Six Years in the Prisons of England. Various
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eventful morning arrived that I was led to believe would set me free. I entered the court with a beating heart, and was placed in the dock between two policemen. I felt ashamed to lift my head or to look around me, but I had seen as I entered that the space open to the public was crowded with the better class of citizens. The judges, of whom there were three, soon appeared and took their seats upon the bench, and began conversing with each other upon my indictment. One of them was overheard saying, "It would be a very difficult case to prove." Meanwhile some consultation was taking place amongst the legal gentlemen in front of me, when my agent and counsel came and, for the first time, informed me that my trial might take place without the continental witnesses, and that supposing I was acquitted I could be tried again on two of the bills; that already there was a warrant out against me, and I should be arrested a second time on leaving the dock! The crown was willing, however, they said, to accept a limited plea of guilt; that I would be sentenced to only a few months' imprisonment, not longer perhaps than I would have to endure in suspense, waiting a second and perhaps a third trial, and that it would be better for me to tender the plea of guilt the crown was willing to accept!
This advice, so unexpected and so different from what I had formerly received, given at the very last moment, had the effect of entirely unhinging my mind, and for the moment I seemed paralysed.
Of this I was conscious, however, that the continuance of suspense, that most painful of all suffering, combined with the compulsory oatmeal treatment of remanded Scottish prisoners, would kill me; still I could not bring myself to utter the words placed in my hands for that purpose; I waited, and hesitated, and wondered where the jury were, and why they were giving me so long to consider before going on with the business of the court. Time seemed to have been given me on purpose to confuse my mind, for the longer I pondered the more bewildered I became. At last, like a child who does almost mechanically as his parents bid it, I read from a paper these words: "I plead guilty to uttering two bills of exchange, knowing them to be fictitious." The judge in the centre asked the counsel for the crown if he accepted the plea, and on getting an answer in the affirmative, he whispered a second or two with his brother judge, whose son I believe prepared the case against me, and then pronounced sentence of penal servitude for a term of years that then seemed eternity to me. I was removed from the court to the prison, stripped of my clothes, clad in the garb of the convict, and turned into a cell, there to writhe in tearless agony, and to indulge in bitter and unavailing regrets.
CHAPTER III.
THREE MONTHS IN A SCOTTISH PRISON—BEGIN MY STUDY OF THE CONVICT AND HIS SURROUNDINGS—AN OLD JAIL BIRD—A SOLDIER—AN INNOCENT CONVICT—MY FIRST CRACKSMAN ACQUAINTANCE—CONSPIRACY TO MURDER AN OFFICER AND ESCAPE—MY REMOVAL TO ENGLAND.
The paroxysm of grief and indignation which followed my return to prison gradually subsided, and after a few days I became in some measure resigned to my fate, and determined as far as possible to make the best of it. Indeed, in some respects the change in my circumstances was for the better. The oatmeal treatment, it is true, was still continued, but with this difference that I now got more of it, and a still further and most welcome addition of a pennyworth of good milk and a pennyworth of eatable bread per diem. I remained on this diet during the three months and a-half which elapsed before I was removed to England.[2] Unfortunately, during this time my stomach, though craving for animal food, would not accept the oatmeal, or chief portion of my diet, and accordingly I was in the practice of dividing it amongst my fellow prisoners.
I mentioned my case to the medical officer, but had to rest content with a little quinine and the assurance that I would be sent to England in a day or two, where I would get a few ounces of animal food daily. To add to my troubles, one of my ankles began to swell, but after some time, and by the application of flannel bandages, the swelling decreased and the limb seemed quite sound again.
These were not encouraging circumstances, however, under which to commence a long period of imprisonment, the less so, as from what I had observed, I feared that in the event of illness I should have to submit to a very limited amount of medical attendance. Probably, in consequence of being frequently imposed upon by the prisoners, and having private practice to attend to, doubtless of a more remunerative character, the medical officer was exceedingly rapid in his progress through the prison, and not more so in that than in his diagnosis and prescriptions. With the pangs of hunger constantly gnawing within me, and the dread of bad health and a ruined constitution haunting me day and night, I endeavoured by constant occupation to obtain some mitigation of my sufferings. I read all the books I could get hold of, wrote farewell letters to friends, hoping and believing that I would be sent to Western Australia, as it was then the practice to do with all healthy convicts of my own age who had received similar sentences. I also seized every available opportunity of conversing with the old "lags," or convicts, about prison life, and it was here I received my first lessons in slang and thiefology, and began my study of the convict and his surroundings.
But I could not yet think of myself as a convict; I had the usual prejudice, or rather horror of the species, entertained by the middle class, and declined to accept the offer, made in kindness, of having a neighbour in the same cell with me. I was compelled, however, to take exercise for some minutes every day, together with another prisoner, and I was usually best pleased when I happened to be put into the same crib with one who had been a convict before. It was during these daily rounds that I witnessed with sadness the evil effects of sending boys or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These men are always willing to make a convert, and they generally succeed, for the battle is half won ere they bring their forces on the field. It is here that the juvenile offender is nursed in villainy, here he learns the inducements to crime, and from the lips of the hardened and experienced ruffian he hears of exploits and deeds of darkness, which inflame while they pollute his imagination, and he longs to be free that he might add some daring feat of wickedness to the catalogue he has heard. There can be no doubt that the indiscriminate association of all grades of criminals is one of the most prolific sources from whence our convict prisons receive their constant and foul supply. It was in one of these open-air cribs that I was initiated into the mysteries of prison politics and prison slang, for the convict has his "policy" as well as the government, and also his official, or rather professional nomenclature, in which he enshrouds its meaning. To be an adept in prison politics is, first of all to know and understand all the prison rules and regulations, not for purposes of obedience, but evasion; to discern the disposition and habits of the prison officers, with the view of conciliating or coercing them into trifling privileges or concessions; to know the various methods of treatment, diet, and discipline at the different prisons, and the character and disposition of their governors; to contrive to be sent to the prison which is supposed to be the most comfortable; and to know when and where good conduct and bad conduct will be productive of the best results in the way of removal or remission of sentence. In my solitude, and with the prospect before me of a long experience of such company, these conversations with my fellow-prisoners, possessed a certain kind of interest for me. I was also always eager to learn as much as I could of their previous history, and the cause of their imprisonment. One day, as I was taking my daily outdoor exercise, I observed an old man in the convict dress cleaning the prison windows a short distance from me, and I asked my neighbour in the crib who he was. "O! that's a beauty," said he. "He was walking down the street lately, along with another chum like himself, when a gentleman noticed them and asked them into a photographer's to get their portraits taken, and gave them a shilling each as being the two ugliest specimens of the human race he had ever seen!"
"How long has he been in prison?" I enquired.
"Goodness knows!" he exclaimed; "I think about eight or nine-and-twenty years, and the longest sentence he ever had, except the first, was sixty days!"
"What are his offences usually?"
"Oh, nothing but kicking up rows in the streets, or smashing a window. Last time it was for a fight with a poor man with a large family. He got up the fight on purpose, and as both were about to be