Six Years in the Prisons of England. Various
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myself; that he had given me the best character he could give to any prisoner, and that he hoped and believed I would reap the benefits attaching to good conduct, and be liberated long before my companions. But I was not born under a fortunate star. Almost all my companions had longer sentences than I had. Bob and the cracksman had two years longer; but as they managed to secure the convict's prize, they were sent out to Australia, and were liberated, I believe, two years before me. Some prisoners with sentences twice as long as mine were also liberated earlier than I was; and I remember alluding to this circumstance in a letter to my friends, written when I had been about four years and a-half in prison; and for doing so my letter was suppressed.
The night of my departure for England at last arrived, and I found myself for the first time placed in heavy leg-irons, along with eleven others. We were put into the prison-van for the railway station; and as soon as we were seated in the carriage there commenced a scene which baffles all description. Some of my fellow-prisoners commenced shouting, some screamed and laughed, others mocked and jeered, whilst above all curses loud and deep hurtled through the stifling air, and made night hideous with the sound. Their yells and oaths still ring in my ears, and that which was to my companions a scene of the utmost jollity and mirth was to me the nearest approach to hell my imagination had ever conceived. It was a cold spring night that witnessed my degrading departure; when I arrived at my destination in Yorkshire one of my legs was considerably swollen. It is a cold spring night now; that swollen limb has for years been in the tomb, and the dismembered trunk, on its "Ticket of Leave," has not yet returned to its long-lost home.
CHAPTER IV.
MY ARRIVAL AT THE YORKSHIRE PRISON—IN SIMPLICITER NATURALIBUS—GET ANIMAL FOOD—MEDICAL TREATMENT—STATUESQUE CHRISTIANITY—REMOVED TO THE HOSPITAL—DEATH OF A PRISONER—MY LEG GETS MUCH WORSE—REMOVAL TO SURREY PRISON.
On my arrival at the Yorkshire prison I and my companions were subjected to a new, and to me most painful operation. I am quite well aware that it would be next to useless, if not quite hypocritical, in one in my position to lay claim to any considerable delicacy of feeling, or to appear to be over scrupulous in matters of common decency. But there will occasionally, however, be found even amongst convicts those who will bear a pretty long period of imprisonment, during which they are subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet not have their moral sensibilities completely destroyed. Of these I was one, and I felt that the treatment which I had now to undergo was conceived in a barbarous spirit, and was well-fitted to destroy utterly any feelings of self-respect which my previous experiences had still left me. Every part of my body was minutely inspected immediately on my arrival, in order that I might not take any money or tobacco into the prison.
Doubtless it is very desirable, and even necessary, that every precaution should be taken to prevent such articles finding their way into prisons—at least on the persons of prisoners—but the fact remains that, notwithstanding these inspections, both money and tobacco do find their way into prison, and are every day in common use amongst the prisoners. Prisoners will have tobacco, and tobacco cannot be got without money, so that both must be obtained; and the result has been that the more rigorous the inspection, the greater the ingenuity required to evade it. The trials of skill and invention which goes on between the convict and the inspector, like those between artillery and iron plates, have as yet only proved that, given the power of resistance, the power of overcoming it will be found. One of my fellow-prisoners verified the truth of this conclusion by taking five sovereigns into prison with him, notwithstanding all the care and experience exercised by the inspector.
I now got the first taste of animal food I had had for about ten months. So keen was my appetite that I could have relished any cooked carrion even, if it had come in my way. I also got potatoes, the very skins of which I devoured with great gusto. It was very curious that at this time I preferred salt to sugar, or anything that was sweet, and I used to suck little lumps of salt for the first few days I had the opportunity of doing so with as much relish as children do their sugar plums. The bread at this prison was excellent, and the food generally of good quality.
The day after my arrival I was ordered to strip a second time for the medical inspection, and as a considerable time elapsed before my turn came, I had to remain standing in that state with my swollen leg rather longer than was good for me. When the inspection was concluded my leg was ordered to be bandaged, and some medicine was given to me daily. I now had my hair cut in the approved prison fashion, and was put into a cell to sew mats, in a standing posture. In this employment, relieved by a short period of daily out-of-door exercise, I passed one of the three and a-half months I was in this prison. The two chaplains before whom I was taken shortly after my arrival, were extremely kind to me during the whole time I remained. One of them had done much good among the prisoners, and had been of great service to many of them by getting them employment after they were liberated; thus removing the greatest obstacle in the way of a permanent reformation of the prisoner.
I recollect the first Sunday I spent in this prison. I was very nearly getting reported to the governor for a very unintentional violation of the prison rules. In accordance with these rules, convicts were not allowed to turn their heads in any direction in chapel, and if they did so they were taken by the attendant officer before the governor, who punished them for disobedience. I cannot but suppose that those who framed these rules had some good end in view, in being so stringent in the matter of posture in the religious services. The difficulty with me was to discover whether the spiritual welfare of the prisoners, or the preservation of a more than military discipline amongst them, even in matters of religion, had appeared to them to be of the greater importance.
It is probable, however, that neither of these considerations decided the question, but that the principal object of these regulations was to preserve in the convict mind, even in the act of worship, the idea of punishment in a perfectly lively and healthy condition. Be that as it may, on my first Sunday in chapel, with my English prayer-book before me, which was then quite new to me, I found myself quite unable to follow the chaplain in the services in which he was engaged, and to which I was also a perfect stranger. Turning over the leaves of the prayer-book, in the vain attempt to find out the proper place, and happening to cast my eyes over the shoulder of the prisoner in front of me in order to find it, the movement caught the eye of the officer, who sat watching every face, and I saw from his stare, and the frown which gathered under it, that I had committed a grave offence. Immediately I resumed my proper attitude and sat out the service as rigid as my neighbours, and so escaped the threatened punishment. Only on one other occasion did I transgress the prison rules: while at work I felt the pain in my leg become almost insupportable, and in order to relieve it I took rest, although still continuing to sew. For doing so I received a short reprimand. The state of my leg now became a cause of great anxiety to me, and rendered my out-door exercise a source of pain, instead of a means of relief from the monotony of my prison occupation. This exercise was taken in a circle, keeping a certain number of yards distant from another prisoner, and we were forbidden to speak or even to look round. Once or twice during the period of exercise we had to run instead of walk. The running I found very painful and injurious to my leg, and I petitioned the doctor to be excused from it, but was refused. There was nothing for it but to hop along, every step giving me great pain. Until one day I made a false step, the consequences of which compelled me to give up walking altogether. My knee became inflamed, and I was ordered to lie in my hammock in my cell. Some pills were prescribed for me, which I soon found, from the state of my gums, contained mercury. As I knew that the cause of my complaint was the want of proper nourishment, I fancied the doctor had mistaken my case when he prescribed for me, and I ventured to speak to him about it. He did not appear pleased at my making any allusion to medicine. The pills were discontinued, but I was put on a change of diet for a month, which consisted in taking away my meat, soup, and potatoes, and giving me instead a dish of what was by courtesy termed "arrow-root," but which the prisoners more accurately designated "cobbler's paste." Under this regimen it will readily be believed my condition every day became worse, and at last, after being nearly two months confined to my cell, I got the order of removal to the hospital.
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