Recollections of Windsor Prison Part 5

I know not with what feelings the public mind will contemplate the fact recorded in this sketch; but I hope, most devoutly, that it will be universally reprobated. I shall carefully observe its effect, and note it down as a sure indication of the tone of American morals and American sentiment. My bosom will expand with national pride, or my cheek redden with national shame, in the same proportion that such conduct is condemned or sanctioned by public opinion. It is no excuse for such conduct that the sufferer had sinned. I well know that she merited the severest punishment; for the soul freezes at the thought of her crime. But to every thing there is a proper season, and it is _not_ the proper season to punish a sinning female when a child _unborn_ is to be put in peril. As well might the Creator send an unborn infant to h.e.l.l with its sinful mother.

TREATMENT OF THE SICK, AND BURIAL OF THE DEAD.

While a man is in health, he can endure hardship, and support himself under the pressure of almost any calamity; but when his health fails, he sinks down a nerveless victim, and lies exposed to the mercy of those evils he can no longer resist. It is the sick that, of all the sufferers in this world, most need the pity and compa.s.sion of their fellow mortals, and whose neglect and sufferings cry the loudest to heaven. To sickness, all are equally exposed, the high and the low, the virtuous and the vicious, the saint and the sinner; and not to compa.s.sionate and relieve them, is a crime which speaks the deep depravity of the heart, and which will by no means pa.s.s unpunished.

But if the want of sympathy and tender feelings for the sick, is such a crime, what must be said of that man, who can sport with their misery, and take an infernal satisfaction in increasing it?

The sick in Windsor prison are considered as _criminal_ in their sickness, and _punished_ rather than comforted. It is not often that a prisoner can get into the place appointed for the sick, until his case is hopeless, and not always then, for many die before they can convince the keepers that they are sick. A very convenient excuse for this neglect is, that many have pretended to be sick, and have been treated as such, when they were perfectly well. This I know is true, and such hypocrites cannot be too severely dealt with; but this is no good reason why one who really needs attention, should be neglected.

It is, however, another instance of visiting all for the crime of one.

The By-Laws require that "some fit person shall be appointed as a physician, whose duty shall be to visit the prison as often as once in every week, and oftener, if found necessary, to inquire into the health of the prisoners, to give directions relative to the conduct and regimen of the sick, and admit such patients into the hospital as he may judge necessary." Another regulation in the By-Laws, in respect to the sick, is, that they shall take no medicine in any part of the prison except the hospital, unless they are unable to be removed thither; and the obvious meaning of the Laws is, that no medicine shall be prescribed by any but the physician. It is equally obvious that the physician is to be called upon whenever a serious complaint is made by any of the prisoners. Nor is it less obviously implied, that the sick shall be treated kindly. Such is the Law; let us see the practice.

When complaint of sickness is made by any of the prisoners, the keeper who has the care of the sick is sent for, and if the person is unable to work, he is taken to his room and shut up there to get well. No physician is sent for, except, perhaps, in one case out of fifty; and the patient is allowed no food but a dish of crust coffee and a piece of bread, once in twenty-four hours. This is his diet while he remains sick. When he is first shut up, he has an emetic given him, or a blister applied to his breast. This is almost always done, no matter what the complaint is; and should the physician attend twenty times at the hospital, he can scarcely ever see him. Sometimes the patient is bled, and all this is done by a man who has no _right_ to prescribe, and who is as ignorant of all medicine as he is of the feelings of a kind and generous sympathy; and done too in a place where the Law _forbids_ the use of medicine. But what are laws to tyrants? If the person has a firm const.i.tution he generally outlives such cruelty, and returns to his work; but if his complaint continues, after much time, he is handed over to the physician, and takes his chance for life or death in the hospital.

I do not mean to reflect, generally, on the conduct of the physicians.

With but few _serious_, and a number of _minor_ exceptions, their conduct has been alike honorable to themselves and ornamental to their profession. The great difficulty with them, is, they have no _authority_ to do any thing; the most they _can_ do is to _advise_, in no instance can they _command_; and their advice is followed or not, as best suits the convenience or disposition of their master. If any officer in a prison ought to have supreme authority, it is the physician. Life and death are in his hands, and he ought to have all the power necessary to the full discharge of his professional duty.

His prescription should be something more than _advice_, and he should have authority to punish all disobedience to his orders, and all cruelty or inhumanity to the sick. If the physicians of Windsor prison had been invested with this power, such have been their general reputation for skill and humanity, that many an hour and month of keen distress would have been spared to the prisoners, and more than one life been preserved.

It cannot have escaped the notice of any one who has seen the treatment of the sick, that the keepers consider them no better than dogs, and are determined that they shall have no peace, sick or well.

The iron-hearted discipline of the place is enough to rive the stoutest soul, and crush a heart as hard as marble; and in not a single instance has a prisoner escaped from it, if he has been there three or four years, without a ruinous impression that will go with him to his grave. But by a refinement of torture, which would be patented in the Court of the Inquisition, this mountain of uncalled-for oppression is rolled over, with double weight, on the sinking frame, and fainting heart, and trembling soul of the sick and dying. And to cover all this unearthly and inhuman conduct with a mantle, starred with _mercy_, and serene with _kindness_, the By-Laws are sent up every year to the Legislature, breathing the spirit of heaven, and written with tears of heart-bleeding compa.s.sion.

Heaven-daring hypocrisy! I appeal to the keepers themselves--to the angels who have hovered over the sick--to the ghosts of Ellis and Burnham, whether there is a single drop of human feeling in the treatment of the sick. Away with the By-Laws as evidence against the declarations I have just made. How often has liberty triumphed in the Statutes of an unhappy country, long after tyranny had fettered every hand and every tongue in the empire. How often has piety remained in the letter of the prayer book and liturgy, years and centuries after the _spirit_ had gone up to heaven, and the snows of human guilt had extinguished the last spark of the altar.

Not only are the sick neglected and unpitied by the officers and servants of the prison, the _Ministers_, also, neglect them. I have known men lie six months in the hospital, and die, without being visited by a single clergyman, or having even one christian call to pray with them. This speaks but little for the piety of Windsor; but such is the fact. It ought however to be understood, that the clergymen of that town are always willing to attend to any of the duties of their office, as well _in_ the prison as _out_ of it, when they know that they are wanted. I make but one exception to this remark, and that is only a _partial_ one, for Mr. How--d was not _always_ what I am condemning. The great blow, then, must fall ultimately with the greatest weight on the keepers. But still, when the great and the pious men of the village were weeping over the miseries of sin in the far distant Isles of the Pacific, and in the lands of the rising and setting sun, and sending their property in Bibles, Tracts, and Missionaries to "the farthest verge of the green earth;" is it not a little wonderful that they should so have forgotten the "prison house," and the sin-ruined prisoners, famishing for the bread of life, in their own town, and within their own sight, as not to have blessed them with a single visit from their itinerant mercy? Would not a little attention to the wants of the neighborhood have been at least _excused_?

Neglected, however, as they are by Christians, many of the suffering tenants of that gloomy abode, have an arm to lean upon which bears them up, and a sun to shine around them, whose beams create their day.

While the earth is disappearing, and their heart-strings are breaking, they can sing--

How sweet my minutes roll, A mortal paleness on my cheek, And glory in my soul!

It would gladden the hearts of christians to reflect on the happy deaths that have been witnessed in that place. There, religion appears in all her loveliness. When there is no kind friend to watch the fading cheek and close the sightless eye--when a mantle of everlasting black is falling on all the beauties of earth, and hiding the sun, moon, and stars for ever--when the blood is stopping, a cold and clammy sweat is gathering on the temples, and the heart is sinking down into the stillness of death; then it is that the value of that principle is appreciated, which charms all fears away, and calms the throbbing heart, and lights up in the soul the brightness of eternity.

Then, in that immortal ecstacy that nothing but G.o.d can inspire, it enables the happy possessor to join with the millions who have gone before him, in this triumphant farewell to this vale of tears:--

On Jordan's stormy banks I stand, And cast a wishful eye To Canaan's fair and happy land, Where my possessions lie,

O the transporting rapt'rous scene, That rises to my sight; Sweet fields array'd in living green, And rivers of delight.

No chilling winds, nor pois'nous breath Can reach that healthful sh.o.r.e; Sickness and sorrow, pain and death, Are felt and fear'd no more.

Fill'd with delight, my raptur'd soul Can here no longer stay; Tho' Jordan's waves around me roll, Fearless I launch away.

After a prisoner dies, his friends can have his body if they wish it.

If they do not call for it immediately, it is buried in the prison-yard; but if they should call for it any time afterwards, it would be disinterred and given to them.

The ceremony at the funeral is usually appropriate and solemn. Laid in a decent black coffin, the body is placed where all the prisoners can see the face, as they pa.s.s in Indian file by it. A clergyman always attends, makes some remarks, and then prays; after which the corpse is laid in the grave, and his memory is soon lost.

The house of the dead is no place to make a reflection, and the grave of the individual may be thought by many to be the place in which all that pertains to him should be buried. In general, perhaps, this is true, but not always; and I shall, before I leave the buried remains of the prisoners, record some facts which ought not be forgotten.

After their death, very sympathetic letters are written by order of the keeper, or by the keeper himself, to the friends of the deceased, stating how kindly he was treated, and how peacefully he died. I was called upon to write one of these letters, and I have not forgotten what directions were given me by the very man whom the dying prisoner considered his murderer.

During the prisoner's sickness, he frequently writes to his friends; but as his letters are examined by the keeper, and not sent unless approved, he cannot state his real condition and treatment, but must, in order to have his letter sent, at least _imply_ that he is treated kindly. Hence many a friend is led to feel grateful to the officers, when perhaps their cruelty has caused the very death they deplore.

The circ.u.mstance I am now going to relate, involves the clergyman who attended the funeral of an old prisoner, who had given no signs of repentance, it is true, nor had he been the greatest sinner on earth.

The remarks made on the occasion were as follows, verbatim et literatem, for I recorded them in stenography at the time.--"As I was coming down here," said he, "I was thinking of an old slave of a southern planter. Returning home one day, he was told that his master had gone a long journey, from which he would never return. He asked where he had gone, and was told that he had gone to heaven. 'No, no,'

said the slave, 'Ma.s.sa no gone to heaven. When Ma.s.sa go a journey he talk about it a great while before hand, and make great preparation, but me never hear him say any thing about going to heaven.' I know nothing," said the preacher, "about the man who is going to the grave, but these thoughts came into my mind as I was coming from my house, and they struck me as appropriate to this occasion. Let us pray."

No comment is necessary on such insulting language over the ashes of a fellow mortal. Such a polluted stream denotes the quality of the fountain from which it flowed.

The next chapter will contain a diversity of cases to ill.u.s.trate the remarks in this.

ELLIS.

This man was afflicted with the consumption. At the time with which this account commences, he was wasted to almost a shadow; the paleness of death was on his countenance--and his voice was feeble and trembling. Though under the care of the physician, and taking medicine every day, he was yet unable to get into the hospital, but was obliged to spend his days either in his cell, where he could obtain but little nourishment, or at his work in the shop. The scene now before me, was in the cook room, a place partly under ground, to which he had retired to rest himself, and find some relief from the pain which was continually shooting through his breast. In this room I saw him, and heard the following conversation between him and the Warden.

Ellis was lying on the brick hearth, with a block of wood for his pillow, when the Warden came in, and his voice was the only indication of life that he manifested. He intreated in the most moving language to be removed to the hospital, and made comfortable what little time he had to live.

_Warden._ If I thought you were sick, I would take care of you; but nothing ails you. If there does, you have brought it on yourself to get rid of work. I have been imposed on too often by those who pretend to be sick, and I am not to be deceived any more. You are as well as I am, and you shall not be treated as a sick man, till I have evidence that you _are_ sick.

_Ellis._ I submit, sir; though whether you believe me sick or not _now_, time will soon convince you, that I do not counterfeit this appearance. I _am_ sick--I cannot live long, and all I desire is, that I may receive proper attention, and be permitted to die in peace.

_Warden._ You are not sick; when you are, you shall have all necessary attention. I am not to be imposed on any more by those who are too lazy to work, and therefore pretend that they are sick.

Here the conversation ended; the Warden retired, and Ellis continued to enjoy his repose on the brick hearth, and his pillow of wood. Too weak to labour, and denied a place in the hospital, he continued in this condition a few days longer, when forced by the unequivocal indications of approaching dissolution, he was transported to the proper place for the sick, and laid on a bed just in time to breathe his last.

The death of a prisoner causes no tender feelings in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of some of the keepers, and when this death was announced, the eyes of many were expressive of satisfaction; and Mr. F*** said, with an air of malignant joy, "bad as he thought the place to be, he was not willing to die; he struggled for breath, looked anxiously round, and wanted to live longer."

Soon after his death was known in the yard, the Warden came into the cook-room where I was, but I am unable to paint his confused appearance. He well recollected what had pa.s.sed in that room only a few days before, when the dying man plead for an easy bed to die on, but was denied. His head hung down, he turned every way to avoid looking those in the face who had heard his savage insults to the poor wretch who plead for mercy; at length he threw himself down on a seat by one of the tables, and said, in a manner which I hope will never be imitated--"Well, Ellis is dead." No one made any reply, and he added; "he has fulfilled his word; he said he would never be any benefit to us, and he never has."

The next day his remains were committed to the grave, where "the prisoners rest together, and hear not the voice of the oppressors."

Dr. Torrey, the physician of the prison at this time, was highly displeased at the cruel neglect and unmerciful treatment of Ellis; and when prescribing, a few days after, for another prisoner, he said with emotions that did him honor--"_This_ case must be _attended to_; it must _not_ be _neglected_ as the _other_ was. _Shameful!_ DISGRACEFUL!"

Shameful and disgraceful it certainly was to treat a dying man in this way. What man of ordinary feelings would have treated his dog, as the Warden treated Ellis? Is that man fit for any office in a humane Inst.i.tution who could thus forget his kindred nature, and plant with thorns the death-bed of a brother? And ought there not to be a place for such monsters in human form, where they must drink of the cup which they have filled for others, and experience the pains they have inflicted? THERE IS JUST SUCH A PLACE.--There the rich man lifted up his eyes being in torments. And if those will be doomed to this place, of whom the Judge will say--"I was sick and in prison, and ye visited me not," what must be the fate of this man, who locked up his _living_ prisoners in the cell of _despair_, and threw the _dying_ into a bed of _embers_?

A---- W----.

This young man was of a very feeble const.i.tution, and was frequently a proper subject of medical treatment.--When a prisoner complained of being sick, he was very often permitted very kindly to take his choice of three things; 1, to take an emetic; 2, to go and do his usual task; or 3, to go into the cell and live on bread and water, and sleep on a stone floor. A. W. was taken sick and this choice was given to him; he took the emetic, remarking that he "might as well die one way as another." He was now left in his room, and for three days received no further attention. After this the physician visited him, and immediately ordered him to be moved into the hospital, where he suffered a severe course of fever.

Mr. Woodruff was the keeper who gave him the emetic, and he was much displeased when the physician rescued him from his hands. After the fever left him, and he went to his work, he was so weak that he applied to the physician for relief, and some bark and wine were ordered for him; but Mr. Woodruff thought fit to refuse the wine, and gave him only a small quant.i.ty of bark, and that of the poorest kind.

At another time when he was sick, and unable to do his task, I got some bark for him at my own expense, and wove as much over my task as he fell short of his, and caused it to be placed to his credit, to keep him out of punishment. This was done with the master weaver's knowledge, and was the only arrangement I could make to save him. It was nothing in his favor that he was sick; his task was required, and it must be done by himself or some one else.

The cruel man who allowed this youth no peace in his sickness, was very soon after doomed, in his turn, to a sickness which admitted of no comfort for him. His conduct in this instance is only a specimen of what it _generally_ was. And when he became the prey to disease, he became sullen, unsocial, and desponding; evidently the victim of his own self-condemning reflections, and of that _retributive justice_ which never suffers the wicked to go unpunished. Let the other tyrants of that little world of cruelty, think of this, and remember that the cry of the oppressed is always heard in heaven.