, described with such circ.u.mstantiality and such sensational exaggeration as the horror-hungry public was expected to crave for, would be hawked at every street corner and carried by swift runners and overdriven wagons to the most distant quarters of the town. To such extreme was this practice stretched that, on the occasions of later executions in the Tombs, reporters would actually be sent to spend the night in prison, and to record the last hours of a worthless brute whose just doom should have been a swift death and complete oblivion. Evil as the influence of a public hanging may have been, it may be doubted if it was any worse than the practice of the press in investing the attendant circ.u.mstances of a vile and dangerous wretch's end with the mock heroism of cheap bravado and the clap-trap sentiment of literary fustian. The law providing for the execution of criminals by electricity, and in secret, has performed one public service, at least, in doing away with these outdoor gatherings at the Tombs on hanging day.

CHAPTER VII.

PHILADELPHIA'S BASTILE.

In Philadelphia d.i.c.kens made a special request for permission to visit the great prison of the State, remarking that it and the Falls of Niagara were the two objects he most wished to see in America.

Exceptional facilities were afforded him to gratify his desire, and make his investigation as thorough as he chose. Nothing was concealed from him, and his account and opinion of the Eastern State Penitentiary ("American Notes," Chapter 7) created a vast deal of comment in their day. He put himself on record as a violent opponent of the solitary system, and while he intended to make this chapter the strongest, it was really one of the weakest in the book. He had a.s.sailed the outrages of the debtors' prisons of London manfully. Over the Philadelphia system he became almost hysterical. In the former he had actual evils and wrongs and outrages to combat. In the latter his grievance was largely founded on sentimentality and purely personal feeling. He describes his visit:

"In the outskirts stands a great prison called the Eastern Penitentiary, conducted on a plan peculiar to the State of Pennsylvania. The system here is rigid, strict and hopeless solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, to be cruel and wrong.

"I was accompanied to this prison by two gentlemen officially connected with its management, and pa.s.sed the day in going from cell to cell and talking with the inmates. Every facility was afforded me that the utmost courtesy could suggest. Nothing was concealed or hidden from my view, and every piece of information that I sought was openly and frankly given. The perfect order of the building cannot be praised too highly, and of the excellent motives of all who are immediately concerned in the administration of the system there can be no kind of question.

"Between the body of the prison and the outer wall there is a s.p.a.cious garden. Entering it by a wicket in the ma.s.sive gate, we pursued the path before us to its other termination, and pa.s.sed into a large chamber, from which seven long pa.s.sages radiate. On either side of each is a long, long row of low cell-doors with a certain number over every one. Above a gallery of cells like those below, except that they have no narrow yard attached (as those in the ground tier have), and are somewhat smaller. The possession of two of these is supposed to compensate for the absence of so much air and exercise as can be had in the dull strip attached to each of the others, in an hour's time every day; and, therefore, every prisoner in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and communicating with each other.

"Standing at the central point and looking down these dreary pa.s.sages, the dull repose and quiet that prevails is awful. Occasionally there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver's shuttle or shoemaker's last, but it is stilled by the thick walls and heavy dungeon door, and only serves to make the general stillness more profound. Over the head and face of every prisoner who comes into this melancholy house a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, an emblem of the curtain dropped between him and the living world, he is led to the cell from which he never again comes forth until his whole term of imprisonment has expired. He never hears of wife or children, home or friends; the life or death of any single creature. He sees the prison officers, but, with that exception, he never looks upon a human countenance, or hears a human voice. He is a man buried alive, to be dug out in the slow rounds of years, and, in the meantime, dead to everything but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.

"His name, and crime, and term of suffering are unknown, even to the officer who delivers him his daily food. There is a number over his cell-door, and in a book, of which the governor of the prison has one copy and the moral instructor another, this is the index to his history. Beyond these pages the prison has no record of his existence; and though he live to be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no means of knowing, down to the very last hour, in what part of the building it is situated; what kind of men there are about him; whether in the long winter nights there are living people near, or he is in some lonely corner of the great gaol, with walls and pa.s.sages, and iron doors between him and the nearest sharer in its solitary horrors.

"Every cell has double doors--the outer one of st.u.r.dy oak, the other of grated iron, wherein there is a trap through which his food is handed. He has a bible and a slate and pencil, and, under certain restrictions, has sometimes other books, provided for the purpose, and pen and ink and paper. His razor, plate and can, and basin hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little shelf. Fresh water is laid on in every cell, and he can draw it at his pleasure. During the day his bedstead turns up against the wall and leaves more s.p.a.ce for him to work in. His loom, or bench, or wheel is there, and there he labors, sleeps and wakes and counts the seasons as they change, and grows old."

Over the inmates of this Philadelphia gaol d.i.c.kens exuded a great deal of sympathy and sentiment. He invested each man he wrote about with a pathos that made good reading at any rate, and no doubt sincerely believed all that he wrote. To a man of a convivial and companionable nature like himself the idea of a life of solitude was naturally horrible. To a man fond of long walks among other men the enforced absence of exercise as well as of companionship was naturally dreadful.

To Charles d.i.c.kens, in short, a term of imprisonment in the Eastern Penitentiary would unquestionably have been the cruelest torture. He would, in all likelihood, have worn his life out speedily here, like a wild bird in a cage, or have laid violent hands upon himself, or have become a madman. To the felons whom he visited, men for the most part of blunt sensibilities and brutal natures, he credited the same qualities as belonged to his own refined and sensitive composition, and he put himself in their place and spoke for them from his own standpoint. How far he was led astray by this was shown by the case of the character long known as "d.i.c.kens's Dutchman." Of this fellow he wrote:

"In another cell there was a German, sentenced to five years'

imprisonment for larceny, two of which had just expired. With colors procured in the same manner (extracted from dyed yarn given him to weave) he had painted every inch of the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. He had laid out the few feet of ground behind him with exquisite neatness, and had made a little bed in the centre, that looked, by the bye, like a grave. The taste and ingenuity he had displayed in everything was most extraordinary, and yet a more dejected, heartbroken, wretched creature it would be difficult to imagine. I never saw such a picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind. My heart bled for him, and when the tears ran down his cheeks, and he took one of the visitors aside to ask, with his trembling hands nervously clutching at his coat to detain him, whether there was no hope of his dismal sentence being commuted, the spectacle was really too painful to witness. I never saw or heard any kind of misery that impressed me more than the wretchedness of this man."

This was the d.i.c.kensesque of it, and it gave its unfortunate subject an international notoriety. Now mark the plain, unvarnished facts.

The name of "d.i.c.kens's Dutchman" was Charles Langheimer. He was sentenced to the Eastern Penitentiary for the first time on May 15, 1840, and it was while he was serving this term that d.i.c.kens saw him. On June 25, 1852, he came back on a year's sentence, and on Feb. 24, 1855, he was a third time convicted, for two years on this occasion. On April 4, 1861, he came again for a year, on March 12, 1872, he was returned for two years, on Sept. 9, 1875, and on April 4, 1877, he began two terms of a year each. On Sept. 10, 1879, he received a three years'

term, and he was no sooner through with this than he was once more convicted and sent up for a year, in 1882. In the intervals of the sixteen years he spent in this one prison, since his first conviction, he had served five terms in other prisons, three in the County Jail, of Philadelphia, one in the Baltimore Penitentiary, and one in New York. In plain English, the man was a confirmed pauper and thief. He lived by mendicancy, and from time to time he would commit some larceny, for which offense all his sentences were imposed on him, merely in order to be sent to jail to be cared for--just as he might have gone on a vacation from his regular and miserable life upon the chance of charity.

In view of d.i.c.kens's positive and unqualified expression of sentiment in regard to him, the most curious fact of his life remains to be noted.

This is that, fourteen years after d.i.c.kens's own death, he returned voluntarily to the penitentiary, where he had ended a year's term only a few months before, and begged to be taken in. This place, so dreadful to the impressionable novelist, was the only approach to home the poor wretch knew. He was in a deplorable condition, was nearly eighty years of age, and had a horror of the almshouse. The inspectors consented that he should have his wish, and he was cared for for a month, until his death, which occurred on March 14, 1884. It is interesting to know that d.i.c.kens died at the age of fifty-eight years. This "picture of forlorn affliction and distress of mind," this "dejected, heartbroken, wretched creature," who was born eight years before d.i.c.kens, survived him nearly twice that period, and outlived him, in the mere number of his years, by twenty-two. It may be remembered, in connection with the Fleet Prison episode of "Pickwick," that Sam Weller adverts to the almost identical case of an old prisoner, to whom the jail had become such a home that the fear of being locked out of it eventually deterred him from taking the sly tastes of liberty which the turnkeys were willing to allow him.

The Eastern State Penitentiary is, in this day, admitted to be one of the model penal inst.i.tutions of the world. When built it was in the northern suburb, but it is now in the heart of Philadelphia. It occupies an entire block, comprising ten or twelve acres, and its site was originally known as Cherry Hill, a name which is often locally applied to the jail itself. The ground is elevated, and from the gateway tower a fine panorama of the vast city, spreading about for miles, may be obtained. All that is visible externally is a ma.s.sive granite wall, some thirty-five feet high, slightly relieved or b.u.t.tressed with towers at the angles and on the front. The enclosure is square, and the entrance, in the centre of the front wall, is by a lofty portal, defended by a heavy outer gate, in which there is a wicket, and an inner gate, and dominated by a tower taller than the others. Within the walls the ranges of cells radiate from an octagonal central building, which is crowned with an observatory. To simplify the description it may be said that this central building forms the hub from which branch branch forth the spokes of this enormous wheel. A system of lighting the entire grounds by night is provided in a lantern of special ingenious construction, in the tower below the observatory or lookout. There are some detached buildings on the grounds, used for mechanical and culinary purposes. The living apartments of the warden and his family, offices, etc., are in the front building. The outer and inner gates of the prison are never opened at the same time. Even a visitor or an official becomes in a manner a prisoner when he leaves the street.

d.i.c.kens's general description of the prison is good enough, but some of his statements are more picturesque than precise. Prisoners are not shut off from intercourse by letter, or even personally, with their families.

They do see various persons connected with the prison, although they cannot see other prisoners. Even this, which d.i.c.kens thought so cruel, and the concealment of their faces when they are brought in to the jail, is a precaution born of benevolence and mercy. The idea is that after a man has served a term at Cherry Hill and been discharged he may go where he will, and if he wishes to live an honest life no man can point him out as an ex-convict. Except in the private record of the prison, known only and accessible only to a few responsible persons, John Jimpson never existed in the Eastern State Penitentiary. The keepers, the doctor, the jail attendants only knew him as No. 99. The librarian never issued books to John Jimpson, but to No. 99. The nurses in the infirmary never attended him when he was sick, but cared for No. 99. No one but the warden knew whether the letters sent to him by his wife or family or friends were meant for No. 99 or No. 199. As far as the stigma of his crime and its punishment can be effaced it is effaced. He loses his social ident.i.ty when he enters the prison, and puts it on when he comes out, like a new suit of clothes.

It is a rule of the prison that each convict, when he enters, shall be taught a useful trade, if he has not one already. He then has a daily task set, and all that he can or cares to produce above this task is credited to him, and the money is paid to him when he departs. The illiterate convicts are taught to read and write. Those who display intelligence are encouraged to cultivate it. Convicts of superior education--such, for instance, as can produce literary work or paint pictures--are permitted the means to do so. The entire system of the prison is reformatory as well as punitive; the idea is not merely to cage a social beast, but to tame him and train him, so that he may be of use to the world when he has served his term of isolation.

The idea of separate confinement--the Philadelphia Idea, as it has been called--originated nearly a century ago. In an admirable sketch of the origin and history of the Eastern District Penitentiary, compiled by Mr.

Richard Vaux, president of the board of Inspectors, the history of Pennsylvania's system of prison discipline and management is given in brief but interesting style. In 1776 the common jail of Philadelphia was as horrible a den as the worst of London jails at its worst. An attempt was made by Richard Wistar, one of the famous family of that name, to reform it, but in 1777 the British army occupied the city and the good work was, perforce, suspended. In 1787 it was taken up again, and the Philadelphia Prison Society was formed. The first president of the society was Bishop William White, the first Protestant Episcopal Archbishop of Pennsylvania, and he held the office for forty years. The society's first work was to have the chain gangs, employed at cleaning the streets and repairing the roads, abolished. The next was to secure a separation of the s.e.xes in the common jail. Then the separation of actual criminals and of persons merely accused but not yet found guilty of crime demanded attention. So, by degrees, the idea of separate confinement took shape. In 1790 a law was pa.s.sed by which this principle was put to the test, and finally, in 1821, the Legislature authorized the construction of the State Penitentiary for the Eastern district of Pennsylvania.

At this date the site of the present Penitentiary was a farm, remarkable for its grove of fine cherry trees. It belonged to the Warner family.

The farm-house was a cheery old colonial mansion, and it is worth noting that when the Warners sold the land they reserved the right to remove the mantels and fireplaces from the house. The place was purchased in 1821. The plans of several competing architects were submitted to the board appointed by the Legislature, and that of John Haviland was selected. The cornerstone of the Penitentiary was laid in 1823, and it was opened for the reception of convicts in 1829. Up to that time about $340,000 had been expended on it, but since then the necessary enlargements and improvements have brought its cost up to probably $1,000,000 or more. If d.i.c.kens could revisit it in the flesh to-day he would find it a much more extensive establishment than the one he criticised so severely and unjustly; and his confidence in himself would perhaps be shaken when he read the record of his woebegone "Dutchman."

THE END.