Six Years in the Prisons of England Part 13

"What fools they must be; what do we care what we wear in prison, as long as it isn't thin rags that won't keep out the cold. Oh, have you read that article in one of the periodicals about the Andaman Islands?"

"No."

"Well, the bloke who writes it proposes to send convicts out there, and keep them for life and compel them to marry prost.i.tutes or female convicts, and then when the 'kids' are grown to take them away from them! The fool! why, all convicts haven't life sentences, and does he think that they would remain out there and do as he liked after their time was up? It isn't likely."

"Why, that would be worse than the slave trade," said Ned, "and wouldn't there be a nice crop of murders there? Why, they would require to get a factory specially for making hemp ropes to hang the culprits."

"Who is it that writes the article?" asked Pat.

"A government commissioner, but he does not give his name."

"Troth, and I should be ashamed to give it if I was he; I propose he should be taken and compelled to marry a 'tail,'[22] and sent out to try it himself first; why such men are not fit to live, and these are Christians! those are the men who do unto others as they wish to be done by, G.o.d help us!"

[22] Prost.i.tute.

"Have you heard what the director did when he was down on Sat.u.r.day?"

enquired Ned.

"A precious sight of good he does to be sure," replied d.i.c.k, "why he has given orders that no prisoner is to be allowed to see him about the food and the marks, and you must tell the chief warder what you want to see the director about before you can be allowed to go before him.

Isn't that a pretty thing? What a nice easy way of earning a thousand a year the director has?"

"What has caused this fresh order?"

"There were two causes--three of the convalescent invalids went to the director to ask to be able-bodied in order to get the able-bodied diet.

They are doing as much work now, except that they are not quite so long at it, but they are willing to work for the diet the same as the others. The director refused to allow them to work more, and of course they can't get the grub, and he gave orders that no more of such cases should be allowed to come before him. Another case was this--two fellows saved their cheese on the sly for several weeks, and in this way managed to have each about four cheeses beside them. Well, one of them told the officials what he was going to do, and the other kept his intentions secret. The first one went before the director and asked him if he would be kind enough to look at the cheese he had been supplied with for some weeks, and see whether it was the quality it ought to have been. The governor chimed in at once, and said that this was the only complaint he had heard about the cheese, and that all the other prisoners were satisfied. The prisoner was then bounced out of the room, and threatened with a 'report' if he complained again. Well the next man was called, and this happened to be the other 'bloke' with the four cheeses. Before going in he took them out of his pocket, and what do you think they did? Why, he wasn't allowed to go before the director at all; they squared him and coaxed him, and at last persuaded him not to insist on seeing the director at all, by threatening to send him to the refractory cells for having four cheeses on his person, which was quite contrary to the prison rules! Isn't it a ---- shame the way the head blokes go on? How can they expect a fellow to reform when they rob us of our food and show us a bad example?"

"What o'clock is it, Pat; d'ye see the clock there?"

"It wants a quarter to three; I say, d.i.c.k, will you give me a mutton for a pudding, that beastly stuff lays heavy on my stomach, and I know you are fond of it."

"I don't mind, but how are you to get it sent to me?"

"I'll send it by some fellow in our ward who works in your gang."

"I am hard up for snout," said Ned, "can you give us a bit, Pat? Upon my word I've just had one old pipe head for the last three days and it wasn't up to much, it had been too much used."

"Well, I'll lend you an inch or two, but I hope you will soon pay me back; why there is none to be had now under a bob an ounce; but I say, Ned, if you should get another legging I would advise you to declare yourself a Jew. You look something like a sheeney at any rate. Why look at that old 'Chickarlico;' he goes twice a week to school and has two Sundays every week, besides ever so many feast days."

"Oh, I can do another 'bit,' no matter whether I am Jew, Turk, or Christian; but if I get an easy job I mean to go on the square, upon my word I do."

"Who'll employ you, do you think?"

"Why, I shall go to the society."

"The society be ----! they will not do you any good."

"I believe it is under new management now, and they don't cheat a fellow out of his gratuity as they used to do; but I think it's a wrong name to give it--The Prisoners' Aid Society! the very cases requiring most aid they won't a.s.sist at all, and unless a fellow is stout and hearty and has got some gratuity they won't have anything to do with him. If I had only a few shillings coming due to me they would not aid me, but as I have five or six pounds they will, now that looks suspicious. Then, if I had lost a leg, like that bloke over there, they wouldn't aid me. But if I don't go to the society I will, perhaps, go to Ireland and give them a turn there."

"Oh!" said Pat, "you'll find nothing that wants lifting there."

"Have you been to Spike Island, Pat?"

"Yes."

"What sort of place is it, and what about this Irish system?"

"Oh! the place is something like the public works here, and as for the Irish System--I can see nothing in it except that they get most of the prisoners sent to America, and if they would send _us_ there, we might get a living too, without going on the cross! There are not many regular prigs in the Irish prisons. Many of them are fellows who got into trouble in some drunken row, and the people in Ireland are not so prejudiced against convicts as the English are, so that work is easier got; another thing is when your time is near up you are trusted a little, and get some liberty to go about. In this way the authorities can see who's who. Then the numbers are fewer altogether, and a small lot of men are easier dealt with, you know, than many thousands. It wouldn't work quite so well here, but the great thing is sending the prisoners abroad in some way or other. Do you know that Lafferty and Badger are going to be sent to New Orleans, by the Catholic Aid Society?"

"No! what will Lafferty do there?"

"Oh! he must go on the cross, I expect, but Badger is able to work.

He's a very good 'buzzer,' is Lafferty, mind you, and he might do very well out there."

"Well, the time's up Ned, I suppose you'll be going up to the 'farm'

to-night, and we sha'n't see you again. Well, old fellow, take care of old Tommy's black draughts, and look after yourself when you get out.

Good-bye."

"Good-bye, old fellow, good luck to ye."

"Fall in."

"There's the officer shouting 'fall in.'"

"Well, ta ta."

"Ta ta."

CHAPTER XX.

CAPITAL PUNISHMENTS--I RECEIVE MY LICENSE--STRANGE BED-FELLOWS--MY LIBERATION.

During the last year of my imprisonment a bill relating to the crimes of murder and manslaughter was brought before Parliament, and the discussion in the House of Commons which ensued was much commented upon by the prisoners. About the same time I read a lecture touching on the same subject, which had been delivered to the Young Men's Christian a.s.sociation, at Exeter Hall, and it may not be out of place here if I venture to express my opinion on the subject as well, possessing as I do the advantage over most of those who have discussed it out of doors, in having heard the opinions of those likely to commit such crimes, and having a familiar acquaintance with their habits, and the motives from which they act. The reverend lecturer to whom I have referred, based his argument for the continued infliction of capital punishment on the perpetual obligation of the Mosaic law: "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." He also maintained, if I understand him rightly, that the office of the hangman ought to be considered the highest object of human ambition, and that the hangman himself should take precedence of archbishops, kings, and emperors, inasmuch as he occupied the position of Almighty G.o.d, taking vengeance for the shedding of human blood. I confess I can scarcely conceive of a Christian man occupying such a position, neither can I agree with the reverend lecturer that the command given to Noah was intended to extend to all generations and societies of men. When it was promulgated there were only a few individuals left to people the universe, and the command was made _absolute_. There is no intimation of any distinction between the deliberate and the accidental shedding of human blood, and until some such distinction is made our conceptions of the eternal rect.i.tude and justice of G.o.d, must be of a very peculiar and imperfect kind. That some distinction ought to be made is a fact which men in all ages and of all degrees of civilization have recognized, and have found their authority for making such a distinction, not in any spoken or written law, but in a much higher and older law than these, the universal conscience of mankind. That such a distinction was found necessary as the race became more numerous, is conclusively shown by the promulgation of the Mosaic law: "He that smiteth a man so that he die shall be surely put to death, and if a man lie not in wait, but G.o.d deliver him into his hand, then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee." (Ex. xxi., 12, 13.) This was a great modification of the original injunction, and also shows clearly, to my mind at least, that all human punishments should be regulated by the condition of the people for whose benefit they are designed. Again, in the same chapter from which I have already quoted, I find the following, "Thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, &c.," a law evidently designed for a semi-barbarous people, and admitting of prompt administration and summary execution. Turning to the Christian law on the subject we find, "Ye have heard that it hath been said an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, _but I_ say unto you that ye resist not evil." This would appear to introduce a new principle of forbearance, and if we refer to the case of the woman taken in adultery, where the legal penalty was death, we find that mercy, and not vengeance, is the principle on which our penal code ought to be based.

But leaving scriptural grounds and descending to those of expediency merely. Does capital punishment deter men from committing murder more effectually than perpetual imprisonment would? I believe that 999 out of every 1000 of our convicts even would not commit deliberate murder, although the penalty was only a few months' imprisonment and detection _certain_, unless under peculiar temptation or provocation. It is a crime naturally abhorrent even to the thief, and the majority of those men capable of committing wilful murder would on the whole, I believe, prefer to be hanged out of their misery, than remain in prison all their life. If all hope of release could be utterly extinguished, very few of such men would chance perpetual imprisonment, if they had it in their option. Of course we could not banish hope from the minds of all, and therefore many would at first cling to life, and after a few years seek death as a release from bondage, and even commit suicide rather than endure such suffering longer. I knew one prisoner who pleaded to be hanged, and others who would certainly prefer execution if they had no hope of ultimate liberty. The general opinion of those who had been in prison ten or twelve years out of a 'life' sentence was in favour of execution at once, as being the less dreadful alternative, so that with respect to punishment as a deterring influence, I have no doubt that perpetual imprisonment would be more efficacious than the capital sentence.

Those who are capable of deliberately taking human life with the view of obtaining money, may be divided into two cla.s.ses. The one cla.s.s comprising such as prisoners who perpetrate the crime cunningly and in secret, in the firm belief that they will escape detection; the other cla.s.s are the highwaymen and garotters, who go daringly and violently to work, pretty sure in their own minds that they will be clever enough to escape.

With regard to the former cla.s.s, the deterring influence is detection.

Capital sentence, perpetual imprisonment, or even a less severe sentence would operate equally in preventing the commission of the crime in their case, because the idea is not generally present in their mind when they premeditate it, or is completely outweighed by the fear of detection or discovery. With reference to the second and bolder cla.s.s, a lingering imprisonment would appear more horrible in their estimation, and exercise an equal if not a greater deterring influence than the scaffold. Some of those men with whom I have met would glory in dying 'game' as they term it. Those who commit murder in order to gratify feelings of revenge, usually, I believe, find the gratification of the pa.s.sion so sweet that they are for the time quite regardless of their own lives; and when jealousy is the cause of murder, it often happens that the murderer takes the law into his own hands and visits upon himself the penalty. I met cases in point, and in none of them did the fear of the death sentence operate against the perpetration of crime. They had made up their minds to lose their lives, and did not calculate on escape. Such cases are not common, however, and perhaps it is not possible to prevent them occurring.

Those murders perpetrated for the love of money might to some extent be prevented by the general elevation of the ma.s.s of society, and by increasing the swiftness and certainty of detection; and I have come, after long study of the subject, and from frequent contact with those saved from the gallows, to the conclusion that capital punishment may now be safely abolished in this country. In all countries where secondary punishments are severe and capital punishments rigorously inflicted, murders are numerous, and in countries where the machinery for the detection of crime is defective it may be the same. Earl Russell, in a late edition of his work on the const.i.tution, expresses opinions on this subject with which I coincide, but I disagree with him when he prescribes imprisonment and hard labour as being the most suitable method of dealing with criminals not capitally punished; I refer, of course, to imprisonment and hard labour as generally understood.

There are three systems of imprisonment: the solitary, the separate and silent, and the promiscuous a.s.sociation of all prisoners at the public works.