Penal Servitude 
 
 WW 
 
 '-■:■•■•'•••' 
 
 
 
 ^^^K&W 
 
 
 
 iir^^^'"^^'^^^ 
 
 ^-■: ';■■■■■ y.- 
 
 
 .■;^-il -^.i..;! ;^| 
 
 ^::;D1;:V:' 
 
 
 
 ■■%. #' 
 
 iBi&-?-^''^^ 
 
 ' ■;::;'^;'' ':'::' I'- --■:■■■■ 
 
 
 
 '•iife 
 
 liiir:"-:-A::;:::^:- 
 
 
 
 ■m 
 
 >-^J%. •>!*•>■ 
 
 
 
 
 1 
 
 

 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 PENAL SERVITUDE
 
 f
 
 PENAL SERVITUDE 
 
 By 
 W. B. N. 
 
 * I have studied mankind from my Topsy-Turvey 
 Close, and I reckon somewhat true — 
 Some are fine fellows, some right scurvy ; 
 Most are a dash between the two. ' 
 
 George Meredith 
 
 London 
 William Heinemann 
 
 1903
 
 All rights reserved 
 
 i
 
 
 AUTHOR'S NOTE 
 
 I sHouLi:) like to state that the notes on which this 
 volume is based were in the first instance made 
 with no view to publication. They have, however, 
 proved of more interest to a few intimate friends 
 than I had anticipated, and if by publishing them I 
 can in the least degree ameliorate the lot of some 
 of those with whom I came into such unfortunate 
 contact, the additional publicity which this gives 
 to my own imprisonment will seem to me not a 
 useless sacrifice. 
 
 8SGi«18
 
 k\\
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PACK 
 
 I. RUNNING INTO DANGER - - - I 
 
 II. BAIL OR NO BAIL ? - - - - 8 
 
 III. A 'POPULAR* JUDGE - - - ' H 
 
 IV. PLAIN TALES FROM THE PRISONS - - 23 
 
 V. BETTER DAYS, AND THE END - "37 
 
 VI. GOVERNORS AND DEPUTY-GOVERNORS - 5I 
 
 VII. OFFICERS - - - - - 69 
 
 VIII. DOCTORS AND CLERGY - - "83 
 
 IX. FOOD IN CONVICT PRISONS - - - lOI 
 
 X. DAILY ROUTINE - - - - I18 
 
 XI. PUNISHMENTS, INCORRIGIBLES, AND SUICIDES 1 32 
 
 XII. ' BALMIES ' - - - - - 148 
 
 XIII. 'coppers' - - - . . 158 
 
 XIV. 'ALL sorts and CONDITIONS OF MEN* - I78 
 XV. PRISONERS AND THE PRESS - - - I99 
 
 XVI. MORE PRESS INACCURACIES - - " 215 
 
 vii
 
 Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XVII. TALKING AND WALKING - - - 228 
 
 XVIII. CLASSIFICATION AND REFORMATION - - 244 
 
 XIX. SENTENCES AND REMISSIONS - - - 257 
 
 XX. UP TO DATE ----- 283 
 
 XXI. FINAL ------ 305 
 
 VIU
 
 RUNNING INTO DANGER 
 
 In June, 1896, being in money difficulties, I took 
 a course which, after giving me endless worry, at 
 last brought me within the arm of the law. The 
 
 case of L v. S C , tried before the late 
 
 Lord Chief Justice at the end of November, 1897, 
 received such wide publicity at the time that it is 
 unnecessary for me to recall the details of it here. 
 Briefly, what it amounted to was this : the late 
 
 Mr. S L brought an action against 
 
 Captain S C to recover on some pro- 
 missory notes which he had discounted for me, 
 
 and which bore Captain S C 's name and 
 
 my own. Captain S C denied liability 
 
 on the ground that when he signed the docu- 
 ments he did not know they were bills. He 
 acknowledged at the trial that I had told him he 
 might read them if he chose, though I preferred 
 he should not, and that he signed them without 
 looking at them. This defence proved suc- 
 
 I I
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 cessful. I should like, however, to say that the 
 recollection of the defendant as to the manner in 
 which I obtained the documents which formed the 
 subject of the trial was incorrect in several im- 
 portant points. He was not cross-examined either 
 at the civil trial or in the criminal proceedings 
 later ; and showed an extraordinary confusion of 
 memory, to say the least, regarding incidents of 
 vital consequence which had happened eighteen 
 months before. 
 
 If Captain S C had only taken care to 
 
 be strictly accurate, without in the least going out of 
 his way to shield a man who had been his intimate 
 friend, it would have made no difference to him, 
 but a very great difference to me. Moreover, 
 while he produced at the trial a good many letters 
 from me, he failed to put in one written on the 
 very day he signed the documents in December, 
 1896, which certainly ought to have been pro- 
 duced. This letter crossed one from him saying 
 that he wanted to look at the documents, and 
 stated that the said documents would not be used, 
 but would be destroyed in his presence if he 
 would call at a certain hour next day. He came 
 as requested, and I showed him his signatures. I 
 then told him that, if he really wished to see what
 
 Running into Danger 
 
 he had signed, I would let him read the papers 
 through before we burnt them, on condition that 
 he promised never to disclose their contents. He 
 said he would like very much to read them, and 
 he undertook that he would not mention a word 
 about them to anyone. He read them through, 
 and we burnt them. Unfortunately, he seems to 
 have considered for his own protection that it was 
 necessary to tell his solicitor, and also several of 
 his brother officers, and shortly afterwards he went 
 to stay at a country house where there was a 
 large party, and there again he told the same story, 
 which soon became public. This exposure of the 
 facts led eventually to my being prosecuted, and 
 receiving a heavy additional punishment for this 
 very offence, which might otherwise never have 
 been heard of I suppose I have no right to 
 complain, as I had undoubtedly wronged him. 
 
 At the close of the trial of L v. S 
 
 C the Lord Chief Justice deferred judgment ; 
 
 but the evidence in the case, with the findings of 
 the jury upon it, had already put my conduct in 
 such a light that I saw I was in great danger. 
 
 Many of my friends did not think there was 
 any fear of a prosecution, because neither party 
 had really suffered through me. It was true 
 
 3 1—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Mr. L had lost his action against Captain 
 
 S C , and with it his security for these 
 
 particular bills. But upon the whole account be- 
 tween us, from first to last, which extended over 
 a period of nearly six years, he was a very large 
 
 gainer. Mr. L 's attitude towards me, in fact, 
 
 all the way through, was straightforward. He was 
 compelled to take the course that he took, and 
 certainly I have never blamed him, except for one 
 thing. 
 
 At the last interview I had with him, some 
 months before the trial, he assured me that he 
 would call me as a witness, so that I might tell 
 my own story. This he afterwards decided not 
 to do, for reasons of his own, not realizing how 
 seriously it might affect me later. On the other 
 hand, Captain S C had no motive what- 
 soever for pursuing me further. He had satisfied 
 the code of honour of his brother officers by ruining 
 me in the eyes of the world, and he had relieved 
 himself from liability by successfully defending 
 the action. After that he had every conceivable 
 reason for wishing to let the matter drop as soon 
 as possible. No other person was concerned in it 
 in any way. 
 
 It was natural to assume, therefore, that nothing 
 
 4
 
 Running into Danger 
 
 more would be heard of it. I had a strong feeling, 
 nevertheless, that it would be a great mistake even 
 to appear to be an absconder. I therefore wrote 
 to my solicitors, Messrs. Lewis and Lewis, asking 
 them to notify the Public Prosecutor, as soon as 
 the Lord Chief Justice should give his judgment, 
 that I was ready to surrender and stand my trial, 
 if I were to be prosecuted. This letter was sent 
 to the Public Prosecutor, accordingly, the day 
 after Lord Russell delivered his judgment, three 
 weeks having elapsed since the close of the trial of 
 
 L V. S C . 
 
 Before it could even be acknowledged, how- 
 ever, the Times, the T)aily News, and the Daily 
 Chronicle published most violent articles, openly 
 accusing me of a crime which I had not until then 
 been formally charged with by anybody; and one 
 paper accused me of having run away, which was 
 totally untrue. For months before the trial I had 
 been staying with relations in Paris, and after the 
 verdict I remained at the same address, going 
 about quite openly among friends and enemies, if 
 I had any. I had made up my mind all along to 
 come over and take the consequences, whatever 
 they might be. I do not pretend that I was 
 prompted in that by any particularly high sense of 
 
 5
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 moral duty. I simply reasoned in this way : If I 
 were prosecuted and went to England and faced 
 it, and were found guilty, I should be sent to 
 prison for a certain time, and there would be an 
 end of it. After that, at all events, I should be a 
 free agent and able to go where I chose in peace, 
 and make the most of the life that was left to me. 
 But if I shirked it and ran away, I should have 
 the danger always hanging over me, and would 
 never be able to lead a life worth living at all. 
 I should be a curse to myself and to all my 
 belongings — most of all to those who were will- 
 ing to excuse and assist me, and in the eyes of 
 the world I should stand no better than if I 
 had actually been in prison. The boldest course 
 was the best, and I took it. But almost before I 
 had had time to take it 1 was already denounced 
 as a fugitive, and I got no benefit from facilitating 
 the course of justice. 
 
 The last thing I wish to do is to run a tilt 
 against the London press. I know their power 
 and I know their value in upholding right against 
 might. But to raise such a hue-and-cry is the very 
 way to make a man abscond and take advantage of 
 every possible means of avoiding a trial. I repeat, 
 I never had any intention of running away, but 1 
 
 6
 
 Running into Danger 
 
 must honestly say this: If I had known what hard 
 measure would be meted out to me, mainly in 
 response to newspaper clamour, I might have 
 thought twice before I placed myself at the mercy 
 of the Court whilst any chance of escape remained. 
 Another result of the great publicity given to my 
 case by the London press was that I became a 
 marked man in Paris. The Public Prosecutor 
 did not decide to take steps against me until seven 
 weeks after the civil trial, and during all that time 
 I was going about every day, constantly meeting 
 friends and acquaintances, and it was curious to 
 see how differently different people treated me. 
 There were many who showed me that staunch 
 good-fellowship which is never so welcome as at a 
 time of anxiety and perplexity ; but there were 
 others who did exactly the reverse. It is the way 
 of the world, no doubt, to give the cold shoulder 
 to anyone who is in a mess, though one would 
 think that even that might be done without ill- 
 manners. The change that suddenly came over 
 some who had been among my most effusive 
 acquaintances was so grotesque that it only 
 amused me ; but there were other instances in 
 which the effect was very different.
 
 II 
 
 BAIL OR NO BAIL ? 
 
 On January 20, 1898, Sir George Lewis tele- 
 graphed to me at Paris [that it had been decided 
 to prosecute me, and that he concluded I would 
 carry out my offer and come over and face it. I 
 replied that I should be back in forty-eight hours, 
 and I arrived in London on the 22nd. The follow- 
 ing day I saw Sir George Lewis, who at once wrote 
 to the Public Prosecutor to say I was in London 
 and would surrender at his office the following 
 afternoon, which I did. I was then taken before 
 the late Sir John Bridge, the Chief Stipendiary 
 Magistrate, at Bow Street. He was a very old, 
 infirm man, and did not seem to hear much of 
 what was going on. The lawyers made their 
 statements, and, after formal evidence had been 
 given, the case was adjourned for a week. Sir 
 George Lewis asked for bail, and it was allowed 
 without demur — in fact, at this hearing Sir John 
 Bridge was simply passive, assenting to every- 
 
 8
 
 Bail or no Bail ? 
 
 thing, but taking no particular notice of any- 
 thing. 
 
 When I appeared before him the second time a 
 week later, however, he had completely changed. 
 I don't know what had happened to him in the 
 interval, but he evidently regarded me now as an 
 unmitigated blackguard, and, having committed 
 me for trial, positively refused to allow bail. He 
 was so deaf that everything had to be repeated to 
 him, and even then he seemed to be in a complete 
 fog. He would have it that I had run away and 
 been arrested; and when the inspector to whom I 
 had surrendered told him that he had not arrested 
 me, but that I had come over and given myself up, 
 as arranged, he cut him short with the remark that 
 that was the same thing. Sir George Lewis 
 pointed out that I had had weeks to run away in 
 if I wished to do so, but that I had voluntarily 
 come over from Paris directly I heard it was 
 intended to prosecute. Mr. Avory, representing 
 the Public Prosecutor, did not oppose bail being 
 given. But it was all of no use. Sir John 
 Bridge insisted that no amount of bail would 
 keep me from running away, and that was an 
 end of it. 
 
 I have no doubt that he had now got into his
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 head what had appeared in the papers about me 
 at the time of the civil trial, and supposed that, 
 because I had been abroad, therefore I had 
 absconded and been brought back on a warrant ; 
 and he was too feeble in body and mind to be 
 made to understand what had really happened. I 
 cannot help feeling that he did me a monstrous 
 injustice in refusing me bail. I have been told by 
 more than one eminent lawyer that it was my 
 right to have bail, and his duty to grant it in the 
 absence of any strong ground for believing that I 
 intended or was likely to fly from justice. There 
 was not a vestige of ground. I had done nothing 
 to raise such a suspicion, and I was able to offer 
 bail to a very large amount, with undoubted 
 sureties. When this is the case it is most unusual 
 to refuse bail, even in charges of the gravest kind, 
 short of the capital offence. 
 
 Readers who have never been through the 
 experience may think, perhaps, that I am making 
 too much of this, and that, if a man is in for a 
 trial at all, it does not signify whether he is 
 detained in custody or not for a week or two 
 beforehand. This, however, is quite a mistaken 
 idea. Of course, cases differ, but in most it is of 
 the greatest importance to the accused that he 
 
 lO
 
 Bail or no Bail ? 
 
 should have his liberty up to the last moment 
 before the trial. In the eye of the law he is still 
 innocent, whatsoever the appearances may be 
 against him, and he is entitled to the use of his 
 time before trial, both to arrange his affairs and 
 to prepare his defence. The refusal of bail pre- 
 vents him from getting that frequent and un- 
 restrained access to lawyers, witnesses, friends, 
 and papers which is very necessary for piecing 
 together evidence, and making the best of any 
 points there may be in his favour. I know the 
 results to me were very serious indeed. I had 
 only been a week in England, and had had no 
 time to attend to private matters or to go into 
 numberless details connected with my case. 
 
 One of my nearest relatives was very ill at the 
 time, and died four days after my trial without 
 my having seen her, and another died suddenly of 
 heart disease within a week of my committal to 
 Holloway. 
 
 I was also denied the benefit of being at any of 
 the consultations with my counsel, as I had not 
 seen them previously, none of us having ever 
 dreamt of bail being refused. In short, Sir John 
 Bridge's strange animosity and obstinacy deprived 
 me at a moment's notice of the time I had counted 
 
 II
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 on for private and legal preparations for my 
 trial. 
 
 I do not mean to say that, if I had been allowed 
 bail, and been present at all the consultations with 
 my counsel, I should have been able to set up a 
 successful defence ; but I might very well have 
 recalled facts and explained circumstances, so that 
 my counsel would have been in a position to say 
 a good deal more for me than they did. It is 
 possible, indeed, that we might have taken quite a 
 different course from the one we took, with a 
 better result. At all events, the result could not 
 have been worse. 
 
 As showing once more the singular unfairness 
 of some of the papers towards me, I may remark 
 here that at a later stage the TimeSy in a leading 
 article, brought up this question of bail, and de- 
 clared that ' Sir George Lewis at Bow Street was 
 reduced to trying to "bluff" Sir John Bridge into 
 giving bail against all ordinary rules.' 
 
 The writer knew nothing about the subject on 
 which he made such a positive assertion. Sir 
 George Lewis would have failed in his duty if he 
 had not made every effort to get his client the 
 advantage of bail, and though it is true there were 
 high words between him and Sir John Bridge, that 
 
 12
 
 Bail or no Bail ? 
 
 was solely caused by the magistrate's deafness and 
 irritability, and by his accusing me of the intention 
 to run away. Further, the Times writer was 
 absolutely mistaken in saying that giving bail is 
 against all ordinary rules. I doubt whether a single 
 case can be found at all like mine in which bail in 
 substantial sureties has been refused to a man who 
 came back at once to face his trial. 
 
 13
 
 Ill 
 
 A ' POPULAR ' JUDGE 
 
 I WAS sent direct from Bow Street to Holloway 
 Prison, where I arrived about five o'clock, and was 
 put into what is called a furnished cell — that is to 
 say, a cell containing a table and some chairs, with 
 a drugget on the floor, so that it looks something 
 like a private room. I found the first feeling of 
 being locked up very depressing, and I did not 
 easily get used to it, though, of course, as long as 
 I was in Holloway I was not altogether a close 
 prisoner. 1 wore my own clothes, and I had my 
 meals brought in from a restaurant. I also had 
 newspapers and books to read, and I was allowed to 
 write letters and receive visits. But I am naturally 
 of a very active temperament, and to be caged in 
 a small space, with nothing much to do except to 
 brood over my position and look forward to the 
 fate that might be in store for me, was terribly 
 irksome both to body and mind. 
 
 One morning an incident occurred to break the 
 
 H
 
 A * Popular ' Judge 
 
 monotony, which was so curious that I think it 
 worth mentioning. While waiting my turn with 
 a number of others to go in and see the doctor, 
 I found myself almost at the end of the line 
 with a man standing next me who seemed to take 
 an interest in mc. He was decidedly gentlemanly- 
 looking, and though shabbily dressed and unshaven, 
 he had evidently seen better days. Being close to 
 me, he asked me in a low tone whom I was going 
 to be tried by. Though he scarcely spoke above 
 a whisper, his voice sounded like that of an educated 
 man, and his question seemed kindly meant. I 
 replied that I did not know by whom I was to be 
 tried, not being then aware that my case might 
 come before a Judge, the Recorder, or the Com- 
 mon Serjeant. The man said : 
 
 * Well, for your own sake, I hope you won't be 
 tried by the Judge, Mr. Justice Lawrance, for he 
 is about the worst man on the Bench for anyone 
 like you to come before.' Then with a smile he 
 added : ' If you were plain Bill Sykes he would 
 make it much lighter for you. He will punish 
 you more for who you are than for what you have 
 done.' 
 
 I asked him whether he knew Mr. Justice 
 Lawrance, and he replied, ' Rather !' with a 
 
 15
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 peculiar sort of smothered laugh that gave all the 
 more emphasis to the expression. I have not 
 the least idea who he was, and I never saw him 
 again, but his prophecy proved to be strikingly 
 correct. 
 
 My trial was fixed for February 15, and on that 
 day I left Holloway in a four-wheeler with two 
 warders, about nine o'clock. When we approached 
 the Old Bailey there was a huge crowd in the 
 street, and we could hardly get the cab through. 
 People were getting out of their carriages, some 
 distance from the prison, and walking the rest of 
 the way on account of the block. On driving 
 into Newgate, I was at once shown into a small, 
 bare room just underneath the dock, where I met 
 Sir George Lewis and Mr. Lawson Walton, K.C., 
 and had a few minutes' conversation with them. 
 They then told me that they had thought it better 
 for me to plead ' Guilty ' to the two indictments 
 
 for fraudulently obtaining Captain S C 's 
 
 name to documents to be used as valuable securi- 
 ties, in June and December respectively, while 
 pleading ' Not guilty ' to the three indictments for 
 forging and uttering the documents, which it was 
 understood would be dropped, and naturally so, as 
 it was an absolutely false charge. Of course I 
 
 16
 
 A ' Popular ' Judge 
 
 accepted their advice without question, in the 
 confident belief that on the lesser count I should 
 get a moderate sentence. 
 
 1 was then placed in the dock, and called upon 
 to plead, and Mr. Charles Mathews addressed the 
 Court for the prosecution. I must say he was 
 scrupulously fiir. He confined himself, in fact, to 
 a description of the transactions as they came out 
 at the civil trial, and he gave me credit for having 
 come over to answer the charges ' at the earliest 
 possible moment,' and having done all I could to 
 make amends. His address, in short, was as much 
 as to say that, though the Public Prosecutor had 
 felt bound to take proceedings and to make the 
 charge clear, there was no desire to press for a 
 severe sentence. Mr. Lawson Walton followed 
 with a statement of points in my favour, with a view 
 to mitigation of sentence; and Mr. Mathews so 
 
 far helped him to say that neither Captain S 
 
 C nor anyone associated with him had ever 
 
 sought to attach criminal responsibility to me for 
 using his name as I did, though I must say this 
 was hardly in accordance with facts. He further 
 gave Mr. Walton the opportunity of stating that 
 my friends had provided funds to meet my 
 liabilities. If ever there was an occasion when a 
 
 17 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Judge might have tempered justice with mercy to 
 the satisfaction of all concerned, surely that was 
 one. But Mr. Justice Lawrance saw otherwise. 
 
 No advocate trying to make a sensation could 
 have appealed more to class prejudice than he did. 
 While professing to give the fullest weight to my 
 counsel's ' eloquent ' words, he yet twisted them 
 round so as to make them tell dead against me. 
 He denied indignantly that punishment falls more 
 heavily on a man of high position than on an 
 ordinary person. Nobody had ever said that it 
 did; but that was Mr. Justice Lawrance's way of 
 intimating that he meant to make me smart for 
 belonging to a well-known family. When he 
 came to this, he made a strange pretence of wish- 
 ing to spare my feelings. He said : * I do not 
 want to say anything to trouble you unnecessarily,' 
 and he immediately proceeded to say the bitterest 
 things he could think of, as if determined to 
 prevent my ever holding my head up again. He 
 fittingly concluded by condemning me to five 
 years' penal servitude, the maximum penalty 
 allowed by the law for the offence to which I had 
 pleaded guilty. The stranger in Holloway had 
 prophesied truly. 
 
 If I remember rightly, it was Lord Bacon who 
 
 i8
 
 A ' Popular ' Judge 
 
 said ' A popular Judge is a hateful thing,' but I 
 do not think he can have used the word * popular ' 
 in the ordinary sense. I think he must have had 
 in his mind that sort of Judge who looks for 
 popular applause and who studies what he sup- 
 poses to be public opinion rather than what he 
 knows to be justice. 
 
 Mr. Justice Lawrance delivered sentence in a loud 
 voice, as if to complete the sensation of the scene 
 by giving me a knock-down blow; but it had not 
 that effect on me. One of the daily papers said 
 I seemed utterly stunned, but, in fact, I never felt 
 less stunned in my life. All through that day 1 
 never had the least feeling of nervousness or 
 shakiness. Heaven knows this was not due to 
 indifference. I attribute it to my having thought 
 about it beforehand so long and so constantly that 
 I had come to regard myself as someone else, with 
 whom I could sympathize, but in whose feelings I 
 had only a secondary interest. I dare say there 
 were those present who were equally surprised and 
 disappointed at my taking it so calmly. I have 
 not good sight, and I could only with difficulty 
 make out a few of the people near me, but 1 have 
 since read in the papers that in the Court were 
 many of my so-called old friends. The next 
 
 19 2 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 number of 'Truth had a paragraph on the subject 
 which is worth reprinting here : 
 
 *When Damiens, who tried to assassinate 
 Louis XV. J had his limbs torn from him, the 
 ladies of the Court witnessed the execution, and, 
 as the drivers thrashed the horses, lisped, " Les 
 pauvres chevaux ! les pauvres chevaux !" Some- 
 one has wisely said that " The world, after nearly 
 two thousand years, has scarcely spelt out three 
 letters of the meaning of Christianity." At the 
 close of the enlightened nineteenth century the 
 ladies of London society throng to the Central 
 Criminal Court to be present at the trial of a 
 former companion, and to watch him as he is 
 being dragged through the mire of disgrace ! Of 
 the crime and of the well-merited punishment it is 
 unnecessary to write here ; but in thus protesting 
 against the unladylike conduct of such women, 
 the unwomanly conduct of such ladies, I am giving 
 voice to the feelings of abhorrence which their 
 behaviour has generally excited.' 
 
 It will be noticed that this writer calls my 
 punishment * well merited.' In another part of 
 the same issue of Truth it was said that I * deserved 
 the full penalty, and the learned Judge deserved 
 the congratulations which were offered him from 
 
 20
 
 A ' Popular ' Judge 
 
 so many quarters on having dealt with a peer's 
 son as if he had been an ordinary mortal.' Un- 
 fortunately, that is exactly what Mr. Justice 
 Lawrance did not do. But this is just the sort of 
 congratulation and praise that he laid himself out 
 to gain, and it could not have come from a more 
 appropriate quarter. The worst I wish Mr. 
 Labouchere is that, if ever he gets into trouble, 
 he may come before a Judge who really will deal 
 with him as an ordinary mortal, and not make his 
 aristocratic descent a reason for giving him double 
 or treble the punishment that an ordinary mortal 
 would get. 
 
 The Times indulged in nearly a column of 
 triumph, mentioning my relatives by name 
 and doing all it could to add to the severity 
 of an already excessive sentence. It seems 
 never to have struck these stern moralists that 
 a man in my position, who has once been con- 
 victed, can never shake off the disgrace in all his 
 life, whereas nine out of ten in the ordinary ranks 
 of life are able, on leaving prison, to hide their 
 identity and start afresh, if they choose to do so. 
 Happily, there are f\r more eminent authorities 
 than Mr. Justice Lawrance, Mr. Labouchere, or 
 the Times leader-writer, who differ entirely in 
 
 21
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 opinion from them on this point. The present 
 Lord Chief Justice is one. 
 
 Quite recently, when a man of high standing 
 in Lancashire was tried at Liverpool for em- 
 bezzling large sums of money belonging to a 
 trust estate, Lord Alver stone expressly stated that 
 he ' felt bound to make allowance for the social 
 degradation the prisoner had brought on himself, 
 and for that reason he would pass a modified sen- 
 tence of three years' penal servitude.' But the 
 Lord Chief Justice is not a * popular ' Judge in 
 the Baconian sense, and I sincerely trust he never 
 will be. 
 
 22
 
 IV 
 
 PLAIN TALES FROM THE PRISONS 
 
 I THINK it was Mr. W. T. Stead who said it 
 ought to be part of the training of every Judge 
 that he should himself undergo a term of imprison- 
 ment, so as to know exactly what the punishments 
 he inflicts amount to, and how they affect different 
 persons. It would certainly be a very good thing, 
 and it might lead to much-needed reforms, if 
 legislators and the public generally were made 
 aware of what actually goes on within the walls of 
 the prisons. I propose, therefore, to do what little 
 I can towards that end by relating in the plainest 
 form of narrative what happened to myself whilst 
 at penal servitude, and what I observed and 
 thought worthy of noting in the prison system. 
 This has scarcely ever been done except in official 
 treatises, which the public never see, or else in 
 sensational articles by newspaper writers, which 
 are often altogether misleading and often absurd, 
 because they only describe what appears on the 
 
 23
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 surface. I will try my best to lay the real facts 
 before my readers. 
 
 As soon as sentence had been pronounced at 
 the Old Bailey, I was taken down and placed in 
 a cell, and was told that I could order what I liked 
 for my luncheon. Having done so, I was locked 
 in, but in a few minutes the door was again 
 opened, and two gentlemen were shown into the 
 cell. One of them, I believe, was one of the 
 Sheriffs of London, who had been at the trial. 
 He very kindly asked me if he could do anything 
 for me, and whether I wished to write any letters. 
 The warder, however, interfered, and said this 
 could not be allowed, and the two gentlemen left. 
 After I had had my luncheon — the last decent 
 meal that I was to have for three years and nine 
 months — some of my relations arrived, and I 
 spoke to them in the presence of the Governor 
 for about five minutes. I was then taken back to 
 my cell, where I remained until three or four 
 o'clock, the authorities not thinking it advisable 
 for me to be taken out until the crowd had 
 dispersed. 
 
 Before starting, I was handcuffed, and, accom- 
 panied by two officers, I was driven off" in a four- 
 wheeler. There were still a great many people 
 
 24
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 about, and on the way I constantly saw my name in 
 big type on the posters, with the verdict underneath. 
 On arriving at Wormwood Scrubs I was handed 
 over to the officials, and immediately taken to the 
 receiving-room. There I undressed and had a 
 bath, and then for the first time put on convict 
 clothes, such as they were. No one article had 
 the slightest semblance of fitting, as convicts do 
 not get new outfits until they reach the prison 
 where they serve their separate confinement. I 
 was next examined by the doctor, who at once 
 ordered me to be admitted to the hospital, as I 
 was already beginning to suffer from a painful 
 and troublesome internal complaint, which very 
 nearly necessitated an operation. Before, how- 
 ever, being taken to my cell in the hospital, I was 
 measured and weighed, and had all my hair 
 clipped ofi-'. I was about four weeks in this cell, 
 and was then moved into an association ward, as 
 my complaint got so much worse, the doctors 
 thought I could be better looked after there, 
 especially at night, for there is always a nurse on 
 duty, with a prisoner orderly. I was in rather a 
 bad state, the nature of my malady making it 
 almost impossible for mc to lie down or get any 
 rest. I also found the prison food very difficult 
 
 25
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 to tackJe, though I had so little inclination to eat 
 anything that it did not matter much. The only 
 other occupants of the ward were a man who had 
 been for many years in the police force, but had 
 been convicted of a violent assault on a superior 
 officer when drunk on duty one night ; and 
 another who had killed his wife, and then cut his 
 own throat so badly that he was only able to 
 breathe through a tube, and lived entirely on 
 liquids. He was a very quiet, inoffensive man, 
 and I felt sorry for him ; but it was rather re- 
 volting to be near him at meal-times, and I was 
 glad when he Vv'as removed. I was seven weeks 
 altogether at Wormwood Scrubs, and it seemed 
 like seven years. It was the worst part of the 
 whole imprisonment. When I had been in the 
 cell for three weeks I got into such a state of 
 nervous irritation that one day, if the priest had 
 not come to pay me a visit at the critical moment, 
 I firmly beheve I should have given way to that 
 violent impulse which often overcomes prisoners, 
 and have destroyed the things in my cell. 
 
 After seven weeks I was ordered to be removed 
 to Parkhurst. First offenders condemned to penal 
 servitude, after a short time in a local gaol, are, as 
 a rule, sent to Lewes prison to serve their separate 
 
 26
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 confinement, and are afterwards removed either to 
 Portland or to Parkhurst, the only two convict 
 prisons where first offenders are sent. In my case, 
 however, there were special reasons why I should 
 not go to Lewes, and it was therefore decided to 
 send me straight from Wormwood Scrubs to 
 Parkhurst. Any change was a change for the 
 better, yet, when the time came, for some reasons 
 I was sorry to leave. The Deputy-Governor, 
 
 Mr. N , who was in charge during nearly the 
 
 whole of my sojourn there, had been extremely 
 kind, and so had the doctor, the priest, the 
 Church of England chaplain, and the officers, with 
 one exception. No one who has not been a 
 prisoner knows what such kindness means. Whilst 
 I was at Wormwood Scrubs Mr. Pickersgill, 
 then M.P. for Bethnal Green, for some reason or 
 other took a particular interest in me, and asked 
 several questions in the House of Commons as to 
 why I was allowed to do this or that. I wonder 
 whether he would have been so concerned about 
 me if I had been a burglar. 
 
 On March 26 I was removed to Parkhurst 
 Convict Prison in the Isle of Wight. It had 
 been snowing for two days previously, and, as the 
 streets were very bad, I left Wormwood Scrubs
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 soon after six a.m. to catch a train at Waterloo 
 about eight. I was handcuffed and taken 
 in charge of the principal warder of the 
 hospital and an assistant warder. When we 
 arrived at Waterloo we found we were half an 
 hour too soon, and a railway official came up 
 and told the warders they could take me into 
 one of the waiting-rooms, where there was a fire. 
 On looking through the door, however, I saw 
 the room was full of people, so I asked to be 
 allowed to remain out in the station instead. 
 When the train came in I was locked in a third- 
 class compartment, one of the inspectors having 
 had some hot-v/ater tins put in, for it was bitterly 
 cold. A small crowd, of course, collected round 
 the carriage to stare at me, for a prisoner in 
 convict dress, though far from attractive, always 
 causes a sensation. On arriving at Southampton, 
 we immediately went on board the steamer, and 
 I was taken below, where I remained until we 
 arrived at Cowes. The weather being very rough, 
 my handcuffs were taken off, but one or other of 
 the warders sat by my side all the way across. At 
 Cowes the usual idlers were waiting, but I was 
 at once put into a small omnibus, which is used 
 for the transport of prisoners, and reached Park- 
 
 28
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 hurst about one o'clock, after the most unpleasant 
 journey I had ever taken, which I hope never to 
 repeat. On arriving at the prison, I was handed 
 over to an officer and taken before the Deputy- 
 Governor, Captain F , who asked whether I 
 
 had any complaint to make, to which I answered 
 * No.' I was then taken to the infirmary and 
 
 examined by the medical officer, Dr. Q , who 
 
 at once admitted me on account of my internal 
 trouble, which was still causing me great pain. 
 Soon after I reached my cell the master tailor 
 
 came, Mr. M , a very nice man and a very 
 
 capable officer, with one of the prisoners who 
 worked in the tailors' shop, to measure me for 
 my clothes. Every prisoner on being received 
 into a convict prison is fitted out with a complete 
 suit of new things, or things as good as new. As 
 1 was above the ordinary height, and there were 
 no clothes of my size in stock, everything had to 
 be made specially for me. 1 remained in the 
 infirmary for three months, and was then moved 
 up into what is known as the ' B ' hall infirmary, 
 where men who are not seriously ill are placed. 
 I was not yet allowed to go out to work, as in 
 those days every convict had to do nine months ot 
 what is called separate confinement. 
 
 29
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 This means that out of the twenty-four hours 
 he has one hour's exercise, and for the other 
 twenty-three hours he is shut up alone in his cell, 
 working for eight hours at any occupation that is 
 considered suitable for him. 
 
 The work generally given to the men is making 
 mail-bags, or rough sewing of some kind or other. 
 But owing to my having got very much run down 
 I was set to knitting stockings, which almost any- 
 one can learn in a few lessons, and which, after 
 a while, becomes rather absorbing. There is just 
 enough thought required to keep the mind partly 
 engaged ; and, as the knitter can walk or sit, or 
 work in almost any attitude, he gets a certain 
 amount of change. 
 
 I believe the prison authorities try their utmost to 
 adapt the employments to the mental and physical 
 needs of the different men under their charge ; 
 but, at the best, the system of ' separate confine- 
 ment ' is a very bad one. It is only solitary con- 
 finement slightly improved, and it has some of the 
 worst effects of that terrible punishment. The 
 intention of it, doubtless, is to impress the prisoner 
 with the gravity of his offence against society, and 
 to bring him to a better state of mind. But in 
 some cases, I am convinced, it has quite the 
 
 30
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 opposite result. The solitude and the hopeless 
 monotony, with nothing to think of but the long 
 years of suffering and disgrace ahead, produces 
 nervous irritation, approaching in some cases to 
 frenzy, and, instead of softening the man, brings 
 out all the evil there is in him. Under such con- 
 ditions the worst companions he could have are 
 his own thoughts. In men of a different tempera- 
 ment, again, it deadens all sensibility, so that they 
 do not care a straw what happens afterwards, but 
 would just as soon become habitual criminals as 
 not. It is this sullen hatred of themselves and of 
 everybody else engendered and fostered during 
 the long, dismal months of separate confinement 
 that makes the most dangerous and troublesome 
 prisoners at a later stage. There are a third class, 
 who, having no criminal instincts, nor any strong 
 instincts at all, merely give way mentally without 
 any acute distress, and become little better than 
 half-witted by the time their separate confinement 
 is at an end. It took the prison reformers many 
 years to realize the truth of this, for separate con- 
 finement was one of their pet hobbies. But it has 
 at last been recognised in a practical way, the 
 term of this singularly mistaken form of punish- 
 ment having now been reduced from nine months 
 
 31
 
 Peaal Servitude 
 
 to five. This is a great improvement, for every 
 day of such misery makes a difference. But it is 
 not enough. If nine months were too long, so 
 are five months. For all the good that it can do 
 one month of separate confinement is all that is 
 required, and even during that month it would do 
 the prisoner no harm, but would help to save his 
 self-respect and strengthen his good resolves or 
 impulses, to let him feel that he is not altogether 
 out of touch with humanity. 
 
 In November, when I had served nine months 
 of my sentence, but was still in bad health, I went 
 out with one of the hospital working parties, and 
 found the change an unspeakable relief. The work 
 we had to do was not beyond our strength. It 
 consisted of mending the paths and odd jobs of 
 that kind within the prison walls. From this 
 time my health slowly improved, though I had 
 become so thin that I v/as literally a walking 
 skeleton. I had always been slender and light for 
 my height, weighing about 12 stone, standing 
 6 feet ^ inch in my stockings ; I now weighed no 
 more than about 9 stone 10 lbs. In fact, I almost 
 realized Euclid's definition of a line — namely, length 
 without breadth. It seemed a marvel how I could 
 be as well as I was with so little flesh. Any 
 
 32
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 unknown prisoner who had shrunk to such a bag 
 of bones as I was would assuredly have stood a 
 good chance of being released on the ground that 
 further imprisonment would endanger life. The 
 Jameson Raiders were let out after only a few 
 months, because their health was considered too 
 delicate for them to bear even the mild restraint 
 of first-class misdemeanants at Holloway ! I 
 wonder how they would have got on as real 
 prisoners, for being a first-class misdemeanant 
 is only playing at the game. From November, 
 1898, to May, 1899, in 'B' hall infirmary 
 I was one of the assistant orderlies, which 
 meant being out of my cell a good deal, cleaning 
 staircases, going round with breakfast, dinner, 
 and supper, helping to distribute medicines, 
 and attending to the men who were confined to 
 bed through illness. I found these duties no 
 hardship, and though I was obliged to do some 
 rather dirty work, yet I looked on it as a godsend, 
 as the more one has to do, the better it is for one's 
 mind. I kept up my spirits, and made the best 
 of things, and time began to pass much more 
 rapidly. 
 
 By the month of May 1 was so much better that 
 I was transferred to ' A ' hall, where all the able*
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 bodied * star ' class, or first offenders are ; and I 
 joined one of the fiall-labour farm parties. The 
 work I did with them was hay-making, digging 
 potatoes, and carting manure, and other kinds of 
 farm work. In the carting, as a rule, no horses 
 are employed, but the men draw the cart, harnessed 
 two by two to a long rope. I frankly say this 
 was the part I liked best. The open-air exercise 
 and the variety were a positive delight after the 
 monotony of crawling along with the hospital 
 party, and as for the supposed degradation of 
 drawing a cart, it made no earthly difference to 
 me, since I had to serve my sentence, whether I 
 pulled at the rope or whether I sat on the top 
 and drove the horse, as a free farm-labourer does. 
 Why should it be more degrading to pull a cart 
 than it is to push a barrow.? I never felt any 
 repulsion from any kind of prison work, but from 
 the beginning I made up my mind to do what I 
 was told to do, and to the best of my strength, 
 and I found this was far the best way. 
 
 In a debate in Parliament on prison treatment 
 some years ago the Irish members who had been 
 in prison made a great fuss about the kind of work 
 they had had to do. Mr. Michael Davitt com- 
 plained most loudly of all. He had undergone a 
 
 34
 
 Plain Tales from the Prisons 
 
 long term of penal servitude, and after his release 
 he was elected to the House of Commons. In 
 the course of this debate he created a sensation by 
 mentioning that, whilst at Portland, it had been 
 part of his work to be harnessed daily to a cart, 
 as if he were a mule or a horse, and to drag 
 stones this way and that, for hour after hour. 
 Mr. Davitt is a one-armed man, and that was 
 probably the reason why he was put to carting, 
 as so few employments are open to men with his 
 deficiency. But it was proved that his health did 
 not suffer; and I can personally testify that carting 
 is infinitely preferable to moping in a cell. I have 
 heard of a well-to-do German i^auer driving a 
 plough with his old wife and cow in double 
 harness, and distributing his whip impartially 
 between them. At least, we were never whipped. 
 The summer of 1899 was very hot, and after 
 three months' working out on the farm I got so 
 knocked up, and some varicose veins I suffered 
 from became so inflamed, I had to go back to 
 hospital, where I remained for about two months. 
 During this time I was quite unfit for out-of-door 
 work, and could take very little exercise at all. 
 I therefore spent nearly the whole day knitting, 
 which helped to pass the time away. Many of 
 
 35 3—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the men in hospital were content to do nothing, 
 but others were only too glad to get employment, 
 no matter what. For my own part, it was every- 
 thing to me to keep the mind employed, and to 
 think as little as possible on what had been and 
 what could never be again. However, better times 
 were coming, as I had now been in prison a year 
 and eight months, nearly half the actual length of 
 my term. 
 
 36
 
 BETTER DAYS, AND THE END 
 
 In October, 1899, I was considered fit for work 
 again, but as I was still a mere scarecrow, the 
 medical officer considered I had better remain in 
 ' B ' hall, so that I could have extra diet when 
 necessary, without being admitted into the hospital 
 as a regular patient. I therefore went out to work 
 again in my old party on the farm, and again 
 became one of the orderlies in ' B ' hall infirmary ; 
 but I was treated exactly the same as the other 
 men, with the exception of having a cell which was 
 usually reserved for hospital patients. I continued 
 to work out on the farm till January, but then 
 the labour of digging when the ground was frozen 
 caused my varicose veins again to become trouble- 
 some, and I was in consequence transferred to 
 No. 24 party, consisting of printers and book- 
 binders. In that party I remained until the 
 expiration of my sentence — that is, for about one 
 year and ten months — with the exception of going 
 
 37
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 out for one month each summer to work on the 
 farm. Most of the men employed in the shops 
 are allowed a change into the fresh air for a few 
 weeks during the year, and a very wise arrange- 
 ment it is. It helps to keep them in health, and 
 it also prevents their getting stale and listless at 
 their indoor work. Although they are at hard 
 labour all the time they are on the farm, they 
 look upon it as a sort of holiday, and it does them 
 as much good. Whilst in the shops I was 
 employed entirely in bookbinding, which becomes 
 very interesting when one has gained a little skill 
 at it. 
 
 As printing and bookbinding form the most 
 important branch of industry in the prison. No. 24 
 party is the largest, consisting always of from fifty 
 to sixty men. We worked at what is called the 
 old, or upper prison, because it was used as a 
 prison up to about fifteen years ago, before the 
 ' A ' hall was built. It is five minutes' walk from 
 the lower prison, and it is now only used as work- 
 shops. The whole time that I was there I worked 
 next to a young fellow whose trial twelve years 
 ago aroused a great deal of public interest. He 
 was then only a boy of sixteen, and his case is 
 surely one that gives rise to grave reflections. 
 
 38
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 When I left he had been in prison considerably 
 over eleven years, and not only had his conduct 
 throughout been exceptionally good, for he never 
 gave the slightest trouble to any of the officials, 
 but his work as a bookbinder was that of a trained 
 expert. Any special books that required extreme 
 care in binding, or extra ornamentation, were given 
 to him to do, and the rapidity and neatness with 
 which he turned out his work were extraordinary. 
 His quick intelligence and nimble fingers were 
 equal to any task, and he evidently had the artistic 
 sense strongly developed. He was always trust- 
 worthy and good-tempered, and was the in- 
 structor's right-hand man. From inquiries I 
 have since made, I learn that he could easily 
 command a very high rate of wages when he once 
 more regained his freedom. He is now a man of 
 twenty-eight, and though he has the fatal letter 
 ' L ' on his arm, signifying a life sentence — that 
 is, twenty years in prison before release, in the 
 ordinary course — it is to be hoped the Secretary 
 of State may take his case into consideration, and 
 that before long he may be released and become a 
 useful member of the community. The men 
 working the printing-machines were in one room, 
 and the bookbinders and compositors in another, 
 
 39
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 two officers being in charge of the party — a 
 warder and an assistant-warder, one or other of 
 whom remained constantly in each room. There 
 was also an instructor, who went from room to 
 room overlooking the work, and showing the men 
 how to do it properly. New hands were always 
 placed next to old stagers, so that they might 
 learn from them and get what help they needed. 
 On March i in each year four or five men are 
 chosen to pack up and send out the bound books 
 and printed forms. This packing takes about five 
 weeks. The last year I was at Parkhurst I was 
 told off as one of the packers, and was surprised 
 at the magnitude of the business. All the books 
 and forms used in the convict and local prisons in 
 England and Wales, which number between fifty 
 and sixty, are printed and bound at Parkhurst, 
 making altogether the formidable total of over 
 ten thousand bound books, and over four millions 
 of printed forms annually. Most of this bulk 
 passed through the hands of myself and my fellow- 
 packers. I liked being in the printers' party very 
 much indeed. The only serious drawback was 
 the small amount of exercise one got. Men 
 working long hours in a heated atmosphere, heavy 
 with the smell of gas and glue, need to have their 
 
 40
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 lungs opened freely, and their brain well cleared 
 every day, and some provision ought decidedly to 
 be made for this. Under the present routine 
 there is no exercise at all beyond the walk to and 
 fro between the upper and lower prisons, about 
 five minutes each way, and about twenty minutes' 
 exercise in the upper yard on first arriving there 
 in the morning. To some extent, perhaps, the 
 frequent searching that takes place in the open air 
 may serve the purpose, and it may, therefore, be 
 convenient to describe it in connection with this 
 subject. 
 
 Before proceeding to work, both in the morning 
 and after dinner, all the men fall in with their 
 respective parties, the ' stars,' or first offenders, 
 having a separate parade ground to themselves. 
 The men are -formed up in double rank, and the 
 order is then given to open order and right or left 
 extend, as the case may be. The officers then 
 search their men, each man unbuttoning his slop, 
 coat, and waistcoat, and holding out his cap in one 
 hand and his handkerchief in the other. While 
 the man is in this attitude the officer passes his 
 hands all over his body and limbs, a process 
 technically known as ' rubbing down.* On this 
 being completed, the parties are marched off to 
 
 41
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 their respective places of work. The same pro- 
 cess is repeated on the return of the parties before 
 the men go to their cells, so that they are * rubbed 
 down,' or searched, four times a day. This is to 
 make sure that they have not brought anything 
 out of their cells, and have nothing on them but 
 their clothes and handkerchief. In addition to 
 these four daily searches, once a month, as a rule, 
 sometimes oftener, the whole party are marched 
 off, without notice, to what is called the Cockpit, 
 in ' A ' hall, which consists of about twenty cells, 
 and each man in turn is taken into a cell, where 
 he strips to his flannel vest, placing all his clothes 
 outside the door, so that they may be thoroughly 
 examined by an officer. Yet prisoners sometimes 
 contrive to conceal articles for a long time, and 
 the most extraordinary things are found upon 
 them. In one case I know of a sovereign was 
 discovered upon a man who had been in prison 
 over a year, and who must, therefore, have been 
 ' rubbed down ' at least a thousand times, and 
 more closely searched over and over again. I 
 cannot explain in detail the ingenious method 
 adopted in this instance ; but I may say the only 
 safe depository a naked man has is his stomach, 
 and this man had many times, in order to retain 
 
 42
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 the coveted treasure, inflicted on himself a certain 
 amount of physical pain. Some of the men make 
 a great grievance of the continual searching, but 
 personally, I could never see that it mattered in 
 the least, save for the risk in severe weather of 
 taking cold through the exposure, and I never 
 heard of any ill efi^ects from that cause. Whether 
 it is necessary or not is another question. For 
 my own part, I think it is. But for it the worst 
 class of convicts, the old, practised hands, would 
 manage to get possession of all sorts of things, 
 and the difficulty of maintaining discipline would 
 be enormously increased. I am sure most of the 
 well-conducted and well-disposed convicts would 
 agree with me that the searching does not trouble 
 them in the slightest degree. From the brief 
 description I have given it may be gathered that 
 the search parade and the ' rub down ' four times 
 a day constitute a sort of drill, and if it were 
 supplemented by a twenty minutes' exercise after 
 dinner, as in the morning, it would, I should say, 
 be much better for the health of the men, and 
 there would be less grumbling. Some parties do 
 get the afternoon exercise, but the printers were 
 among those that did not. I have dwelt on this 
 matter because I feel strongly that it is one where 
 
 43
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 a great improvement can be made. The compul- 
 sory deprivation of exercise to some men engaged 
 in indoor work is nothing Jess than slow torture ; 
 but its effects are so insidious and indirect that it 
 escapes notice when much less important features 
 of our prison system arouse an outcry and get 
 remedied. The seriousness of the evil is aggra- 
 vated tenfold by the character of the prison diet, 
 with which I shall deal fully in another chapter. 
 I think, that every man ought to have a full hour's 
 exercise a day. 
 
 As the time drew near, when in all reasonable 
 probability I should leave No. 24 party, rejoiced 
 as I was at the prospect of liberty, I could not 
 help feeling a strange kind of regret. I know it 
 is largely a question of temperament; but still, I 
 can hardly imagine any man, not utterly brutalized, 
 so unsociable as to be insensible of attachment to 
 some of those among whom he has lived, and 
 with whom he has worked, for nearly two years. 
 I am not at all ashamed to say, for myself, that 
 being naturally what Dr. Johnson called a ' club- 
 bable ' man, by which I suppose he meant gre- 
 garious and sympathetic, I had an esprit de corps 
 towards, and a real liking for, many of the men, 
 quite regardless of their crimes. I believe that 
 
 44
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 * clubbability ' is an innate quality of Englishmen, 
 and that it asserts itself in a convict prison just 
 as much, allowing for circumstances, as it does 
 elsewhere. Certainly, we had enough variety to 
 make a harmonious whole. I think amongst us 
 we represented almost every class and profession. 
 There were ex-clergymen, ex-dissenting ministers, 
 ex-doctors, ex-solicitors — these in overwhelming 
 proportion to the others — soldiers, sailors, school- 
 masters, bank managers, and for a time one ex-M.P. 
 I do not remember any ex-barristers. There may 
 have been many, but if so, they were ' dressed up 
 in white people's clothes,' as Artemus Ward used 
 to say. Neither was there a single ex-catholic 
 priest. Whatever may be the merits or demerits 
 of the Catholic clergy, they have the knack of 
 keeping outside of convict prisons, except when 
 engaged in their religious duties. 
 
 Being above the middle height, I was always 
 one of the leading file of my party, another tall 
 prisoner being with me. This brought me into 
 contact with three men, all of whom, curiously 
 enough, had been soldiers. Two of them, an 
 ex-dragoon and an ex-marine, I liked very much 
 indeed. The third, however, an ex-artillery officer, 
 and a giant in stature and strength, was some- 
 
 45
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 times anything but an agreeable companion to 
 march beside. His behaviour became at last so 
 threatening that I had to request that we should 
 be parted, and he was then placed in the rear of 
 the party by himself. I learn that since I left 
 he has gone mad, and I am not surprised. 
 
 One of the earliest experiences after entering 
 upon prison life is being photographed in prison 
 dress, and three months before discharge prisoners 
 are obliged to grow their hair so that photographs 
 may be taken showing approximately the normal 
 appearance. Two or three weeks before discharge 
 they are decorated with a sort of make-up collar 
 and tie, and double-breasted dark-blue jacket, and 
 photographs are taken of them in this costume, 
 with their hair, moustache, and beard fully grown. 
 This is intended to show them as they will appear 
 in ordinary life after their release ; but it is rather 
 foolish, because nine out of ten change their whole 
 appearance when they get outside by shaving and 
 dressing according to their own ideas, and accord- 
 ing to their class. I am sure no one would recog- 
 nise me now from my official portrait. However, 
 copies of these works of art are sent to Scotland 
 Yard and to the Home Office, together with a full 
 description, giving height, colour of hair, eyes, 
 
 46
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 
 etc., and any distinctive marks on the body. Last 
 year, also, shortly before I left, the; system of 
 taking and registering impressions of the thumbs 
 and fingers was introduced. This, a sort of 
 Berthillon method, is, I believe, supposed to be an 
 absolutely infallible means of identification ; how- 
 ever, I think that is open to doubt, though it may 
 be, and certainly is, a great help towards identifi- 
 cation. 
 
 On November 6 I did my last day's work, for 
 though I should not be released till the morning 
 of the 8th, I was what is called * located ' on the 
 previous day. During the morning of the 7th 1 
 was sent for by the Governor, who informed me 
 that I should be discharged at the gate the follow- 
 ing morning. The medical officer also sent for 
 me to see that I was in good health. A prisoner, 
 on the afternoon before his release, has his prison 
 clothes, his books, etc., taken from him, and he 
 then has his own clothes, which have been sent 
 him by his friends, given him, or, if he has none 
 of his own, he is supplied with a complete outfit, 
 consisting of hat, suit, boots, and two sets of 
 underclothing, of the total value of ;^i 17s. If 
 he prefer he may procure clothes from one of the 
 Prisoners' Aid Societies, the Government paying 
 
 47
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ^i 17s. towards the cost. In my case I had my 
 clothes sent me from home. 1 was taken down 
 to the stores to receive them, and to sign for them, 
 and I then took them back to my cell. After 
 dinner I had a bath, my convict clothes were taken 
 from me, and I put on my own, and at once began 
 to feel more civilized. On November 8, 1901, 
 having earned the maximum number of marks for 
 good conduct, without forfeiting any, I was dis- 
 charged after completing three years and nine 
 months' imprisonment. This is equivalent to a 
 sentence of five years, as, by good conduct, a 
 remission of one-fourth of the nominal term can 
 be gained. I shall not soon forget that morning. 
 I got up at 5.10 a.m. as usual, and had my last — 
 at least, I hope it will be my last — prison breakfast, 
 and at 7.30 a principal warder took me down to 
 
 the gate. Canon C , the Catholic chaplain, 
 
 was there to meet me with a cab, and I drove off 
 with him to Newport, and had breakfast with him 
 there — my first decent meal since the luncheon I 
 ordered in at Newgate after being sentenced in 
 February, 1898. In that famous book, 'The 
 Pleasures of Life,' Lord Avebury gives the mere 
 animal gratification of good eating a place among 
 the legitimate minor enjoyments that help to make 
 
 4S
 
 Better Days, and the End 
 
 up the sum of human happiness. But only those 
 can appreciate it fully who have known nothing 
 but sameness, tastelessness, and too often repulsive- 
 ness in nearly everything they have had to eat for 
 years. After breakfast we took the train to Ryde, 
 
 and I had the pleasure of Canon C 's company 
 
 to Portsmouth, where I bade him farewell. I 
 shall never forget his great kindness to me during 
 my sojourn at Parkhurst. 
 
 At Portsmouth I met Father M , who had 
 
 been chaplain at Parkhurst before Canon C . 
 
 He also was a true friend to me, and I owe him a 
 deep debt of gratitude for his unfailing goodness 
 in the earlier part of my imprisonment. The 
 visits of priest or chaplain are at all times a perfect 
 godsend, but never so much as during the first 
 year of a long sentence. The eternal monotony 
 of prison life, the loneliness with nothing to look 
 forward to but years of the same deadly dulness, 
 is simply appalling. I think Catholics are more 
 fortunate than their Church of England fellow- 
 prisoners, because of the more frequent visits of 
 the priests. I shall, however, recur to this point 
 later in my remarks on prison system and dis- 
 cipline. I will only add here that as the priests 
 had helped to make existence bearable for me 
 
 49 4
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 whilst in prison, so they were among the first to 
 receive me and to smooth the way for me when I 
 found myself once more in the outer world. In 
 fact, one of them whom I had known from boy- 
 hood took the trouble to come half the way to 
 Portsmouth to meet me, and travelled up to town 
 with me. 
 
 On arriving in London, I went straight home, 
 and later in the day I went to Scotland Yard to 
 report myself, as every discharged convict is 
 obliged to do, within twenty-four hours of his 
 release, being nominally on ticket-of-leave until 
 the end of his original sentence. 
 
 The only ex-convicts who have no ticket-of- 
 leave, and are, therefore, absolutely free on release, 
 are soldiers and sailors who have been sentenced 
 by court-martial, and those who from bad conduct 
 in prison have had to serve every day of their 
 sentence. The next month I petitioned the 
 Secretary of State to have my ticket remitted, 
 which he very kindly consented to. I was then 
 once more absolutely free. 
 
 50 
 
 I
 
 VI 
 
 GOVERNORS AND DEPUTY-GOVERNORS 
 
 From the preceding chapters a general idea may 
 be gained of the discipline and life in a convict 
 prison, but in order to convey a clearer impression, 
 and to make some of the subsequent descriptions 
 more intelligible, it may be as well to give a precise 
 account of the official organization, followed by the 
 details of the daily routine. 
 
 The ruler of the prison is the Governor, who is 
 usually, but not necessarily, a retired military or 
 naval man, and who has previously gained a long 
 experience in the rank of Deputy-Governor. He 
 wields almost absolute power within the prison, 
 all his subordinates being required to yield him 
 implicit obedience, they having no authority ex- 
 cept what they derive from him, and no respon- 
 sibility except to him. The Governor himself, 
 however, is responsible to the Prison Directors — a 
 specially appointed body forming a branch of the 
 Home Office under the Secretary of State — and is 
 
 51 4—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 strictly bound by the Home Office regulations. 
 These form, as it were, the constitution of the 
 prison, and have the force of law. Thus, though 
 nominally an autocrat, the Governor is in reality, 
 subject to several checks, the most effective of 
 which are, firstly, the regulations ; secondly, the 
 Prison Directors ; and, thirdly, the Visiting Magis- 
 trates. If he exceeds his powers under the regula- 
 tions in the smallest degree he can be made to 
 answer for it, since every officer and convict has 
 the right to petition the Secretary of State, and to 
 make any complaint he pleases to the Directors, 
 who are altogether independent of the Governor. 
 These important personages are highly-paid officials, 
 and their authority is almost unlimited. As one 
 of the Directors visits every prison once a month, 
 their supervision is by no means a mere form. 
 Among them they possess complete knowledge 
 of all that goes on. The moment a Director 
 enters a prison the Governor becomes a secondary 
 personage, and has to report to him everything of 
 importance that has taken place since the last visit, 
 and has to produce books, records, and every other 
 sort of information or disclosure that he may 
 require. All requests or complaints on the part 
 of officers or convicts, notice of which has to be 
 
 52
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 given beforehand, are deliberately considered by 
 the Director at a sort of court, where the Governor 
 is present, and where the officer or convict is 
 invited to state his request or complaint, and is 
 allowed to plead his own cause. The Director 
 either gives his decision then and there, or defers 
 it for further consideration, and it is practically 
 final. It is duly recorded by a prison clerk, so 
 that there may be no mistake as to its being carried 
 out. The time has long gone by when even the 
 most imperious or self-willed Governor would 
 venture to exercise his power according to his 
 own caprice. 
 
 It might be thought that this dual control would 
 cause confusion and weaken the authority of the 
 Governor, but, as a matter of fact, it works very 
 well in practice. It furnishes a very real safe- 
 guard against tyranny, and this is enhanced by 
 the functions of the Visiting Magistrates. These 
 are not paid officials at all, but are unpaid Justices 
 of the peace, who visit the prisons once a month 
 to award punishments for the more serious class 
 of prison offi^nces. The Governor, of course, has 
 power to inflict slighter penalties for breaches of 
 discipline or other delinquencies which need to be 
 dealt with on the spot. But beyond that the 
 
 53
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 power of punishment is entirely in the hands of 
 the Visiting Justices. At each of their visits every 
 serious prison offence has to be reported to them, 
 and it is for them to say what punishment shall 
 be suffered by the offender. The Governor is 
 not supposed to have any voice in the matter at 
 all. Every prisoner undergoing punishment at 
 the time of the visit, moreover, can be seen in his 
 cell by the Magistrates. Under this system there 
 is no possibility, nor even any suspicion, of wanton 
 or arbitrary cruelty. 
 
 Prison punishments, doubtless, are sometimes 
 very severe, and they need to be ; but in all serious 
 cases it is not the Governor who punishes, but the 
 Magistrates, who cannot possibly have any reason 
 for showing animus or undue severity. 
 
 Finally, there are the Inspectors of Prisons, 
 officials of the Home Office, who make a round 
 of the prisons every few months, and as these 
 gentlemen are all old prison Governors themselves, 
 it would be very difficult indeed for a Governor 
 to conceal any sort of dark doings from their keen 
 insight. 
 
 All the stories that one reads or hears of 
 horrors and atrocities in prison, therefore, are 
 either sheer inventions, or else refer to a state of 
 
 S4
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 things that has long since been reformed out of 
 existence. 
 
 Yet, with all these securities against oppression or 
 active ill-treatment, human nature is human nature, 
 and, whether in the higher or the lower grades of 
 the prison service, the personal qualities, habits 
 of mind, and even outward manners of individual 
 officers make an indescribable difference in the lot 
 of those who are under their charge day after day, 
 month after month, and year after year. One 
 will make himself hated and dreaded, or else 
 cordially distrusted and despised, whilst another 
 will command the respect and confidence of every- 
 body under him, although both may be regarded 
 as first-rate men by the Home Office. I found 
 this so at Parkhurst, and it is no doubt so in 
 prisons which I only know by hearsay. 
 
 During the term of my imprisonment I came 
 in contact with four Governors and five Deputy- 
 Governors. The Deputy-Governor, I should say, 
 is the lieutenant, or second in command, of the 
 Governor, and in the absence of the Governor 
 from any cause he actually takes his place and 
 exercises his full powers. The first Governor I 
 
 had to do with was Colonel M , who at that 
 
 time was Governor at Holloway and Newgate 
 
 55
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 prisons. From the little I had to do with him I 
 liked him very much, but my intercourse with 
 him ceased on the day of my conviction. The 
 
 Governor of Wormwood Scrubs, Captain P , 
 
 was away on sick-leave nearly the whole of the 
 seven weeks I was there, and consequently I did 
 not see him more than three or four times. 
 
 The Governor who was at Parkhurst when I 
 
 arrived in 1898 was Colonel P . To my 
 
 great regret, he retired in August, 1900, after 
 
 more than thirty years' service. Colonel P 
 
 was decidedly one of the most kind-hearted men 
 it has ever been my fortune to come across, and 
 I have no hesitation in saying that many men 
 who have turned over a new leaf and become 
 respectable members of the community owe their 
 regeneration entirely to his influence. Every 
 
 Thursday morning Colonel P used to give 
 
 the prisoners a short address in the chapel. Being 
 a Catholic, I naturally did not attend the Church 
 of England services, but I have heard many a man 
 say — and, in fact, it was generally acknowledged — 
 that these little addresses were far more appreciated 
 and made more impression than the sermons of 
 any of the chaplains. The kindness and sympathy 
 
 Colonel P showed me in time of trouble on 
 
 56
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 two occasions when I lost very near relatives I 
 shall never forget. He did all he possibly could 
 to help those who tried to help themselves, and 
 he would always stretch a point to comply with a 
 prisoner's request, if he saw his way. Yet he was 
 by no means a soft man who could be taken 
 advantage of. On the contrary, he could punish 
 with great severity the hopelessly incorrigible class, 
 on whom kindness is utterly thrown away. In 
 short, he was a Governor who took a very serious 
 view of his duties, and who made it a matter of 
 conscience to do as much good in his time as he 
 possibly could. 
 
 Yet every man has his defects, and there were 
 
 two points in which I think Colonel P fell 
 
 short. He did not give enough personal attention 
 to the food, but trusted too much to the capacity 
 and integrity of his steward, not realizing that 
 such over-confidence was bad for the steward and 
 bad for the prisoners. There are few offices more 
 open to abuse, unless closely watched from day to 
 day, than that of steward of a large prison ; and 
 there are few in which negligence causes more 
 suffering. 
 
 Secondly, Colonel P allowed himself at 
 
 times to be unduly influenced in his treatment of 
 
 57
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the subordinate officers by one of the principal 
 warders. He believed everything this man told 
 him, and too often acted upon it, when his own 
 judgment would have been a safer guide. This is 
 a weakness commonly found in men otherwise of 
 strong character — the inclination to rely implicitly 
 on some one person far inferior to themselves. 
 This principal warder was a well-intentioned man, 
 and he was certainly a good friend to the prisoners ; 
 but, like all tale-bearers, he lacked the necessary 
 discretion for exercising authority over others, and 
 when he was promoted later to be chief warder 
 in another prison this disqualification showed 
 itself markedly enough. 
 
 On Colonel P 's retirement, the post of 
 
 Governor was filled by Captain E. W , in 
 
 some ways an unsuitable appointment. Coming 
 direct from Borstal to Parkhurst, he was a striking 
 example of the proverbial round peg in a square 
 hole. Borstal was then a convict prison for 
 habitual offenders only, no first offenders ever 
 being sent there, nor any invalids or imbeciles 
 retained there. Its inmates were nearly all able- 
 bodied convicts, very different from those at Park- 
 hurst. The latter is, in fact, without exception, 
 the most difficult of all the convict prisons to 
 
 58
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 manage ; and for one man who is fit to be 
 Governor there ten might be found who would 
 do perfectly well for Borstal. Parkhurst is partly 
 a lunatic asylum, and partly a hospital or infirmary, 
 with only a small percentage of able-bodied men. 
 Out of the 800 prisoners, nearly a hundred are 
 recognised as weak-minded, and a large proportion 
 of the remainder are not physically sound. It 
 stands to reason that no rigid rule can be applied 
 to such a miscellaneous collection. It is the spirit 
 rather than the strict letter of the regulations that 
 has to be observed at Parkhurst, and a Governor 
 who cannot very soon see that must be wanting in 
 some of the essential qualifications of character 
 and training. This is equally true as to the 
 treatment of the officers, because conduct on their 
 part which would amount to breach of discipline 
 or neglect of duty at Borstal might very likely be 
 quite excusable, or might even be commendable, 
 at Parkhurst. 
 
 Captain E W evidently did not under- 
 stand this in the least. He took the intelligent 
 and elastic methods of working the prison which 
 
 Colonel P had bequeathed to him for mere 
 
 laxity of discipline, and he began immediately to 
 set things straight according to his own ideas and 
 
 59
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 with an exceedingly heavy hand. His manners 
 towards the officers also left much to be desired — 
 at least, as far as I could judge, I thought so. 
 When a man went before him to make some 
 application, it did not seem to make any difference 
 whether the request were reasonable or not, or 
 whether the man's conduct whilst in prison had 
 been without reproach or not. The Governor 
 seemed to assume, as a matter of course, that he 
 was an ill-conditioned prisoner deserving punish- 
 ment instead of indulgence, and invariably refused 
 his application, if he could possibly do so. He 
 gave the impression of being afraid lest the men 
 should get the upper hand if he did not constantly 
 cow them. I have seen men who had gone before 
 him to make some application come back boiling 
 with rage and ready to do any mad thing against 
 him. I could enter into their feelings to a certain 
 extent from my own experience when I made an 
 application which he refused before he had half 
 heard what I had to say. It was only a small 
 thing. I wished to give the medical officer some 
 particulars in writing about my health, and I asked 
 to be allowed a sheet of paper and pen and ink in 
 my cell for that purpose. When I had got as far 
 as asking for the paper and pen and ink, and before 
 
 60
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 I could get the words out of my mouth to say 
 why I wanted them, the Governor shut me up 
 with a curt * Certainly not !' It was not so much 
 the refusal, as the tone and manner, that I felt. 
 Prisoners have their feelings, like other people, 
 and I brooded over this for hours, thinking what 
 a pleasure it would be to punch his head. I once 
 heard an old man coming upstairs who had been 
 before the Governor to ask for something, which, 
 I conclude, had been refused, say to the officer 
 taking him back to his cell : ' The new Governor 
 evidently thinks he's God Almighty, and we are 
 the fallen angels.' Anything less like an angel, 
 fallen or otherwise, to look at, though he was 
 a poor, harmless wretch, I cannot imagine. I do 
 not think any of His Satanic Majesty's immediate 
 attendants could have given him many points, so far 
 as an evil countenance went. Yet his epigram about 
 the Governor was true in substance, if not in fact. 
 There was more wit in it than the old man knew. 
 
 It was quite in accordance with Captain E 
 
 W 's theory of prison management that he 
 
 should inflict punishment having no ratio to the 
 offence. Coming from Borstal to Parkhurst with 
 a distorted vision, everything appeared so out 
 of focus that he could not distinguish between 
 
 6i
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 maximum and minimum. Some of his first 
 punishments were simply out of all reason. I 
 will give an instance which quickly became known 
 throughout the prison. There is a rule that 
 nothing must be thrown out of the cell ventilators 
 on to the parade, some prisoners having a propensity 
 for disposing of surplus food, or other things, in that 
 way. But unless done for sheer mischief or insubor- 
 dination, it was looked on as a trifling matter. 
 
 On this occasion a boy of sixteen or seventeen 
 was brought before the Governor charged with 
 having thrown some scraps of bread through 
 his ventilator to feed the birds. For this slight 
 offence against discipline the miserable lad was 
 sentenced to two days' bread and water in the 
 punishment cells, and fined eighty-four marks, 
 involving the loss of eleven days' ' remission ' — 
 in other words, two days' starvation and eleven 
 days' extra imprisonment — for the heinous crime 
 of trying to feed the sparrows! It is just this 
 kind of treatment in small matters that causes 
 at times great dissatisfaction and tends to make 
 prisoners go from bad to worse, when they have 
 been unduly punished. 
 
 Before Captain E W came it was the 
 
 practice for the Deputy-Governors, taking their 
 
 62
 
 Governors and Deputy- Governors 
 
 cue, I suppose, from Colonel P , at times to 
 
 go round visiting the men who were ill in 
 hospital, and speaking a few words to cheer 
 them up. No one who has not been shut up 
 in a cell for weeks can realize what a blessing any- 
 spontaneous kindness like this is, or how much 
 good it does. To Captain E W , how- 
 ever, with his cast-iron notions, it seemed a most 
 irregular proceeding,totally subversive of authority, 
 and calculated to lead to conspiracy, prison-breach, 
 or Heaven knows what other terrible consequences. 
 He, therefore, included in his sweeping reforms an 
 edict forbidding the Deputy-Governor to visit any 
 man who had not previously made a formal request 
 to see him on business. Here is an illustration of 
 
 Captain E W 's short-sightedness. Each 
 
 prisoner is allowed to have two books a week from 
 the prison library, but when I went to Parkhurst 
 the library was in such a deplorable state that this 
 was scarcely any privilege at all. In 1899 myself 
 and some others got our friends to petition the 
 Home Office for leave to send books in to us, 
 subject, of course, to the approval of the authori- 
 ties. This was granted on condition that after 
 we had read the books they were to become the 
 property of the prison library, which thus benefited 
 
 63
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 greatly both in number and in quality of books. 
 One of the books which 1 had was Whitaker s 
 Almanack, and this I was allowed to keep in my 
 cell as a book of reference. The following year, 
 however, when my new Whitaker came, and 
 several other men had the same, the Governor 
 objected to our receiving them, and they were 
 accordingly withheld. I asked the -chaplain, who 
 had charge of the library, what objection there 
 could be to our receiving the Whitakers, and 
 he told me that in his opinion there was absolutely 
 none. Apart from its value as a book of reference, 
 he considered it a truly educational book, on 
 account of the amount of useful knowledge it 
 supplies. One of the men, who, like myself, had 
 had Whitaker sent him, but was not allowed 
 to receive it, went to the Governor and asked him 
 why the book had been stopped. The Governor 
 curtly refused to give any reason, merely saying 
 that the m.an was not to have it. The man conse- 
 quently went to see the Director on his next visit, 
 and the Director told him there was something 
 in the book which was deemed undesirable for 
 prisoners to read. I have since searched Whit- 
 aker for 1 90 1, from cover to cover, and I think 
 it would be very difficult for the prison officials to 
 
 64
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 point out where the undesirable information is 
 given. Shortly after this all leave for having 
 books from outside was withdrawn and a most 
 hopeful attempt to improve the library was 
 brought abruptly to an end. 
 
 Captain E W seemed to have been 
 
 born half a century too late, though under the 
 old regime he might have made a most excellent 
 prison Governor, Certainly I believe he changed a 
 good deal for the better before I left, but, person- 
 ally, after my first interview with him I determined 
 to have no more to do with him than I could 
 help. Except, therefore, when he sent for me to 
 communicate the death of a relation, or on one or 
 two occasions when I was ill, and he made some 
 inquiry about my condition, I kept altogether 
 clear of him until just before my release. I was 
 then obliged to go before him to make certain 
 pro forma applications — as, for example, for per- 
 mission to have my own clothes sent to me in 
 readiness for my discharge. 
 
 Having thus frankly recorded my unfavourable 
 
 impressions of Captain E W , I think it 
 
 right to add that he instituted a reform during 
 my time at Parkhurst which was much appreciated, 
 and should have lasting effects. He conferred a 
 
 65 5
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 benefit on the * star ' class — the first offenders — by 
 opening several additional working parties to them. 
 This may need a word of explanation. When he 
 became Governor there were only five parties in 
 which ' star' men were allowed to work — Nos. 12, 
 18, 24, 28, and 30 — a number absurdly out of 
 proportion, considering that there were over thirty 
 working parties of all kinds, and that the *star' 
 class formed nearly a third of those capable of 
 working. 
 
 It should be understood that the first offenders 
 do not work with the old convicts, so that there 
 being so few parties allotted to them, there was 
 very little choice of employments for them, and 
 many had to be put to trades to which they were 
 unsuited, and a knowledge of which would be of 
 no use to them after their discharge. It is to 
 
 Captain E W 's credit that he tried to 
 
 remedy this defect by creating three or four 
 additional ' star ' parties, which is probably as much 
 as can be done until a thorough system of classifi- 
 cation of convicts is adopted, when the distribution 
 of work will be placed on an entirely different 
 footing. 
 
 As regards the Deputy-Governors, I saw very 
 
 little of Major H , who was Deputy-Governor 
 
 66
 
 Governors and Deputy-Governors 
 
 of Holloway the few days I was there, as he left 
 almost immediately on my arrival. 
 
 The Deputy-Governor at Wormwood Scrubs, 
 Mr. N , who, shortly after I left, was pro- 
 moted to be Governor of Portsmouth Prison, 1 
 saw continually, and have the highest respect for, 
 not only personally, but also because of the manner 
 in which he discharged his official duties and 
 treated the men generally. Although he could be 
 stern enough to ill-conditioned prisoners, yet he 
 was very discerning, and he often gave a word of 
 encouragement to those whom he saw were doing 
 their best. I consider that any prison would be 
 fortunate to have him as a Governor, for he was 
 so much looked up to and liked by the subordinate 
 officers of all ranks that matters should be bound 
 to work smoothly. 
 
 The next Deputy-Governor I met. Captain 
 
 F , at Parkhurst, also seemed a very good sort 
 
 of man. He was, I believe, very strict with 
 badly-disposed prisoners, but I know that he was 
 most kind in visiting the men who were in hospital. 
 For about eighteen months I acted as assistant- 
 orderly in the hospital, and was, therefore, a good 
 deal out of my ce )\ and I had better opportunities 
 of seeing what was going on and of judging the 
 
 67 s—^
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 methods of the authorities than the great majority 
 
 of the prisoners. Captain F was succeeded 
 
 by Captain H , for whom, I have no hesitation 
 
 in saying, everyone had a good word, except that 
 peculiar class of persons who can never see good 
 
 in anyone. Captain H also gave very severe 
 
 punishment to the incorrigibles, but he would 
 always do anything in his power to make the lot 
 of the well-conducted prisoners easier and lighter. 
 His manner to officers and prisoners alike was 
 always perfectly courteous and wellbred. More 
 than once I heard a prisoner coming away from 
 
 an interview with Captain H remark : ' Oh, 
 
 he's a real gentleman, is No. 2 ; but I'll be 
 
 if No. I is !' Colloquially, ' No. i ' means the 
 Governor, and ' No. 2 ' the Deputy-Governor. 
 
 About two months before my discharge, Captain 
 H left Parkhurst, and was appointed Deputy- 
 Governor of one of the large London prisons, 
 whence he has since been promoted to be a 
 Governor. Wherever he goes I wish him well. 
 
 I feel certain that, as in the case of Mr. N , 
 
 any prison under his control will be worked 
 smoothly and capably, for the reason that he is 
 full of those most essential quaHties for a Governor 
 of a prison — tact and discrimination. 
 
 68
 
 VII 
 
 OFFICERS 
 
 The term 'officer' in convict prisons is applied to 
 the chief warders, principal warders, warders, and 
 assistant-warders. In point of authority, the chief 
 warder comes immediately below the Deputy- 
 Governor, and his position is a powerful and 
 responsible one. He has the direction of the 
 subordinate officers, and this gives him to a great 
 extent the control of the inner working of the 
 prison. The chief warders are chosen from the 
 principal warders, having previously passed through 
 all the different grades. The superior officers are 
 a class of men differing a great deal in qualitica- 
 tions, and also differing a great deal in regard to 
 their treatment of their subordinate officers and 
 the prisoners. 
 
 In the course of nearly four years' experience I 
 came in contact with a large number of officers of 
 one kind or another, and, with a few exceptions, I 
 formed a high opinion of them personally, and also 
 
 69
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 of the methods on which they worked. I may 
 safely say that during the whole time of my im- 
 prisonment I only came in contact with one officer 
 whom I actually disliked. I shall refer to him 
 later. I will now deal with the chief warders and 
 principal warders. 
 
 Though I was only at Holloway a few days, and 
 then had not been tried, yet I was able to judge 
 to a certain extent what sort of man the chief 
 warder was, and I have nothing but good to say 
 of him. I formed a most favourable opinion 
 indeed of all the officers I had to do with at 
 Holloway. At Wormwood Scrubs I was in 
 hospital the whole time, and I do not think I saw 
 the chief warder more than once or twice ; but I 
 have no hesitation in saying that the principal 
 
 warder, Mr. L , in charge of the infirmary, 
 
 was one of the best men for that important position 
 it is possible to imagine. Though strict, he was 
 kindness itself to all the sick prisoners, and under 
 him they had every consideration that was allow- 
 able. 
 
 The first chief warder who was at Parkhurst in 
 my time was an exceedingly pleasant man to talk 
 to, if one had any application to make, and was 
 kind to the prisoners, but he had one great draw- 
 
 70
 
 officers 
 
 back. Among the subordinate officers two or 
 three were special favourites of his, and these 
 invariably plied him with tittle-tattle about the 
 others, which he believed. He also encouraged 
 prisoners to tell tales of one another — a most 
 pernicious practice. When I had been there eight 
 or nine months he came to my cell one day and 
 asked me something about another man. I told 
 him quite straight out, though naturally with 
 perfect civility, that, supposing I did know any- 
 thing, I certainly was not going to play the spy 
 on my fellow-prisoners or on the officers, as I was 
 sent to prison to be punished, and it was no part 
 of the punishment that I should get other people 
 into trouble. He left Parkhurst not long after, 
 and the post of chief warder was temporarily filled 
 
 by the senior principal warder, Mr. H , as 
 
 cheery and jolly a man as ever I met. He was 
 always ready to listen to any request a prisoner 
 had to ask him, and was always willing to get a 
 man anything he was really entitled to have. It 
 was while he was acting chief warder that the food 
 was so bad, and on several occasions I heard him 
 speak very strongly about the injustice of serving 
 out such stuff to the prisoners. In fact, he was 
 always on the look-out for their interests. He 
 
 71
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 was also popular with most of the subordinate 
 officers, because he was always perfectly straight 
 with them. He had only one fault — he used to 
 shout too much at his otlicers on parade. It was 
 more a habit than anything else, but it did not 
 sound well, and it gave quite a wrong impression 
 of him, for there was nothing violent about him 
 except his voice. After acting as chief warder for 
 a few months, he was transferred to Portland as 
 senior principal warder, and was succeeded by the 
 
 next principal warder to him, Mr. B , who 
 
 acted as chief warder until a permanent appoint- 
 ment was made. Mr. B was also a very good 
 
 officer as far as treatment of the prisoners went. 
 He was always willing to hear complaints and to 
 do what he could for the men. I recollect the 
 first day I went out on the farm he was in charge 
 of the parties working on the land, and he called 
 me up to him and told me he would like to give 
 me a little advice. ' Of course,' he said, ' you want 
 to keep as clear as you can, so as to have a clean 
 sheet and not get into trouble. Therefore, make 
 yourself your own officer. I mean by that watch 
 the men and the officers, notice what the officers 
 have to speak about to the men, and avoid %vhat 
 you see they reprimand the men for doing." I 
 
 72
 
 Offi 
 
 cers 
 
 thought this kind of him, for a few words of 
 advice, judiciously given, may be a great help to a 
 man who has not yet got into the way of the work. 
 Good as he was to the prisoners, however, the 
 methods he employed sometimes with the subor- 
 dinate officers were anything but right or just. I 
 cannot imagine a man in the position in which he 
 was placed supposing for one moment that such 
 methods could succeed. I firmly believe that if 
 Mr. B had been made chief warder at Park- 
 hurst, as for some weeks seemed likely, a large 
 number of officers would have asked to be trans- 
 ferred to some other prison, or else would have 
 sent in their papers and applied for their discharge. 
 
 However, at the end of that year, Mr. P , the 
 
 senior principal warder at Dartmoor, was appointed 
 chief warder at Parkhurst, and remained for nearly 
 a year and a half, when he went back to Dartmoor 
 as chief warder. He was a good straightforward 
 man, and decidedly disapproved of tales being 
 carried, or of any underhand work. In 1900 
 
 Mr. B was appointed to be chief warder at 
 
 Borstal, and I overheard a warder say he would 
 make any bet he would not stay there long. The 
 prophecy came true, for he retired from the service 
 in a few months. Personally, I liked Mr. B , 
 
 7Z
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 but, as I have said, the way in which he treated 
 his subordinates was absolutely all wrong, and 
 proved that he was not the right man to hold such 
 a high post in a prison. He very nearly lost 
 his life, by-the-by, at the hands of a violent 
 prisoner whilst a principal warder at Parkhurst. 
 But I cannot say that that was through any fault 
 of his own. I shall describe the incident in 
 another chapter. 
 
 The last chief warder I had anything to do with 
 
 was Mr. M , who was promoted from principal 
 
 warder a few months before my discharge. I 
 happened to see a good deal of him, as, after I 
 had been at Parkhurst a few months, he was the 
 principal warder in charge of ' B ' hall, where I 
 was then located, and remained as such for several 
 months. I certainly entertained a great respect for 
 him, for, though he was very strict, almost to the 
 point of severity, both with the officers and with 
 the prisoners, and exceedingly reserved in his 
 manner, yet he was invariably just, and absolutely 
 above any meanness or double-dealing. He had 
 no favourites among the officers, but insisted on 
 having his own ideas carried out ; and for the 
 most part his ideas were excellent. It is to be 
 hoped that he will always continue to work on 
 
 74
 
 officers 
 
 the same principles, and not allow others to in any 
 way turn him from the straightforward way in 
 which he was working when I left Parkhurst. 
 
 The remarks I have made about Mr. B ^pply 
 
 almost as much to two of the principal warders 
 who were at Parkhurst when 1 left. Personally, 
 I liked them, but the way in which they treated 
 the younger officers was altogether wrong. I am 
 well aware that there must be strict discipline in 
 prison, but, on the other hand, it is impossible to 
 insure everything going exactly like clockwork ; 
 and it is absolutely essential that the principal 
 warders shall sometimes overlook slight irregu- 
 larities, at Parkhurst especially. For instance, if 
 an officer has a party of, say, twenty or twenty- 
 five men to look after, he cannot keep his eye on 
 every one of them at the same moment. Men 
 who have been shut up all alone for two-thirds of 
 the twenty-four hours will, if they can, seize an 
 opportunity of saying a few words to a fellow 
 human being. When a principal warder appears 
 on the scene, therefore, and sees any of the men 
 speaking or doing any little thing they should 
 not, if he is wise, he will quietly draw the attention 
 of the officer to the fact, and take no further 
 notice, because it may not be the officer's fault at 
 
 75
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 all. Other principal warders, however, such as 
 those I have alluded to, never make any allowance 
 for anything. Their one idea seemed to me to 
 be, not so much to maintain discipHne as to catch 
 the officers tripping, and get them into trouble. I 
 have known them give an officer a ' half-sheet ' — 
 in other v/ords, report him to the higher prison 
 authorities, with the risk of being fined or other- 
 wise punished — for the most absurd things, and 
 sometimes without any justification at all. The 
 effect of this excessive sharpness and severity is to 
 make young officers sometimes nervous and flurried, 
 and it has a tendency in some to make them un- 
 necessarily hard on the prisoners. As it is, I 
 think the perpetual silence is most infamous. It 
 is against nature, and it cannot possibly be strictly 
 enforced. Most men can no more be prevented 
 from talking if they get the chance than they can 
 be prevented from breathing. It would surely be 
 much better for everyone if this were recognised 
 and a certain amount of conversation were openly 
 allowed, the officer, of course, having the dis- 
 cretion to stop it when necessary, so that it may 
 not interfere with the work. The authorities are 
 gradually coming round to this view. When I 
 first went to Parkhurst no talking was allowed 
 
 76
 
 Offi 
 
 cers 
 
 under any circumstances, but under the new 
 regulations of April, 1900, men who had reached 
 the ' blue-collar ' stage — that is, who have done 
 three full years in prison with good conduct — 
 were allowed to walk and talk, together for about 
 three-quarters of an hour on Sunday afternoon. 
 Several Governors, and among them the present 
 Governor of Parkhurst, strongly disapproved of 
 this concession. But it was only in accordance 
 with common-sense, and, sooner or later, I trust 
 it will be extended, within reasonable limits, to 
 week-days. Until that is done there will always 
 be trouble with the officers through insisting on 
 their trying to suppress human nature. I re- 
 member on one occasion an officer in charge of 
 one of the 'balmy' or weak-minded parties re- 
 ceived a half-sheet for allowing the men to talk. 
 Now, it is clearly understood that the weak- 
 minded prisoners may talk, for the very sufficient 
 reason that, not being responsible, there is no way 
 of stopping them short of gagging them. Yet a 
 principal warder reported the officer, and sought 
 to have him punished. But he went too far. 
 The officer immediately went to the medical 
 officer, and placed the matter before him, with the 
 result that the half-sheet was withdrawn and the
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 principal warder was reprimanded. In my opinion, 
 he ought to have been fined as well, as that is a 
 punishment which is perpetually being inflicted on 
 the junior officers for the slightest slackness in 
 their duty. Some of the principal warders also 
 are far too apt to interfere with the officers who 
 have control of the infirmary, which has, in reality, 
 nothing whatever to do with them. This ought 
 never to be allowed, for it causes great friction. 
 Moreover, the principal warder in charge of the 
 infirmary is a very capable man, and quite up to 
 managing his own staff without interference from 
 the discipline officers. The proof that there is no 
 necessity for principal warders to behave in the 
 way 1 have described is that some of them get on 
 excellently without doing anything of the sort. 
 One of these whom I had to do with was Mr. 
 
 W , as tactful and good a man as I ever 
 
 came across anywhere. No one could say he was 
 not strict, but he was always just and sensible, and 
 always willing to do what he could to help a man 
 along, whether officer or prisoner. I have a 
 specially pleasant recollection of him, because, on 
 every occasion but two, he took me to my visits ; 
 that is to say, when my relations paid me a visit, 
 he always came to fetch me. Of course, he had 
 
 78
 
 Offi 
 
 cers 
 
 to sit in the room while the visitors were there. 
 The room was a small one, and consequently he 
 could hear all that was said ; but so little did he 
 obtrude himself that we quite forgot his presence. 
 He was a very well-educated man, and a gentle- 
 man in every sense of the word. Wherever he 
 goes or whatever he does, I wish him good 
 luck. 
 
 Another good principal warder was Mr. M . 
 
 If either an officer or a prisoner did anything 
 wrong he let him know it, and did not mince his 
 words. But, though rough and ready, he was 
 absolutely fair and straightforward, and a rebuke 
 from him could never be taken in ill part. He 
 would never dream of playing a dirty trick on any 
 subordinate, or taking a mean advantage. His 
 sound common-sense taught him that it is some- 
 times necessary to overlook slight shortcomings, 
 as it is impossible for an officer to have his eyes 
 everywhere ; and what is of even more importance, 
 he realized that, unless some of the prisoners were 
 to a certain extent trusted, it would be imprac- 
 ticable for the work of the prison to go on. In 
 this respect we might very well take a lesson from 
 some of the American States, notably New York ; 
 but that opens up too large a question to be dealt 
 
 79
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 with here. Another really good straightforward 
 principal warder was Mr. R . 
 
 The only instance whilst I was at Parkhurst of 
 an officer of a lower rank than warder being pro- 
 moted to being a principal warder was when one 
 of the gatekeepers was suddenly given that high 
 position, and it certainly was a very strange appoint- 
 ment, as the man in question knew absolutely 
 nothing of the duties of a principal warder when 
 in charge of a hall, and had for weeks to have one 
 of the warders by his side to show him what to 
 do. When he was first promoted he was often in ' B ' 
 hall, where I was, and either the master-shoemaker 
 or the master-tailor — both most excellent officers, 
 who belonged to that hall — had perpetually to be 
 referred to by him as to what he must do. Some- 
 times they had to fly downstairs off their wards to 
 correct some order that he had given, which was 
 all wrong. He was a very quiet, inoffensive man, 
 but not the right man in the right place, and why 
 he was jumped over all the warders' heads good- 
 ness knows, as his qualifications for such a post 
 were nil. 
 
 With regard to the warders and assistant- 
 warders, taking them as a body, I do not think 
 they could possibly be improved upon. It was 
 
 80
 
 Offi 
 
 cers 
 
 a wonder to me that they got such a good class of 
 men to join the prison service. For the first few 
 years it is neither more nor less than a dog's life, 
 owing to the insane delight some of the principal 
 warders take in harassing newly-joined officers. 
 Many really valuable and blameless men are driven 
 out of the service through not being properly 
 handled by their superior officers in the first 
 instance. Many of the warders and assistant- 
 warders are old soldiers or old sailors, and the only 
 thing that induces them to join the service, I 
 suppose, is the prospect of retiring on a pension 
 after a certain number of years. Their work is 
 incessant ; their hours are very long ; and their 
 pay is decidedly not too high. Not only that, 
 but their responsibility is very great, and they are 
 always on the strain lest they should incur unjust 
 punishment for some trivial breach of discipline 
 which they cannot avoid. 
 
 One of the best officers I came across, and one 
 that I had a great deal to do with, was an old sailor, 
 
 who was a nurse in the infirmary — Mr. Y . 
 
 Nothing ever upset his equanimity ; he was exactly 
 the same from one day to the next ; and though he 
 had a great deal to put up with, he did everything 
 he could to help the men who were ill. Absolutely 
 
 8i 6
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 trustworthy and straightforward, and possessed of 
 a large amount of common-sense, he was really 
 much more fitted for the management of prisoners 
 than many of his superior officers. In contrast 
 with him was the man I spoke of in the early part 
 of this chapter as the only officer I actually dis- 
 liked. He was an assistant-warder at Wormwood 
 Scrubs, and was a nuisance alike to his brother 
 officers and to the prisoners who had the misfortune 
 to be in his charge. He was always looking out 
 for any little oversight on the part of others in 
 order that he might report it and so get the 
 reputation of being an exceptionally smart officer. 
 The authorities probably took his measure pretty 
 accurately, but if ever he were to be promoted to 
 principal warder, it would be a calamity for any 
 prison he happened to be in. Before concluding 
 this chapter, I wish to say that any chief warder 
 or principal warder trying to enforce discipline at 
 Parkhurst on the same strict lines as are in force 
 at Dartmoor, Portland, and Borstal must be 
 wanting not only in tact, but in common-sense. 
 You cannot put the four prisons on the same 
 footing, and anyone who tries to do so ought 
 at once to be removed, as he is doing much more 
 harm than good. 
 
 82
 
 VIII 
 
 DOCTORS AND CLERGY 
 
 The position of the medical staff in convict prisons 
 is very remarkable. In some respects they are 
 more powerful than the Governor or even the 
 Directors, for though they have no authority over 
 the general discipHne of the prison, they have 
 entire control of the men in hospital, and they 
 also have absolute discretion in all cases of punish- 
 ment. No Governor or Visiting Magistrate can 
 order a prisoner to be punished unless the medical 
 officer passes him fit for it. The same rule applies 
 to all manner of work. Every prisoner has the 
 right to see the medical officer once a week, and 
 the doctor any day he pleases, and it is entirely 
 for the medical officer to say whether he is in a 
 condition to do the work to which it is proposed 
 to put him, or to which he has been put. It is 
 also for the doctors to decide whether or not a 
 prisoner is to be considered weak-minded and 
 treated accordingly ; and though the ordinary 
 
 83 6—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 dietary scale is fixed by regulation, the doctors can 
 vary it a very great deal in hospital. It will be 
 seen, therefore, that the medical staff are in touch 
 with the everyday life of the prisoners at a great 
 many different points, and their influence over 
 the management of the prison is far-reaching and 
 incessant. 
 
 In each convict prison there is a medical officer 
 and one doctor, but at Parkhurst, owing to the 
 large number of sick and weak-minded prisoners, 
 there is an additional doctor. 
 
 When I was at Holloway, I saw very little of 
 the doctor, as I was only there a few days, but I 
 must say he was very kind indeed to me. On my 
 arrival at Wormwood Scrubs, I was received by 
 
 Dr. G . I little thought then that I was 
 
 making the acquaintance of a man whom I should 
 have much to do with throughout nearly my 
 whole sentence. 
 
 As I have explained in an earlier chapter, I was 
 ill almost all the time I was at Wormwood 
 Scrubs, and as the medical officer there, Dr. 
 
 P , was just about leaving the service, I found 
 
 myself every day under the care of Dr. G . 
 
 I cannot speak too highly of the attention I 
 received from him. 
 
 84
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 At Parkhurst Dr. () was the medical 
 
 officer, but in August, 1898, to my great surprise, 
 
 Dr. G came as first doctor, and I saw him 
 
 constantly until my discharge in November, 1901. 
 The more I saw of him, the better I liked him, 
 and the more I was impressed by his qualifications 
 for his post. Not only was he very able as a 
 doctor, but his method of treating men was the 
 best of any I came across whilst in prison. He 
 seemed to have a natural faculty for combining 
 gentleness with firmness, and it was very difficult 
 for any man to deceive him or take advantage of 
 him. 
 
 The medical ofiicer, Dr. Q , was also ex- 
 ceedingly kind to me, as he was to all the men in 
 the infirmary, and I have a high opinion of him ; 
 but I thought he was too indulgent in some cases 
 where it was least deserved or appreciated. That 
 is to say, there were men kept in the infirmary 
 from one year's end to another, without doing a 
 stroke of work, who might very well have been 
 sent out at least to do a few weeks' work in 
 summer. Men of this class as a rule give most 
 trouble to the officers. If they are sure they will 
 not be set to work, they are always complaining 
 of the food, trying to stir up discontent among
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the men, and making the very most of their 
 position to cause annoyance. If they were sent 
 out to work, even occasionally, and had the 
 regular discipline, they would be more apt to 
 remember where they really were, which many of 
 them appear to forget. 
 
 In another chapter I will relate my experience 
 with some of this sort with whom I was brought 
 into contact. They are to be found in every 
 prison, I suppose, but, of course, are most numer- 
 ous at Parkhurst ; and it is an important part of a 
 medical officer's task to know how to deal with 
 them. On the other hand, if a really strong man 
 was admitted to the hospital, he was apt to be 
 discharged too soon — before he had really regained 
 his health. Many a man who has great physical 
 strength has not a correspondingly strong con- 
 stitution, and though he may seem to have got 
 over the particular complaint he was brought in 
 for, he may yet be far from fit to go back to work. 
 
 This I think Dr. Q sometimes overlooked, 
 
 whereas Dr. G 's theory was that, if a man 
 
 were ill enough to be admitted, he should have 
 full time to feed up after his recovery, so that the 
 hospital diet might do him lasting good, and he 
 might return to work really strong and well. 
 
 86
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 One of the great difficulties the doctors have 
 to contend with is the total absence of green 
 vegetables from the dietary. The number of 
 men suffering from indigestion, boils, rashes, 
 etc., from this cause, is enormous, and though 
 the doctor can order cabbage for men who are 
 actually in hospital, it is not easy to undo the 
 ill -effects already accruing from the want of 
 vegetable food. This is a thing that ought always 
 to be taken into account when sending men back 
 to work who are apparently cured. It would 
 
 have been better, too, if Dr. Q had not 
 
 allowed officers, who had nothing whatever to do 
 with the management of the infirmary, to come 
 and interfere with the prisoners there. If he had 
 simply put his foot down, and resolutely forbidden 
 any such intrusion, it would have been stopped at 
 once, and a deal of trouble would have been saved, 
 because, in the infirmaries, the medical officers' 
 
 word is law. Dr. G who, of course, was in 
 
 supreme command when the medical officer was 
 away on leave, never permitted outside officers to 
 interfere with the nurses. 
 
 On one occasion, I recollect, when he was in 
 charge, a man who was in ' B ' hall infirmary was 
 suddenly visited by a principal warder and another 
 
 S?
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 officer, and was what is called ' turned over.' He 
 had been in hospital for some time with a bad 
 attack of influenza, and was not yet allowed out to 
 exercise, though he was up and dressed. He was 
 now made to strip naked, and his clothes were 
 searched, and his cell thoroughly examined. No 
 doubt it was suspected that he had something 
 hidden about him that he ought not to have had. 
 Whether anything was found or not I do not 
 know ; but that has nothing to do with the case. 
 When Dr. G visited the hospital next morn- 
 ing, and the nurse in charge of the ward told him 
 what had happened, he was extremely annoyed, 
 and he gave orders that for the future, whenever 
 he was in charge, in the absence of the medical 
 officer, no inmate of the infirmary should be 
 searched without his leave first being obtained, 
 as in some cases it might be injurious to a man's 
 health. 
 
 On another occasion there was a man in the in- 
 firmary suffering from a very bad form of heart 
 disease, who had not been allowed to take the 
 slightest exercise, unless to walk about the ward 
 for a few minutes each day. The morning for his 
 discharge arrived, and the nurse was going to take 
 him up to his friends in London, as, of course, a 
 
 8S
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 man in that state was not fit to travel alone. The 
 
 warder nurse, Mr. S , sent down to the prison 
 
 gate to say that whzn the cab arrived it was to 
 come into the prison and up to the hospital door, 
 so that the man should be able to get straight into 
 it and drive away. One of the principal warders, 
 however, whose duty that week happened to be 
 looking after the inside of the prison, refused to 
 allow the cab to drive in, and sent word that the 
 man must walk down to the gate and get into the 
 cab there. The distance was not great, perhaps a 
 little more than a hundred yards, but a man in that 
 condition ought not to have been allowed to walk 
 
 at all. When Dr. Q heard of it, he was 
 
 highly indignant, and the matter was reported to 
 the Governor, who gave the principal warder a 
 most severe reprimand. If the medical officer had 
 all along been as firm as Dr. G was in pro- 
 hibiting the discipline officers from interfering with 
 the hospital staff, no such thing would have 
 occurred, for it was nothing but a piece of un- 
 necessary officiousiiess. 
 
 Another doctor I came across, Dr. C , was 
 
 at Parkhurst when I first arrived there, but left 
 shortly afterwards on being promoted to be 
 medical officer at Borstal. I did not see much of 
 
 89
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 him, but what little I did I liked very much, 
 and he was a favourite v/ith the men generally. 
 He had rather a funny way of speaking, and always 
 pronounced ' er ' at the end of his words broadly, 
 like ' ah.' There was a story about him which I 
 cannot vouch for myself, but which might very 
 well be true. It was said that one day when 
 visiting one of the association wards in the in- 
 firmary, he remarked to a man who was very ill : 
 ' Well, my man, I think you are bettah this 
 morning.' The patient, on the contrary, said that 
 he did not fctl so well. To this the doctor 
 replied : ' My good man, when I say you are 
 bettah, you are bettah.' The result showed that 
 the man was more correct than the doctor, for he 
 died the same day, though that may have been only 
 to spite him. I do not mean to imply that Dr. 
 
 C was at all negligent or indifferent, for 
 
 he was quite the reverse, and he probably told the 
 man he was ' bettah ' on purpose to cheer him up. 
 But there the story is. 
 
 Of course, in a place like Parkhurst, where 
 during the summer months there are always from 
 90 to 100 patients in hospital, and in winter 
 as many as 120 to 130, or even more, the 
 doctors have a great deal to do. Moreover, they 
 
 90
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 are very much imposed upon by prisoners, who 
 phiy all sorts of tricks in order to ' fetch the 
 farm ' — that is, to get admitted to the infirmary, 
 and so escape work. It is by no means an un- 
 common practice for men to make a wound on 
 one of their limbs, and scratch it to keep it open 
 until a really bad sore comes, or else to tie a string 
 tightly round a limb so as to produce inflammation. 
 Serious cases of self-mutilation sometimes occur. 
 One man I remember, a very good worker, and 
 well behaved when I knew him, had only one arm. 
 The other arm he had lost at Portland by deliber- 
 ately placing it to be crushed between two trucks 
 in a stone quarry, in order that he might be sent 
 to Parkhurst. 
 
 Prison doctors not only have very hard work, 
 but they are always on the strain from the peculiar 
 character of many of their patients, and it is in- 
 finitely to their credit that most of them, but not 
 quite all I fear, show unvarying patience and good 
 temper, and give the men the utmost benefit ot 
 their skill and knowledge. One doctor I came 
 across 1 think would have got on better if he had 
 paid as much attention to the men as he did to his 
 clothes. He was a very smart-looking young man 
 and very well turned out, but 1 cannot say I 
 
 91
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 thought he gave the men the proper attention ; and 
 I was told on all sides that the way he attended to 
 the men who went down to see him for a dose of 
 something or other, according to their ailment, left 
 much to be desired. He was anything but 
 popular, but it was his own fault, for his heart was 
 not in his work. It was quite the reverse with 
 
 Drs. Q and G , who thoroughly and 
 
 most conscientiously fulfilled their duties. 
 
 Before leaving this subject, I wish to place on 
 record, for what it may be worth, an opinion of 
 mine which I have formed from careful observa- 
 tion, and which I hold very strongly. It is that 
 the Governor of Parkhurst ought to be a doctor. 
 This may be thought revolutionary, but in reality 
 it is not. In former days the Governor of Woking 
 Prison was a medical man, and at the present time 
 Aylesbury, the women's convict prison, is invari- 
 ably governed by a medical man. This is also the 
 
 case at Holloway now, where Dr. Q has 
 
 recently been appointed, and makes no doubt an 
 excellent Governor. Ir Aylesbury and Holloway, 
 why not Parkhurst, which is really much more of 
 a hospital and a madhouse than anything else.^ 
 By a medical Governor of course I do not mean 
 a mere ordinary practitioner, pitchforked into a 
 
 92
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 position of authority. I mean a man of scientific 
 education with the qualities of a ruler, who has 
 already had long experience of prison work. I 
 believe there are men of very high attainments and 
 all the requisite qualities who would fill the post in 
 a most excellent manner. 
 
 I must here mention that soon after I went to 
 Parkhurst a medical director was appointed — 
 
 Dr. D . On more than one occasion when I 
 
 had got run down more than usual I was taken 
 before him to be examined, and I was very favour- 
 ably impressed by him as being essentially the right 
 man in the right place. I consider his joining the 
 Board of Directors a most practical, and in every 
 way excellent appointment. 
 
 Coming now to the clergy, I have not much to 
 say about the Church of England chaplains, be- 
 cause, being a Catholic, I did not come within 
 their regular sphere of action. But what little I 
 had to do with them was pleasant enough. The 
 
 chaplain at Wormwood Scrubs, Mr. B , 
 
 though it was no part of his duty, used often to 
 come and speak to me when I was in the associa- 
 tion ward, when he was visiting members of his 
 own flock, and always showed a disposition to be 
 friendly and helpful. The chaplain at Parkhurst, 
 
 93
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Mr. A , I saw somewhat more of. He used 
 
 occasionally to visit me in my cell, which was en- 
 tirely an act of voluntary kindness on his part. 
 He took, a great interest in the library, and it was 
 he who supported myself and others in getting 
 leave to have books sent in to us by our friends, 
 on the condition that thev should afterwards be- 
 long to the library ; and though that sensible 
 arrangement was afterwards put a stop to, it had 
 so enlarged and improved the library that the men 
 will yet benefit by it for a long time to come. 
 
 Mr. A was a gentlemanly, cultivated man. 
 
 The general impression was that he regarded the 
 prisoners too much as if they were all educated 
 persons, whereas many of them were quite the 
 reverse ; and I have often been told that his 
 sermons were above the heads of most of his con- 
 gregation. He died just before I left, after which 
 one of the clergymen from Newport acted there 
 as chaplain until another chaplain was appointed. 
 A chaplain who is really devoted to his work can 
 do a great deal of good, and help very much to 
 relieve the sadness of the prison life. 
 
 I consider myself extremely fortunate in the 
 Catholic priests I came across while serving my 
 
 sentence. Father S , who was at Wormwood 
 
 94
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 Scrubs when I arrived, had been many years in 
 the prison service. He was undoubtedly the 
 right man for the place, and was universally liked. 
 He used to look well after his men, and his 
 sermons were always adapted to their capacity, in- 
 stead of being preached over their heads. When 
 
 I went to Parkhurst, Father M was there, as 
 
 genial and cheery a man as ever I met. If a 
 prisoner misbehaved himself, however, Father 
 
 M would tell him in a very straightforward 
 
 manner what he thought of him, and his evident 
 sincerity had a great effect. He left about fifteen 
 months after my arrival, and was succeeded by 
 
 Canon C , one of the best preachers I ever 
 
 heard in my life, and one of the best men. I may 
 mention that there is no regular Catholic chaplain 
 at Parkhurst, but the prison duty is undertaken 
 by the priest at Newport and his curate, who dis- 
 charge it in the most conscientious and admirable 
 manner. I'hey make a practice of visiting men 
 who are very ill or dying every day, although the 
 prison is quite a mile and a half from where they 
 live. The remuneration these gentlemen receive 
 is absurdly inadequate, being only ;/^ioo a year, 
 nominally, and not nearly so much in reality, as on 
 Sunday, in order to fit in the Catholic services with 
 
 95
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the Church of England services, as both have to 
 use the same chapel, it is absolutely necessary for 
 them to have a cab, so as to get back to Newport 
 for the services there, the cost of which must run 
 away with a good part of their stipend. It is 
 only within the last six years or so that there has 
 been any regular Catholic service at Parkhurst, as 
 up to that time there were scarcely any prisoners 
 of that faith there — about ten or eleven. The 
 Government then came to an arrangement with 
 
 Father M , who was the priest at Newport, to 
 
 say Mass in the prison on Sunday, and to visit 
 sick prisoners when required. The remuneration 
 was to be at the rate of ^4 per head up to twenty- 
 five, thus making the maximum _^ioo a year. 
 When I arrived at Parkhurst in March, 1898, the 
 Catholics there numbered about sixty, and when I 
 left there were something over a hundred. 
 
 As prison work necessitated the priest keeping 
 and paying a curate, besides spending about j^2o a 
 year on cab hire, it will be seen that the balance 
 left was next to nothing. Of course the Church 
 of England chaplain has much more work to do 
 than the Catholic priest, because all the letters and 
 books are under his supervision, but, on the other 
 hand, he has several efficient aids in the school- 
 
 96
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 masters, who are as good as curates to him. I do 
 not say for one moment that he is overpaid, but 
 his remuneration is certainly out of all proportion 
 to that of the priest, who has a mile and a half to 
 come to his duties, while the chaplain has a house 
 provided for him at the prison itself. It must be 
 said that a few months before I left a Catholic 
 schoolmaster was appointed, which was some help 
 to the priest. This schoolmaster also played the 
 organ at our services in chapel. Before that we 
 were dependent on the chance of there being an 
 organist among the prisoners. Although occa- 
 sionally we had a man who played very well, we 
 were sometimes without music for weeks together, 
 I cannot understand why the Government should 
 expect the priest to do the work of the prison for 
 practically nothing, and I certainly think his allow- 
 ance ought to be doubled. If there were only 
 twenty-five or thirty-five Catholics in the prison it 
 would be different, as then it would only be neces- 
 sary for the priest to come up for the Sunday 
 services, with an occasional visit during the week. 
 But when there are over a hundred Catholic 
 prisoners, the priest or his curate has to come not 
 only once daily, but sometimes twice, when the 
 number of sick is largely increased, as in the winter. 
 
 97 7
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 The curates in my time were Father H , 
 
 Father M , and Father F . The last- 
 named went to South Africa when the war broke 
 out as Catholic chaplain to the troops, and, I 
 believe, did very well out there. The other two 
 also were first-rate men, never sparing themselves 
 in visiting the prisoners, and doing all they could 
 to soothe and console the sick and dying and to 
 cheer up the men. I look on both with the 
 greatest admiration, and shall always remember 
 their unfailing kindness to me. 
 
 Every now and then extraordinary scenes used 
 to occur in chapel, and we sometimes had a fight 
 to vary the ceremony. One Sunday, soon after 
 the death of Queen Victoria, the priest was speak- 
 ing about her, and referred to her as having been 
 the ruler of one of the greatest Empires the world 
 has ever known — an Empire in which there was 
 more freedom and justice than in any other 
 country. All at once a man jumped up and 
 began raving and storming, declaring there was 
 no law or justice in England. For the minute it 
 looked as if he would knock the priest down, but 
 he was speedily removed by the officers. This 
 man was a Russian Pole by birth, and if the 
 accounts one reads of prisons in Russia are true, he 
 
 98
 
 Doctors and Clergy 
 
 would have found himself much worse off there 
 than at Parkhurst. Not that I think our prison 
 system by any means perfect, and perhaps English 
 ideas of foreign prisons are quite mistaken. Mr. 
 Harry De Windt, in one of his recent books, 
 speaks very highly of some of those he saw in 
 Russia. 
 
 I have referred already to the schoolmasters, 
 and I may here touch briefly on what passed 
 for education at Parkhurst. This consisted of 
 illiterate prisoners going to school in one of 
 the halls for half an hour twice a week, out of 
 working hours, to learn reading, writing, and 
 arithmetic. Needless to say, all they really did 
 learn in that s'hort time amounted to nothing. 
 A proper schoolroom was being built when I left, 
 and things may be improved; but obviously what 
 is wanted is that attendance at school shall be 
 made a regular part of the daily work. It is of 
 much more importance that the prisoners should 
 get a decent education than that they should be 
 kept at some employment with their hands, which 
 in many cases will be of no use to them when they 
 come out. The school might, in fact, be made a 
 most useful instrument, not only of discipline, but 
 of reformation. As reo:ards the schoolmasters 
 
 99 7—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 themselves, they differed a very great deal in 
 their methods of dealing with the prisoners. 
 Two of them that I came across I decidedly liked, 
 and I am sure they all performed their duties to 
 the best of their abilities. One of them, however, 
 had a positive mania for removing from all books 
 and magazines any drawing or picture containing 
 any human being who was not depicted as fully 
 clothed, male or female. One day I remonstrated 
 with him for cutting the books about so, and his 
 reply was that it would be highly indecent for 
 people to be seen walking about naked, and he 
 therefore considered it was bad for the men's 
 morals tc see pictures of people in the nude. I 
 looked at him and quoted the famous m.otto of 
 the Order of the Garter, and shutting the door 
 of my cell, I pondered awhile as to whether any- 
 one within the walls of Parkhurst — prisoners, 
 officers, or schoolmasters even — would have 
 their morals undermined by looking at any of the 
 pictures that appear in those excellent magazines — 
 Pearson s^ the Strand^ the Windsor^ etc. — which 
 
 Mr. C took such a delight in getting his 
 
 knife — or, rather, his scissors — into. 
 
 lOO
 
 IX 
 
 FOOD IN CONVICT PRISONS 
 
 Lest it should be thought that in this chapter and 
 in other parts of my narrative 1 make too much of 
 the food question, 1 should like to give the opinion 
 of far higher authorities than I can pretend to be. In 
 their report of 1899 the Departmental Committee 
 on Prison Dietaries, consisting of the Right Hon. 
 J. L. Wharton, M.P., Dr. Herbert Smalley, 
 Medical Inspector of Prisons, and Dr. Downes, 
 Medical Inspector for Poor Law Purposes, made 
 the following emphatic statement: 
 
 ' The dietary has an intimate relationship with 
 all the other elements of prison life. On its 
 proper adjustment to the requirements of the 
 average prisoner, and the manner of its applica- 
 tion and administration, must depend in large 
 measure the successful working of the whole 
 prison system.' 
 
 No words could be much stronger than those, 
 but in another passage of their report the Com- 
 
 101
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 mittee go even farther. Referring specially to 
 youthful prisoners, the Committee say: 
 
 ' The tendency of present-day prison administra- 
 tion is to treat the criminal in a reformatory rather 
 than in a punitive sense. We are convinced that 
 a large amount of criminality is due to physical 
 and mental degeneracy, and a regimen designed to 
 insure the physical and mental well-being of the 
 delinquent will prove better for the individual, 
 and in the long-run better for the race. Nothing 
 is more adapted to attain this desired end than 
 a liberal dietary combined with physical exer- 
 
 cise.' 
 
 In the warrant appointing the Committee — a 
 very carefully-drawn-up document — the Home 
 Secretary, Sir Matthew White Ridley, laid down 
 these very important rules : Firstly, * that the 
 object of prison diets is to secure that the food 
 given to prisoners shall be sufficient and not more 
 than sufficient to maintain health and strength '; 
 secondly, 'that the main principle to be kept in view 
 is that the ordinary prison diet is not to be regarded 
 as an instrument of punishment ' ; thirdly, ' that 
 prison diets may not bear too favourable a com- 
 parison with the diets of free labourers in the 
 outside world or of the inmates of workhouses.' 
 
 102
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 It should be noted that the * main principle ' so 
 pointedly insisted on by Sir Matthew White 
 Ridley in his instructions to the Committee in 
 May, 1898, was, in fact, quite a new principle. 
 Until then the ordinary prison diet had most 
 distinctly been regarded as an instrument of 
 punishment. The Committee of 1878, on whose 
 recommendations all prison dietaries were based 
 up to the partial adoption of the report of 1899, 
 bluntly declared that, in the case of short-sentence 
 prisoners, at all events, * to give a diet necessary 
 to the maintenance of health during the longer 
 terms would be to forego an opportunity of 
 inflicting salutary punishment.' In other words, 
 they deliberately urged that starvation should be 
 added to imprisonment and labour as a punish- 
 ment in English gaols. 
 
 All through their report, moreover, they keep 
 that theory in view, though they grudgingly admit 
 the necessity for giving certain classes of prisoners 
 more food and better food than is absolutely 
 required to keep them from dying of hunger or 
 its attendant maladies. Now, it was the scale of 
 diet based on the report of 1878, which is prac- 
 tically the same as the old scale of 1864, that was 
 in force when I was at Wormwood Scrubs, and 
 
 J 03
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 afterwards at Parkhurst, until within a few weeks 
 of my discharge ; and it is to that scale, and not 
 to any subsequent improvement on it, that my 
 remarks must be understood to apply. I say, 
 then, that though the food was, as a rule, eatable, 
 it was to many insufficient, nearly always tasteless 
 and repellent, and often bad, and, on the whole, 
 never such as to be otherwise than * an instrument 
 of punishment,' and never such as ' to insure the 
 physical and mental well-being of the prisoners.' 
 Every one of these assertions is fully borne out 
 by the report of 1899, ^^ consequence of which 
 the recent reforms, such as they are, were intro- 
 duced. Though the details may be tiresome to 
 my readers, I think it advisable to give the actual 
 dietaries in order to avoid any suspicion of mis- 
 statement or exaggeration. [See pages loS, lOp.) 
 Anyone who takes the trouble to consider what 
 these daily allowances of food under the old scale 
 really amounted to, and to compare them with 
 what even a moderate eater ordinarily allows 
 himself, will see that they were not enough to 
 satisfy the average man, working seven or eight 
 hours a day. The Committee reported in the 
 plainest terms that they were ' insufficient,' not 
 varied enough, and ' deficient in the element of 
 
 104
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 fat.' What that means when even a strong man 
 is limited to such a diet for years together any 
 medical man will know. Though the effect may 
 not show itself at once in a breakdown of health 
 — for it is marvellous how little a man really can 
 subsist upon for a time — it is bound to make itself 
 felt in after-life. Hundreds of men become mere 
 wrecks through the privations they suffer in under- 
 going long sentences in prison. For that reason 
 the Committee, in recommending a more humane 
 diet, recorded their opinion that ' every prisoner 
 should receive the amount of food sufficient to 
 maintain his general health and bodily condition, 
 so that on discharge he may be capable of taking 
 up any honest means of livelihood.' 
 
 I have said that the food was not only insufficient, 
 but often bad, and the Committee also dwelt 
 strongly on that point. I will give a few in- 
 stances. One Sunday — which was known as pork- 
 soup day, because the dinner consisted then only 
 of one pint of pork-soup and eight ounces of bread 
 for full labour men — the pork that the soup was 
 made of was absolutely putrid. Consequently, all 
 that we full labour men could eat for dinner that 
 day was eight ounces of bread. The light labour 
 men came better off, though they are supposed to
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 require less food, their Sunday dinner consisting of 
 four ounces of cheese and eight ounces of bread. 
 
 There was a tremendous noise in our hall during 
 the whole dinner-time, which on Sunday is from 
 twelve to two, the men banging their doors and 
 making all the disturbance they could. The next 
 day there were so many complaints to the 
 Governor that he investigated the matter very 
 closely. It came out that when the meat was 
 issued to the master-cook on the Saturday, he 
 pointed out that it was tainted, and that, as the 
 weather was very hot, it would be quite bad by 
 the following day. The steward, however, told 
 him that the meat must be used. On Sunday, of 
 course, it was quite unfit for human consumption. 
 If a butcher had exposed it for sale he would 
 have been heavily fined. Yet, as the master-cook 
 had nothing else to make the soup of, he had to 
 use the decayed pork. He tried to smother it by 
 putting in an extra quantity of vinegar, but the 
 mess was so disgusting that no one could swallow 
 it, and so we had to make our dinner that day 
 
 on bread alone. Colonel P , who was then 
 
 Governor, was very much put out by this occur- 
 rence, and well he might be, for if we had eaten 
 the soup a good many of us would have been 
 
 1 06
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 poisoned. He therefore ordered four ounces of 
 cheese to be given to each man for supper on 
 Monday as compensation for the loss of their 
 dinner the day before. 
 
 On another occasion, when I was working in 
 No. 12 party on the farm, the mutton served for 
 dinner was perfectly rotten. I happened to be 
 one of the orderlies that day, and part of my duty 
 was to help to collect the dinner-tins. This 
 occurred when I was in ' A ' hall, and at the 
 time there were thirty-nine men on my ward. 
 Thirty-six returned their dinner untouched ; 
 another told the officer he had thrown his dinner 
 through the ventilator because the smell of it in 
 his cell made him horribly ill ; and only two men 
 out of the thirty-nine had managed to eat the 
 meat. I never cared to make complaints about 
 the food myself, because I thought it better to 
 put up with almost anything rather than cause 
 trouble ; but this time it seemed so scandalous to 
 give such meat to the prisoners that I felt it a 
 duty to go before the Governor the next day to 
 complain. The Governor said the steward had 
 told him the meat was fresh, but the animal it 
 came from was one of the toughest to cut up that 
 he had ever seen. I replied that I could not 
 
 107
 
 OLD DIETARY. 
 
 
 Meals. 
 
 Men employed at 
 Hard Labour. 
 
 Men employed at 
 Light Labour. 
 
 Breakfast. 
 
 Daily. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Gruel, sweetened with ^ oz. 
 
 Molasses* . - - - 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 ipt. 
 
 6 oz, 
 ipt. 
 
 Dinner. 
 Sunday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Pea Soup (Pork) - 
 
 Cheese 
 
 8oz. 
 ipt. 
 
 12 oz. 
 
 4 oz. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes - . . . 
 Cooked Beef - . - - 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 5 oz. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 4 oz. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 Bread ..... 
 Potatoes .... 
 
 Soup 
 
 Cheese 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 ipt. 
 
 2 oz. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 ipt. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes .... 
 Cooked Mutton - 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 5 0Z. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 4 oz. 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes . . - - 
 Suet Pudding 
 
 8 oz. 
 i6 oz. 
 i6 oz. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes . . . - 
 
 Soup 
 
 Cheese 
 
 S oz. 
 
 i6 oz. 
 
 ipt. 
 
 2 OZ. 
 
 8 oz. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 ipt. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Potatoes . . . - 
 Cooked Beef . - - . 
 
 8 oz. 
 i6 oz. 
 
 5 oz. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 4 OZ. 
 
 Supper. 
 Daily. 
 
 Bread 
 
 Cocoa 
 
 8 oz. 
 ipt. 
 
 6 oz. 
 ipt 
 
 Bread per Convict per week - 
 
 i68 oz. 
 
 145 oz. 
 
 ' .\ pint of tea is given for breakfast in lieu of gruel to those men wlio have served 
 a certain part of their sentence, if they prefer it. 
 
 io8
 
 EXISTING DIETARY. 
 
 
 
 D. 
 
 
 E. 
 
 Men employed at 
 
 Meals. 
 
 Men employed at 
 
 Sedentary Indoor 
 
 
 Hard -aliour. 
 
 Labour and Light 
 Labour. 
 
 Breakfast. 
 
 
 
 Daily. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Butter or Margarine* - 
 
 i OZ. 
 
 — 
 
 Porridge - - - . 
 
 ipt. 
 
 — 
 
 Gruel, sweetened with ^ oz. 
 
 
 
 sugar 
 
 — 
 
 ipt. 
 
 Dinner. 
 
 
 
 Sunday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Potatoes . - . . 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Cooked Meat, preserved by 
 
 
 
 heat 
 
 6 OZ. 
 
 5 OZ. 
 
 Monday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Potatoes - - - - 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Beans 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Fat Bacon - - - - 
 
 2 OZ. 
 
 2 OZ. 
 
 Tuesday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8OZ. 
 
 Potatoes - - - - 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Cooked Mutton without bone 
 
 6 OZ. 
 
 5 OZ. 
 
 Wednesday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 S OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Potatoes .... 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Pea Soup (Pork) - 
 
 ipt. 
 
 ipt. 
 
 Thursday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 80Z. 
 
 Potatoes . . - - 
 
 i6oz. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Cooked Beef without bone - 
 
 6 oz. 
 
 5 OZ. 
 
 Friday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Potatoes .... 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Vegetable Soup (Beef) - 
 
 ipt. 
 
 I pt. 
 
 Saturday. 
 
 
 
 Bread 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Suet Pudding 
 
 i6 OZ. 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 Supper. 
 
 
 
 Daily. 
 
 
 
 Bread - . - - . 
 
 12 OZ. 
 
 8 OZ. 
 
 Cocoa 
 
 ipt. 
 
 ipt. 
 
 Wednesdays and Fridays. 
 
 
 
 Cheese 
 
 2 OZ, 
 
 — 
 
 Bread per Convict per week - 
 
 196 OZ. 
 
 16S OZ. 
 
 * Butter or margarine to be given for six months in the ye.-ir — October to 
 March (inclusive). During the remaining months, April to September (inclusive), 
 milk, i pint for each convict at hard labour, to in.- substituted for Sutter or margarine, 
 and to be given in the form of milk porridge. The Committee also recommended 
 ■5 ounces of raw onion to be given to the men on K. diet for supper on Wednesdays 
 and Fridays, but the prison authorities would not sanction this. 
 
 109
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 agree that the meat was fresh, for though I had 
 not eaten it, the smell was nearly enough to make 
 
 one sick. The principal warder, Mr. H , who 
 
 was then acting as chief warder, informed the 
 Governor that several of the officers had told hirn 
 there was a most offensive stench from the meat 
 the previous day. The Governor said he would 
 inquire closely into the matter. 
 
 Two days later he sent for me and told me 
 there was no doubt the sheep in question was 
 nothing but a very old ram, and he had had the 
 contractor up and severely reprimanded him for 
 supplying such uneatable meat. He said that I 
 had been quite right in bringing the matter under 
 his notice. The steward, however, was just as 
 much to blame as the contractor for passing 
 meat which he must have known was uneat- 
 able. 
 
 The food all that summer was very bad. For 
 five weeks together they gave us rotten potatoes. 
 I see the Committee in their report made some 
 severe remarks on the disgraceful mismanagement 
 of the supply of potatoes. A glance at the dietary 
 will show that potatoes form a great part of the 
 prisoners' subsistence, and if these are bad the men 
 either starve or else make themselves ill. The 
 
 no
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 Committee discovered that the contractors were 
 allowed to send in great quantities of potatoes 
 when they could be bought cheaply, and to lessen 
 the supply or stop it altogether when they were 
 dear. To suit the contractors' pocket, therefore, 
 the unfortunate prisoners had to eat rotten 
 potatoes, or else go without half their dinner, for 
 weeks at a stretch. Here, again, the steward was 
 entirely to blame, for it was his duty to see that 
 fresh potatoes were supplied in regular quantities 
 all the year round, regardless of the state of the 
 market. The Government paid the full price for 
 such a regular supply, and it was a cruel shame 
 that the helpless prisoners should be made to 
 suffer in order to give the contractors an extra 
 profit. 
 
 The bread at times was very good, but often it 
 was quite the reverse. It seemed either to be 
 made of bad flour or to be half baked, and there 
 is nothing more unwholesome than sour, sodden 
 bread. Seeing that the prisoners almost live on 
 bread, it is inexcusable to allow it to be of bad 
 quaHty. The Committee dwelt strongly on this, 
 and explained the fact of the bread being some- 
 times good and sometimes bad by the negligent 
 and ill-managed supply of wheat and flour, and 
 
 I II
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 also by the ignorance of the millers and cooks. 
 What with bad meat, bad potatoes, and bad bread, 
 the prisoners too often had to do their work on 
 empty stomachs, while many of them fell sick 
 from it. 
 
 This was not only a flagrant wrong, but it was 
 the worst kind of economy, from the public point 
 of view. I do not wish to bring an accusation 
 against anybody, but I am bound to say I think 
 there must be a great deal of corruption in the 
 supply of food to prisons ; and, considering that 
 the prisoners are totally unable to protect them- 
 selves, the authorities ought surely to protect them 
 against such a mean and pitiless form of dis- 
 honesty. It is almost as bad as stealing a blind 
 man's dog. 
 
 The new diet for hard-labour men, which came 
 in a few weeks before I left Parkhurst, was in 
 some ways a great improvement on the old. The 
 quantity and variety of the food were increased. 
 Yet this reform was so muddled by the officials 
 that it actually constituted a gross injustice to 
 some classes of prisoners, and was the cause of 
 serious discontent. For some incomprehensible 
 reason the new scale of full diet was only given 
 to hard-labour parties working on the farm, with 
 
 112
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 the exception of the carpenters, builders, blaclc- 
 smiths, and laundry hands. 
 
 The printers, tailors, and shoemakers — three 
 parties that earn probably more than any others 
 in the prison — were excluded from it, and were 
 put on the new light labour diet. I am sure I am 
 right in saying that the Governor and all the 
 officers thought this most unfair. I believe the 
 Governor made very strong representations to the 
 prison authorities at the Home Office as to the 
 unjust working of the new rules, but without any 
 effect. It very nearly caused a mutiny among 
 the shoemakers. Some of the best men in the 
 tailor shops also immediately applied to the 
 Governor to be transferred to an outdoor party, 
 and this request he at once granted, as the men were 
 well conducted and good workers. If they had not 
 been transferred, they would probably have refused 
 to labour, and so got themselves into trouble. 
 
 One would have thought the Home Office 
 authorities would have had sense enough to know 
 that these parties, which worked as long as any 
 others, and whose work was infinitely more 
 valuable, should have benefited by the new diet, 
 instead of which they were none the better for it. 
 There is no more forcible part of the report than 
 
 "3
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 that in which the Committee urged the necessity 
 for supplying the prisoners with green vegetables. 
 They show how easily this could be done, and 
 they refer to it again and again, as one of the 
 most needful reforms in prison diet, as indeed it 
 is. Yet the authorities took no notice at all of 
 this important and insistent recommendation of 
 men specially selected by the Government to deal 
 with this very question, two of them being 
 eminent doctors. Even the allowance of three 
 ounces of raw onions to be added with cheese twice 
 a week for supper was struck out of the dietary 
 recommended by the Committee. 
 
 In a previous chapter I mentioned the enormous 
 number of prisoners who were admitted to the 
 infirmary suffering from indigestion in various 
 forms — spots, boils, rashes, and other skin disease, 
 in many cases undoubtedly the result of a diet 
 from which green vegetables are rigidly excluded. 
 This evil is so conspicuous, and it has been 
 brought so often to the notice of the authorities, 
 that it is impossible to say why they refused to 
 remedy it after their own Committee had most 
 strongly recommended them to do so, and shown 
 them how to do it. If vegetables had to be 
 bought, there might be obstacles in the way of a 
 
 114
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 regular supply ; but, as the Committee point out, 
 the growing of vegetables is about the best occupa- 
 tion prisoners could have, and certainly at Park- 
 hurst there is plenty of land available. As a 
 matter of fact, large quantities of excellent vege- 
 tables are grown at Parkhurst, but the prisoners 
 are forbidden to eat the smallest morsel, though 
 their craving for green food is such that I have 
 constantly seen men eat all sorts of green weeds, 
 and if they can secretly get hold of a carrot or 
 onion, they ram it into their mouth, tops, dirt and 
 all. Now, this is an offence, and, if detected, they 
 run the risk of being punished by loss of marks 
 — equivalent to prolonged imprisonment — or by 
 bread-and-water diet. Yet the temptation is 
 really irresistible, for it is most tantalizing for the 
 men to be in the midst of green food, the product 
 of their own labour, and to know that, after the 
 pick of it is sold to the officers or given to the 
 cows, the surplus will be given to the pigs. In the 
 new diet twelve ounces of dried beans are allowed 
 on Monday, and vegetable beef-soup on Friday, 
 but this is surely no fulfilment of the Committee's 
 specific recommendation — ' that where land is 
 available for cultivation, fresh vegetables should 
 hQ freely used in the dietary.' 
 
 115 8 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 T should like to say, from my own observation 
 in prison, that this report of 1899 is a most 
 enlightened and just one. It goes to the root of 
 the subject, and is based on clearly-defined prin- 
 ciples. Without suggesting ever so remotely the 
 pampering or coddling of convicts, it yet stands 
 out for what are undoubtedly their rights as 
 human beings under the charge of the State, which 
 the report of 1878 decidedly did not, and 1 think 
 that all prisoners are deeply indebted to the Com- 
 mittee for drawing up such a report, as well as for 
 the vigilance and shrewdness with which they 
 discerned and exposed the causes of many of their 
 ills. If the whole of the ' principal recommenda- 
 tions,' from I. to XXV., were adopted by the 
 authorities intelligently, and in a liberal spirit, the 
 condition of prisoners would be vastly improved, 
 and the object of the criminal law would be much 
 better gained than it is. I saw one member of the 
 Committee — Dr. Herbert Smalley, Medical In- 
 spector of Prisons — several times. When he came 
 on his visits of inspection he took an interest in every 
 case, and showed me the utmost kindness. I am sure 
 that little or nothing escaped him that lay within 
 the province of his powerful and responsible office. 
 One thing I cannot understand : Parkhurst is 
 
 116
 
 Food in Convict Prisons 
 
 the convict invalid station, yet it has the reputa- 
 tion of giving the worst food of any convict 
 prison. The Committee, by-the-by, commented 
 very severely on the quality of the food supplied 
 at Wormwood Scrubs, which is only supposed to 
 be a local prison, but certainly the food I received 
 there was infinitely better than at Parkhurst. I 
 had no experience of Portland, the only other 
 convict prison where first offenders are sent. But 
 I have spoken to many men of all classes who 
 have been there, and they all say the food at 
 Parkhurst was beyond comparison worse than at 
 Portland, where there are next to none but able- 
 bodied men. This is a wrong state of things, for 
 at an invalid station the good quality of the food 
 should obviously be the first consideration. There 
 is no sense in feeding sick prisoners on garbage 
 which costs the Government twice as much as 
 
 wholesome provisions. Captain E \V 
 
 most certainly did something to mend matters, 
 but a medical Governor could have done much 
 more. If such a man as Dr. Herbert Smalley had 
 
 been appointed on Colonel P 's resignation, 
 
 Parkhurst might have been a very different insti- 
 tution in many respects from what it is to-day 
 — at least, that is my opinion. 
 
 117
 
 DAILY ROUTINE 
 
 In order to give a correct idea of prison life, I 
 should mention that no one actually lives within 
 the walls, except the convicts and a few unmarried 
 officers. At Parkhurst the Governor, the Deputy- 
 Governor, the chaplain, the medical officer, and 
 one of the doctors have comfortable private 
 houses within the grounds which are attached 
 to the prison, but outside of its walls. The 
 other doctor lives where he pleases. The chief 
 warder, some of the principal warders, and most 
 of the subordinate officers are provided with 
 quarters in the grounds, while those for whom 
 there are no quarters available live in houses or 
 lodgings in the neighbourhood, and receive an 
 allowance in lieu of quarters. All are free to 
 occupy themselves in any way they like when not 
 on duty. This daily relief from the prison sur- 
 roundings is necessary to keep them in health and 
 spirits, and it also has a great deal to do with 
 
 ii8
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 their habitual self-control and good temper, and 
 their contentment with what would otherwise be a 
 very hard service. We will now follow the routine 
 throughout the week. 
 
 On Sunday morning the gatekeeper who has 
 been on duty during the night rings the bell at 
 ten minutes to seven, when the officers who are to 
 be on duty for the day have to enter the prison. 
 The first duty is to unlock the prisoners who are 
 doing orderly work in the different wards, so that 
 they may go round and collect the slops. Two 
 men carry a large pail between them, and walk 
 behind an officer, who unlocks the cell-doors. 
 The prisoners stand just inside their cell-doors, 
 and empty their slops into the pail as the officer 
 passes, the door being immediately closed again. 
 By the time this work is finished the breakfasts 
 have come in from the cook-shop, and are carried 
 round by the orderlies, and served out by the 
 officers on their respective wards. The cells are 
 then doubly locked, and the officers go off to their 
 own breakfast, leaving one in each hall as a patrol. 
 After the men have had their breakfast they must 
 tidy their cells, put up their beds, clean their tin- 
 ware, and make everything neat and trim. At a 
 quarter to nine the Catholics are unlocked and 
 
 119
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 attend Mass, which takes place at nine o'clock. 
 The Church of England men are unlocked at nine, 
 and at a quarter-past they go out for about an 
 hour's exercise. At a quarter-past ten they form 
 up on the different exercise grounds and march 
 into chapel, the service commencing at half-past 
 ten. The Catholics being out of chapel soon 
 after ten, they form up outside and wait until the 
 Church of England men have gone in, when they 
 have their turn of exercise for about an hour. At 
 half-past eleven they go back to their cells, and the 
 Church of England men having come out of chapel 
 about this time, they also return to their cells. 
 
 Dinners are then served out, and the men being 
 doubly locked in, the officers go off to dinner, 
 again leaving one in each hall on patrol. At ten 
 minutes to two the officers return and unlock the 
 cells, and the dinner tins are collected by the 
 orderlies. Men who have reached a certain class 
 then go out for a short exercise, returning to their 
 cells shortly before half-past two, when they go to 
 chapel, which lasts until half-past three, and is 
 immediately followed by the afternoon service for 
 the Catholics. The same building being used for 
 both, the services have to take place at different 
 times, which is rather awkward. 
 
 1 20
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 The Jews attend their synagogue, Parkhurst 
 being the only convict prison to which Jews are 
 now sent. 
 
 Some time during Sunday afternoon prisoners 
 who have reached the fourth, or ' blue-colhir ' 
 stage, which means having served three full years 
 with good conduct, are allowed to walk together 
 in couples and talk for half an hour. It is at the 
 discretion of the authorities to prevent any two 
 men walking and talking together, if they consider 
 it advisable to do so, and they also have the right 
 to prohibit any special man from walking and 
 talking with others at all, if they think he might 
 have a pernicious influence. This restriction is 
 especially directed against those convicts known as 
 'fences' — that is, receivers of stolen goods, and it 
 is quite right it should be so, for they are among 
 the most mischievous members of the criminal 
 class. They are not only criminals themselves, 
 but they are the dehberate and calculating makers 
 of criminals for their own profit. They teach 
 men and boys, women and girls, to commit thefts, 
 and they enable them to dispose of the proceeds, 
 themselves, of course, taking the larger share. If 
 it were possible to wipe out the ' fences ' altogether, 
 a great deal of crime would die out naturally, 
 
 121
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 because the temptation in the first instance, and 
 the prospect of enjoying the results, would both 
 be taken away. It will readily be understood that 
 men of that stamp, if allowed to walk and talk 
 with prisoners, are pretty sure to take advantage 
 of the privilege for pushing their nefarious business. 
 About half-past four on Sunday all prisoners are 
 back in their cells, and suppers are served out. 
 At about twenty minutes to seven the cell doors 
 are unlocked, and an officer looks in to see that 
 all is right. They are then locked up for the 
 night, a principal warder following the officers and 
 trying the handle of each cell door to make sure 
 that it is properly 'on the double.' The men 
 have then to go at once to bed, and in winter the 
 lights are put out. In summer a great many men 
 read in bed as long as it is light. 
 
 Such is Sunday in prison, and it is certainly for 
 the majority of the men the most wearisome day 
 in the week. The two services make a little break, 
 whether the men care anything about religion or 
 not ; and the talking, for the small percentage to 
 whom it is allowed, makes up to them for the long 
 hours they are shut up in their cells. Newspaper 
 writers and others who represent Sunday in prison 
 as an agreeable holiday either know nothing of 
 
 122
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 the facts, or else distort them for purposes of 
 effect. 
 
 On Monday morning the first bell rings at ten 
 minutes past five, when the men have to get up. 
 At half-past five the officers enter the prison, slops 
 are collected, breakfasts are served out, and the 
 men are again locked up in their cells. At about 
 ten minutes to seven the officers return from their 
 breakfast, and at seven the Church of England 
 men are marched off to the chapel. Before going 
 out every man must make his cell clean and tidy, 
 with everything in the place assigned to it. After 
 the service, which only lasts about a quarter of an 
 hour, all the men go off to their parade-grounds. 
 Each man has a special place told off where he has 
 to stand in the ranks, and each party have a special 
 place for parading. There is a principal warder 
 on each parade-ground, and the officers of each 
 party give him the roll of their own men. After 
 being ' rubbed down,' the parties march off to the 
 places where they respectively work — the cooks 
 to the cook-house, the blacksmiths, tailors, book- 
 binders, to the workshops, the farm labourers out 
 on the farm, and so on. At ten minutes past 
 eleven the big bell rings, and all the parties are 
 marched back to their respective parade-grounds, 
 
 123
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 where they are searched before going to then* cells. 
 Those men, however, who have their names down 
 to see the Governor or doctor now do so. Dinners 
 are then served out, and the men are left to them- 
 selves while the officers go to their dinner, one 
 officer being left in each hall as patrol. At ten 
 minutes to one the officers return, dinner tins are 
 collected, and at one o'clock the men again go on 
 parade for roll-call and search, and then march off 
 to their work, as before. At five o'clock the bell 
 rings, and all the parties cease labour for the day 
 and march into the prison. The same routine is 
 gone through as before dinner, and the men go 
 back to their cells, and suppers are served out. 
 At twenty minutes to seven the cells are visited to 
 see that the men are all right, and they are then 
 locked up for the night. The men are not allowed 
 to go to bed till eight o'clock, or even to take 
 their beds down until a bell rings in the hall at 
 ten minutes to eight. In winter the lights are 
 kept on until eight. Exactly the same round is 
 repeated on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and 
 Friday. On Saturday there is no work in the 
 afternoon, so when the men go to their cells for 
 dinner, soon after eleven o'clock, they do not leave 
 them again until about nine on Sunday morning 
 
 124
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 — a twenty-two hours' spell of solitude. Once a 
 fortnight every cell is ' turned over ' — that is, 
 thoroughly examined — and the inmate himselt is 
 stripped and searched. In addition, if any man is 
 suspected of having anything concealed, he may 
 be searched several times a week. 
 
 On November i work is knocked off at half- 
 past four instead of five, and during December 
 and January at a quarter-past four. During these 
 two months the early prison-bell rings at half- 
 past five in the morning instead of ten minutes 
 past. This is the only difference in the hours 
 between summer and winter. Once a week each 
 man has to scrub out his cell during the breakfast 
 hour. Once a week, also, each man is shaved, or, 
 rather, the hair on the face is clipped to within a 
 sixteenth of an inch, and every second week the 
 hair of the head is clipped down to an eighth of 
 an inch. Every man has a hot bath once a week. 
 On Saturday afternoon, though there is no outside 
 work, the men have to clean their boots and shoes, 
 and a certain number are employed outside their 
 cells cleaning the landings, polishing the brass and 
 steel work, and tidying up generally for Sunday. 
 Each man is allowed to keep six educational books 
 in his cell, which he can change, if he chooses, 
 
 125
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 once a month, in addition to religious books. 
 Educational books are any sort of school-books 
 or encyclopasdias, dictionaries, etc. 
 
 Each man is allowed to choose two books of 
 any sort per week from the library, and to keep 
 a slate and pencil in his cell. To many prisoners 
 this provision for reading and writing is invaluable, 
 and life would be scarcely bearable without it. 
 Others who cannot read yet enjoy picture-books, 
 and there are raised-letter books for the blind. 
 But there are others who never look at a book 
 and never use their slate from one year's end to 
 another, either from ignorance or from want of 
 inclination, and it is hard to imagine how such as 
 these pass the long hours in their cells. I found, 
 however, that reading during the winter months 
 tried my eyes very much, owing to the light being 
 placed behind a piece of fluted glass, and to the 
 constant flickering of the gas-jet caused by the 
 draught in the hall. 
 
 During their first year prisoners are allowed to 
 receive two visits, each of twenty minutes' dura- 
 tion, from their friends, and to write and receive 
 two letters. During the second year they are 
 allowed to receive three visits, each of twenty 
 minutes' duration, and to write and receive three 
 
 126
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 letters. During the third year they may receive 
 four visits, and write and receive four letters. 
 After that they are allowed a visit of thirty minutes 
 every two months, and may also write and receive 
 a letter every two months. Men whose friends 
 do not come to see them may write and receive a 
 letter in lieu of each visit allowed by the regula- 
 tions. On receiving what is called the ' blue 
 dress,' which only a man of good conduct can 
 obtain for the last year of his imprisonment, 
 prisoners can have a visit, and receive and write 
 a letter even more frequently. To get the blue 
 dress, however, with these and other privileges, a 
 prisoner must have served four full years, so that 
 a five-years' man cannot get it at all, and a six- 
 years' man can only wear it for the last six months 
 of his sentence. I believe it would tend to en- 
 courage good conduct and to prevent relapse into 
 crime if every first offender were allowed the 
 blue dress for the last year of his sentence, whether 
 long or short, provided, of course, that his conduct 
 was good. 
 
 On the other hand, strangely enough, and surely 
 against all reason and fairness, length of time in 
 prison is not taken into account with regard to 
 payment for labour. The utmost money that a 
 
 127
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 man can earn by his work in prison is ^3, no 
 matter whether he works for six years or sixteen. 
 That is to say, a man undergoing a sentence of 
 six years can earn the sum of ^{3, but after that 
 he cannot earn any more, even though he stays 
 in prison for ten or fourteen years longer. If 
 he has joined one of the Prisoners' Aid Societies, 
 another _^3 is added by the Society. Thus, all 
 that a man has to start with, when he comes out, 
 even if he has served a life sentence, which means 
 twenty years, is £6. Each man on being dis- 
 charged is also given a suit of clothes, hat, boots, 
 and underwear ; but as the whole value of these 
 is only ^ I 17s. 6d., they cannot be very service- 
 able. Of course, if a discharged prisoner has a 
 home to go to, and friends or relatives to help 
 him, £G and a temporary outfit may suffice to tide 
 him over. But if he has served a long sentence 
 he is much more likely to be homeless and friend- 
 less when he comes out, and in that case it is hard 
 for him to keep straight on the scanty sum given 
 to him on leaving prison. It would not involve 
 a great outlay, and even that would probably be 
 saved in other ways, if every prisoner were enabled 
 to earn a small sum a year during the whole of 
 his term, however long. It would certainly keep 
 
 128
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 many from coming back who do so now from 
 sheer destitution. When I first went to prison, 
 photographs of relations and friends were allowed 
 to be sent to the men, who, however, were only 
 allowed to retain them twenty-four hours. Now 
 they are allowed to retain them altogether, which 
 privilege is much appreciated by many. Tooth- 
 brushes were not allowed either, but this con- 
 cession was granted after I had been at Parkhurst 
 about a year or more — certainly a move in the 
 right direction. 
 
 There is one privilege enjoyed by prisoners 
 which, though quite right in principle, is abused 
 to such an extent that it defeats its own purpose. 
 In addition to having the right to make complaints 
 at all times to the Governor, and to the Directors 
 when they pay their periodical visits, every prisoner 
 is allowed to petition the Secretary of State as 
 often as he chooses. Having sent one petition, 
 he may send another as soon as the answer to the 
 first is received ; and he may put into the petition 
 practically whatever he pleases, not only about his 
 own case, but about the management of the prison 
 generally, and the conduct of any of the officials. 
 The consequence is that a great many restless or 
 ill-conditioned prisoners make a regular practice 
 
 129 ^
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 of sending petitions on all sorts of trivial subjects, 
 complaining of things with which the Secretary of 
 State has nothing to do, and bringing accusations 
 against the officials, often without the slightest 
 justification. Every one of these petitions is sup- 
 posed to be carefully considered, and placed before 
 the Secretary of State. With such an enormous 
 number to deal with it is impossible that any of 
 them should meet with much attention ; and this, 
 no doubt, is the reason why cases of real injustice 
 or hardship, urgently calling for inquiry, are 
 sometimes overlooked. The right of petition, 
 therefore, instead of being an advantage, is actually 
 a disadvantage to those prisoners who really have 
 good cause to resort to it. The vast majority of 
 petitions being groundless, and often full of un- 
 truths, the few which are truthful and reasonable 
 are neglected with the rest. This is altogether 
 wrong, and it ought to remedied without delay. 
 In my opinion, no prisoner should be allowed to 
 petition more than once in six months ; and any 
 prisoner making charges against officials which, on 
 investigation, prove to be false, should invariably 
 be punished by loss of marks for remission of 
 sentence. As it is, a prisoner who accuses an 
 officer falsely to the Governor or the Directors
 
 Daily Routine 
 
 may be punished, not only by loss of marks, but 
 by bread-and-water diet and solitary confinement. 
 Yet he may tell as many lies as he likes to the 
 Secretary of State, as a rule without incurring any 
 penalty. If he were held responsible for every 
 statement he makes, a petition would become a 
 serious thing, as it ought to be. The number of 
 petitions would then be enormously reduced, and 
 any for which good grounds exist would have a 
 fair chance of being attended to by the higher 
 officials, and brought to the notice of the Secretary 
 of State. 
 
 131
 
 / 
 
 XI 
 
 PUNISHMENTS, INCORRIGIBLES, AND SUICIDES 
 
 Throughout this narrative I have carefully ab- 
 stained from anything like sensational writing, and 
 I have no intention of trying to make my readers' 
 flesh creep by highly-coloured descriptions of the 
 horrors which are inseparable from the restraint of 
 criminals, even under the best penal systems. But 
 there are some more or less unpleasant features of 
 prison life which I am bound to touch on, in order 
 to make this a complete and truthful picture. Of 
 punishment for prison offences, I have no personal 
 experience, because I had the good fortune never 
 to forfeit a single mark or incur any other penalty. 
 This, however, is nothing to boast of, for there 
 are very many others who do the same, and some 
 men get into trouble through no fault of their 
 own, either by traps laid for them by malicious 
 fellow-prisoners, or else by giving way to fits of 
 nervous irritation which sometimes overcome 
 them in spite of every effort of self-control. I 
 
 132
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 myself came within an ace of incurring punish- 
 ment from both these causes, though I had made 
 the strongest determination from the first, and 
 stuck to it to the end, to be well-conducted, 
 obedient, and, as far as possible, cheerful. While, 
 therefore, I take no particular credit for having 
 avoided punishment — especially as the hope of 
 obtaining the maximum remission was an abiding 
 and overwhelming inducement to good behaviour 
 — I think the fact enables me to discuss the subject 
 impartially. I wish to say first that I do not 
 believe there is any wanton or spiteful tendency 
 on the part of the officers to get men punished, 
 nor, as a rule, are the punishments themselves 
 excessive. Very few cases of what I may call 
 unreasonable punishment came to my knowledge. 
 On the contrary, from what I shall have to say 
 presently it will be gathered that some ill-conducted 
 and idle prisoners are treated with far too much 
 consideration. I should say it is the junior officers, 
 rather than the prisoners, who have to fear injus- 
 tice or undue severity for trifling or accidental 
 breaches of discipline. In nine cases out of ten 
 a prisoner who gets punished has only himself to 
 thank for it ; of that I am absolutely certain. 
 The prison punishments countenanced by the 
 
 133
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 regulations are these : For lesser offences, loss of 
 marks, which means a shortening of the remission 
 of sentence that can be gained by good conduct, 
 or, to put it the other v/ay, a lengthening of the 
 actual term of imprisonment ; solitary confinement 
 with bread and water ; loss of class, involving 
 forfeiture of privileges previously gained by length 
 of service with good conduct. The first and third 
 of these punishments scarcely affect downright 
 badly-disposed prisoners at all, because that sort 
 do not expect or intend to get any remission, and 
 seldom arrive at the class status. Those whom 
 they affect most are first offenders, not hardened 
 to crime, who count every hour before they shall 
 get their release and return to a decent life, and to 
 whom the class privileges are a great advantage. 
 What the really bad men hate is the bread-and- 
 water diet ; but even that is not a very terrible 
 punishment to some of them. The longest term 
 of bread-and-water diet to which the Visiting 
 Committee have the power to sentence a prisoner 
 is eighteen days, and this must on no account be 
 continuous. It must be divided into intervals 
 not exceeding three days, alternating with equal 
 intervals on light labour diet. During the bread- 
 and-water diet no labour whatsoever is exacted. 
 
 134
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 Long experience proves that three days' bread and 
 water without labour is never injurious to health, 
 and in any case the doctor visits the prisoner daily, 
 and if he found him suffering any ill-effects would 
 at once change the diet. All the same, a quarter 
 of a loaf of bread with water per day is not an 
 exhilarating diet, and on the second or third day 
 it must become exceedingly depressing, if not 
 acutely painful. Only in very bad cases is the 
 full space of eighteen days inflicted. 
 
 For extremely serious offences, such as attempt- 
 ing to escape, the punishments, in addition to those 
 above mentioned, are the parti-coloured dress and 
 chains. The parti-coloured dress for men who 
 have attempted to escape is yellow and drab, while 
 that for men v^'ho have committed a violent assault 
 on an officer is black and drab ; while prisoners 
 who commit violent assaults on officers are also 
 liable to be flogged, either with the birch or with 
 the cat. Such men as these care nothing for 
 disgrace, and are rather proud than otherwise of 
 the distinctive signs of having struck a bold stroke 
 for revenge or liberty ; but they one and all have 
 a most wholesome dread of being flogged. Even 
 birching they have a great objection to, not that it 
 really hurts anything like as much as a good caning 
 
 >35.
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 at school. It is the ridicule that attaches to it in 
 the eyes of the other prisoners that stings, and for 
 that reason experienced prison officials consider it 
 a more effective punishment than it appears. It 
 has the recommendation, further, of leaving no 
 after injury. The cat, on the other hand, which 
 is strictly reserved for the very worst cases of all — 
 and then only for men of the strongest physique 
 — is a punishment which leaves its marks in some 
 cases both on body and on mind. It is the one 
 thing the callous, depraved, dehumanized convict 
 stands in mortal fear of, and the fact of its hanging 
 in the background, to be used in the last resort, is 
 the most powerful, if not the only restraint on his 
 ferocity that the authorities have at their command. 
 A prisoner who commits murder, of course, incurs 
 the death penalty, unless he were insane at the 
 time, in which case he is ordered to be confined at 
 Broadmoor, the criminal lunatic prison, ' during 
 the King's pleasure.' 
 
 It is impossible for anyone who has not witnessed 
 it to imagine the furious and senseless malevolence 
 of that class of convicts who have got to the hope- 
 lessly incorrigible stage. The prison system is 
 often blamed for the existence of such creatures, 
 but though I am well aware that the system 
 
 136
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 sometimes makes good men bad, and bad men 
 worse, I think most of these particular men must 
 have been thoroughly vicious by nature, and 
 beyond redemption before they came to prison at 
 all. They seem to be solely governed by evil 
 passions, as if possessed of a devil, and their only 
 idea is to make themselves a curse to everybody 
 round them. I will give one or two instances 
 which fairly illustrate my meaning, without the 
 slightest exaggeration. 
 
 There was a man, whom I will call H , the 
 
 very type of the incorrigible convict. He had 
 been a soldier, and had murdered his best comrade 
 in his regiment in India by, I believe, braining him 
 with a tent-peg whilst asleep for the sake of a few 
 shillings that he knew he had. He ought un- 
 doubtedly to have been hanged, for a more heart- 
 less murder never was committed. I suppose he 
 made out he was suffering from sunstroke, a com- 
 mon excuse in India for crimes of violence. At all 
 events, the death sentence was commuted to penal 
 servitude for life, and he was at Parkhurst nearly 
 the whole time I was there. They sent him to 
 Pordand for a few months to see whether they 
 could do anything with him there, but his conduct 
 was so atrocious that he was soon returned. Whilst 
 
 137
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 at Parkhurst he nearly always wore the parti- 
 coloured dress, and very often the chains also for 
 perpetual assaults on the officers. My first personal 
 acquaintance with him was one day when I was 
 orderly in * B ' hall infirmary, and he was being 
 brought back to the punishment cells from chapel. 
 I was busy washing the staircase at the time, and 
 as he passed me coming down the steps he kicked 
 over the bucket, upsetting the water and necessi- 
 tating my cleaning the ironwork over again. As 
 he did this he shouted out : ' All you aristo- 
 crats ought to have your throats cut !' I thought 
 I would teach him a lesson for this, so the next 
 morning I filled my bucket with actually boiling 
 water, and set it on the stairs, feeling sure he 
 would kick it again so as to make me do my 
 work twice over. It turned out just as I expected. 
 Prisoners undergoing punishment wear low shoes, 
 their heavy boots not being allowed in the punish- 
 ment cells, because they would be formidable 
 weapons to attack the officers with. When he 
 kicked the bucket, therefore, and the boiling water 
 went over his feet, he got such a scalding that he 
 howled with pain, for men of his type always cry 
 out loudest when they are hurt. He never inter- 
 fered with me any more, but I know what he 
 
 138
 
 Punishments, Incorrigiblcs, Suicides 
 
 would have done if he had got the chance, for he 
 was absolutely uncontrollable in his anger. I saw 
 him one day seize a great iron turnkey, and make 
 for an officer who had merely spoken to him about 
 something he had done. As he was a big, powerful 
 man, and the key was three or four feet long, 
 everyone kept at a safe distance from him until 
 several officers could be brought on the scene. 
 The man then drew a cross on the gravel v/ith the 
 key, and, standing by it, bellowed out : ' Either I 
 shall die here or one of you shall !' The only 
 way they could disarm him was by one of the 
 principal warders making thrusts at him with his 
 long sword, as the warders and assistant-warders 
 only carry short sword-bayonets. While the man 
 was trying to get in a blow at the principal warder 
 with his iron key, another officer closed with him 
 from behind, and then there was a real rough and 
 tumble scrimmage. No fewer than five officers 
 were on him at once, but the only way they were 
 able to get the key from him at last was by hitting 
 him with the flat of their swords till his arms were 
 so bruised all over that he was compelled to give 
 in. If this had not been done he would certainly 
 have seriously injured the officers, if he had not 
 killed one of them outright. Even after he was 
 
 139
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 overpowered he would not go quietly, but had to 
 be ' frog-marched ' to the separate cells. The only 
 reason why he dared to behave in such a way was 
 because, not being constitutionally sound, though 
 enormously strong physically, he knew that no 
 doctor would pass him for being flogged, on 
 account of his heart. As for wearing the punish- 
 ment parti-coloured dress and chains, or the bread- 
 and-water diet, he was long past caring for such 
 trifles. The only punishment he might have had 
 that would have affected him would have been a 
 birching, but though it could not have done him 
 any great harm, he confidently counted on its not 
 being allowed. 
 
 Now, I do not see how the system can be 
 held responsible for such an inhuman nature as 
 that. It was a brute rather than a man that the 
 system had to deal with from the first, and if it 
 could not do anything to reform him, neither 
 could it degrade him lower than he was. 
 Severity and mercy were equally without efl^ect 
 upon him. 
 
 The only thing to be done was to keep him 
 within bounds, and, if possible, prevent his exer- 
 cising his bloodthirsty instincts on others. It is 
 to the credit of our system that, in the face of all 
 
 140
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 discouragements, it perseveres in according him 
 the rights of a civilized being, and, at least, the 
 opportunity of reformation if he had a spark of 
 good in him at all. 
 
 There was another man, by the name of T , 
 
 who was always in trouble for making violent 
 attacks on the officers without the smallest provoca- 
 tion. On one occasion he committed a furious 
 
 assault on the Governor, Colonel P . Whilst 
 
 undergoing punishment he somehow contrived to 
 secrete in his cell a bath-plug — which is a heavy 
 piece of hard wood — and when the Governor 
 made his usual daily visit, the moment his cell 
 door was opened, he threw the plug at him with 
 all his force. Luckily, he aimed rather low, and 
 the plug struck the Governor in the chest. If it 
 had caught him fair on the head, it might have 
 killed him. This same man succeeded one day 
 in wresting an officer's ' kosh,' or baton, out of 
 his hand, and if he had not been knocked down 
 by another officer before he could strike a blow 
 there is little doubt he would have done most 
 serious injury, for when in one of those rages he 
 was just like a wild beast. On another occasion 
 
 one of the principal warders, Mr. B , came 
 
 very near losing his life. He was quietly going 
 
 141
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 his rounds in the afternoon, and, on visiting the 
 laundry, one of the men working there suddenly- 
 hit him a terrible blow from behind with a spanner, 
 and was about to hit him again, when two other 
 prisoners came to the rescue, and knocked the 
 man down. The officer had a fearful wound on 
 the back of his head, and was incapacitated from 
 duty for a very long time. For this totally 
 unprovoked crime, which was surely an attempt 
 to murder, all the punishment the man got was 
 bread-and-water diet and so many days in the 
 separate cells, the loss of some weeks' remission, 
 the parti-coloured dress, and chains, and twelve 
 strokes with the birch. Can it be denied that 
 he thoroughly deserved a severe flogging with 
 the cat ? 
 
 Personally speaking, I consider that every 
 prisoner making a violent attack on an officer 
 ought to be birched, if not flogged with the cat, 
 provided his health will stand it, for these reasons : 
 Firstly, as I have said, flogging is the only thing 
 the ill-conditioned prisoner stands in awe of. 
 Secondly, there is no excuse whatsoever for any 
 prisoner taking the law into his own hands and 
 doing violence to an officer. Even supposing the 
 officer to have treated a prisoner harshly or un- 
 
 142
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 justly, the man has every possible facility for 
 bringing his grievance before the Governor, and 
 I can safely say that every Governor or Deputy- 
 Governor that I have been under would thoroughly 
 investigate any such complaint. 
 
 The instances I have given will suffice here, but 
 I shall have occasion elsewhere to say something 
 more about incorrigible convicts and their treat- 
 ment. That some prisoners are literally driven to 
 desperation by misery is proved by the suicides, 
 notwithstanding every precaution to prevent them. 
 There were several at Parkhurst whilst I was 
 there, but I cannot say I had much sympathy with 
 any of the victims, excepting one, a ' star ' man, 
 
 named F , who was in for life. This man had 
 
 sent a petition for release to the Home Secretary, 
 having sent many previously. This one, for some 
 reason, he hoped might be successful, in spite of 
 former failures, as he had then been in prison no 
 less than seventeen years, and had always been 
 well conducted and given no trouble to the officers. 
 Under ordinary circumstances a * life ' sentence 
 involves twenty years' imprisonment before the 
 case is reconsidered; but it is not very unusual for 
 prisoners to be released before that period. This 
 man, however, was informed in the regular way 
 
 143
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 by the Governor that the answer to his petition 
 was ' No grounds ' — meaning that the Home 
 Secretary saw no grounds for reconsidering his 
 case. The next day, when the cell doors were 
 unlocked for the prisoners to take in their dinner, 
 the unfortunate man rushed out, climbed up the 
 railing in front, and threw himself over on to the 
 asphalt pavement, about thirty feet below, re- 
 ceiving such injuries that he instantly died. I 
 think everyone was sorry for this man, because 
 he had served such a long time, and was very 
 inoffensive. I suppose the keen disappoint- 
 ment for the moment upset the balance of his 
 brain. 
 
 Another man, named T , whom I knew well, 
 
 as he had been a hospital orderly, destroyed him- 
 self in a very determined way. He had lost his 
 position as orderly through fighting with another 
 man, and this seemed so to prey upon his mind that 
 he was admitted into hospital as a patient com- 
 pletely broken down, and for some time could not 
 be got to take proper nourishment. One evening 
 he took one of the so-called knives, which are 
 merely bits of tin in the shape of a knife, and 
 with this he sawed at his throat till he nearly cut 
 his head off. Up to that time the knives were 
 
 144
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 kept constantly in the cells, but afterwards they 
 were not allowed except at dinner-time on the 
 days when meat was served out, and were removed 
 after dinner with the empty tins. This gave rise 
 to the saying that at Parkhurst Prison suicide was 
 only allowed on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday 
 between eleven and one o'clock, as, before the new 
 diet came in, those were meat days, A commoner 
 form of suicide was by hanging, and there were 
 other and more peculiar methods. There was a 
 black man undergoing a life sentence for murder 
 who made up his mind to starve himself to death. 
 He had a most violent temper, and his language 
 was perfectly appalling. After being some time 
 in prison one's ear gets accustomed to swearing, 
 for many of the prisoners habitually use the foulest 
 possible language both to their fellow-prisoners and 
 to officers ; but I never in my life heard anything 
 like this man's combinations of profanity and 
 obscenity. Having resolved to live no longer, he 
 obstinately refused all food or liquid for several 
 days, whereupon the doctors attempted to feed 
 him by artificial means. As they could not force 
 the feeding-tube between his teeth they made shift 
 to feed him through his nose. About an hour 
 afterwards he was found dead from a sort of con- 
 
 145 10
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 vulsion or paroxysm of rage at the doctors having 
 succeeded in feeding him against his will. I should 
 say he could very well be spared. Another some- 
 what similar case that had a less gruesome ending 
 happened at Wormwood Scrubs. A man there 
 had the appalling sentence of imprisonment for his 
 ' natural life,' and he richly deserved it. He was 
 one of a notorious gang of blackmailers, who drove 
 more than one person to suicide through falling 
 into their clutches. He also, like the black man, 
 deliberately tried to starve himself to death, and 
 was only kept alive by artificial feeding for ten 
 days, after he had reduced himself to a skeleton 
 and as nearly as possible gained his object. He 
 then threw the game up and changed his mind, 
 but was sent to Parkhurst as an invalid. I used 
 to see him about there, though he being one of the ' 
 ordinary prisoners, I, as a ' star,' had nothing to^do 
 with him directly. When I last saw him he was 
 about as broad as he was long, so it was evident that 
 neither his bout of starvation nor his subsequent 
 prison treatment had disagreed with him much. 
 I learned that he was very much disliked, for 
 though, of course, in prison, all are presumably 
 tarred with the same brush, and none can afford 
 to put on superior airs, there are a certain class 
 
 146
 
 Punishments, Incorrigibles, Suicides 
 
 who are always looked down upon by their fellow- 
 prisoners. Blackmailers are included among 
 these, and rightly so, for a more detestable crime 
 it is impossible to imagine. There need never be 
 any regret when one of them puts himself out of 
 the way. 
 
 147 10-
 
 XII 
 
 'balmies' 
 
 In an earlier chapter I said that Parkhurst was 
 half a hospital and half a lunatic asylum, and in a 
 genera] sense that is true enough. It is intended 
 to be a special place of confinement for invalid or 
 weak-minded prisoners, who are brought there 
 from all the other convict prisons as soon as their 
 condition is considered serious. But yet it is not, 
 properly speaking, a criminal lunatic prison. 
 Broadmoor is expressly designed for that purpose, 
 and until about two years ago no prisoner certified 
 to be insane was kept anywhere except at Broad- 
 moor. About May, 1 900, however, when a large 
 new wing of the hospital at Parkhurst had just 
 been finished, Broadmoor was so full that the 
 authorities decided to assign this new wing for the 
 time being to certified lunatics. 
 
 It thereupon became in a way a separate insti- 
 tution from the rest of the prison, the official 
 staff and the discipline being altogether different. 
 
 148
 
 Bal 
 
 mies 
 
 The unfortunate lunatics of this wing are treated 
 somewhat in the same way as those at Broadmoor. 
 They do no work, they have a liberal diet, they 
 are allowed to talk as much as they please, and 
 they are only put in the cells at night, the day 
 being spent in an association ward, where they 
 occupy themselves in any sort of harmless way. 
 They also have separate grounds, completely walled 
 off, where there are trees, seats, and flower-beds. 
 
 Here they are allowed to sit or walk about as 
 they choose for several hours a day, of course 
 with officers in charge of them to prevent their 
 doing themselves or one another an injury. In 
 short, these men being really and unmistakably 
 mad, are not under punishment as criminals, but 
 under treatment as lunatics ; and if there had 
 been room for them at Broadmoor, not one of 
 them would have remained at Parkhurst after 
 being certified insane. The present arrangement 
 is not, however, to be permanent, and is only pro- 
 visional, pending the enlargement of Broadmoor. 
 It has nothino; to do with Parkhurst Prison 
 proper, and I have only referred to it here in con- 
 nection with another subject.* 
 
 * Since writing the above I hear all the certified lunatics 
 have been removed to Broadmoor. 
 
 149
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Apart from prisoners certified to be insane, such 
 as I have just described, there are a great many 
 who are more or less touched in the top story, or 
 who succeed in making it believed that they are 
 so. These are officially classed as ' W.M,' — that 
 is, weak-minded — but are invariably known collo- 
 quially as ' balmies.' There were about ninety of 
 them at Parkhurst when 1 was there, and many of 
 them were very difficult to manage, and made 
 themselves very offensive to the other prisoners 
 and to the officers. Most of them, doubtless, were 
 really men of feeble intellect, or partially demented, 
 either naturally or as the result of drink or other 
 vices. But there were certainly among them not a 
 few absolutely sane, who merely played the 'balmy' 
 in order to get less work and to escape with less 
 punishment for bad conduct, as the ' W.M.'s' are 
 always let off more lightly for offences than other 
 prisoners. It is very difficult for the doctors in 
 some cases to make sure whether a man is genuinely 
 off his head, or whether he is only shamming ; 
 for many old convicts are such accomplished actors 
 they are able to imitate the peculiarities of idiocy 
 with wonderful correctness, until the habit becomes 
 second nature. The doctors have neither the 
 time nor the opportunity to watch them closely 
 
 ISO
 
 ' Balr^'"" * 
 
 imies 
 
 enough, and so they give them the benefit ot the 
 doubt and class them as ' W.M.'s.' It sometimes 
 happens, moreover, that a man v^ho appears to be 
 playing ' balmy,' and not doing it at all cleverly 
 either, turns out in the end to be as mad as a hatter. 
 It is, therefore, perhaps better for the doctors 
 to be a little credulous than for prisoners to 
 be punished who are not responsible for their 
 actions. 
 
 For the first three years that I was at Park- 
 hurst the ' Balmies ' were scattered all over the 
 place, some of them being in each hall. The very 
 worst of all had to work in parties by themselves ; 
 but the others used to work in the ordinary 
 parties, very often causing the greatest possible 
 trouble, not only to the officers, but to their fellow 
 prisoners. One party. No. [2, that I was in, out 
 on the farm, contained at one time no fewer than 
 seven of these 'W.M.'s.' Some of them were 
 perfectly harmless ; but the remainder were a 
 perpetual nuisance, trying to quarrel with the men 
 and fighting among themselves. A few months 
 before I left, however, all the 'W.M.'s' were 
 brought together in one hall, which happened to 
 be the one that I was in. They were placed on 
 the two lower wards, and I was on the ward just 
 
 151
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 above them. They were over eighty in number, 
 and I have no hesitation in saying that some of 
 them were neither more nor less than wild beasts. 
 Night after night, just when we were getting off 
 to sleep, one or more of them would rouse the 
 whole hall by smashing up their cells, tearing up 
 clothes, breaking windows, and destroying what 
 little flirniture there was. When the officers went 
 to remove them to the silent cells at the back of 
 the punishment cells, where they could do no more 
 mischief, they would shriek and scream that the 
 officers were knocking them about with their 
 koshes and killing them. This, of course, would 
 be heard all through the hall, waking up all the 
 other prisoners, and in particular exciting the 
 other weak-minded ones who had been quiet 
 before, but who now began banging their doors, 
 shouting and yelling, and making the place a 
 perfect pandemonium. After the new arrange- 
 ment of all the ' Balmies ' going together in one 
 hall, special parties were formed for them to work 
 by themselves, and they no longer mixed in any 
 way with other prisoners, and were allowed more 
 license in the way of talking. Thus, though we 
 suffered from them at night, we were relieved of 
 their company during the day. 
 
 152
 
 ' Balmies 
 
 That was decidedly a step in the right direc- 
 tion, for the practice of putting sane and insane 
 prisoners together could not be too strongly con- 
 demned. It was bad for the ' W.M.'s,' as well 
 as for the other prisoners, and most unfair to 
 the officers. On one occasion, on a Sunday, I 
 saw one of these semi-lunatics, while we were 
 out for exercise, speak to one of the principal 
 
 warders, Mr. M , as if he had some request 
 
 to make, and then suddenly, without rhyme or 
 reason, he poked his thumbs into the officer's eyes 
 and tried his hardest to gouge them out. Other 
 officers ran to the principal warder's assistance, 
 whereupon the man seized one of them by the 
 hand and literally made his teeth meet through it. 
 The principal warder had the narrowest escape of 
 being blinded, and one of his eyes was terribly 
 discoloured. Another time one of them laid wait 
 
 for an officer, Mr. H , who was one of the 
 
 kindest-hearted men in the prison, and when his 
 cell door was opened after dinner struck him a 
 terrific blow in the face with his hobnailed boot, 
 just missing his eye by about halt an inch. 
 
 Living as I did in ' B ' hall for nearly three 
 years, and being the greater part of that time one of 
 the orderlies, 1 saw scores of men being taken into 
 
 153
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the punishment cells, which are situated on the 
 ground-floor, so to speak, of that hall. Some of 
 the ' W.M.'s ' took as many as five or six officers 
 to get them along, for these semi-lunatics are 
 often possessed of supernatural strength, and their 
 violence and obstinacy are indescribable. I must 
 say that, though they constantly bit, kicked, and 
 did everything they could to injure the officers, I 
 never once saw the latter use undue force. I do 
 not for a moment mean to say they handled 
 the men as if they were pieces of valuable china, 
 but I certainly do say this : that many a time when 
 I myself would have given a man a pretty sharp 
 crack with a kosh, I have seen the officers keep 
 their temper in a most extraordinary way. Of 
 course, the great majority of men going to punish- 
 ment walk along quite submissively, without giving 
 the slightest trouble ; but with the ' W.M.'s ' no 
 one can tell for an instant what may happen. 
 
 There is need of a reform of the prison system 
 with regard to weak-minded prisoners, and nothing 
 but a knowledge of the facts is required to show 
 what that reform should be. All the weak-minded 
 men should be placed in a separate part of the 
 prison, having their own set of officers to look 
 after them, and them alone, very much as is the 
 
 154
 
 * Balmies 
 
 case with the certified lunatics, whose management 
 is so excellent it could not well be better. Of 
 course, the *W.]VI.'s' should be made to work, 
 which most of them are quite able to do. If not, 
 their number would soon be doubled by men 
 playing ' balmy.' The difficulty is that while 
 some first-rate workmen have a screw loose on 
 a particular question, which makes them irre- 
 sponsible for their actions at times, others have 
 a mania for idleness, which is not assumed, but is 
 simply their particular form of madness. There 
 
 was one of these, named B , who, when I 
 
 left Parkhurst, had spent over eleven years in 
 prison without doing a stroke of work. He was 
 otherwise remarkably docile and well conducted, 
 and he kept his cell in apple-pie order, and all his 
 furniture, utensils, pint mugs, and other belong- 
 ings beautifully clean. But he doggedly refused 
 to do any other kind of work whatsoever. All 
 kinds of punishments had been tried — for ' refusing 
 to labour,' as it is called, is a serious offence in 
 prison — but without the slightest effect. He 
 underwent his punishment without a murmur, 
 and then declined to work as positively as ever. 
 Every possible device was resorted to for years 
 to compel or persuade him to turn his hand to 
 
 155
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 some sort of work, but all in vain. He simply 
 would not, and there was an end of it. Shortly 
 before I left he was certified to be a lunatic, and 
 there is little doubt he had been mad for a long 
 time, though the only sign he showed of it was 
 refusing to work. It is possible the long period 
 of idleness, with nothing to occupy his mind 
 except the fixed idea he had resolved upon, may 
 have at last affected his brain. But I believe no 
 other such instance is known, for although many 
 sane prisoners refuse to labour for a time, they 
 almost invariably think better of it, and behave 
 like sensible men, when they have been punished 
 once or twice. 
 
 At all events, a few exceptional cases should by 
 no means be considered valid objections to an 
 important measure of prison reform. The rule 
 to be followed is clear enough. Every prisoner 
 whose behaviour is so different from the normal 
 that he is classed ' W.M.' by the medical authori- 
 ties should be entirely removed from the other 
 prisoners, and made to serve out his sentence in a 
 separate place and under separate conditions. 
 
 The great dif^culty that the prison authorities 
 have with these men is when the time arrives for 
 their release. I believe now that, unless their 
 
 156
 
 ' Balmies ' 
 
 friends are in a position to look after them, they 
 have to serve their full sentences, and are unable 
 to gain the remission allowed to their saner 
 brothers in distress, and this is certainly as it 
 should be, for why release a man who is irre- 
 sponsible for his actions a day sooner than is 
 absolutely necessary ? It only means that he will 
 have an earlier chance of committing another 
 crime. But, of course, when a man has served 
 his full sentence, unless he is certified insane, it is 
 impossible to prevent him going where he will. 
 Many of these *W.M.'s' are certainly not mad 
 enough to be sent to a lunatic asylum; but, on the 
 other hand, they are no doubt dangerous, and it is 
 a most difficult problem for the Prison Commis- 
 sioners to know what to do with them. One 
 thing I am quite sure of — they should not be 
 allowed whilst in prison to be anywhere near the 
 other men, and should have a different set of 
 officers to look after them, and a hall to them- 
 selves. 
 
 157
 
 XIII 
 
 ' COPPERS ' 
 
 Every prisoner has the right to make an open 
 and straightforward complaint if he feels himself 
 wronged in any way, but that is quite a different 
 thing from secret tale-bearing, and though it may 
 be carried to a vexatious extent, no one objects to 
 it on the score of meanness or treachery. In every 
 walk of life there are malicious people who take 
 unreasoning dislikes, and who will go to a great 
 deal of trouble and run all sorts of risks to gratify 
 their animosity against others who have done them 
 no harm. They are worse than Ishmaelites, for 
 their hand is against every man, though no man's 
 hand may be against them. Now, a ' copper ' is 
 one who acts as a spy and tells the officers stories 
 about the prisoners, and the Governor and head 
 officers stories about their subordinates. These 
 stories have to be supported by some sort of 
 evidence, and when none exists the ' copper ' does 
 not hesitate to fabricate it, or to trick his victim into 
 
 158
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 some false step in order to supply it. * Coppers ' 
 are loathed and despised by every one, officers and 
 prisoners alike, but I am sorry to say they some- 
 times gain their ends, and are allowed to exercise 
 influence and do a deal of mischief after their real 
 character has been completely exposed. 
 
 One of the most marvellous, and without 
 exception the most repulsive, of these Calibans 
 that I ever came across was an elderly financier 
 named L , who had been sent to penal ser- 
 vitude for fraud. He had a fine head, of the 
 Oriental cast, but there his good looks ended. 
 His body and limbs reminded one of nothing so 
 much as those weird antediluvian reptiles that 
 E. T. Reed used to depict in his * Prehistoric 
 Peeps ' in Pu?ich. I had been at Parkhurst about 
 eight months when he arrived after doing his 
 separate confinement at Lewes, and the first time 
 I saw or heard of him was when I was one of the 
 infirmary orderlies in ' B ' hall. While busy 
 cleaning one morning, I heard a tremendous bang- 
 ing at one of the cell doors, and thinking some 
 prisoner had been suddenly taken ill, I went and 
 told the officer, who was some way down the 
 ward. On the cell door being opened, the man 
 demanded to be let out to get some water, just as 
 
 159
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 if he had a right to leave his cell whenever he 
 pleased. The insolence of his tone and manner 
 were almost past belief. The officer quietly told 
 him that whenever he wanted anything he must 
 drop his indicator, and not hammer at the cell 
 door, and, moreover, that he could not do exactly 
 as he liked in prison — a fact which seemed never 
 to occur to him. I afterwards learnt that his 
 conduct at Holloway whilst awaiting trial had been 
 about as bad as it could be. He was always 
 making unfounded complaints against the officers, 
 trying to get them into trouble, and he made him- 
 self such a nuisance that when he was sentenced 
 to eight years' penal servitude there was much 
 rejoicing among some of the officials. Being only 
 a bird of passage at Holloway, he might try and 
 take such liberties, but one would have thought he 
 would have been taught to behave himself whilst 
 at Lewes. Yet when he came to Parkhurst his 
 arrogance and insubordination knew no bounds. 
 
 As soon as he was allowed to go out he joined 
 the hospital working party that I was in, but he 
 never did a stroke of work. The work was light 
 enough, but not nearly light enough for him. If 
 told to wheel a barrow he would feebly push it 
 along for a couple of yards or so, and then stop 
 
 i6o
 
 ^ Coppers ' 
 
 and groan, declaring he was suffering from asthma, 
 heart disease, and every imaginable ill under the 
 sun. Though talking is strictly forbidden, the 
 first day he was out with us he at once tried to 
 enter into a voluble conversation with the officer. 
 By way of a pleasant opening he began by remark- 
 ing, with a sweep of his hand, and at the top of 
 his voice, so that all might hear, that it was a 
 terrible thing for a gentleman and an honest man 
 like himself to have to work with 'all those 
 murderers and thieves.' As nearly all of us in 
 the party were there for crimes less serious than 
 his, this virtuous indignation caused considerable 
 amusement, though some of the men were furious 
 at being called names by such a specimen of 
 gentility. 
 
 L was always complaining about the food, 
 
 the officers, the orderlies — everything and every- 
 body, in fact. He went to see the Governor 
 almost every day and the Directors and Visiting 
 Magistrates whenever they came on their periodical 
 visits, always with a long list of grievances, the 
 chief of which was that he had been wrongly con- 
 victed. One day, when I was orderly, he made a 
 remark in a loud tone, so that I could not help 
 hearing it, which was evidently intended to be 
 
 i6i II
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 personal. I happened to be carrying a slop-pail, 
 which is one of the orderly's duties — not one of 
 the pleasantest, perhaps, but still a necessary one. 
 That, however, was not the view of our high and 
 mighty friend, so when he saw what I was doing, 
 he called out : 
 
 * If he's a gentleman he wouldn't do that. I 
 wouldn't.' 
 
 The officer informed him he would have to do 
 whatever he was told, but he replied they would 
 never make a man ' who held the position he did 
 outside ' do menial work. As a fact, I believe his 
 position outside was very much the same as that 
 of a money-lender's tout. I must say for the man, 
 however, that he had at times a touch of humour. 
 
 One day, when he was grumbling as usual about 
 the food and the ' attendance ' (meaning the 
 orderlies), an officer said to him : 
 
 * You are always complaining about something. 
 Remember what the Governor told you, that you 
 are not at the Hotel Cecil.' 
 
 ' No,' he replied, ' but in some ways I am better 
 off here than I should be there.' 
 
 ' How's that .''' asked the officer, astonished at 
 such an admission from a man who was never 
 tired of abusing everything in the prison. 
 
 162
 
 * Coppers ' 
 
 ' Well,' he replied, ' 1 have nothing to pay here, 
 and I have a lord-in-waiting.' 
 
 It was not so bad, considering the circumstances, 
 and if he had never been guilty of any worse 
 remarks than that nobody would have minded 
 his vagaries. 
 
 This L was a thorough-paced ' copper,' 
 
 ever on the watch to catch prisoners or officers 
 tripping, and sticking at no lie to get anybody 
 into trouble. Himself incessantly breaking rules, 
 he one day had the impudence to report to the 
 Governor that the officer who had charge of the 
 party he was in allowed all the men to talk with 
 the exception of himself! He added that the 
 same officer had kicked one of the men on the leg. 
 Now, to accuse an officer of personal violence on 
 one of the men is to make a most grave charge. 
 The Governor therefore held a strict investigation 
 of the facts, and found there was not a word of 
 truth in the statement. He consequently put 
 
 L back for the Visiting Magistrates, to be 
 
 tried for having made a false accusation against an 
 officer, rightly considering that no punishment he 
 could give (as the punishments to be inflicted by 
 Governors are very much restricted) would be 
 adequate to the case. The next time the Visiting 
 
 lo;, 11 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Magistrates came L was taken before them. 
 
 Knowing that he was in a serious mess, he began 
 crying, and — will it be believed ? — he actually- 
 gained the sympathy of men who must have had 
 abundant experience of such hypocrites. He tried 
 to make out that, though it was true the officer 
 had kicked a prisoner, he had not really intended 
 to charge him with the offence. To the astonish- 
 ment of everyone in the prison, he was let off 
 with a severe reprimand, which he no doubt 
 regarded as an excellent joke, instead of being 
 sharply punished, as he ought to have been. 
 
 This act of weakness on the part of the Visiting 
 Magistrates was most unjust, not only to the 
 officer who had been falsely accused, but also to 
 the other prisoners. It is difficult to understand 
 
 on what grounds L was let off. If the 
 
 charge he made had been proved the officer would 
 probably have been instantly dismissed from the 
 service, or, at the least, such a black mark would 
 have been put against his record that he would 
 have had no chance of promotion. There are 
 always a large class of prisoners who are delighted 
 to see an officer get into trouble, no matter how 
 good or kind he may have been to them, and 
 
 L no doubt counted on his false accusation 
 
 164
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 being supported by equally false testimony. 
 When it broke down completely, therefore, it 
 was very bad policy of the Visiting Magistrates, 
 and grossly unfair to the officers generally, to 
 treat it as a trifling breach of discipline. The 
 result was that many thought there must have 
 been some ground for it ; while prisoners who had 
 lost remission marks and been sent to the punish- 
 ment cells for far less serious offences than falsely 
 accusing an officer felt bitterly aggrieved. But 
 the influence some of these ' coppers ' manage to 
 exert over the authorities is notorious, and is well- 
 nigh incomprehensible. It seems to be a survival 
 of the bad old times of Jonathan Wild and the 
 ' thief takers,' when every prison contained a 
 number of spies and informers, themselves the 
 worst of criminals. 
 
 L was always petitioning the Home Secre- 
 tary for release on all possible grounds. One 
 week it would be because he was suffering from 
 cataract, though why that should matter when 
 many totally blind men were kept in prison he 
 did not explain. If that did no good, the next 
 time he would develop some incurable internal 
 disease — anything at all to get out. His petitions 
 were of no avail, as far as I know, but he evidently 
 
 165
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 believed they would have the desired effect if he 
 persevered long enough. The year after he 
 arrived at Parkhurst he got leave somehow or 
 other to write a very long document, which was 
 allowed to be sent to his relations, with instructions 
 that several thousand copies should be printed and 
 addressed to all the Masonic Lodges in the kingdom. 
 
 This paper contained a full statement of L 's 
 
 case, according to his own way of putting it. I 
 believe, however, that it was of such a libellous 
 
 nature that no one would print it. Why L 
 
 should have thought the Freemasons would rise in 
 a body over the question of his release no one 
 knows, but certainly for the first year he lived and 
 thrived on the hope of obtaining his release by 
 that means. 
 
 Though L put on such airs, his cell was 
 
 filthily kept. When his door was opened first 
 thing in the morning to collect the slops, it was 
 like standing over an open sewer, enough to knock 
 one down. Yet there was no one more fastidious 
 about his food or his personal comforts. On one 
 occasion he persuaded the medical ofiicer, for- 
 getting, 1 suppose, that L was a Jew, to order 
 
 him bacon for breakfast. The nurse in charge of 
 the infirmary ward that he was then in, however, 
 
 1 66
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 mentioned the fact to the Rabbi, knowing, of course, 
 that Jews are strictly prohibited from eating 
 bacon. The Rabbi, who was a very good sort of 
 man, and who took every trouble to look after 
 
 the prisoners of his faith, went and gave L a 
 
 severe lecture, and told him he should see the 
 medical officer and have the bacon stopped. That 
 
 afternoon, when the officer told L this on his 
 
 way to exercise, I heard him say : 
 
 * If that old Rabbi gets my bacon stopped 
 
 1 shall change my religion, as my stomach is more 
 use to me than my religion.' 
 
 As it happened, nevertheless, his bacon was 
 stopped, but he did not change his religion. He 
 made a great fuss about it, saying that he was a 
 ' reformed ' Jew, and that ' reformed ' Jews were 
 allowed to eat anything they liked. But he got 
 no more bacon, and there was the end of his 
 ' reformation.' When he petitioned to be let out 
 on the ground that a cataract was forming, there 
 really was, I believe, something the matter with 
 his eyes ; and the authorities replied that, if an 
 operation became necessary, an oculist would be 
 sent down to perform it in the prison. But that 
 did not suit him at all. He insisted that he must 
 be let out, and that an operation in prison would 
 
 167
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 do him no good, because his eye trouble was only 
 caused by his crying so much at being compelled 
 to associate with such scum of the earth as all his 
 fellow-prisoners were ! He was under an eight 
 years' sentence, and, personally speaking, I think it 
 would not have been any loss to anyone if it had 
 been eighteen. A man who behaved as he did in 
 prison could not be worth much outside. 
 
 Another instance I came across was that of a 
 
 certain man named C , who was undergoing 
 
 a long sentence for defrauding two well-known 
 American ladies. A more despicable individual 
 I never came across. I never had anything to do 
 with him personally, except when he was taken 
 into the hospital every now and then for protec- 
 tion; but I saw quite enough of him to learn 
 what an odious creature he was. The whole of 
 his existence whilst at Parkhurst was spent in 
 trying to get both officers and prisoners into 
 trouble ; and, as by some inexplicable means he 
 got some of the high officials thoroughly to 
 believe in him, the mischief he did was almost 
 incredible. He began in this way. He did not 
 belong to the ' star ' class, but he only had one 
 letter on his arm, a sign that he had not 
 undergone penal servitude before, though he 
 
 i68
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 must have suffered imprisonment of some sort. 
 The ' star ' is never refused to first offenders, 
 except for one offence, though, of course, if a 
 first offender's conduct in prison were outrageously 
 bad, the authorities could remove him from the 
 * star ' class to the ordinaries if they thought fit to 
 
 do so. In the party C first worked with 
 
 he succeeded in making friends with a man whom 
 
 I will call X . He presently told X 
 
 that if ever he wanted to * pass a stiff' — that is, 
 to send a letter surreptitiously out of prison — 
 he knew of an officer who would do it for 
 him. 
 
 Now, there is nothing more tempting to most 
 prisoners than the opportunity of writing freely 
 to their friends without their letters being read by 
 
 the officials; and X , never doubting C 's 
 
 good faith, told him he would be very glad to 
 avail himself of his offer. It . was thereupon 
 
 arranged that X should write his letter and 
 
 hand it to C on a certain date. On the very 
 
 day, however, when X had his letter ready, 
 
 the party were suddenly marched off for a special 
 
 search. X managed somehow or other to 
 
 destroy his letter before his turn came, and no 
 
 suspicion so far rested on C , who professed 
 
 169
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 to have been most anxious for X , and greatly 
 
 relieved that he had been able to get rid of the 
 
 letter. It was then agreed that X should 
 
 write another letter and pass it to C on their 
 
 way to chapel next morning. That evening 
 
 X 's cell was visited by some of the officers, 
 
 he and his cell were thoroughly searched, and the 
 letter was found. I forget the exact punishment 
 he got, but it was, I remember, a very severe 
 one. 
 
 The possession of a piece of pencil and paper 
 and writing a letter are a most serious offence, 
 and any prisoner caught at it would be sent to 
 solitary confinement for a considerable period, and 
 lose weeks, if not months, of remission. Any 
 officer found guilty of passing a letter out of 
 prison would be liable to instant dismissal, as this 
 comes under what is called ' trafficking ' — an un- 
 pardonable off'ence. It speedily became known 
 
 that the whole thing was a plot of C 's to get 
 
 X into trouble and gain favour and im- 
 portance for himself; and this aroused such resent- 
 ment against him that he had not only to be 
 removed from his party, but to be taken into 
 hospital for protection. If the prisoners had got 
 him in their hands they would assuredly have 
 
 1 70
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 done him serious injury to avenge his treachery 
 
 to X ; for a more contemptible thing for 
 
 one man to do towards another who had never 
 injured him in the least it is impossible to 
 imagine. 
 
 When C had recovered from the imaginary 
 
 illness for which he was sent to hospital, the great 
 difficulty was to know what to do with him. It 
 was impossible to put him to work in any party, 
 because it was a foregone conclusion that the men 
 would take the first chance of going for him. 
 The extraordinary result followed, therefore, that 
 he was given the ' red collar.' This is one of the 
 greatest privileges that can be given to any 
 prisoner, and one which was never given before 
 to any but a ' blue collar ' man — that is, one who 
 had served at least three years with good conduct ; 
 
 whereas C had only been fifteen months in 
 
 prison when he was made a ' red collar ' man and 
 allowed all the privileges of that class. ' Red 
 collar ' men are practically free agents, doing their 
 work as they think fit. Although excluded from 
 the workshops or working parties outside their 
 particular employment, they are released from the 
 constant presence and supervision of an officer, 
 which to most men is so intensely irritating. 
 
 171
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 C was put to work in the garden, where, 
 
 as might have been expected, he ruined every- 
 thing he touched, as he had not the remotest 
 knowledge of gardening. Not that he ever pre- 
 tended to do any honest labour. He merely 
 swaggered about on the strength of his red collar, 
 as if it had been some sort of order of merit ; 
 and all the while he continued to justify the name 
 he had gained of ' the prison spy ' by watching 
 and prying and taking advantage of his com- 
 parative liberty to carry lying reports about the 
 officers and men. Even then his life was never 
 safe. For considerably more than a year he was 
 under special protection, and, in spite of all, he 
 came very near getting his deserts. The hatred 
 of him among the prisoners was so intense they 
 did not care what happened to themselves if they 
 could only get at him. One day, coming out of 
 chapel, some of them set on him, evidently by 
 prearrangement, and it would have gone hard 
 with him if the passage had been wide enough for 
 them to surround him. As it was, the officers 
 were able to hustle him away, I think to every- 
 one's regret. After that he was assigned a special 
 place in chapel, near where an officer sat, just in 
 front of the stairs, and he was given a cell at the 
 
 172
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 end of one of the wards and at the top of the 
 staircase, so that he had not to pass anyone else's 
 cell to get to his own. In the summer of 1900 
 
 things came to a crisis. The way C behaved 
 
 had become such a scandal that at last it reached 
 the ears of the prison authorities at the Home 
 Office, who must have had an inkling of it some time 
 before. At ail events, an imperative order came 
 
 to Parkhurst that C was to be transferred to 
 
 Portland. He did his best to evade the order by 
 counterfeiting heart disease, but the medical officer 
 and doctors were not to be deceived, and to Port- 
 land he went, to the great relief of everybody he 
 left behind him. 
 
 There was another of these * coppers,' named 
 
 G , who ran a very narrow risk of losing his 
 
 life whilst I was at Parkhurst. When at a local 
 prison, undergoing a separate confinement, he 
 had, I believe, with the connivance of some of the 
 officials there, set a trap for one of the officers in 
 this way : He told this officer that if he would 
 take a letter out of the prison for him surrep- 
 titiously he would receive ^^5 from one of the 
 prisoner's friends outside. The officer agreed 
 to do what was required, with the result that 
 when he went to the appointed place to receive
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 the expected _^ 5 he was confronted with an official, 
 and it ended in his being dismissed the service. 
 
 When this man came to Parkhurst his reputa- 
 tion as a ' copper ' had preceded him ; for some- 
 how or other things like this always become known 
 in prisons. The officers and prisoners, therefore, 
 were on the look-out, and as he soon began 
 playing the same tricks again, he had to be taken 
 
 into hospital for protection, as C had later on. 
 
 This occurred before C 's exploits. After 
 
 having been detained in hospital for several weeks 
 he was sent out to work again, but was given a job 
 by himself, so that he did not come into contact 
 with any of the other men except in the hall. He 
 had not been out at work more than a couple of 
 days, however, when, as he was coming out of his 
 cell one morning on his way to chapel, some of 
 the men made a rush for him, and as nearly as 
 possible got him over the railing. If they had 
 succeeded he would have fallen between 20 and 
 30 feet on to an asphalt pavement, and would 
 most likely have been killed. As it was, he 
 managed to cling on to the top of the railing just 
 long enough for one of the officers to come up 
 and stop the scrimmage. The man then attended 
 chapel, and immediately afterwards went ' special 
 
 174
 
 * Coppers ' 
 
 sick,' and was taken to hospital. When examined 
 there it was found that he had a bruise on his back 
 as big as a plate. 
 
 I never saw a man in such a state of abject 
 terror before or since. Although some hours 
 had passed since the scrimmage, he could scarcely 
 walk or speak from sheer fright, and for some 
 time afterwards it was with the greatest difficulty 
 he could be persuaded to go out of his cell for a 
 minute. He was soon transferred to another 
 prison, as the feeling was so bitter against him 
 at Parkhurst it was not considered safe for him 
 to remain there. 
 
 I am sure that ' coppering ' such as I have 
 described would never be countenanced under 
 
 Captain E W . Neither he nor Mr. 
 
 M , the chief warder, would listen to any 
 
 tales, and under them men like G and 
 
 C would have found it very unprofitable 
 
 to behave as they did. 
 
 This is as it should be, for it is hard enough for 
 the majority of men to keep out of trouble, so as 
 to gain the maximum remission they are entitled 
 to, without having to be eternally on the look-out 
 lest they should be tripped up or have some low 
 trick played on them by their fellow-prisoners. 
 
 i7S
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Something of this sort once happened to me, 
 and though, luckily, nothing came of it, I may 
 just mention it, because it gives a good idea of 
 how a prisoner may incur punishment with- 
 out any fault of his own. One morning, on 
 going to the box where I kept my things for 
 polishing the steel and iron work of the stairs, 
 I found among them a ' stiff' — that is, a secret 
 letter. It was anonymous, and was written in 
 pencil on a small piece of toilet-paper, folded up 
 so that it might have passed for a bit of rag or 
 cotton waste. How long it had been there I do 
 not know, for it was not dated ; but it warned me 
 to be very careful whenever I went into my cell 
 after working to search it thoroughly, because the 
 writer had overheard two men say they were going 
 to try to get another man whose cell was close to 
 mine to pop in when he had a chance, and hide a 
 piece of pencil in my cell. If he had done so the 
 pencil would have been sure to be found the next 
 time my cell was searched (which, as a rule, is about 
 once a fortnight), and naturally I should have 
 been punished for it. Denials in such a case would 
 have been useless, for with the evidence of the thing 
 itself found in my cell I could not have expected 
 the authorities to believe I knew nothing about it. 
 
 176
 
 ' Coppers ' 
 
 I searched every nook and corner of my cell, 
 but never found any pencil, and it is quite possible 
 the letter itself may have been only a scare or a 
 trick of some kind. There was nothing to show 
 where it came from, though afterwards I had an 
 inkling of who might have written it. I showed 
 it to one of the priests, and by his advice destroyed 
 it, as, if discovered by an officer, it might have 
 been traced to the writer, and got some man into 
 a scrape who had only warned me out of kind- 
 ness. 
 
 177 12
 
 XIV 
 
 'all sorts and conditions of men 
 
 > 
 
 In addition to the * balmies,' the * coppers/ and 
 the ' incorrigibles,' my attention was attracted in 
 prison by a good many men whom I can only call 
 eccentrics or nondescripts, men not worth any 
 lengthy notice, but yet helping by their very 
 oddity to fill up the picture. One of these was a 
 
 most curious animal, named W . Though he 
 
 was anything but a nice person in the ordinary 
 sense of the word, his peculiarity was an extreme 
 nicety as to his food. No gourmand at Prince's 
 could be more mightily offended than he was if 
 anything was offered him the least bit unpalatable 
 or indifferently served. I heard him one day in 
 the hospital threaten to commit suicide by throw- 
 ing himself over the landing because his bacon 
 was not cooked exactly to his liking. It might 
 naturally have been concluded that this fine gentle- 
 man was accustomed when outside to live on the 
 fat of the land. Yet on his discharge he had to 
 
 178
 
 * All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 be taken to one of the Prisoners' Aid Society 
 homes, as he was absolutely destitute. His 
 relatives refused to have anything to do with him, 
 and not without reason. I learned that, when he 
 had been in prison before and been released, one 
 of his brothers took him to live with him, but, 
 because his sister-in-law objected to his making 
 free with her husband's clothes in his absence, he 
 set upon her and knocked her clean through the 
 door. As, I suppose, they did not wish to run 
 the risk of a similar experience again, they gave 
 him the cold shoulder on his second discharge. 
 He was made up of indolence and selfishness, but 
 yet had a most exalted opinion of himself, as if he 
 were entitled to the lion's share of the best of 
 everything in this life, without ever doing anything 
 to earn it or deserve it. 
 
 " Another very extraordinary specimen was under- 
 going a twenty years' sentence for burglary or 
 something of this description. He had been re- 
 leased owing to ill-health after doing about eight 
 years, but had forfeited his ticket-of-leave by some 
 breach of the law and been sent back to serve the 
 remaining twelve years of his original sentence. 
 The whole time I was at Parkhurst 1 never knew 
 that man do one stroke of work. He lived en- 
 
 179 12 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 tirely in hospital, and lay in bed all day whenever 
 he liked, and the only way he repaid the endless 
 kindness shown him by the medical officer and 
 officers was to get into the most violent rage with 
 them on the slightest provocation and throw things 
 at their heads. He well knew that the only 
 punishment he could be compelled to undergo v/as 
 the loss of so many marks and of his class, as his 
 heart was affected in some way. This merely 
 meant the curtailment of his letter-writing, and, 
 after the new rules came into operation, the for- 
 feiture of the privilege of talking on Sunday 
 afternoon, which was allowed to ' blue collar ' men 
 — that is, those who had been three years in prison 
 with good conduct. As he probably would only 
 go out of prison to come back again, and his 
 taste for correspondence was limited, these penal- 
 ties really amounted to nothing at all. I ought 
 properly to have classed this man with the incor- 
 rigibles, but I have placed him rather among the 
 curiosities, on account of one strange feature he 
 had, which might almost be called a redeeming 
 quality. Like Count Fosco in ' The Woman in 
 White,' he loved birds and exercised a weird sort 
 of fascination over them. He used to entice the 
 sparrows and starlings into]his cell by laying bread- 
 
 i8o
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 crumbs down his ventilator, and when once he 
 got them in he used to catch them, chp their 
 wings with the shears, which were made to serve 
 for nail scissors, and tame them in a most extra- 
 ordinary way. Bird-catching and bird-keeping, I 
 need hardly say, are not encouraged by the regu- 
 lations, but this man had such a way of breaking 
 much more important rules with impunity that 
 this was looked upon as a mere amiable weakness. 
 He was allowed to turn his cell into an aviary, 
 since the starlings and sparrows seemed not only 
 willing, but eager, to share his captivity. Who 
 knows but that he had mistaken his vocation in 
 taking to robbery, or that under his forbidding 
 exterior he had the genius of a great naturaHst ? 
 
 I came across many people at Parkhurst whose 
 cases I had read about outside. One man who 
 had been manager or secretary to a well-known 
 company in the City, and had received a heavy 
 sentence for misappropriating bonds to a large 
 amount, told me the way he evaded arrest for a 
 long time, which was rather original. He got 
 away to the Continent, and, after much travelling 
 about, settled down in Paris. Well knowinor that 
 
 o 
 
 the police were on his trail, however, he con- 
 stantly changed his abode. The difficulty was to 
 
 i8i
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 know what to do with himself during the day, so 
 as to escape the notice of the lynx-eyed mouchard. 
 It occurred to him that the Eiffel Tower would 
 be airy and pleasant, and that he might enjoy 
 more privacy among the crowds of Gook tourists, 
 Americans, and provincials who frequent that 
 famous edifice, than he would in the cafes on the 
 earth below. Accordingly, he used to make for 
 the Tower as soon as he left his hotel each morn- 
 ing, and stay up there till it was time to descend 
 and seek a nev/ sleeping-place. The plan seems 
 to have worked very well, and perhaps, if fancied 
 security had not lulled him into over-confidence, 
 his business address might still have been ' Mon- 
 sieur Chose, Tour Eiffel, Paris.' However, at 
 last he made himself conspicuous in some way, 
 and was arrested. My own impression is that the 
 charms of his lofty abode began to pall upon him, 
 and that he preferred to take his chance of Park- 
 hurst, if only for a change. 
 
 Another man I came across had gone through a 
 singular experience. He was prosecuted for fraud 
 as a trustee, and fled the country, but was arrested 
 in Belgium, where he was in prison for some time 
 while his extradition was being arranged for. He 
 was brought back to England, but the evidence 
 
 182
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 being insufficient, the case did not come on for 
 trial, and he was discharged. He immediately 
 went abroad. In the meantime fresh facts against 
 him came to light, and the police went in search 
 of him again, and after a considerable time he was 
 discovered in Italy and arrested for extradition. 
 
 On his arrival in England, the case being made 
 clear, he was sentenced to penal servitude, and 
 came to Parkhurst. He was a man of most un- 
 usual build, very tall — I should say 6 feet 6 inches 
 or 6 feet 7 inches — but loosely put together, with 
 arms quite out of proportion to the rest of his 
 body, the tips of his fingers almost reaching to his 
 knees, like a gorilla. On account of his great 
 size, the ordinary prison diet was not considered 
 enough for him, so he had full labour diet, and 
 also light labour diet as well. This meant that he 
 had nearly a quartern loaf of bread per day. 
 How he could possibly stuff such a quantity down 
 I cannot imagine. 
 
 He told me that when he was arrested in Italy 
 they put two pairs of handcuffs on him, because 
 he looked so big they thought one pair would 
 not hold him. He was very lazy, and always 
 tried to get out of doing any work, the truth 
 being, I suppose, that, notwithstanding his size, he 

 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 was not really strong. Some time after I went to 
 Parkhurst he was sent off to Portland, and the 
 last I heard of him was that he had completely- 
 broken down, and had been in hospital for many 
 months. /X 
 
 One of the most agreeable men I met in prison 
 was a Jew who had been convicted of forging 
 bonds, which he had been doing for years without 
 being detected. Curiously enough he came to 
 grief in the end through being arrested on a 
 charge of which he was perfectly innocent. A 
 crime had been committed by some men of whom 
 it was believed he was an accomplice, though, in 
 fact, he had nothing at all to do with them, and 
 his house was searched. The police entirely failed 
 to find what they were looking for, but quite 
 unexpectedly they came upon forged bonds, etc., 
 for a very large amount. Upon this clue they 
 got further evidence, and he was put on his trial 
 for forgery, convicted, and condemned to a long 
 term of penal servitude. But for this accident he 
 might have lived in the highest respectability, 
 without a shadow on his character, for many years 
 longer, as many others equally guilty are no doubt 
 doing at this moment. I was able to walk with 
 him on one or two Sunday afternoons, and I found 
 
 184
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 him an exceedingly well-informed man, and an 
 accomplished linguist, and I could well understand 
 his having filled a good social position without even 
 his most intimate friends suspecting how he got 
 his income. 
 
 I saw several men whose cases I knew a good 
 deal about, and some whom I knew by sight, 
 among them two with whom I was slightly 
 acquainted. I was as much surprised to meet them 
 there as they probably were to meet me. One of 
 them went out to the war in South Africa soon 
 after his discharge from prison, and after seeing a 
 good deal of fighting, died of enteric — possibly a 
 happy release, as his fimiily, I believe, disowned 
 him. That is not, perhaps, the best way of 
 getting a man to retrieve his past, for when he 
 leaves prison with the brand of the broad arrow 
 upon him, unless he has private means, or his 
 friends are able and willing to help him, he stands 
 very little chance of making a fresh start, especially 
 if he has not been brought up to any trade or pro- 
 fession. 
 
 There was another man who, though his life- 
 story was only too tragic, may well be classed 
 among the curiosities. . He had originally been a 
 blue-jacket, but lost an arm through some accident, 
 
 185
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 and was discharged while still comparatively 
 young. He then learnt sign-painting, and made 
 quite a comfortable income. He married, but 
 his married life did not turn out to be a very 
 happy one. After having been married about 
 eleven years, a child arrived on the scene, but the 
 wife confessed that he was not the father of it, 
 and he refused to allow her to keep the child in 
 his house, so it was placed out somewhere to be 
 looked after, and his wife went out to work to 
 earn money enough to pay for its keep, so that it 
 should not be any burden upon him. To this he 
 did not object, and he further allowed the woman 
 to remain under his roof. This arrangement 
 lasted for eighteen months. 
 
 All this time, nevertheless, he had been brood- 
 ing over it, and one night, without giving her any 
 warning, he went into her room with a coal- 
 hammer and battered her head in while she slept. 
 He then ran out and threw himself under a tram- 
 car, with the intention of being killed. Instead 
 of that, however, he was only very badly injured, 
 his remaining arm being much crushed. After 
 a long time in hospital, he recovered sufficiently 
 to stand his trial, and was, of course, found guilty 
 of murder and condemned to be hanged. It 
 
 i86 
 
 V
 
 * All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 looked as if nothing could save him, for there was 
 nothing to show that he was out of his mind when 
 he committed the murder, though, if he had lost 
 his own life under the tramcar, a jury would most 
 likely have brought in a verdict of temporary 
 insanity. At all events, the authorities must have 
 considered the circumstances exceptional, for, after 
 two respites, a few hours before the date fixed for 
 his execution two gentlemen from the Home 
 Office visited him in his cell and invited him to 
 give his own version of the affair. According to 
 what he told me, he disclosed everything quite 
 truthfully. Upon that, he assured me, one of the 
 gentlemen patted him on the shoulder and said : 
 ' Well, I should have done the same.' I can't say 
 that 1 quite believe that, but he told me the whole 
 story one Sunday. 
 
 Next day he received formal notice that the 
 death sentence had been commuted to penal 
 servitude for life. Being totally helpless, he was 
 sent to Parkhurst, where he had been about a year 
 or two when I first made his acquaintance. His 
 arm was so fixed when he was first imprisoned 
 that he could not use his hand at ail, except to 
 feed himself, and everything else had to be done 
 for him as if he were a baby. I found him a man 
 
 tS7 
 
 ^
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 of very quiet disposition on the whole, though a 
 good deal given to mild grumbling, but he had 
 got two ideas immovably in his head. One was 
 that, because his wife had deceived him, it was no 
 crime to put her to death ; and because the gentle- 
 man from the Home Office had told him he would 
 have done the same, therefore he ought to have 
 got a free pardon and been released. 
 
 It was of no use to point out that he had 
 condoned his wife's guilt by allowing her to keep 
 his house for eighteen months, and that the 
 provocation had been amply taken into account 
 by the commutation of the death sentence. He 
 did not seem to consider that any mercy at all, 
 and he stuck to it that he was entitled to be 
 released and would be released before long. 
 
 In a petition to the Secretary of State, he told 
 me, he had urged that he should be let out soon, 
 because, if he were kept in prison for a long term, 
 he would not be able to earn his living afterwards. 
 Of course, the answer was ' No grounds,' but 
 thoup^h he was told he need not trouble himself 
 about his living, since the Government were 
 bound to feed him and clothe him and take the 
 best of care of him, he still thought himself very 
 hardly used, and continued to believe he would 
 
 i88
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 get a free pardon. The other point on which he 
 was off his balance was religion. He had read 
 his Bible till he knew it almost by heart, and was 
 firmly convinced that he had been born again and 
 cleansed from all sin, and was already saved. He 
 was never tired of talking about this and declar- 
 ing his readiness to die at any moment, because 
 he would go straight to heaven. But, on the 
 other hand, he did not seem to believe that many 
 of his fellow-prisoners had much to look forward 
 to but everlasting fire. Nothing would make him 
 admit that the same grace, by which he had been 
 saved, might be extended to us, and I really 
 believe it would have destroyed the comfort his 
 religion gave him if he had thought so. Those 
 were his two peculiarities : he wanted a free 
 pardon at once, and he wanted heaven all to 
 himself. Otherwise he w^as a fairly sensible man, 
 and was, as a rule, inoffensive and pleasant 
 spoken. 
 
 I have mentioned somewhere that among the 
 miscellaneous collection of malefactors at Park- 
 hurst there were several clergymen. One of 
 these had previously been well known in the 
 literary world, some of his books being highly 
 thought of; but 1 cannot say he showed his 
 
 189
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 abilities to advantage in prison, least of all in an 
 attempt he made to escape — an attempt which he 
 might have known was doomed to certain failure 
 with very unpleasant consequences to himself. 
 One afternoon he and another prisoner, who had 
 been a sailor, were working out on the farm not 
 far from the fence which divides the farm lands 
 from the forest, and the officer was engaged in 
 showing another man something to do with his 
 work. Seeing their opportunity, as they thought, 
 they made a run for the fence, and, though it was 
 8 or 9 feet high, they managed to get over it. 
 Just as they dropped on the other side, however, 
 they were observed by one of the civil guards, 
 who are armed with carbines loaded with slugs. 
 The guard instantly fired and wounded the clergy- 
 man, but not badly enough to stop him, and both 
 men got away among the trees. 
 
 The moment it is known a convict has made his 
 escape the big prison bell is rung, all the parties 
 are marched in, and every man is locked in his 
 cell, so that as many officers as possible may go 
 out and join in the search. The forest, which 
 runs the whole way on one side from Parkhurst 
 right down to the seashore, is very dense in parts, 
 and, consequently, if a man has a fair start and 
 
 190
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 runs well, he can for a time evade capture. But it 
 is one thing to get out of Parkhurst, and quite 
 another thing to get out of the Isle of Wight. 
 As soon as it is known that a prisoner is at large, 
 word is sent by telephone to all the coastguard 
 stations, and all the men there are sharply on the 
 qui vive ; a reward up to ^5 is payable to anyone 
 not a prison officer who captures an escaped con- 
 vict. On this occasion the runaways pushed 
 through the forest in the direction of the sea 
 until they came out close to a coastguard station. 
 They certainly had the maddest ideas possible. I 
 suppose it was the sailor who decided what line 
 they should take, for their plan was to wait until 
 dark and then steal out and seize a boat, in the 
 hope of being able somehow or other to get over 
 to France. What they expected to do when they 
 got there I am quite at a loss to explain. They 
 were in their convict clothes, minus their jackets 
 and vests, as they were working in their shirt- 
 sleeves when they bolted, and they had not a 
 penny — I cannot say in their pockets, as pockets 
 are things not allowed to convicts, except one in 
 their jacket to hold their handkerchief. If they 
 had by some rare chance been able to row or sail 
 across the Channel, their appearance would have 
 
 J91
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 betrayed them directly they landed, and the nearest 
 gendarme would have taken them in charge. 
 
 However, perhaps they had never looked as far 
 ahead as that. Seeing the coastguard station, 
 they hid themselves in some bushes, but soon 
 afterwards they became aware of a coastguard 
 walking up and down not far from where they 
 were crouching. It was now late in the evening, 
 and as the last food they had had was dinner 
 between eleven and twelve, they were extremely 
 hungry and thirsty. A prison dinner is not quite 
 the sort of meal to sustain a man for six or seven 
 hours running, especially with little or no prospect 
 of getting anything else for an indefinite time. 
 Something more solid is required to keep up 
 courage and hope and inspire practical designs 
 for the future. They therefore determined to 
 take the coastguard into their confidence, with 
 some vague notion that he might help them to 
 food and drink and, when night came, let them 
 swim off to a sailing boat that was anchored a 
 little way out — a precious likely thing for a coast- 
 guard to do I One of them therefore strolled up 
 to the man, and, having told him their story, 
 asked whether he would get them something to 
 eat. The coastguard, not being quite so simple 
 
 192
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 as they imagined, pretended to sympathize with 
 them and to fall in with their plans, telling them 
 to lie quiet where they were while he went back 
 to fetch them some food and liquor. On arriving 
 at the station he was informed of the escape of 
 two convicts from Parkhurst, which he was already 
 aware of, having just made their personal acquaint- 
 ance. He set off and got one of the forest- 
 keepers, who had his gun with him, and the two 
 went back to the spot where the men were hiding. 
 They told them they must come to the coast- 
 guard station, and if they attempted to run away 
 the keeper would shoot them, so they went 
 quietly. When the coastguards had got them 
 safe inside the station they treated them very 
 kindly and gave them a good supper. After that 
 they hired a farm cart from someone near by, and 
 placing the runaways in it, escorted by the keeper 
 with his gun and a coastguard or two, commenced 
 their journey back to Parkhurst, the distance 
 being about eight miles by road. It was close 
 on midnight when they arrived, and the crest- 
 fallen clergyman and sailor promptly found them- 
 selves locked up in the punishment cells. 
 
 In the meantime every available warder and 
 ^veral soldiers and civilians were searching the 
 
 193 13
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 forest in all directions, and it was some time 
 before it was generally known that the men had 
 been recaptured. Several of the officers did not 
 get back to the prison until between five and six 
 o'clock in the morning, having been ransacking 
 the forest ever since the previous afternoon. If 
 the runaways did nothing else, they certainly 
 created a sensation and gave the prison staff a 
 little wholesome exercise. Whether the game 
 was worth the candle from their own point of 
 view is another question. They were tried by 
 Visiting Magistrates at their next visit and sen- 
 tenced to several days in the punishment cells on 
 punishment diet, the loss of a large number of 
 remission marks, and the yellow parti-coloured 
 dress and chains, which they had to wear for 
 several weeks. It was found, too, that the clergy- 
 man had three or four slugs from the civil guard's 
 carbine in his arms and shoulders, but these were 
 easily extracted, the wounds being only skin- 
 deep. 
 
 There were a good many other attempts to 
 escape whilst I was at Parkhurst, but, as a rule, 
 the men were captured immediately. On one 
 occasion, however, shortly before I went there, a 
 man got away and was not caught for two days. 
 
 194
 
 ' All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 Also, on another occasion, a man escaped in the 
 night, having moved some of the bricks in the 
 wall of his cell and made a hole large enough to 
 crawl through. This must have taken him weeks, 
 if not months, to accomplish, because he had no 
 tool but a piece of iron not much bigger than a 
 toothpick, and every morning he had to replace 
 the bricks and cover up the traces of his work 
 with a sort of mortar or paste made from his 
 bread. When he had made an opening that he 
 could get his body through he let himself down 
 by the aid of his sheets to the pavement below, 
 and then managed somehow or other to scale the 
 outer wall. Once free, he easily broke into the 
 house of a clergyman between Parkhurst and 
 Cowes, and helped himself to a fit-out of clothes 
 and some money. He then went on to Cowes, 
 where he got hold of a boat and pushed off. By 
 that time, however, his escape had been made 
 known far and wide, and every boat and every 
 person was being watched, so that he was very 
 soon captured. It is possible that, if he could 
 have concealed himself for a day or two, he might 
 have got away altogether, as he not only had 
 ordinary clothes, but a good supply of money. 
 1 do not think there has ever been a single case 
 
 195 ij— -i
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 of a prisoner finally making good his escape from 
 Parkhurst. It was, 1 think, in that well-known 
 novel called * The Silence of Dean Maitland ' that 
 a vivid description of the escape of a convict from 
 Portland is given — an innocent man who had 
 been condemned by the treachery of a friend, who 
 was the real culprit. He got clear away by the 
 assistance of a Highland sentry whom he took 
 into his confidence, just as the clergyman and 
 sailor from Parkhurst took the coastguard into 
 theirs. If I am not mistaken, the author vouches 
 for the truth of the incident ; but, for my own 
 part, I doubt very much whether such a thing ever 
 happened except in a work of fiction or on the 
 stage. There is no reason why a coastguard or a 
 soldier should risk his own liberty to help a con- 
 vict to escape whom he has never seen before, and 
 who, for all he knows, may be a most dangerous 
 villain of some sort. The only chance an escaped 
 prisoner has is to get a change of clothes and 
 plenty of money within the first hour or two, and 
 even then he is surrounded by dangers known 
 and unknown, and the odds are fifty to one that 
 he will betray himself directly he begins to mix 
 with people or to move about. 
 
 If there is one thing about the English prison 
 
 196
 
 * All Sorts and Conditions of Men ' 
 
 system which scarcely admits of any improvement 
 it is the security it affords against convicted 
 criminals roaming at large. It is true that two 
 men escaped from Borstal last year, one of whom 
 was almost immediately captured, while the other 
 succeeded in eluding the police for several months. 
 Unless my memory is at fault, he actually got 
 employment at Woolwich Dockyard, but was 
 eventually retaken the first time he ventured to 
 visit his father's house. 
 
 Though the following story has nothing to do 
 with my actual life in prison, it seems to me 
 amusing enough to be worth telling. Since I 
 regained my freedom T have, as might perhaps be 
 expected, received a good many letters from men 
 who claimed to have been at Parkhurst with me. 
 Most of these letters I took no notice of, but 
 some I answered, and I have been to see certain of 
 the writers. One of the latter was a man who 
 was admitted into the infirmary several times 
 whilst I was an orderly there, and to whom I 
 took rather a liking. After a long journey by 
 omnibus and tram I found the place where he 
 lived, and we had a talk about his affairs. He 
 then said his mother would very much like me to 
 have some tea with them, so he took me into a 
 
 197
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 room where there were four or five other people — 
 his mother and sister, or sister-in-law (I forget 
 which), and two other men. The mother was 
 very smart in a black silk dress, and wore 
 innumerable rings — such as they were — on most 
 of her fingers, and several gold chains festooned 
 over her very ample bosom. When we had 
 seated ourselves round the table she suddenly 
 turned to me and said, with a sweep of the hand 
 that included the v,^hole company : ' You need 
 not be at all shy, sir ; we have all "done time" !' 
 the good lady thinking, no doubt, to put me at 
 my ease and make me feel that we were all equal, 
 and that no one present could look down on any 
 of the others. But it was so comical that I could 
 hardly keep myself from laughing. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 PRISONERS AND THE PRESS 
 
 In more than one of the early chapters of this 
 book I showed that, both before and after my 
 trial, I m.et with treatment from several of the 
 leading London newspapers which was by no 
 means in accordance with the boasted character of 
 English journalism for impartiality and fair play. 
 For no other reason than because I belonged to a 
 certain social rank, I was singled out for attack 
 and denunciation, and made the subject of lengthy 
 leading articles and virulent paragraphs, which 
 were evidently intended in the first place to 
 prejudice the Court against me, which they most 
 effectually did, and afterwards to inflame public 
 opinion against me, so that I should never be able 
 to hold my head up again. As if this were not 
 enough for a man who had received the maximum 
 penalty for an offence which had not really injured 
 anybody, some of these same newspapers must 
 needs follow me into prison, and rake up my case 
 
 199
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 again whilst I was actually undergoing punish- 
 ment, mentioning me by name in full, as if the 
 fact that, notwithstanding my former social rank, 
 I was then herded with the worst of criminals, was 
 one to be gloated over. The articles to which I 
 particularly refer appeared in the 'Times and the 
 Standard of October i8, 1899, ^ Y^^'* ^^^ ^ ^^^^ 
 after my conviction, and professed to be special 
 descriptions of a Church Army service in the 
 chapel at Parkhurst Prison. As a fact, though 
 evidently the work of trained reporters, who ought 
 to have known better, they were in parts most 
 inaccurate, in addition to being unwarrantably 
 personal, for the sake of sensational effect. The 
 writer in the Standard did not hesitate to say that 
 he had seen in the chapel at Parkhurst persons 
 and things that were not there during his visit, or 
 at any other time. Here is an extract verbatim, 
 names only being omitted, which is a marked 
 instance of his misleading and malicious method : 
 
 ' There are over eighty murderers within its 
 walls, as well as men who have held good positions 
 
 in life, such as J B , L W 
 
 N , M , and V H .' 
 
 Now, the sole object of this paragraph ob- 
 viously was to drag these four names into promi- 
 
 200
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 nence, and to give the public the gratifying 
 information that the writer saw their owners 
 among the murderers in the chapel. The truth 
 was that only one of the four, the first-named, 
 could possibly have been there, as the second, 
 myself, being a Catholic, did not attend the 
 Church Army service ; the third was ill in the 
 infirmary ; and the fourth, being a Jew, went only 
 to the synagogue. Here is another specimen of 
 the same writer's veracity : 
 
 * I was surprised to see how many bore on their 
 arms the letters " M.W.," which indicates that 
 they are mentally weak. Some of these were 
 condemned to life imprisonment. Many were 
 plainly very mad indeed.' 
 
 The paragraph previously quoted was false by 
 implication, but this one was fiction pure and 
 simple. The writer never saw any prisoners 
 bearing the letters ' M.W.' on their arms. He 
 referred, no doubt, to those whom I have fully 
 described under the heading of * balmies,' and 
 who are officially known as ' W.M.'s,' or weak- 
 minded. But none of these have any distinguish- 
 ing mark on their clothes. 
 
 It may be thought, perhaps, that I have made 
 too much of this because it affected myself. I 
 
 20 1
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 admit I feel strongly about it, and I wish to say 
 that I think papers like the 'Times and the Standard 
 ought to be above such tactics. But I am not 
 anxious to urge my own opinion. I will be 
 content to cite a much weightier authority. Sir 
 Wemyss Reid, writing in one of his monthly 
 articles called ' The Newspapers ' in the Nineteenth 
 C^w/^ry, under date October i8, 1899, expressed 
 himself thus: 
 
 * A feature in to-day's journalism to which one 
 may take exception is to be found in an account 
 of certain religious services recently held in Park- 
 hurst Convict Prison. It is all very well to tell 
 us what is being done for the spiritual welfare of 
 the prisoners, but it was surely unnecessary to 
 make special mention of the names of certain of 
 those prisoners whose only claim to the interest of 
 the public lies in the fact that they are members 
 of well-known families. No doubt the error was 
 committed in thoughtlessness, but it is an example 
 of the kind of cruelty of which our press is at 
 times guilty.' 
 
 I will not add one word to that grave and 
 measured condemnation on the part of one who 
 commands the respect of every decent journalist. 
 
 1 come now to a different class of journalism to 
 
 202
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 that represented by articles in the 'Times and 
 Standard. I know nothing about journalism 
 myself, though I read the newspapers and maga- 
 zines industriously, and admire them very much. 
 I hope, therefore, that the following remarks will 
 be taken as the impressions of an outsider who, 
 nevertheless, has considerable knowledge of the 
 world, and is able to form a fairly accurate judg- 
 ment of what is correctly and conscientiously 
 written and what is not. There have appeared 
 from time to time in Tearsons Magazine articles 
 by a Mr. George Griffith, who claims to ' have 
 been privileged to examine the inmost working of 
 our convict system,' and, what is more important, 
 to have had the direct guarantee of the late 
 
 Governor of Parkhurst, Colonel P , and His 
 
 Majesty's Prison Commissioners, for the 'absolute 
 accuracy of his statements.' In spite of these very 
 bold assertions, I will undertake to prove that 
 Mr. Griffith can have known little or nothing 
 about the convict system beyond what it suited 
 the officers to let him see as a casual visitor, and, 
 moreover, that some of his statements are so 
 absurd that nobody would be more astounded by 
 them than the late Governor of Parkhurst or the 
 Prison Commissioners. I will take first an article
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 called ' Sidelights on Convict Life,' which ap- 
 peared in Pearson's for June, 1899. The illus- 
 trations were excellent, though I must say I think 
 it is very wrong that photographers should be 
 allowed to take snapshots of the prisoners for 
 publication. But it is to the letter-press that I 
 take the most serious exception. I do not hesitate 
 to say that the representation which it gives 
 of Parkhurst is positively farcical. What Mr. 
 Griffith expected to find in a prison specially set 
 apart for invalid and weak-minded prisoners I 
 do not know. But from beginning to end of his 
 inspection he seems to have been not only over- 
 whelmed with astonishment, but highly scandalized 
 and indignant at the cleanliness and good order of 
 the place, and the healthy looks of some of the 
 inmates. He evidently went there in the hope of 
 seeing the prisoners kept in dungeons, with no 
 regular food or decent clothing, and forced to per- 
 form excessive labour under terror of the lash and 
 other tortures. As he saw none of these things, 
 everything he did see was to his eyes ridiculously 
 and unjustifiably luxurious, and he forthwith 
 conjured up in his mind a spectacle of pampered 
 indolence and self-indulgence which has no exist- 
 
 y. 
 
 ence in fact, but which he turned to account as a 
 
 204
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 contrast with the condition of the honest poor 
 outside. To a writer who set out with his mental 
 vision warped like that, nothing appeared in a 
 natural or reasonable light. The approach to the 
 prison he described truly as ' a beautiful avenue of 
 overarching trees, which at first sight might be 
 the approach to some lordly domain, for on both 
 sides are pleasant well - wooded gardens, with 
 pretty houses nestling among the trees and flower- 
 beds.' These, I need hardly say, are the residences 
 of the Governor, Deputy - Governor, chaplain, 
 medical officer, and head officers ; but no doubt 
 Mr. Griffith jumped to the conclusion that they 
 were villas set apart for the delectation of pet 
 convicts. What shocked him still more was the 
 laziness of the prisoners : 
 
 ' In the avenue itself were a couple of irregular 
 lines of convicts gently— very gently — brushing 
 the roadway with long besoms, now and then 
 moving a few dead leaves towards the ditches, and 
 now and then stopping to rest. There is, in fact, 
 a great deal of resting done at Parkhurst. ' 
 
 If it had occurred to him to ask who these men 
 were, he would have learnt that they were, hospital 
 patients, allowed to do a little light work for air 
 and exercise, in preference to being shut up all 
 
 205
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 day In their cells ; or else one of the light labour 
 parties, composed often of old and decrepit men. 
 Mr. Griffith, of course, took these poor feeble 
 wretches for a hard - labour gang. Equally- 
 ludicrous was his misconception of much that he 
 saw inside. This is how he recorded his first 
 impressions of prisoners at work : 
 
 ' The surroundings were such as a millionaire 
 might have chosen to build his pleasure-house 
 amidst. Whichever way you looked there were 
 lawns and flowers and trees, and the air was soft 
 and sweet and warm. Most of the prisoners 
 looked plump and comfortable, and perfectly con- 
 tented with the pleasant lines in which their evil 
 lot had been cast. 
 
 ' The majority were pursuing the usual avoca- 
 tions you find going on inside prisons — brick- 
 laying, carpentering, stone-dressing, and so on. 
 But many others were just wandering, apparently 
 in perfect freedom, about the paths between the 
 lawns and flower-beds. Some of them were limp- 
 ing painfully, others walking feebly, and every 
 now and then sitting down on chairs placed 
 handily for them, and in front of one of the big 
 red-brick buildings about a dozen were pacing 
 somewhat drearily round and round a grass plot 
 
 206
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 that had a flower-bed in the middle of it. AH 
 about this circle and along the walls of the build- 
 ing there were chairs and seats, and whenever a 
 man felt a little tired he was at liberty to drop 
 out and sit down. Some of them weren't doing 
 any walking at all ; they were just lolling about 
 on the chairs and benches sunninor themselves.' 
 
 In what part or parts of the prison this brilliant 
 romancer witnessed such a scene it is not hard to 
 guess. It was, though he carefully omits to say 
 so, just outside the infirmary, and the men that he 
 saw sitting down or lolling about in the chairs and 
 benches were the hospital patients, many of them 
 suffering from incurable diseases, and the re- 
 mainder recovering from severe illnesses. Or he 
 may have seen the certified lunatics, who, as I 
 have explained in a separate chapter on the subject, 
 were placed by themselves in the new wing, and 
 allowed to spend part of the day in the garden 
 attached to it, either walking about or sitting on 
 benches, under the charge of their own special 
 officers. Not a single prisoner was ever allowed 
 to sit down when at labour out of doors, unless 
 his work required him to be in that position ; nor 
 is it possible that Mr. Griffith ever saw ordinary 
 convicts of any class at Parkhurst otherwise than 
 
 207
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 under close supervision and the strictest discipline. 
 Such a misrepresentation of well-known facts as I 
 have quoted above is nothing short of a gross 
 libel on all who were responsible for the manage- 
 ment of the prison ; and to say that the Governor 
 and the Prison Commissioners authorized it to 
 be published is adding insult to injury with a 
 vengeance. 
 
 But the same muddle-headed confusion of mind 
 and the same habit of reckless generalization runs 
 all through the article. From the account Mr. 
 Griffith gave of the food at Parkhurst it would 
 naturally be supposed that the prisoners are not 
 only grossly overfed, but are supplied with dainties 
 of exquisite quality, such as no working men and 
 few middle-class folk outside ever have a chance 
 of tasting. A reference to my chapter on diet, 
 where the actual facts are stated, will show that 
 this is^ flagrantly untrue. At the time of Mr. 
 Griffith's visit the old or unreformed scale of 
 dietary was still in force — the dietary which the 
 Departmental Committee of 1898 reported to be 
 insufficient, unwholesome, and not such as ' to 
 maintain the prisoner's general health and bodily 
 condition, so that on discharge he might 
 be . capable of taking up any honest means of 
 
 208
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 livelihood.' It was, in fact, in some cases barely 
 enough to keep body and soul together, and, as 
 the Committee affirmed, it was so monoto- 
 nous and so lacking in some of the necessary 
 ingredients of human food that an immediate 
 change was recommended on medical grounds. 
 Yet it was of this same dietary that Mr. Griffith 
 wrote : 
 
 ' The quantities are all liberal, and the food 
 is always fresh and good and wholesome.' For 
 telling that monstrous fib I should like to set 
 him down to a Sunday dinner, consisting of a pint 
 of pork soup, so putrid that it had to be drenched 
 with vinegar to keep the stench down, or a 
 Thursday dinner, consisting of a pound of rotten 
 potatoes and a pound of suet pudding, ' deficient 
 in the element of fat,' as the Committee emphati- 
 cally noted. But it is the hospital diet that most 
 especially raised his ire. He gave the particulars 
 of one of the dinners thus : ' Ten ounces of meat, 
 four ounces of bread, eight ounces of potatoes, 
 and four ounces of vegetables' — rather more than 
 a pound and a half of food altogether — and on 
 this he sarcastically remarked : ' One would think 
 a man would have to be a fairly healthy invalid to 
 get through that !' * ' 
 
 209 14
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Mr. Griffith evidently has not the slightest idea 
 of what 'ounces' of food signify. Ten ounces 
 of meat are just an ordinary good plateful or 
 ' helping ' ; four ounces of bread are a piece about 
 two inches square — to be accurate, the sixteenth part 
 of a quartern loaf; and eight ounces of potatoes 
 are two fair-sized potatoes. A dinner of these pro- 
 portions surely cannot be called bloated excess for 
 a man who is being fed up on recovering from 
 illness. But Mr. Griffith thought it a fraud on 
 the taxpayers and a clear inducement to crime that 
 such ' exaggerated humanity ' should be wasted on 
 ' a sick thief, or forger, or manslaughterer.' That 
 convicts have a 7-ight to the amount of food pre- 
 scribed to them by law struck him as something 
 wonderful. 
 
 ' It is interesting here, also, to note how 
 scrupulously exact the Government is in its 
 dealings with its involuntary guests. Every 
 prisoner has the right of objection if he sus- 
 pects that he is being done out of the fraction 
 of an ounce of food. Going through the ex- 
 quisitely appointed bakery at Parkhurst, and look- 
 ing over the trays of neat little brown wholemeal 
 loaves, I noticed that some of the loaves had little 
 cubes of bread skewered on to them. This meant 
 
 2IO
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 that they had been weighed, and found wanting 
 of the rigid standard. There is many an old 
 "lag" who can hold his loaf on his fingers and 
 tell you to the fraction of an ounce how much 
 it is over or under weight, and when it is under 
 they don't forget to speak.' 
 
 He seems not to have been aware that bread 
 is always sold by weight, and that the prison 
 baker, when he adds the 'jockey' to a loaf that 
 is under the proper weight, only does what every 
 baker in the kingdom is required to do on pain 
 of fine or imprisonment. Considering that the 
 bread is all the solid food that most prisoners get 
 for thirteen or fourteen hours at a stretch, they 
 may well look out sharply for the full allowance. 
 Again, as for the ' neat little brown wholemeal 
 loaves ' which Mr. Griffith was so surprised to 
 see in ' the exquisitely appointed bakery at Park- 
 hurst,' their brown colour, unfortunately, was due 
 to what the Departmental Committee called * an 
 excess of coarse bran and other defects,' resulting 
 from faulty milling arrangements and ignorance of 
 the proper composition of flour. The quality, 
 moreover, was sometimes for months together so 
 bad that only very hungry men could eat all their 
 bread, and not even they could digest it. The 
 
 211 14 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 lengthy passage in which the Committee com- 
 mented on this subject was the severest in the 
 whole of their able report. One of the silliest 
 things in Mr. Griffith's article was the conclusion 
 he came to — that the prisoners at Parkhurst must 
 have had far more food than was necessary, 
 because of the large quantity of ' leavings ' which 
 are given to the pigs. In my chapter on dietary 
 I have given the very simple explanation of these 
 * leavings.' Sometimes nearly every man in a ward 
 returned his dinner, not because he did not want 
 it, but because it was uneatable. 
 
 Scarcely a page of the article is free from 
 blunders or misstatements, some of them of no 
 importance, but others very serious. Commenting 
 on the moral and religious care that is taken of 
 the prisoners, Mr. Griffith wrote : ' Every Sunday 
 two full services are held, as well as special services 
 in the infirmary. There are also a Roman Catholic 
 chapel and a Jewish synagogue within the precincts.' 
 This alone is enough to prove how unobservant 
 he was in collecting his facts. There was no 
 Catholic chapel at Parkhurst, the Church of 
 England chapel being used for both services, 
 a most inconvenient arrangement. Then he 
 went on : 
 
 212
 
 Prisoners and the Press 
 
 ' Both the patients and the other prisoners are 
 visited as frequently as possible by the chaplain- 
 and his staff, and in addition to all this there are 
 evening classes held for the benefit of the more 
 uneducated.' 
 
 By * evening classes ' I suppose he meant the 
 scanty lessons in the three R's that were given for 
 half an hour twice a week after supper. 
 
 Similarly, he described the library as ' an ex- 
 cellent one, containing standard works of biography, 
 travel, history, literature, and general science, 
 which to the better class of prisoners, at any 
 rate, are a very great boon.' 
 
 In reality, it consisted at that time principally 
 of a number of tattered old books, mostly ancient 
 novels, which ' the better class of prisoners ' never 
 used. It was not until long after Mr. Griffith's 
 visit that the library was much improved by 
 Mr. Addison, who himself told me that when 
 he arrived at Parkhurst as chaplain in August, 
 1898, it was in a most deplorable condition. It 
 was he who supported me and others so strongly 
 in our request to be allowed to have books sent 
 in to us and so help to replenish and bring it up 
 to date — a practice which was afterwards stopped. 
 These are instances of Mr. Griffith's errors of 
 
 213
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ■^ar,elessi^ess, all showing how little he could be 
 relied ubon, even in small matters, about which 
 he might easily have ascertained the truth. I shall 
 reserve wnat I have to say about his graver mis- 
 statements for another chapter. 
 
 214
 
 XVI 
 
 MORE PRESS INACCURACIES 
 
 A MUCH more objectionable article than that of 
 June, 1899, whilst equally foolish in point of in- 
 accuracy, appeared in Tearsons Magazine of 
 January, 1902, from the same pen, under the 
 title * Prison as Home and Shelter.' In both 
 these articles Mr. Griffith set himself to impress 
 the public with the belief that, for the vast 
 majority of offenders, penal servitude is no 
 punishment at all, but is, on the contrary, a 
 very easy and pleasant existence, infinitely pre- 
 ferable to that of the honest working man out- 
 side. To do this he adopted the simple method 
 of falsifying the facts in both directions, depicting 
 the lot of the convict in hues so rosy as to be 
 quite unreal, and, on the other hand, painting 
 that of the free labourer in the darkest colours. 
 The passage in the January article in which he 
 summed up his conclusions on this point is so 
 
 215
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 unblushingly disingenuous that it may be worth 
 while to give it in full : 
 
 * Take, for instance, the case of the honest man 
 out of work, and contrast his lot with that of the 
 thief, the housebreaker, the coiner, or the swindler 
 in prison. The honest man is perpetually haunted 
 by the fear that each scanty meal may be the last 
 he will ever eat outside the workhouse — which is 
 infinitely more dreaded that the prison. His rent 
 is in arrears, and the spectre of the bailiff dogs 
 his footsteps. Nineteen out of every twenty of 
 his fellow-creatures look upon him with con- 
 tempt, pitying or otherwise, and until he gets 
 work or goes into " the house " earth has no 
 place for him. >^*^-/ 
 
 ' But let this man cross the borders of crime, 
 and, when the first shock of the sentence and the 
 swift change which follows it are over, he finds 
 himself in a new world. The scanty clothing 
 through which wind and rain reached his skin, the 
 broken boots which let the water in at every step 
 on a wet day, are at once exchanged for clean, 
 comfortable garments, warm stockings, and good 
 boots. He has a nice little bed-sitting-room to 
 himself, which, by the King's regulations, must 
 always be kept at a proper temperature, instead 
 
 216
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 of, perhaps, a bunk in a filthy and vermin-haunted 
 doss-house. 
 
 ' His food is brought to him at certain hours 
 with unfailing regularity. His working day is 
 very short, rarely more than seven and a half 
 hours, in place of the sixteen and eighteen hours 
 a day through which the honest victim of the 
 sweater or the miser has to toil to earn less food 
 in a day than a thief gets in a single meal. As an 
 honest man he might die in a hovel of consump- 
 tion complicated by starvation. As a criminal he 
 would be carefully nursed in hospital and sent to 
 Parkhurst to get better on diet, whose generosity 
 would be limited only by the discretion of the 
 medical o^icer. 
 
 * In short, as an honest and free man he would 
 suffer cold, hunger, the unearned but very real 
 disgrace of poverty, and the ever-haunting fear 
 for the things of to-morrow. But the instant 
 that he became a convicted thief all these cares 
 would vanish, and he could settle down for a 
 given term of months or years to a comfortable, 
 if somewhat monotonous, existence, with no cares, 
 no anxieties, and certainly no hardships that would 
 bear comparison with his sufferings outside.' 
 
 Could exaggeration go farther, or could there 
 
 217
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 be a more distorted account of the British work- 
 man's condition of life ? ' The honest man out 
 of work,' it will be noticed, nevertheless ' has to 
 toil sixteen and eighteen hours a day,' while the 
 same respectable householder, whose rent is in 
 arrear, and who is in dread of the bailiff, inhabits 
 * a bunk in a filthy and vermin-haunted doss- 
 house.' Such inconsistencies would be laughable 
 if they were not discreditable in a writer pro- 
 fessing: to have made ' a somewhat exhaustive 
 study of the question, pursued under the most 
 favourable circumstances.' The plain truth is, 
 he knows little or nothing either of the life of the 
 honest working classes or of the life of convicts. 
 
 That there are in every prison a certain number 
 of hardened convicts who prefer a degraded, body- 
 and-soul-killing slavery to freedom with social 
 responsibilities is a well-known fact, and need 
 cause no surprise. But Mr. Griffith's deliberate 
 assertion that these constitute all but * about three 
 per cent, of the criminal population of this country,' 
 and that it is only those three per cent, to whom 
 penal servitude is either a punishment or a deter- 
 rent, is so outrageous that it is a wonder the editor 
 of a reputable publication like Tear sons allowed it 
 to pass. Fortunately, the article is so self-con- 
 
 218
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 tradictory that it carries its own refutation with 
 it. On the very same page where the statement 
 just quoted occurs, there will also be found the 
 following passage : 
 
 ' There is, both in penal servitude and in hard 
 labour, a very real and a very severe punishment, 
 but it only falls upon the class which, in one sense, 
 least deserves it. This is the degradation from 
 the status of the freeman to that of the numbered 
 human machine ; the sudden severance from all 
 that makes the world a pleasant place to live in, 
 or life itself worth living. It is the transition 
 from the club, the drawing-room, the theatre, 
 and the familiar place of business to the prison- 
 cell, the treadmill, the stone-quarry, and the 
 dismal exercise-ground. 
 
 * A man who had once occupied the position 
 of a gentleman, and who, for a certain offence, 
 was sentenced to ten years' penal servitude, told 
 me that he spent the first three months of his 
 imprisonment trying to realize what had happened 
 to him. In such a case — and there are many such 
 — the mental torture must be quite unspeakable, 
 and the punishment, especially at first, terribly 
 severe.' 
 
 Yet on another page in the same article Mr. 
 
 219
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Griffith declares that ' your gentleman swindler is 
 usually a very " good prisoner." He may be the 
 greatest scoundrel unhung, but if he has sufficient 
 cunning and self-control he can easily make him- 
 self a perfect prisoner. As such, he will earn 
 all the comforts of prison life, which are far 
 greater and more numerous than is generally 
 supposed.' 
 
 He then went on to show that prisoners of this 
 class — that is to say, the three per cent, to whom 
 elsewhere he said penal servitude must be ' un- 
 speakable torture ' and * a terribly severe punish- 
 ment ' — do not care a straw about it as a punish- 
 ment, but thoroughly enjoy the life and wish for 
 nothing better ! 
 
 This brings me to a paragraph in the article 
 which brands the writer, once for all, as one who 
 has totally forfeited all claim to accuracy. It is 
 as follows : 
 
 ' For instance, one of the most perfectly behaved 
 prisoners at present in durance vile in England is 
 J B , now at Parkhurst, the convict con- 
 valescent home. Another was the gentleman who 
 tried to break the bank at Monte Carlo, and whom 
 I saw trimming stones in Portland Prison. The 
 Governor told me that he had never had a more 
 
 220
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 perfectly conducted prisoner through his hands in 
 the whole course of his experience. 
 
 * The last time I saw B he was making 
 
 bags for the post-office. As we passed his bench 
 he looked up, and smiled a smile of the most 
 perfect contentment. Another prisoner, a titled 
 one, whose case caused a considerable sensation 
 in the upper ranks of society some time ago, and 
 who was sharing the same pleasant conditions in 
 the same salubrious retreat, frankly described him- 
 self as being happier and more comfortable than 
 he ever had been in his life.' 
 
 The last-mentioned prisoner cannot, from the 
 circumstances, have been anyone but myself, and 1 
 feel bound to say that Mr. Griffith's allegation is 
 devoid of all foundation. 1 never saw him, to my 
 knowledge, in my life, and I do not believe for a 
 moment that he ever saw me, except, perhaps, in 
 the sense that he may have seen me with my party 
 at a distance when working. What he implied is 
 that the Governor took him round and allowed 
 him to identify and to have a chat with particular 
 prisoners, including myself, in order to give a 
 spice to his article in Pearson's — an article, be it 
 observed, which he affirmed was revised and 
 approved by the Governor and the Prison Com-
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 missloners. This in spite of his own statement 
 elsewhere, when referring to another man, whom 
 he said he saw at Parkhurst, and who had formerly 
 been in his employment, that * Any recognition or 
 identification of prisoners is, of course, absolutely 
 forbidden, and very properly so; hence I had to 
 pass by on the other side witl)out giving any sign 
 that I knew him.' 
 
 It stands to reason that he was not allowed to 
 speak to a single prisoner. As for my having 
 ' described myself as being happier and more com- 
 fortable than I ever had been in my life,' the 
 assertion is on the face of it untrue. It is common 
 knowledge that I was, as the saying is, ' born with 
 a silver' spoon in my mouth,' and, until my down- 
 fall, I had had every advantage that a young man 
 of my position could have. \ The 'only really 
 happy time I had when I was in prison for those 
 three years and nine months was when I was 
 asleep and dreaming of being free. Yet Mr. 
 Griffith, whom I never spoke to, gave the reader 
 to infer that he had an interview with me in 
 prison, and that I had ' frankly described myself 
 as being happiei^ and more comfortable there than 
 I had ever been in my life.' I am sure that if 
 ever I had said such a thing the doctors at Park- 
 
 223
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 hurst would have placed me under medical obser- 
 vation, under the belief that I was qualifying for 
 a ' balmy.' 
 
 I have dwelt on this with some warmth, not 
 only because it has aroused in me what I consider 
 righteous anger, but because it was used by the 
 writer as an argument in favour of increasing the 
 seventy of the punishment of all persons con- 
 demned to penal servitude, and actually of repeal- 
 ing some of the wisest and most humane reforms 
 of the prison system that have been instituted 
 within the last century. Mr. Griffith openly 
 advocates that nothing whatsoever should be done 
 to relieve the lot of priso;,iers, or to encourage 
 them in good conduct, or reward them for it, or 
 to give them a fresh chance when they come out. 
 Lest my readers should refuse to believe that any 
 writer on such a serious and important subject 
 could be so clbarly inaccurate, I give the author's 
 own words : 
 
 ' The tendency of present-day sentiment — 
 sentimentality would, perhaps, be the better word 
 — is all in the direction of leniency towards those 
 who deserve least of their fellow-men. This fact 
 is particularly emphasized by the new regulations, 
 which came into force on May, 1899.
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ' Prior to that date one of the most distasteful 
 features of prison life, from the prisoner's point of 
 view, was the enforced silence, the absence of all 
 communication between mind and mind, and from 
 what has been told me by those who have under- 
 gone this discipline I have every reason to believe 
 that this was a very real punishment. 
 
 ' This has been very much modified by these 
 regulations. After a prisoner has served six 
 months of his term he may now be permitted to 
 converse during certain hours of the day with his 
 fellow-prisoners, at the discretion of the Governor, 
 who has the power of withholding the privilege on 
 sufficient grounds, and who may also choose the 
 companions with whom certain prisoners shall be 
 allowed to associate. ' 
 
 ' The effect of this relaxation of discipline has 
 so far not been encouraging. Many prisoners of 
 the better class distinctly object to it — for obvious 
 reasons — and only the worst avail themselves 
 of it when permitted to do so. Your average 
 criminal both suspects and hates his fellow- 
 criminal, and only talks to him for purposes of 
 present or future conspiracy.' 
 
 ' Then, again, there is the question of re- 
 mission of sentence. Before the new regulations 
 
 224
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 came into force a prisoner sentenced to a given 
 term of hard labour had to serve his sentence out 
 to the last minute. It is now possible for him to 
 obtain a remission of one-fourth of his sentence. 
 In other words, two years' hard labour now means 
 to a thoroughly well-conducted prisoner only 
 eighteen months. Moreover, when such a 
 prisoner is discharged, the Governor of the prison 
 in which he has served his sentence is bound to 
 give him a certificate to the effect that he has 
 gained this remission by good conduct.' 
 
 Of course, these passages, like much else Mr. 
 Griffith has written, teem with inaccuracies and 
 self-contradictions. In one paragraph it is stated 
 that * enforced silence ' was * one of the most dis- 
 tasteful features of prison life,' and was ' a very 
 real punishment.' In the next paragraplj but 
 one, exactly the opposite is stated — namely, that 
 prisoners hate talking, and none but the worst 
 avail themselves of the relaxation of the silence 
 rule. How anybody could write such things is 
 almost inconceivable. The silence rule was re- 
 laxed because the authorities had satisfied them- 
 selves that the privilege of talking was a high 
 incentive to good conduct, and in many cases the 
 only outlet from despair or madness. It is the 
 
 ">"> ;
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 best prisoners, not the worst, who most gladly 
 avail themselves of it; and the fact that, if 
 allowed indiscriminately, it might be abused by 
 ' fences ' and other dangerous characters, is no 
 reason whatsoever for cancelling a regulation 
 which is in truth a very great boon to almost all 
 the men who are entitled to it. Mr. Griffith, I 
 need hardly say, was again inaccurate as to what 
 the regulation is. He said : ' After a prisoner 
 has served six months of his term he may now 
 be permitted to converse during certain hours of 
 the day ' — implying every day. In reality, as far 
 as convict prisons are concerned, a prisoner must 
 serve three years with good conduct before he is 
 allowed to talk, and then he is only allowed to 
 talk during exercise on Sunday afternoon. In 
 local prisons, also, talking is only allowed one day 
 a week during exercise. 
 
 As to remission of part of the prisoner's 
 sentence to be earned by good conduct, it is no 
 sentimental measure of leniency introduced by 
 the new regulations of 1899. It was established 
 in convict prisons many years ago, and was found 
 to be so effective towards good conduct, that it 
 was extended in 1899 to local prisons for those 
 undergoing the longer sentences. 
 
 226
 
 More Press Inaccuracies 
 
 I have now done with Mr. Griffith, and I 
 should not have paid so much attention to any- 
 thing that he wrote had not some of the subjects 
 on which he was most erroneous been of great 
 importance. I propose to deal with these par- 
 ticular subjects in a separate chapter, where I shall 
 quote the highest official authorities upon them. 
 
 227 15 — 2
 
 XVII 
 
 TALKING AND WALKING 
 
 There is scarcely any subject connected with the 
 prison system on which those who ought to be 
 authorities differ more than they do on the privi- 
 lege of conversation at exercise. This is strikingly 
 apparent in the reports of Governors appended to 
 the report of the Commissioners for the year 
 ended March 31, 1901, when the rule had been 
 in force about a year. Many of the Governors 
 did not think the matter of sufficient importance 
 to make any remark on it at all, whilst others 
 attached great importance to it, whether they were 
 in favour of it or the reverse. The Governor of 
 Birmingham Prison wrote : 
 
 * It is seldom that prisoners avail themselves of 
 the privilege of conversing at exercise ; they prefer 
 mostly to keep to themselves, and see no advantage 
 in being too closely associated in prison.' 
 
 The Governor of Bristol Prison reported quite 
 differently : 
 
 ' The privilege of one talking exercise per week 
 
 228
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 has this year been more fully taken advantage ot 
 than during the preceding year. I am of opinion, 
 however, that it is not a desirable arrangement, as 
 it gives prisoners opportunities of scheming to give 
 officers trouble.' 
 
 The Governor of Canterbury Prison wrote : 
 
 * Conversation at exercise has been carried out 
 in accordance with the rule. It has been neces- 
 sarily much restricted, as the majority of those 
 who have become eligible for it have, in my 
 opinion, been unsuitable ; also there are still those 
 who do not wish to be associated with others.' 
 
 The Governor of Cardiff Prison was more 
 decided : 
 
 * Conversational exercise has been carried out 
 very rarely ; prisoners do not seem to avail them- 
 selves of the privilege, and I do not think myselt 
 it is conducive to good discipline.' 
 
 The Governor of Chelmsford Prison made the 
 remarkable, and in my opinion quite mistaken, 
 statement that ' Conversation at exercise is only 
 appreciated by the habitual criminal,' while the 
 Governor of Devizes Prison remarked very truly 
 that ' Conversation at exercise is valued by some ; 
 others refuse it altogether.' 
 
 The Governor of Dorchester Prison dealt with
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 it at some length, and in a decidedly adverse 
 tone : 
 
 * In my report of last year I took the opportunity 
 of saying that conversation at exercise appeared 
 to be fraught \^ith many doubts and difficulties ; 
 a longer experrence of its working, and a close 
 observance of its results, has impressed me that it 
 is a retrograde and pernicious step, and one that 
 is conducive to all kinds of moral contagion, 
 undermining, if not entirely destroying, the work 
 of the chaplain and schoolmaster, and the good 
 resolutions which may have been induced by perusal 
 of the healthy literature pr'ovided. 
 
 * Quite recently an elderly prisoner at associated 
 exercise was heard by an officer to incite his 
 companion to insubordination by offensive and 
 blasphemous language. It was the merest chance 
 that the conversation was overheard, but I venture 
 to think that this is the usual kind of talking 
 among prisoners, and not the exception. 
 
 * One asks, whatever prisoners, who are generally 
 strangers to each other, and often ignorant men, 
 can have to talk about one with the other. Nothing, 
 probably, but their criminal tactics and their prison 
 grievances — neither, surely, a desirable subject for 
 conversation and debate.' 
 
 230
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 The Governor of Exeter Prison made an equally 
 unfavourable, but more discriminating, report : 
 
 * Conversation at exercise, I am of opinion, is 
 most undesirable. Old offenders are usually very 
 well behaved while in the prison \ it is practically 
 impossible to know each prisoner sufficiently to 
 arrange suitable pairs, and much mischief may be 
 done at this conversation, the results of which 
 will not be seen till after the individuals have left 
 the prison. I have not found any ill-effects as far 
 as prison discipline is concerned.' 
 
 The Governor of Hereford Prison wrote : 
 ' Conversation at exercise has been taken advan- 
 tage of by a few, but I cannot say they derive any 
 benefit from it. This privilege, in my opinion, 
 should only be allowed to first offenders.' 
 
 The Governor of Lancaster Prison's report was 
 rather singular : 
 
 ' Talking at exercise was not carried on during 
 the year ; no prisoner applied to do so. Last 
 year's experience proved this rule to work unsatis- 
 factorily.' 
 
 The Governor of Leicester Prison was more 
 emphatic than convincing: 
 
 ' Further experience of the rule with regard to 
 conversation .it exercise only tends to convince me 
 
 231
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 that 4t is -an unmitigated evil, and only the worst 
 class of prisohers desire. to avail themselves of it. 
 Shortly after joining here I found that out of five 
 prisoners in the conversation class (third division) 
 two — one with over twenty previous convictions 
 — did not wish to retain the privilege, one of them 
 informing me that the conversation of one member 
 of the class consisted chiefly of the career of crime 
 on which he intended to embark on his release, 
 and another — an old convict — of his experiences 
 in convict prisons.' _ 
 
 The Governor of Lewes Prison took the opposite 
 view : 
 
 ' No bad results have been observed from con- 
 versation at exercise, nor do I apprehend any so 
 long as care is taken to prevent badly-behaved 
 prisoners from being allowed the privilege.' 
 
 The Governor of Lincoln Prison, on the other 
 hand, reported thus : 
 
 ' Having found no desire on the part of well- 
 behaved prisoners, as a rule, for association at 
 exercise, and owing to the danger of the habitual 
 criminal influencing the chance criminal for evil, 
 I have ceased altogether to permit this privilege.' 
 
 The Governor of Liverpool Prison was also 
 adverse : 
 
 232
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 ' The practice which has been introduced in 
 permitting prisoners to associate together when at 
 exercise I disapprove of.' 
 
 The Governor of Newcastle-on-Tyne Prison 
 was more favourable : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise has been carried out, 
 the prisoners giving no trouble, a fair proportion 
 of those entitled to this privilege declining to avail 
 themselves of it.' 
 
 The Governor of Northallerton Prison also re- 
 ported : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise has been tried, and so 
 far satisfactorily. In one case only it had to be 
 withheld, in consequence of the vicious conversa- 
 tion of the prisoner.' 
 
 The Governor of Oxford Prison took rather a 
 peculiar view : 
 
 * Very few avail themselves of conversational ex- 
 ercise ; for weeks together none care to go. After 
 two or three periods of conversation they appear to 
 have exhausted all their talking powers, and apply 
 to take their usual exercise. In fact, I don't think 
 any good comes from it ; they have nothing to con- 
 verse about unless they should meet with an old pal. 
 
 The Governor of Pentonville Prison, a very 
 important one, gave his experience thus : 
 
 233
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 * Talking exercise has been carried on in accord- 
 ance with the regulations ; occasionally a prisoner 
 prefers to walk by himself, but, as a rule, the 
 privilege has been taken advantage of and appre- 
 ciated. I cannot call to mind an instance of mis- 
 conduct occurring at this exercise.' 
 
 The Governor of Plymouth Prison merely 
 remarked : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise has largely fallen into 
 desuetude ; applications to converse are rarely 
 made, and then generally by objectionable char- 
 acters.' 
 
 The report of the Governor of Portsmouth 
 Prison was to much the same effect : 
 
 * The regulation as to talking at exercise has 
 not been taken advantage of by many of the 
 prisoners. On being questioned, their invariable 
 answer is they don't want to be associated with 
 any of the others for fear of getting into 
 trouble.' 
 
 The Governor of Preston Prison also wrote : 
 ' The desire to talk at exercise appears to have 
 died out, for only one prisoner has expressed a 
 wish to do so. Apropos of this, it is interesting 
 to note that only fifty-six prisoners were reported 
 for talking at unauthorized times.' 
 
 234
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 The Governor of Reading Prison, on the 
 contrary, reported : 
 
 *The privilege of talking at exercise is much 
 appreciated. They walk and talk in a quiet and 
 orderly manner, and there have been no reports 
 for misbehaviour.' 
 
 The Governor of Ruthin Prison had an entirely 
 different account to give : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise has not been carried 
 out generally under the new rule, and it appears 
 to me a very questionable provision. The privilege 
 has not been sought for, but prisoners have asked 
 to be excused, stating they had nothing to talk 
 about, and wished to avoid acquaintances amongst 
 themselves.' 
 
 The report of the Governor of Usk Prison was 
 somewhat contradictory : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise has been carried out. 
 It does not appear to be appreciated. One 
 prisoner preferred taking his exercise in the 
 ordinary way, as he objected to his companions' 
 indecent conversation. Another declined to avail 
 himself of this uncertain privilege, as he considered 
 that no good would result from it.' 
 
 The Governor of Wakefield Prison was very 
 decidedly adverse : 
 
 235
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ' With reference to conversation at exercise, we 
 have from thirty to forty prisoners weekly availing 
 themselves of this privilege, although many will 
 not avail themselves of it. I cannot but consider 
 it an injudicious privilege, and it most certainly 
 gives prisoners every facility for concocting mis- 
 chief while in prison, and devising robberies and 
 every sort of crime when at liberty.' 
 -' The Governor of Wandsworth Prison reported : 
 
 ''Conversation at exercise is highly prized, 
 L^though during the year forty-three asked to be 
 excused the privilege.' 
 
 The Governor of Warwick Prison merely men- 
 tioned that : 
 
 ' Only a very few prisoners have been con- 
 sidered eligible for the privilege of talking at 
 exercise.' 
 
 The Governor of Winchester Prison wrote 
 quite differently : , „ ' 
 
 * No objections have been made to attending 
 conversation exercises,^ and few have abused the 
 privilege.' 
 
 The Governor of Worcester Prison reported : 
 
 ' With few exceptions prisoners have taken 
 advantage of the privilege of conversing at 
 exercise. Granting this privilege is, I believe, 
 
 236
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 a retrograde step, and I feel convinced that it 
 should not be extended to habitual criminals.' 
 
 The Governor of Wormwood Scrubs Prison 
 was of somewhat the same opinion : 
 
 ' Conversation at exercise. — I am of opinion 
 that this privilege should be confined to " star " class 
 and second division prisoners. I do not think 
 that any good results arise from the general adop- 
 tion of this principle.' > 
 
 The Governor of Parkhurst Prison gave his 
 views at greater length than any other, but without 
 bringing forward any good reasons for them. His 
 report was in accord with his invariable habit of 
 mind, which 1 think is that all prisoners are as bad 
 as bad can be, and that no sort of privilege should 
 be allowed them which can possibly be withheld. 
 Here it is in full : 
 
 * As regards the talking at exercise on Sun- 
 days, allowed to convict^ in the fourth stage and 
 special class, although no direct breaches of dis- 
 cipline have been traced to it, I venture to 
 suggest that its advantages are open to grave 
 doubt. 
 
 ' If looked upon as a relaxation from the rule 
 of silence, permitted on grounds of health or of 
 humanity, its necessity is not apparent. Were
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 convicts kept in solitary, or even in separate, con- 
 finement, it would be a different matter ; but as 
 this class of prisoner is in association all day, 
 except at meal-times, the risks of mental harm 
 arising from restrictions on speech may be put on 
 one side. It is the solitude, of which silence is 
 only a subsidiary feature, that is dangerous in the 
 system of imprisonment which obtains in some 
 countries. 
 
 * From another point, the indulgence may be 
 viewed as a reward for good behaviour. In this 
 regard it is worth while to consider what are the 
 probable topics of conversation between men 
 whose manner of life when at large has landed 
 them in penal servitude, and whether the bringing 
 together of criminals, shortly to be set at liberty, 
 is not likely to develop friendships between mem- 
 bers of the very class that it is, in the interests of 
 society, desirable to keep apart. I suggest that 
 it is at least questionable whether a convict's good 
 conduct in prison should be rewarded by a privi- 
 lege, involving serious risk of moral harm to him- 
 self, and giving opportunity for planning fiiture 
 depredations on the community. 
 
 ' Assuming that the general rule of silence, 
 besides being essential for the maintenance of 
 
 238
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 discipline, has been adopted in order to guard 
 against these evils, its practical enforcement is 
 not rendered more easy by official recognition of 
 talking amongst even a limited number of con- 
 victs.' 
 
 Finally, the Governor of Portland Prison made 
 the following cautious report : 
 
 ' The rule under which conversation at one 
 exercise on Sunday has been permitted has not 
 . led to good results in all cases. More care is now 
 being taken to restrict this privilege to prisoners 
 whose antecedents justify the belief that they will 
 not contaminate others ; so habitual criminals and 
 prisoners who have been convicted of certain 
 offences are now being debarred from this privi- 
 lege.' 
 
 Now, with this bundle of conflicting opinions 
 before them, the Commissioners may well have 
 been puzzled to know what to decide ; but I 
 think it will be admitted that they came to a very 
 reasonable conclusion thus: 
 
 ' With regard to discipline generally, it will be 
 observed that many Governors take exception to 
 the privilege which is now accorded to selected 
 prisoners undergoing the longer sentences of con- 
 versation at exercise on one day in the week. 
 
 239
 
 . Penal Servitude 
 
 We stated last year that when the Prison Act of 
 1898 was before Parliament the introduction of 
 such a rule was very strongly urged, but that, if 
 we had any reason to believe, after a further 
 observation, that any evil was likely to result, it 
 would be our duty to call the attention of the 
 Secretary of State to the matter. No less than 
 twelve Governors pronounce against the rule as 
 subversive of discipline, while many Governors 
 report thkt the privilege is not appreciated by 
 prisoners, who in many cases decline to take 
 advantage of it. The statutory rule which grants 
 the privilege is permissive in its character, and 
 only confers the privilege on such long-sentence 
 prisoners as are not deeriied unsuitable for it. 
 If, therefore, a discretion be judiciously exercised 
 in the matter of granting the privilege, we do not 
 anticipate that danger is likely to arise ejthei* from 
 the point of view of discipline or of moral con- 
 tamination. We will, however, make it our duty 
 to watch the matter closely.' 
 
 This goes to the root of the thing. It is 
 altogether a qpestion of discretion, judiciously or 
 injudiciously exercised, and that is just where 
 Governors differ. A high prison "official once said 
 to me very wisely that, as regards much of the 
 
 HO
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 inner working of a prison, the prisoners themselves 
 and the officers know more than the Governor or 
 Directors ever can. I hope I shall not be thought 
 presumptuous, therefore, if I suggest that on the 
 subject of conversation these official reports of 
 Governors may be of less value than the opinion 
 of one who has been a prisoner. My experience, 
 certainly, was that the privilege of conversation at 
 exercise was highly appreciated, and was not abused 
 by any prisoners except those whom a little dis- 
 crimination could have excluded from it. Those 
 Governors who supposed that prisoners have 
 nothing to talk about but recollectibns or future 
 plans of crime show a strange want of knowledge 
 of the people uAder their charge. That suppo- 
 sition may be correct enough concerning a pro- 
 portion of habitual criminals, but it is wholly 
 incorrect as applied to all classes of prisoners, and 
 especially the first offenders. It is natural that 
 some should like to talk about their past life, and, 
 personally, I often found such narratives full of 
 information and free from anything offensive or 
 harmful. When this is the case I am sure it is 
 good for the prisoners, by way t)f mental relief, to 
 be allowed to interchange recollections and ideas. 
 No prisoner is obliged to carry on conversation 
 
 241 16
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 which he dislikes, and I cannot agree with the 
 Governor of Exeter Prison that it is practically 
 impossible to know each prisoner sufficiently to 
 arrange suitable pairs. But why arrange pairs at 
 all ? At Parkhurst we used to arrange among 
 ourselves whom we would walk with ; sometimes 
 the same two men would walk together every 
 Sunday, but as a rule most of the men used to 
 change about, and I never remember, among the 
 * star ' class at any rate, any two men being 
 prevented walking together. 
 
 Though it is quite possible that among the 
 habitual criminal class the privilege may at times 
 be abused, I feel sure that among the ' star ' class 
 it is highly conducive to good behaviour, and 
 should be extended to convicts who have reached 
 the third stage — that is to say, to those who have 
 done two years of their sentence with good 
 conduct. At present men only in the fourth 
 stage and special class are allowed to talk, for 
 though men sentenced to anything over six 
 months are allowed this privilege in local prisons, 
 a convict has to wait for three years before he can 
 get it. 
 
 Consequently, a man getting a sentence of three 
 or four years' penal servitude can never benefit by 
 
 242
 
 Talking and Walking 
 
 it at all, which to me seems anything but just. 
 It would, therefore, be a move in the right 
 direction if it was allowed to men on getting their 
 * yellow collar ' — in other words, reaching the 
 third stage, 
 
 i 
 
 243 
 
 16 — 2
 
 XVIII 
 
 CLASSIFICATION AND REFORMATION 
 
 Vast improvements have been made in the penal 
 system within the last fifty years, twenty years, or 
 even ten years, and the good effect which these 
 have had in the diminution of crime affords the 
 greatest possible encouragement to prison reformers 
 to continue their efforts. Those writers and 
 speakers who insist that only harm has been done 
 by what they call ' Humanitarian sentimentalism ' 
 in relation to criminals either do not know the 
 facts, or else distort them for their own purposes. 
 They have the excuse, perhaps, that the facts are 
 not easily got at, and are, indeed, only familiar to 
 experts or special students of the subject. I will 
 mention a few striking ones which can be readily 
 understood, and which show in a concise form 
 how great a change for the better, amounting to a 
 veritable revolution, has already been brought about 
 simply by reducing the severity of the criminal 
 law and organizing the prisons on principles of 
 common-sense. 
 
 344
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 In the middle of the last century — that is to say, 
 the fifties and early sixties — the average yearly 
 number of persons condemned to penal servitude 
 in England and Wales was 2,800 out of a popula- 
 tion, in round figures, of twenty millions. 
 
 This meant that more than double the number 
 of convict prisons that there are now were always 
 filled with men, women, and even children, under- 
 going terrible sentences, in many cases for com- 
 paratively trivial offences, while the local gaols were 
 equally crammed with others graduating for con- 
 victs. This shameful state of affairs aroused such 
 an outcry that a vigorous movement in favour of 
 humanity and justice was begun by the Howard 
 Association, powerfully aided by such men as John 
 Bright and Lord Shaftesbury. 
 
 The result was that in 1864 legislation was 
 carried which has ever since formed the basis of 
 the criminal law and the prison system. It was 
 carried in the teeth of opposition and ridicule 
 which it is very difficult for anyone to realize at the 
 present day. The best way to reahze it, perhaps, 
 is to look back to the volumes of Punch for that 
 period, and to see how every week the genius of the 
 most brilliant satirists and caricaturists was used 
 tq prejudice the public against some of the greatest 
 
 245
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 and best of men. John Leech outdid himself in 
 his wonderful pictures of pampered convicts and 
 crack-brained philanthropists. John Tenniel, also, 
 represented the reform leaders in some of his famous 
 cartoons as a set of canting hypocrites ready to 
 turn loose the dregs of the prisons on the respect- 
 able classes for the sake of gaining political support. 
 But the movement was too strong to be checked, 
 and events very soon justified it beyond all ex- 
 pectation. The average annual number of persons 
 sent to penal servitude immediately fell from 2,800 
 in 1864 to 1,978 for the period of five years 
 ending December, 1869 ; then to 1,633, 1,622, 
 1,427, 945, 851, 770, until in 1900 it reached 
 the low figure of 748 out of a population increased 
 from 20 millions to over -34 millions. I haye 
 taken these particulars from the official report of 
 1 901, where the Commissioners of Prisons draw 
 special attention to *the great and progressive 
 decrease in the number of sentences for serious 
 crime' since 1864. It is impossible^ to express in 
 words or figures what that decrease meant in the 
 lessening of human suffering ; but something of its 
 effect on the nation can be gathered from the fact 
 that, whereas up to 1864 the number of persons 
 who became convicts each year was thirteen out of 
 
 246
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 100,000 of population, the number now is only 
 two. Those two, moreover, get much shorter 
 sentences, on the whole, than the 1 3 got, and are 
 treated infinitely better whilst in prison. It must 
 not be supposed, of course, that the whole number 
 of persons convicted of crime of any sort has 
 decreased in any such proportion as that. No 
 such result could possibly have been hoped for in 
 the time. But the decrease in the whole number 
 of persons convicted of crime of any sort has been 
 very great — considerably over a third — notwith- 
 standing that the population has increased by more 
 than one half. Here, again, this much smaller 
 J number of prisoners are far less severely punished 
 than the larger number used to be, and are 
 afforded better chances of becoming honest people 
 when their punishment is over. To put it very 
 shortly, facts and figures prove beyond dispute 
 that every humane reform of the penal laws and 
 the prison system has made the people less 
 criminal, and- so been a safeguard to society 
 instead of a danger. 
 
 These reforms have mainly taken place in 
 England, including Wales, both the penal laws 
 and the prison system being still very bad in 
 Scotland and Ireland. The Commissioners in 
 
 247
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 their report are careful to point out the result. 
 Whereas in England the total number of persons 
 annually received into prisons per 100,000 of the 
 population is now 571, in Ireland it is 793, and 
 in Scotland 1,402. This is not because crime 
 goes undetected or unpunished in England. The 
 contrary is the case ; the detection and punishment 
 of crime are far more certain in England than in 
 Scotland or Ireland. But there is actually less 
 crime because the laws are milder and the treat- 
 ment of prisoners is more rational. Under the 
 existing law in England a multitude of offences 
 which were formerly punishable by long terms of 
 penal servitude are now punishable only by im- 
 prisonment, with or without hard labour, for 
 periods not exceeding two years ; and in most 
 cases where penal servitude may be inflicted the 
 Judges have the power to substitute the shorter 
 and lighter punishment of imprisonment. 
 
 This is an immense reform, but there are two 
 others equally effective and far-reaching. One 
 is known ofiicially as the ' segregation ' of first 
 offenders. The other is the special treatment of 
 young offenders. Up to 1879 no distinction was 
 made between first offenders and habitual criminals, 
 but all were mixed up together, with the natural 
 
 248
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 consequence that there soon ceased to be much 
 difference between them, the majority of first 
 offenders becoming more or less habitual criminals 
 through the corrupting influence of their com- 
 panions. In that year a new system was intro- 
 duced in convict prisons by which first offenders 
 were placed entirely by themselves, and not allowed 
 to communicate in any way with the ' ordinaries,' 
 or habitual criminals — those, namely, who, having 
 served one term and been discharged, had returned 
 to prison on being again convicted. The result 
 of this very simple step towards classification can 
 best be stated by the following paragraph from 
 the Commissioners' report of 190 1 : 
 
 * Since the formation of the "star class" in con- 
 vict prisons in 1879 ^P ^^ March 31 last, 2,693 
 male convicts have been placed in it, of whom 
 only 26, or i-2 per cent, of tiiose discharged, 
 have returned to penal servitude under fresh 
 sentences, and only 26, or i-2 per cent., have 
 had their licenses revoked or forfeited. Of 119 
 females, not one has returned to penal servitude.' 
 
 Nothing could be much more striking than 
 that ; yet, though the good efl^ects of the new 
 system in convict prisons were very speedily seen, 
 it took eighteen years to overcome the apathy or 
 
 249
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 conservatism of the Home Office authorities, so as 
 to get it extended to local prisons. There also 
 the result has been excellent, according to the 
 Commissioners' report : 
 
 ' The complete separation of first offenders 
 from the habitual criminals, which commenced in 
 1897-98 by the establishment of the *' star class " 
 system in all local prisons, has been continued 
 during the past year. In the four years in which 
 the system has been in operation 29,195 males 
 and 5,823 females have been placed in the class, 
 of whom 2,076 males, or 7*1 per cent., and 685 
 females, or 117 per cent., have been re-committed 
 to prison under fresh sentences. This will not be 
 deemed a large proportion when it is borne in 
 mind that it includes all re-committals — i.e., for 
 very slight offences against social order, in default 
 of payment of a fine, as well as committals for 
 serious crime.' 
 
 What these figures show is that the ' star class ' 
 system is rapidly stopping what may be called the 
 manufacture of criminals by the State — a manu- 
 facture which not many years ago was one of the 
 most flourishing industries in the country. Whether 
 it will ever put an end to it altogether remains to 
 be seen ; but, judging from twenty years' experi- 
 
 250
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 ence of the system in the convict prisons, there is 
 reason to believe a time may come when first 
 offenders returning to crime will be very rare 
 exceptions indeed. 
 
 The other reform which I have alluded to as 
 tending to nip criminality in the bud — the special 
 treatment of youthful offenders — is still to some 
 extent an experiment, but so far it seems to be 
 working admirably. In former times the enor- 
 mous number of children sent to gaol was a crying 
 disgrace to a civilized nation. Without going 
 back to the savage old days when mere babies 
 used to be hanged for petty offences, it is shocking 
 enough to learn that only ten years ago over two 
 hundred children under twelve years of age, and 
 over three thousand aged between twelve and 
 sixteen, were annually committed to prison, and 
 were herded with the ordinary criminals. These 
 numbers have now been very greatly reduced, but 
 the evil still exists. Last year twenty children 
 under twelve years old, and 1,364 between twelve 
 and sixteen, were sentenced to longer or shorter 
 terms of imprisonment. Concerning these, the 
 Commissioners quote with approval the opinion 
 expressed by the chaplain of Bristol Prison, de- 
 ploring the presence of juveniles in prison at ail — 
 
 251
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 that ' in most cases their crimes are the result of 
 mere childish mischief, and it seems probable that 
 many criminals are in this way manufactured by 
 the law.' To obviate that a special system for 
 children under sixteen has been established at 
 Bedford Prison, where these poor little wretches 
 are kept strictly apart from the older prisoners, 
 and are treated more as if they were at a rather 
 rough and strict school than as if they were under- 
 going punishment in gaol. The following is the 
 report of the Visiting Committee, embodied by the 
 Commissioners in their report of 190 1 : 
 
 ' As regards juvenile offenders, the Committee 
 cannot commend too highly the careful training 
 they are receiving, both morally and physically, 
 and it is very gratifying to hear of the good result 
 among this class of offenders after their release 
 from prison, which is due to the reforming treat- 
 ment they are subjected to.' 
 
 On the strength of this success at Bedford, it 
 has now been decided to set up a somewhat similar 
 system for prisoners between the ages of sixteen 
 and twenty-one, officially known as 'juvenile 
 adults ' — a rather clumsy phrase, which, neverthe- 
 less, fairly expresses what it means. These num- 
 bered last year 12,027, of whom only 5,000 were 
 
 252
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 first offenders, while 1,033 went to prison in default 
 of paying a fine. The rest were mostly boys or 
 girls sentenced to short terms of imprisonment for 
 petty crimes, ' the result,' as the Commissioners 
 say, ' not so much of their own natural perversity 
 as of the evil surroundings in which they have 
 lived, and the evil example to which they have 
 been subject from their infancy.' The juvenile 
 adults are now to be collected from the different 
 prisons in London and sent to Borstal, where part 
 of the old building has been reconstructed by 
 convict labour for the special purposes of a penal 
 reformatory. The rules for the conduct of this 
 novel establishment are so full of the spirit of 
 enlightened and practical — as distinguished from 
 mere sentimental — humanity, they ought to be 
 publicly known. As these young prisoners include 
 all descriptions of offenders, they need to be most 
 carefully sorted out. They are, therefore, to be 
 strictly classified according to their character and 
 antecedents, and each class is to be kept apart from 
 the others. These classes, again, are to be divided 
 into three grades : First, penal ; second, ordinary ; 
 and third, special, with particular privileges 
 attached to the third or special grade, and each 
 grade will wear a distinctive dress. All prisoners 
 
 253
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 on reception are to be placed in the middle, or 
 ordinary grade, and it will depend on the conduct 
 of each whether he gains promotion to the special 
 grade, or incurs degradation to the penal grade, 
 or remains in the ordinary grade. A more 
 effectual method of encouraging steadiness and 
 industry, or discouraging idleness and mis- 
 behaviour, could not well be devised. The 
 prisoners are to be made to work hard, and 
 specially instructed in useful trades and industries 
 which may fit them to earn their livelihood on 
 release, and those who are medically fit are to be 
 drilled every day. They are also to be given 
 a good elementary education, and something 
 beyond in the way of lectures and addresses, and 
 are to be encouraged to improve themselves by 
 reading. No prisoner Is to have the right to 
 any remission of sentence, but it may be granted 
 upon special recommendation — a very wise and 
 necessary provision. In all other respects general 
 prison rules are to apply, but special arrangements 
 are to be made for watching over the prisoners 
 welfare after their discharge. 
 
 Such is the latest new departure — the most 
 important that has been taken since the formation 
 of the 'star' class in 1879. The Commissioners 
 
 254
 
 Classification and Reformation 
 
 admit that it has yet to stand the test of time, 
 but they have no doubt of the momentous character 
 of the change it would effect in the event of 
 success. Their words on this point are so weighty 
 that they should be read in full : 
 
 * It would be rash to anticipate what the result 
 of the Borstal experiment may be, but if it should 
 be such as to justify an alteration of the law in 
 the direction suggested by the Prisons Committee 
 of 1894, we believe that a great step forward will 
 have been taken in dealing with the problem of 
 the treatment of crime, for it is becoming every 
 day more evident that it is by prevention alone — 
 i.e., by concentrating attention and care on those 
 who are young enough to be amenable to good 
 influences — that this great problem can be satis- 
 factorily handled.' 
 
 The allusion to the Prisons Committee of 1894 
 needs explanation. What that Committee suggested 
 was that the courts should have power to commit 
 all offenders under the age of twenty-three to a 
 penal reformatory under Government management 
 for periods of not less than one year or more than 
 three years, ' with a system of licenses, graduated 
 according to sentences, which should be freely 
 exercised.' The Commissioners may well call that 
 
 255
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 * a great step forward in dealing with the problem 
 of the treatment of crime ' ; and once more it is 
 eloquent of the slow ways of the Home Office 
 that eight years should have elapsed before they 
 ventured on even trying such a hopeful experiment 
 on a small scale. Only those who study such 
 questions from the inside, however, can have the 
 slightest notion of how red-tape ties the hands of 
 committees, commissioners, inspectors, and others 
 who see what changes are needed, and would 
 gladly proceed with them if they were allowed. 
 Governments, too, are afraid of being, as they say, 
 
 * in advance of public opinion,' and so all sorts of 
 injustice and absurdity are allowed to go on year 
 after year, in spite of every effort to draw attention 
 to them and get them remedied. Yet the world 
 moves, and in view of the various improvements 
 recorded above, no one need despair of the prospect 
 of penal reform in the future. 
 
 256
 
 XIX 
 
 SENTENXES AND REMISSIONS 
 
 It may have been noticed that, when explaining the 
 method of treating young offenders proposed by 
 the Prisons Committee of 1894, I gave prominence 
 to their recommendation of a ' system of Hcenses 
 graduated according to sentences, which should be 
 freely exercised.' This means that the Committee 
 recommend that sentences passed on young 
 offenders should be partially remitted, as a reward 
 for good conduct, on a graduated scale, licenses — 
 the equivalent of tickets-of-leave — being given 
 them for the remainder of their term. 
 
 It has often struck me that a system of gradu- 
 ated remissions might be applied with great ad- 
 vantage to all classes of prisoners. It is grossly 
 unfair, for instance, that in the matter of remission 
 first offenders should be treated in exactly the same 
 way as habitual criminals, who, to quote Mr. 
 Justin McCarthy, spend half their lives getting 
 into prison and the other half getting out again. 
 
 257 17
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Surely a man who is sent to prison for the first 
 time, and whose record up to then was absolutely 
 clear — or who, at all events, has never had anything 
 proved against him before — should receive some 
 consideration other than if he had committed 
 crime after crime, and were morally certain to 
 commit a great many more. 
 
 I showed from official figures in the preceding 
 chapter that, since the creation of a separate class 
 for first offenders in convict prisons, in 1879, out 
 of 2,812 prisoners placed in it only twenty-six of 
 those discharged have returned to penal servitude 
 under fresh sentences, and only the same number, 
 curiously enough, have had their licenses revoked 
 or forfeited. This works out at something less 
 than one per cent., and is positive proof that as a 
 rule first offenders after undergoing punishment 
 in a separate class from habitual criminals may be 
 set at liberty with safety to others and themselves. 
 Of habitual criminals, on the contrary, about 
 seventy per cent, return to prison, either under fresh 
 sentences, or to serve out their ticket-of-leave. 
 Does it not stand to reason, therefore, that first 
 offenders, ninety-nine out of a hundred of whom 
 are shown to be harmless to the community, should 
 be enabled to earn a larger remission than those 
 
 258
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 who are in and out of prison all their lives? The 
 point I wish to urge is that an essential, and not 
 merely a technical difference exists between first 
 offenders and habitual criminals. It is not only 
 the ' star ' and single letter on his arm that dis- 
 tinguishes one man from another man with two or 
 more letters on his arm. It is the fact that he has 
 only committed one offence in his life in a moment 
 of passion, or under pressure which he was not 
 morally strong enough to resist at the time, and 
 that he has not otherwise betrayed any criminal 
 instinct or inclination, of which, indeed, in num- 
 berless instances, he is entirely free. The man 
 with several letters, on the other hand, has already 
 gone from crime to crime, and proved himself a 
 natural enemy to society, according to the number 
 and circumstances of his convictions. 
 
 Why should these two be treated alike with 
 regard to the length of time they are to be kept 
 under restraint ? Something in the nature of a 
 graduated scale should meet the case ; for example, 
 instead of, as at present, all prisoners being allowed 
 a remission for good conduct of three months in 
 the year, first offenders might be enabled to earn 
 four months ; those sent to penal servitude for 
 the first time, having previously undergone punish- 
 
 259 17—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ment in a local prison, three months ; those under- 
 going a second term of penal servitude, two 
 months ; and those who have come back three 
 times or oftener, only one month. This would be 
 both an encouragement to first offenders to go 
 straight, and a deterrent to more hardened offenders 
 from going crooked. At all events, it would pro- 
 tect the community from the latter for a longer 
 time, and save the expense of innumerable prose- 
 cutions; in fact, with some men there is no object 
 gained by giving any remission at all. I have 
 known men earn absolutely the whole of their 
 remission, go out of prison, and at once take to 
 crime again. If they are convicted of a slight 
 offence and have a long ticket to do, they will 
 probably only be sent back to do their ticket — 
 that is, to serve out the full term of their original 
 sentence. But if their fresh crime is a serious one 
 they will get another term, and will also have to 
 do their ticket. As soon as they have done 
 their ticket and completed their sentence they will 
 repeat the same process at the end of it — a process 
 very amusing to them, perhaps, but very costly to 
 the State. 
 
 I will give an instance to make my meaning clear : 
 
 There was at Parkhurst a man named M , 
 
 260
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 who was nearly always in the hospital, as he 
 suffered very badly from gout in the hands. Some 
 of the officers suspected that he himself caused the 
 swelling by a process of ' faking,' but if so, it was 
 skilfully done, and he was passed for hospital by 
 the doctors. He was undergoing when I was 
 there a seven years' sentence of penal servitude, 
 and tacked on to that, when he had completed it, 
 he would have to do a fifteen months' ticket on a 
 previous sentence. In the summer of 1901, as he 
 was nearing the end of the seven years' penal 
 servitude — that is, when he had nearly completed 
 five years and three months of his second sentence 
 — he petitioned the Secretary of State that his 
 ticket of fifteen months on the previous sentence 
 might be remitted. The medical officer, I believe, 
 supported the petition on the ground of the man's 
 bad health, with the result that he was ag.iin 
 released on ticket-of-leave — that is to say, he 
 would be on ticket-of-leave for the twenty-one 
 months of his sentence which he had just com- 
 pleted, and for the fifteen months of his first 
 sentence. He went home, 1 think, in August, 
 and he was back again at Parkhurst in October, 
 having a fresh sentence of five years' penal ser- 
 vitude. Consequently, though nominally in for 
 
 261
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 five years, he was practically under sentence for 
 eight years, because he had forfeited the ticket on 
 both his previous sentences — namely, a fifteen 
 months' ticket and a twenty-one months' ticket, 
 which, together with his latest sentence, came to 
 eight years. Yet with good conduct, after doing 
 six years, he will again be able to be free, without 
 having to ask any further favour from the Secretary 
 of State. His conduct is certain to be good, for 
 he will in all probabiHty spend most of his time 
 in the hospital, except for going out, perhaps, 
 now and then with the hospital working party. 
 All his convictions have been for the same ofl^ence, 
 and he has never been out of prison for more than 
 a few months between the completion of one 
 sentence and the beginning of another. He is, I 
 should say, perfectly hopeless, and is bound to 
 come back again very soon after his next release, 
 because he belongs to that particular class of men 
 who in many ways are much better off in prison 
 than outside. He was at one time a soldier, and 
 pretended that he had the Victoria Cross. At 
 his last trial, however, it came out that his 
 alleged Victoria Cross was a sham one, though 
 it was on the strength of it that he had been 
 able to commit, I believe, all three crimes. 
 
 262
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 There is no reason why he should not commit 
 three more, and he most likely will if he gets the 
 chance. 
 
 Now, can it be maintained that there is much 
 sense in such a system of remission as that, or any 
 justice either, when the same measure of mercy 
 precisely is meted out to men who have only once 
 broken the law, and who can be safely relied on 
 not to break it again ? 
 
 I may mention another case — that of a man who 
 had once been pretty well-to-do, and whose rela- 
 tions, I believe, are in a good position, though 
 they gave up helping him, as he drifted from 
 bad to worse. This man was far gone in con- 
 sumption. He was all the time in the infirmary, 
 being physically unfit to do any work at all. He 
 earned his full remission, and in September, 1901, 
 on completing a three years' sentence of penal 
 servitude, he was discharged with the few shillings 
 in his pocket which a prisoner under a three 
 years' sentence is able to get. 
 
 After he had been out a few days and spent all 
 his money, feeling frightfully ill, and missing the 
 nourishment and attention he had orot accustomed 
 to in prison, he deliberately smashed the window 
 of a jeweller's shop in Regent Street, grabbed a 
 
 263
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 handful of watches or whatever came first, and 
 began to run away. Of course, a man in the last 
 stage of consumption cannot run far, and he was 
 speedily caught and got a fresh sentence of penal 
 servitude. He returned to Parkhurst shortly 
 before I left, looking ten years older for want of 
 proper food and medicine, though he had only 
 been away a few weeks. He seemed quite con- 
 tented to be back again, and I do not suppose 
 there is the slightest probability of his leaving 
 Parkhurst alive, if he is not already dead. But if 
 by good nursing he should linger on for some few 
 years, he will again earn his full remission, and 
 again be discharged with no possible means of 
 living outside except crime or the workhouse. 
 What object can there be in shortening such a 
 man's term by a single day ? He is only one of 
 many who, knowing that if they come to prison 
 they will pass all their time in hospital, prefer to 
 commit a crime and get a sentence of penal 
 servitude rather than go to the workhouse. 
 They make a regular practice of doing this, and 
 they look on the few days or weeks when they 
 are out on ticket-of-leave with a little money to 
 spend as a sort of periodical holiday. 
 
 In the same way, it is well known, there are 
 
 264
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 many women belonging to the habitual criminal 
 class who, when they are expecting to be confined, 
 commit a crime on purpose to get into prison in 
 order that their child may be born there and be 
 taken care of by the doctors and nurses. I heard 
 of one woman who invariably did this when in an 
 interesting condition, timing her arrangements so 
 as to be in prison just long enough to suit her 
 convenience and no longer. At last the authori- 
 ties became aware of the trick that was being 
 -played on them, and the next time she came to 
 prison to carry out her usual programme she was 
 informed, shortly before the confinement was 
 to take place, that the remainder of her sentence 
 had been remitted. She was, therefore, conducted 
 outside the prison gates and went away cursing 
 and swearing furiously at having regained her 
 freedom sooner than she intended. That is the 
 only instance I know of where the remission of 
 the sentence of a hopelessly habitual criminal 
 gained any useful object or was anything but an 
 injury to the community. 1 have cited instances 
 to the opposite effect, and I hope I have fur- 
 nished some convincing arguments in favour of a 
 graduated scale of remission. 
 
 It stands to reason, however, that no graduated 
 
 265
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 scale of remission can serve its purpose, and that 
 the whole system of remission must be to a great 
 extent farcical, so long as the Judges take such 
 extraordinarily different views as they do in 
 passing sentences. Monstrous as it may seem, it 
 is the plain truth that in one part of England a 
 crime is punished by a short term of imprisonment 
 in a local gaol, whilst in another part of England 
 the same crime is punished by a long term of 
 penal servitude. Even in the Courts in London, 
 where some sort of uniformity might surely be 
 arranged, the most astounding inequalities prevail. 
 I will give an example. There were two solicitors 
 at Parkhurst during my time, both of whom had 
 been condemned for almost exactly similar crimes. 
 Each had made away with the property of clients, 
 and each, when detected, had attempted to take 
 his own life and that of his wife. These two men 
 were tried by two different Judges, and one 
 received a sentence of five years' penal servitude, 
 the other a sentence of ten years. 
 
 Now, if there was any difference in criminal 
 intent between these men, it was certainly in 
 favour of the one who received the ten years' 
 sentence, because he was clearly off his head when 
 he attempted to kill himself and his wife. This 
 
 266
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 is shown by the fact that when first put on trial 
 he was not sentenced, but was ordered to be 
 confined during the Queen's pleasure, and was sent 
 to Broadmoor. After a few months there he was 
 discharged as cured, and was rearrested at the 
 gate and again put on trial. This time he came 
 before Mr. Justice Grantham, who sentenced him 
 to ten years' penal servitude. He then went to 
 Lewes to do his separate confinement, but signs 
 of insanity reappearing, he was again sent to 
 Broadmoor for lunatic treatment, and on partial 
 recovery was transferred to Parkhurst. There 
 can be little doubt the man was scarcely responsible 
 for his actions. Yet he got double the sentence 
 that was passed on a perfectly sane man for an 
 exactly similar crime. 
 
 Here is a still more bewildering instance of 
 judicial caprice as regards sentences. Two men 
 were brought before Mr, Justice Phillimore to be 
 tried for bigamy. There was nothing remarkable 
 in either case, both being just about equal in point 
 of criminality. But one man had gone through the 
 form of re-marriage in church, and the other at a 
 registrar's office. On account of this difference 
 alone the former was sentenced to five years' 
 penal servitude, while the latter was let off without 
 
 267
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 any punishment at all, being merely ordered to 
 be detained during the sitting of the Court. 
 Mr. Justice Phillimore made no disguise of his 
 bias in this case. He openly avowed that, being 
 a strict Churchman himself, he did not consider a 
 form of re-marriage before a registrar was any 
 breach of the laws of God, and he therefore 
 imposed only a nominal penalty. In the oth^r 
 case the crime had been committed in a church, 
 and that was a breach both of the laws of God and 
 of man, and must be punished with the utmost 
 severity. What sort of equality can there be 
 before the law when Judges have the power to 
 exercise their discretion — or, rather, their personal 
 prejudice — in such a fashion as that } 
 
 I remember many years ago meeting a lady at a 
 dinner-party whose house a man had attempted to 
 rob shortly before. The burglar was found con- 
 cealed in her bedroom, but managed to escape for 
 the time. Eventually he was caught, and on its 
 being proved at his trial that he was a bad 
 character, the late Recorder of London, Sir 
 Charles Hall, sentenced him to eighteen months' 
 hard labour. Sir Charles happened to be at the 
 same dinner-party I have spoken of, and the lady 
 whose house had been attempted made a violent 
 
 268
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 attack upon him for having given the man such a 
 short sentence. Sir Charles replied : 
 
 ' If you only knew what eighteen months' 
 imprisonment means you would not think that 
 a very short sentence or a very light punish- 
 ment.' 
 
 At the time when I was at Holloway three men 
 were there waiting trial who had been bank 
 directors, and they were eventually tried by Sir 
 Charles Hall for conspiracy to defraud. They 
 had taken some ^^30,000 from a bank in Wales 
 some years previously, but one of them, fearing 
 the consequences, or, perhaps, suffering from pangs 
 of conscience, had paid back his share of the 
 plunder. What was their fate ? The prime 
 mover in the crime, the managing director, who 
 for years had been falsifying the books, received a 
 five years' sentence ; one of the directors, who had 
 been led into the fraud and enjoyed the proceeds, 
 got eighteen months' imprisonment ; and the 
 other, who had joined in the fraud, but had 
 afterwards paid back his share, got eight months' 
 imprisonment. If one contrasts these sentences 
 with that passed on me, I think the only conclu- 
 sion to be drawn is that either they were let off 
 very lightly, or I was very heavily punished. 
 
 269
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 Whilst upon the subject of unjust sentences, it 
 may be as well to say a few words about the most 
 terrible cases of all — those in which accused 
 persons are condemned for crimes of which they 
 are innocent. In the * penny dreadful,' the 
 ' shilling shocker,' and even many * society ' 
 novels of a far more pretentious kind, the hero 
 or heroine often enough is a highly virtuous and 
 abnormally innocent man or woman, who has, 
 nevertheless, been convicted of a horrible crime 
 upon overwhelming evidence, and condemned by 
 a ferocious Judge to a heart-shaking sentence. 
 Such cases are rare in real life, but to say that 
 there are none of them, or that when they occur 
 they are less tragic or sensational than those repre- 
 sented in fiction, would not be true. They do 
 exist, and it is impossible to exaggerate their 
 tragedy or their dismal, inexpressible injustice. 
 
 Many men I met in prison told me they were 
 entirely innocent, but, as a rule, I accepted their 
 story cum grano sails. There was one, neverthe- 
 less, who proved to be entirely truthful. He had 
 been sentenced to ten years' penal servitude for 
 rape, and during all the time he was at Parkhurst 
 he never ceased to protest against his conviction. 
 Yet after he had served about a year of his 
 
 270
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 sentence he was suddenly released, because it 
 had been proved that he was innocent of the 
 crime of which he had been convicted. His case 
 is so markedly illustrative of the mistakes that 
 Judges are capable of that it is worth while to 
 give a short account of it. He was a married 
 man living with his family. He had taken into 
 his house as nursemaid to his children a young 
 woman who had got into trouble and been for 
 some time in prison. This was his accuser. She 
 swore that he came into the room where she was 
 sleeping with one of his children, and there com- 
 mitted the crime. That was all the evidence for 
 the prosecution. For the defence it was proved 
 that no suspicion of immorality had ever rested on 
 the accused ; that the woman had tried to extort 
 money from him at various times, and that her 
 previous career had been very bad. Yet the 
 Judge summed up dead against the prisoner, and 
 a verdict of ' Guilty ' being found, he sent him to 
 penal servitude for ten years. I believe the man's 
 family and friends petitioned the Home Secretary 
 against the sentence, but in vain. Shortly after- 
 wards the woman who accused him was arrested 
 and tried for some offence, and in the course of 
 the trial it came out that she was about as bad a 
 
 371
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 lot as possible, and belonged to a notorious gang of 
 thieves. Even then the man whom she had ruined 
 would most likely have been left to serve out the rest 
 of his sentence had not Mr. Labouchere, I believe, 
 taken up his cause in Truth. The result was a 
 pardon was granted him for the crime he had never 
 committed, and he was immediately released. 
 
 Many of the capital cases also show outrageous 
 inequahty and injustice. Here is one that came 
 under my own notice at Parkhurst : The prisoner 
 was a young fellow of the labouring class, who 
 had a drunken, good-for-nothing father. On the 
 death of the mother the young man took charge 
 of the family, and worked hard to support all his 
 little brothers and sisters. On coming home from 
 work one evening he found the father drunk, as 
 usual, having got hold of all the money that was 
 to have kept the household going for the next few 
 days and spent it. The boy in a moment of rage 
 struck his father with the first thing he laid his 
 hand on, and the blow proved fatal. For that he 
 was condemned to be hanged, but the sentence 
 was commuted to penal servitude for life. 
 
 If this was not an instance of the innocent suffer- 
 ing for the guilty I do not know what is. In all 
 such cases some thorough reform is urgently 
 
 272
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 needed, but it is difficult to say what it should be. 
 The whole subject of the powers of Judges regard- 
 ing sentences, indeed, is extremely perplexing. It 
 was fully discussed by Mr. Montague Crackan- 
 thorpe, K.C., in a very able article in the Nine- 
 teenth Cf/////n' of January, 1900, entitled, 'Can 
 Sentences be Standardized.''' By standardized he 
 meant reduced to some sort of recognised measure, 
 so that no Judge should have the power to pass 
 less than a certain minimum or more than a certain 
 maximum sentence for any given crime. The 
 puzzle is to find a satisfactory way of fixing these 
 limits without laying down too hard and fast 
 a rule. 
 
 So long ago as i860 Mr. Herbert Spencer 
 wrote : * The decisions of the higher courts con- 
 tinually err in the direction both of undue severity 
 and of undue lenity,' but with all his learning and 
 penetration he admitted he was unable to supply 
 a working remedy. In the course of a singularly 
 broad-minded article in the New Review of June, 
 1893, Lord Brampton, one of the greatest and 
 most just of living Judges, wrote : ' The inequali- 
 ties of punishment now so frequent would be 
 materially lessened by the adoption of fixed 
 principles, to be determined by a commission of 
 
 V2, 18
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 competent persons having knowledge and aptitude 
 for dealing with the subject.' In consequence of 
 Lord Brampton's efforts, a Commission came very 
 near being appointed during the session of 
 1894-95 ; but it proved to be almost impossible 
 to find ' competent persons having knowledge 
 and aptitude for dealing with the subject,' who at 
 the same time would have commanded the respect 
 of the Bench and the confidence of the public. 
 The attempt to settle the question, therefore, 
 failed, and has never since been renewed. Mr. 
 Crackanthorpe, however, in his article recalled a 
 speech by Lord Penzance in the House of Lords 
 so long ago as 1875, in which he declared that a 
 proper standard of sentences might be fixed in 
 one of three ways — namely, ' by Act of Parliament, 
 by Order in Council, or by agreement among the 
 Judges themselves.' Mr. Crackanthorpe dismissed 
 the first two methods as clearly impracticable, but 
 he considered the third gave the clue to the right 
 solution of the problem. Following up that clue 
 himself, he proposed that the Judges of the King's 
 Bench Division should choose six of their number 
 to form a sort of committee on sentences ; that 
 each of these six should go over all the sentences 
 he has ever passed, and average them for each 
 
 274
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 crime ; that these averages having been tabulated, 
 should again be averaged ; and that the general 
 average thus arrived at should be made by law the 
 standard of sentences for all judges. Mr. Crack.- 
 anthorpe did not deny that this would be a rather 
 rough-and-ready way of getting over the difficulty, 
 or that it would at first be very repugnant to 
 some of the greatest lawyers on the Bench. But 
 he believed they would get into the habit of 
 observing its limits, and that eventually it would 
 be found to work well. I have only one sugges- 
 tion to make, and that is that the six Judges could 
 be assisted in their labours by examining a certain 
 number of men who had undergone a sentence 
 of penal servitude. I am inclined to think this 
 might prove of value by furnishing just that 
 element of practical experience which would 
 otherwise be wanting. 
 
 In his article in the Nineteenth Century Mr. 
 Montague Crackanthorpe devoted two or three 
 pages to startling instances of unequal or capri- 
 cious sentences in past times ; and whilst insisting 
 that the evil still exists in a modified form, and 
 still demands a remedy, he expressed the opinion 
 that no such extreme cases as those he mentioned 
 could occur at the present day. There, I am 
 
 275 18—2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 afraid, the facts are against him, as, even while I 
 was engaged in writing the preceding chapter, two 
 men were tried on the same day before Mr. Justice 
 Walton, one for murder, and the other for shoot- 
 ing with intent to kill. The former had cut his 
 wife's throat through jealousy of a lodger, of whose 
 relations with his wife he had been suspicious for 
 months, having had several angry disputes with her 
 about them. The latter, a foreigner, had fired at 
 and wounded a girl who had been his sweetheart 
 but had rejected him, and then attempted to 
 commit suicide. Mr. Justice Walton sentenced the 
 foreigner to fifteen years' penal servitude, especially 
 dwelling on the ' cowardice and cruelty ' of the 
 act, and refusing to regard the attempt at suicide 
 as any evidence of uncontrollable impulse from 
 jealousy or disappointed love. The other man, 
 who had actually committed as cowardly and cruel 
 a murder as could well be conceived, he allowed 
 to be charged with manslaughter only, and on 
 his pleading guilty to the lesser ofi^ence, sentenced 
 him to six months' imprisonment in the second 
 division, so that he ' should not be contaminated 
 by convicts.' If that was a lawful sentence, a 
 just sentence, or a rational sentence, then there 
 are scores of prisoners undergoing life-sentences 
 
 276
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 to-day who ought to be instantly released and 
 liberally compensated. I have been told that this 
 is the first time a Judge has ever allowed a charge 
 of murder, supported by overwhelming and un- 
 disputed evidence, to be reduced to one of man- 
 slaughter, with the avowed object of letting the 
 accused off with a nominal sentence, on senti- 
 mental grounds. It is something quite new to 
 English criminal procedure, and it introduces such 
 a startling change that it ought surely to hasten 
 an amendment of the statute affecting capital 
 crime. It has always been the law that if a man 
 detects his wife in the act of adultery, and kills 
 either party or both, on the impulse of the moment, 
 without altercation and without taking time to 
 obtain a weapon not at hand, he may plead justi- 
 fiable homicide and, upon proof, it shall hold him 
 harmless. But even under those definite and ex- 
 clusive conditions the Courts have hitherto made 
 a practice of requiring very clear and strong 
 evidence, lest a trap should have been laid or a 
 premeditated design of murder effected. Mr. 
 Justice Walton has now brushed this all away, as 
 if it had been only so much cobweb. In the case 
 I have described, he laid it down as an axiom of 
 criminal law that if a woman ' threatens to commit
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 adultery,' or even uses words which imply an in- 
 tention to commit adultery at some future time, 
 the husband may put her to death, and it will 
 only be manslaughter, and that of so pardonable a 
 kind as to be scarcely distinguishable from justi- 
 fiable homicide. 
 
 What is even more astounding, Mr. Justice 
 Walton called for no evidence that the facts were 
 as stated. The only words the woman was alleged 
 to have used were : ' I don't care. I shall do as I 
 like,' when quarrelling with her husband about the 
 lodger. These words were not sworn to by any- 
 body, and, if ever spoken, they might have meant 
 anything or nothing. But the Judge declared that 
 * if the woman said that, she probably said a good 
 deal more,' and, upon that assumption, he dealt 
 with the prisoner as an object of pity, not a sub- 
 ject for punishment. The lodger, who could have 
 told the whole story, was not called as a witness at 
 the trial, but at the coroner's inquest he denied 
 that there was anything wrong between him and 
 the woman. In fact, there was not a vestige of 
 evidence, beyond a statement said to have been 
 made by the husband to a fourth person, that any 
 misconduct had taken place at all. On the other 
 hand, it was proved and admitted that the husband, 
 
 278
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 after a lengthy wrangle with his wife, told her he 
 would kill her before the day was out, and, taking 
 a razor from the mantelpiece, cut her throat with 
 it. He then went to the police-station and said : 
 *I have killed my wife, and I am glad of it.' 
 There never was a case in which the essentials of 
 murder — namely, premeditation and the intention 
 to take life — were more clearly present. Yet, on 
 his own authority and in defiance of all precedent, 
 Mr. Justice Walton laid it down that this was not 
 murder, but manslaughter. It stands to reason 
 that, if that is law, no married woman's life is safe 
 for a single day, and, conversely, any woman who 
 is jealous of her husband may kill him with 
 impunity. 
 
 This opens out a field of discussion quite out- 
 side the scope of this book ; but I draw special 
 attention to the case because it is the most striking 
 illustration I have ever met with of the necessity 
 for restricting the discretion of Judges — a dis- 
 cretion which some of them, at all events, are 
 quite unfit to be entrusted with. Contrast that 
 case with this, which came within my own know- 
 ledge whilst at Parkhurst. There was a prisoner 
 there who had been a respectable shoemaker. He 
 had married a woman much younger than himself, 
 
 279
 
 * Penal Servitude 
 
 and had a child. He also had a younger brother. 
 In course of time he received warning that his 
 wife and his brother were more intimate than 
 was right, and one day he taxed her with it. She 
 admitted it defiantly, and she told him, moreover, 
 that if she had another child he would not be the 
 father of it, but the uncle. After saying that, she 
 hit her husband a furious blow on the head. He, 
 with his shoemaker's knife in his hand, inflicted a 
 terrible wound on her, of which she died. For 
 this he was convicted of murder, and condemned 
 to be hanged; but, in consideration of his wifes 
 unfaithfulness^ his plea of provocation was listened 
 to by the Secretary of State, on a numerously- 
 signed petition being presented, and the death 
 sentence was commuted to penal servitude for 
 life. He has now done about seven years, and 
 has thirteen more to do before his case will be 
 reconsidered in the ordinary course. I should 
 like to know what Mr. Justice Walton, or any 
 other Judge of his way of thinking, has to say 
 to that. If the man he tried, who coolly cut his 
 wife's throat because she said she ' didn't care ' 
 when he reproached her about the lodger, was 
 righteously let off with six months without hard 
 labour, lest he should be ' contaminated by con- 
 
 280
 
 Sentences and Remissions 
 
 victs,' what about the unfortunate shoemaker who 
 is now doing his eighth year of penal servitude 
 for a sudden act of passion ? As a writer in the 
 fVestminstcr Gazette very well put it at the time, 
 according to Mr. Justice Walton, the murder of a 
 "wife suspected of unfaithfulness is a less offence 
 than non-payment of rates. 
 
 But we have not yet done with this Judge's 
 extraordinary sentences. Three days after the 
 trial of the two cases I have mentioned a man 
 was before him, charged with manslaughter, who 
 had been a soldier and a policeman. He lived 
 with his mother and sister, and bore an ex- 
 cellent character. Another man, an acquaint- 
 ance of the family, who was a notorious brawler, 
 with a very evil tongue, had spread vile stories 
 about the mother and sister, and frequently 
 assailed the ex-policeman, threatening to stab him. 
 At length a fracas occurred, and, words leading to 
 blows, the ex-policeman seized a tea-kettle and 
 knocked the other man on the head, with fatal 
 results. There was not the slightest suggestion 
 of intention to kill; it was the work of a moment 
 of rage, under intolerable insults, and it was a 
 mere accident that the blow caused death. Yet 
 Mr. Justice Walton sentenced that man to eighteen 
 
 281
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 months' hard labour, and in doing so, actually 
 referred to the other case — that of the murderer 
 who only got six months in the second division — 
 implying that the ex-policeman's crime was by far 
 the worse of the two. How can there be justice 
 so long as Judges with such ideas as those are placed 
 upon the Bench, with absolute power to dispose of 
 their fellow-creatures' life and liberty ? 
 
 282
 
 XX 
 
 UP TO DATE 
 
 After the foregoing chapters had been prepared 
 for the press, the report of the Commissioners of 
 Prisons for the year ended March 31, 1902, was 
 issued. Having read it carefully from beginning 
 to end, I find no occasion to alter what I pre- 
 viously wrote. On the contrary, the views I 
 expressed and the arguments I ventured to urge 
 are only strengthened by the later information. 
 For example, I went to considerable pains to show 
 that the old dietary was neither more nor less 
 than organized starvation, seriously injuring the 
 health of the prisoners, and having a very bad 
 moral effect on them as well, by filling them with 
 a sense of injustice and sullen desperation. I 
 predicted that the new dietary introduced in 
 September, 1901, would make a great change for 
 the better in these respects. This is what the 
 Commissioners now say on that subject : 
 
 * Medical officers of prisons were instructed to 
 
 283
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 watch closely the operation of the new dietary, 
 and to report the results in six months' time. 
 We are glad to be able to report that there is a 
 practically unanimous opinion in favour of the 
 new dietary. 
 
 ' Its guiding principle is to try as far as 
 possible to make the nature of the food corre- 
 spond to the character of the work performed. 
 All the forms of labour have been strictly classi- 
 fied with this view. It is satisfactory to note that 
 more general contentment is said to prevail among 
 convicts, with improved health. There are fewer 
 complaints and applications for more food, while 
 the amount of extra diet ordered has been re- 
 duced almost to vanishing point.' 
 
 As to the immediate effect of a sufficiency of 
 wholesome food on the physical condition of 
 prisoners, the Commissioners give some striking 
 figures : 
 
 ' The proportion of those who lose weight 
 under the new scale is only 30 per cent., as 
 against 73 per cent, under the old. The pro- 
 portion who maintain weight is 10 to 15; who 
 gain, 60 to 12.' 
 
 This is convincing enough, and it is very 
 interesting, because it shows how cruelly stupid 
 
 284
 
 Up to Date 
 
 the old scale was, and what a difference could be 
 made by using a little intelligence and human 
 feeling. But a much stronger impression is 
 gained by reading the separate reports of the 
 inspectors, the medical inspector, the Governors, 
 and the medical officers. Every one of these 
 bears testimony to the excellent working of the 
 new dietary, and many of them indicate that it 
 may lead to very unexpected and far-reaching 
 consequences. At Portland, in the first six 
 months of its operation, it reduced the admissions 
 to hospital from 217 to 145, and the daily average 
 of complaining sick from 91 to 77. At Park- 
 hurst its results during that short period were 
 so remarkable that both the Governor and the 
 medical officer drew special attention to them, 
 the former going the length of suggesting that 
 the higher scale of food now given to hard-labour 
 prisoners should also be given to those occupied 
 in indoor industrial labour, who now receive the 
 lesser scale. He represents it as a distinct griev- 
 ance that this inequality should exist, and he adds 
 that, as long as it remains, ' the industries suffer, 
 owing to the difficulty in getting men to go into 
 the workshops, and the output is lowered both in 
 quantity and quality by the want of zeal exhibited 
 
 285
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 by many of the workers.' In a former chapter I 
 have pleaded earnestly for this very reform, and 
 it is certainly most gratifying to find so stern a 
 disciplinarian as the Governor of Parkhurst recom- 
 mending it. But it is the same story everywhere. 
 
 The medical officer of Borstal describes the 
 introduction of the new dietary as ' the feature of 
 greatest interest during the past year,' and dwells 
 in pointed language on its good effects. 
 
 The medical officer of Pentonville reports : 
 ' The new diet has come into force during the 
 past twelve months, and the result is most satis- 
 factory. The men " hold their own," there being 
 a steady and persistent evenness of weight, varying 
 on the side of gain rather than loss. There is 
 very little food returned, and practically no dis- 
 content.' 
 
 The Governor of Plymouth Prison says the 
 new dietary ' is highly appreciated, and marks 
 another advance in the right direction.' 
 
 The Governor of Northampton Prison, while 
 dwelling on the general amelioration of prison life 
 under the Prison Act of 1898, remarks: 'More 
 lately the improved dietary has, more than any- 
 thing, added to the comfort and well-being of all 
 those whose misfortune it is to be cooped up 
 
 286
 
 Up to Date 
 
 within prison walls. The operation of these im- 
 provements has done a great deal of good.' 
 
 The medical officer of Carlisle Prison says : 
 * There have been no removals on medical 
 grounds, and the hospitals have been vacant for 
 the most part. The dietary has proved a great 
 success so far as the health and contentment of 
 the prisoners is concerned, the applications for 
 more food having practically vanished.' 
 
 The medical officer of Carmarthen Prison 
 heads his report thus : ' Further experience of the 
 new dietary has confirmed the opinion that it is 
 sufficient to maintain health and strength. In 
 most cases there has been an improvement in 
 general health, while in those who have lost 
 weight no impairment of physical strength has 
 been observed. The health of the prisoners has 
 been generally very good, and it has not been 
 necessary to recommend the release of any 
 prisoner owing to disease.' 
 
 Many similar testimonies might be added. In 
 fact, there is not a single dissentient opinion on 
 the subject. It may be objected, perhaps, that 
 the ' comfort,' ' well-being,' and ' contentment ' of 
 prisoners are not the objects of imprisonment, and 
 that when they exist the deterrent effect of punish- 
 
 287
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 ment is done away with. A careful study of 
 all these reports, however, Governors', medical 
 officers', and chaplains' alike, will satisfy anyone 
 that the very opposite is the case. They show 
 that, with improved health, resulting from the 
 new dietary, a remarkable change has also come 
 over the demeanour and behaviour of the great 
 body of prisoners. Violence or misconduct of 
 any sort has become comparatively rare. In some 
 prisons, even, there has not been a single punish- 
 ment. On the other hand, there has been a 
 wonderful increase of industry, which must surely 
 be regarded as a most hopeful step towards refor- 
 mation. Some of the reports say the improve- 
 ment in this respect is so extraordinary that even 
 the worst conducted class of prisoners seem now 
 to have turned over a new leaf. They work in 
 quite a different spirit, and show themselves alto- 
 gether more amenable to good influences. 
 
 It must not be supposed that this great reform 
 has been effected at heavy expense to the tax- 
 payers. Under the old dietary extra food was 
 given in an irregular way to a great number of 
 prisoners, who literally could not live on the regular 
 diet. Now, the Medical Inspector, Dr. Herbert 
 Smalley, reports as follows : * Except at Parkhurst, 
 
 288
 
 Up to Date 
 
 where most of the invalid and semi-invalid con- 
 victs are congregated, there is practically no extra 
 food ordered, whereas before the alteration, at 
 Borstal, 75 per cent, of the convicts were receiv- 
 ing some addition to the prescribed rations ; at 
 Portland and Dartmoor considerable numbers 
 were so doing. At Parkhurst the number has 
 been reduced from a daily average of some forty- 
 one prisoners to a daily average of some eight 
 prisoners.' 
 
 Dr. Smalley also reports that the waste of food, 
 which used to be enormous, is now reduced to 
 ' the unavoidable amount which must occur in a 
 community of persons each of whom has to be 
 supplied with an exact quantity at each meal.' In 
 other words, the prisoners now eat their regular 
 food because it is eatable, whereas before they 
 refused it because it was uneatable, and clamoured 
 till they got something better. But this is 
 not all. 
 
 The Comptroller of Accounts and Stores, in 
 his report on Prison Industries, which is a new 
 feature of this year's volume, says : 
 
 * In presenting my first report on the industrial 
 employment of prisoners, I am glad to be able to 
 announce that the year ended March 31 last 
 
 2S9 1 9
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 establishes a record in the value of the labour 
 performed, even when compared with the very- 
 successful years which have immediately pre- 
 ceded it. 
 
 ' The entire value of all descriptions of prison 
 labour — namely, manufactures, farm, building 
 work, domestic services, etc. — has advanced from 
 ^209,071 in 1900-1901 to ^215,277, being an 
 improvement to the extent of £6,206.' 
 
 In short, the evidence is overwhelming that 
 punishment by hunger, which prevailed from 1864 
 to 1 90 1, was not only a crime^ but a colossal 
 blunder. It entailed miserable suffering and life- 
 long injury on tens of thousands of helpless 
 wretches ; it cost the State vast sums of money ; 
 and it was clearly responsible for many of the 
 defects and disappointments of an otherwise 
 enlightened penal system. 
 
 I now come to the bearing of the report of 
 1902 on another important reform which I have 
 strongly recommended in a previous chapter — 
 namely, the extension of the system of remission 
 of sentences to be earned by good conduct and 
 industry. As I have shown, this has been de- 
 nounced by some writers as a weak-minded con- 
 cession to sentimentality, and as tending to 
 
 290
 
 Up to Date 
 
 encourage crime. The Commissioners, however, 
 think very differently. They say : 
 
 'A very noticeable feature in the reports for 
 the year is the emphatic way in which many 
 Governors speak of the advantages arising from 
 the application of the principle of remission of 
 part of a sequence for industry with good con- 
 duct.. Further experience has strengthened the 
 opinion, previously expressed by us, that the 
 power to earn remission has a salutary eff'ect on 
 the mind of the prisoner, and is a powerful con- 
 tributory factor towards better discipline in prison. 
 It is for the Secretary of State to consider whether 
 the time has now come for shortening the period 
 of imprisonment rendering prisoners eligible for 
 this privilege,' 
 
 Here again it is necessary to read the separate 
 reports, in order to realize how striking the testi- 
 mony is to which the Commissioners thus draw 
 attention. I could fill pages with extracts from 
 them, all very much to the purpose, but I will 
 content myself with two or three examples. The 
 Governor of Knutsford Prison writes : 
 
 ' The Prison Act of i 898 — in so fir as division 
 of offenders, power to earn remission, and part 
 payment of fines is concerned — acts admirably, and 
 
 291 19 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 with the many privileges now accorded to prisoners 
 is an incentive to good behaviour, and mitigates, 
 to a great extent, the former feeling that when a 
 man was in prison he was, so to speak, lost to the 
 world, and had nothing to look forward to. 
 
 * One cannot help noticing the cheerful way in 
 which the prisoners now go about their several 
 duties, a great contrast to some few years ago, and 
 without discipline and supervision being in any 
 way relaxed.' 
 
 The Governor of Winchester Prison says : 
 
 * Power to earn remission of sentence has 
 worked well ; it acts as an incentive to good 
 conduct on the one hand, and as a deterrent on 
 the other, in that marks can be forfeited for 
 misconduct.' 
 
 The Governor of Wandsworth Prison makes 
 some remarks which entirely bear out my own 
 observations : 
 
 ' Power to earn remission is the most powerful 
 restraint of disorder, and when marks for remis- 
 sion have been forfeited there is much evidence in 
 letters home that the prisoner means to do his 
 utmost to get them restored. This does not apply 
 to some — a very minute percentage of the lot — who 
 are really wicked rather than weak. I have known 
 
 292
 
 Up to Date 
 
 a case of a man released by earning remission, and 
 back in prison before the expiration of original 
 sentence.' 
 
 For the best support of all, however, for the 
 views I have offered, I am indebted not to a 
 Governor, but to the chaplain of Reading Prison, 
 whose report is full of valuable information and 
 shrewd suggestions. He writes : 
 
 •The remission of a fourth part of a sentence 
 after the first six months to a well-behaved and 
 industrious prisoner is most valuable for discipline 
 and for the peace, contentment, and hopefulness 
 of a prisoner's disposition. There are instances 
 where one wishes an actual and substantial remis- 
 sion of the sentence itself, and I heartily applaud 
 the recommendation of the late Brussels Congress, 
 that reparation made by an offender should make 
 its count for remission.' 
 
 All of these reports which I have quoted refer 
 to local prisons and comparatively short sentences; 
 but the same principle obviously applies with 
 even greater force to convict prisons and long 
 terms of penal servitude. I think it fair to say 
 that the chapter in which I propose an extension 
 of the remission system, on a graduated scale, was 
 written some months before the report of icjoi 
 
 293
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 appeared, and was not prompted in any way from 
 official sources. It was an idea that occurred to 
 my own mind, after thinking the matter out, both 
 whiJst in prison and after my release, and I am 
 truly glad to find that the same idea has found 
 favour among those whose combined influence 
 must sooner or later lead to practical results. I 
 feel more sure than ever that in a merciful, but 
 discriminating, system of remissions, accompanied 
 by fair treatment of prisoners, lies the best hope of 
 emptying the prisons, which should be the main 
 object of all penal reform. 
 
 If I may use the expression regarding so de- 
 pressing a subject, the Prisons' Report of 1902 
 is pleasant reading compared with that of 1901. 
 Its pages are eloquent of progress and improve- 
 ment in many directions. 
 
 There is one direction, nevertheless, where its 
 tone is so very much the reverse that every effort 
 ought to be made to bring its strictures to the 
 attention of those concerned — chiefly the Home 
 Office officials and the magistrates. I refer to the 
 many melancholy and indignant passages protest- 
 ing against the committal to prison of young 
 children, dying people, and paupers who are 
 physically unfit for work. The facts brought 
 
 294
 
 Up to Date 
 
 to light and fully verified in these reports show 
 an almost incredible want of good feeling or good 
 sense on the part of magistrates. What are we 
 to think of men, vested with judicial authority, 
 who know no better than to send two little 
 brothers of twelve and nine respectively to gaol 
 for five days, in default of payment of four 
 shillings, for damaging a fence ; and dozens of 
 others of twelve, thirteen, and fourteen for such 
 awful crimes as throwing snowballs, letting oflF 
 crackers, or playing football in the street? The 
 chaplain of Reading Prison gives a list of twenty- 
 one of these miserable urchins, which includes a 
 girl of fourteen, who was kept a week in gaol 
 before being sent to a reformatory school, and 
 two boys, one of whom was kept in gaol for 
 ten days and the other for a month before trial. 
 Yet so trivial were their offences that the longest 
 sentence passed on any one of them was fourteen 
 days ! The Governor of Newcastle- on -Tyne 
 Prison enters a very vigorous protest against this 
 shameful practice of making criminals of children 
 who have been guilty of nothing worse than 
 boisterous conduct or childish mischief 
 
 He also shows the absurdity ot the short 
 sentences which so many magistrates have the 
 
 295
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 heartlessness to inflict on poor lads who scarcely 
 know what they have been charged with. He 
 says : 
 
 ' Four were only twelve years of age, three 
 thirteen, twenty fourteen, and forty-five fifteen 
 years of age. Seven were sentenced to two days' 
 imprisonment only, which simply means that they 
 were bathed, dressed, and medically examined 
 during the afternoon of their reception, and 
 discharged the next morning. Forty-six were 
 sentenced to three days only. I cannot but wish 
 that some other method than sending boys of 
 such tender years to prison for most of these 
 offences could be devised.' 
 
 Could anything be more wicked or senseless.'' 
 The effect of it is that each of these short 
 imprisonments counts afterwards as a ' previous 
 conviction,' and so thousands of boys are classed 
 as criminals before they arrive at manhood who 
 ought never to have seen the inside of a prison at 
 all. The remedy for all this is perfectly simple. 
 It is indicated in an admirable passage in the 
 report of the Governor of Durham Prison : 
 
 * I regret to have to refer again to the well- 
 worn subject of young children being brought 
 into prison for short periods. The practice con- 
 
 296
 
 Up to Date 
 
 tl/iues from many Courts, and, considering the 
 ruinous effect upon their future, I would advocate 
 the absolute prohibition of such a punishment 
 being carried out until the case has been submitted 
 for consideration to the Secretary of State. If a 
 hardened ruffian when in prison commits a savage 
 assault upon a warder, he cannot receive the fitting 
 punishment of flogging when it has been awarded 
 by Visiting Magistrates until this form has been 
 gone through; and I submit that the point at 
 issue is of immeasurably greater importance when 
 it is a question of a child being sent to prison, for 
 some non-criminal offence especially, as so manv 
 have been during the past year, including one 
 only ten years of age, who had ail the appearance, 
 both in dress and manner, of having been brought 
 straight from the nursery of some well-to-do 
 family, though, as a matter of fact, his parents 
 were poor.' 
 
 This is the last extract I must allow myself to 
 make on the subject, but there are many more I 
 should like to make, all pointing to the same con- 
 clusion — that in a multitude of cases of child 
 imprisonment the crime is not with the children, 
 but with the magistrates. In free and Christian 
 England it ought to be made absolutely illegal to 
 
 297
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 send any boy or girl under sixteen to prison, at 
 least until a reformatory has been tried and failed. 
 The system of * convicting ' penniless children for 
 non-payment of a fine ought also to be abolished. 
 As to the cruel and foolish practice of sending 
 dying men and helpless cripples to prison, the 
 reports are equally eloquent in their protests. 
 
 Dr. Smalley dwells very strongly upon it, point- 
 ing out that during the year no fewer than thirty- 
 five prisoners died within a week of being 
 received, and that * many, if not most, of these 
 unhappy creatures were obviously in a condition 
 unsuitable for a place of punishment.' 
 
 The Governor of Wakefield Prison writes : 
 'The mortality has been somewhat higher than 
 usual, but an analysis of the deaths shows that in 
 every case the disease had originated before ad- 
 mission to prison. No less than seven out of a 
 total of eight died in less than seven days after 
 being received. Two died in two days, one died 
 in three, three died in five, and one died in six. 
 One cannot help a feeling of regret that some 
 other method cannot be found of dealing with 
 prisoners who when before the Court are practically 
 in a dying condition.' 
 
 Exactly similar remarks occur again and again 
 
 298
 
 Up to Date 
 
 regarding prisoners who are sent to ' hard labour ' 
 though quite incapable of any kind of physical 
 exertion. Most of these are not criminals at all, 
 but paupers, charged by the workhouse authorities 
 with ' refusing their task.' Directly they arrive 
 in prison and are medically examined, they are 
 found to be paralyzed, or in an advanced stage of 
 consumption, or otherwise enfeebled, and are sent 
 into hospital, where they remain for the whole 
 term of their sentence, unnecessarily swelling the 
 prison population, and most unjustly incurring the 
 criminal stigma. The Commissioners mve some 
 dreadful examples, as follows : 
 
 'No. I, sixty-two years of age, was ordered to 
 break stones, but he was partly paralyzed in his 
 right hand and side, and could not do the work. 
 No. 2 was also ordered to break stones : he was 
 suffering from recent vaccination, five days old, 
 and also had recently undergone a serious surgical 
 operation ; the wound from this had not healed, 
 and required frequent dressing in prison. No. 3 
 was unfit for labour of any kind : he was an 
 epileptic, and had recurrent and frequent fits the 
 whole time he was in prison.' 
 
 All of these men were actually sentenced to 
 seven days' hard labour by the Canterbury magis- 
 
 299
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 trates for refusing to work in the Union. Here, 
 again, the remedy is perfectly simple. No 
 magistrate should ever commit a pauper to prison 
 for ' refusing his task ' until the accused ' has 
 been carefully examined by a medical man and 
 certified fit for the task he had failed to perform.' 
 That is what the Commissioners say, and what 
 every reasonable being must approve. But Bumble 
 is often more powerful than any Commissioners, 
 and many magistrates, unfortunately, are anything 
 but reasonable beings. 
 
 After what I had said in a previous chapter 
 about the experiment of allowing certain classes 
 of prisoners the privilege of walking and talking 
 together as a reward for good conduct, it is pleas- 
 ing to find that the report of 1902 shows I was 
 quite right. Very few of the Governors now 
 object to the rule, while the Governor of Park- 
 hurst, who was most bitterly opposed to it at 
 first, reports, after a year's trial, that 'the evils 
 to be apprehended from talking at exercise have 
 been much reduced by recent restrictions.' That 
 is just what I anticipated when I said that the 
 good or bad working of the rule was all a matter 
 of whether the Governor used his discretion 
 wisely or unwisely. I am more convinced than 
 
 300
 
 Up to Date 
 
 ever that, within proper Hmits, the right of speech 
 and of interchange of ideas is better for prisoners 
 and for prison discipHne than perpetual silence, 
 which can only be enforced by suppressing 
 Nature. 
 
 Before closing this chapter I think it right to 
 touch on one feature of the Commissioners' 
 report of 1902, which at first sight seems to 
 contradict the conclusions I came to earlier as to 
 the steady and progressive diminution of crime 
 owing to reforms of the penal system. The 
 Commissioners begin their report by drawing 
 attention specially to the remarkable rise in the 
 prison population during the year. They say : 
 
 ' There were, including court-martial prisoners, 
 193 more prisoners sentenced to penal servitude, 
 and 17,163 to imprisonment, than in the previous 
 year. The daily average of prisoners detained in 
 the local prisons was 16,26;', or the highest since 
 the year 1885. We have endeavoured to ascer- 
 tain whether local causes have existed which would 
 account for the growth of the prison population. 
 It is, however, impossible to assign any specific 
 cause, as the increase has been generally distributed 
 throughout the country ; and it is our opinion 
 that it would be sanguine to anticipate, having 
 
 301
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 regard to many circumstances — e.g.y the growth 
 of the large industrial centres, involving in many 
 cases an extension of borough limits, and thus a 
 greater activity and efficiency of police, a multi- 
 plication of statutes and by-laws involving penal 
 consequences, and an increase of population press- 
 ing against the means of subsistence — that the 
 average numbers will again fall to the level of the 
 last decade. Prison statistics go to show that it 
 is not unlikely that, while serious or indictable 
 crime will continue to show a decrease, both abso- 
 lutely and relatively to population, petty crime 
 will show a decrease only relatively to population; 
 or, in other words, that with the increase of popu- 
 lation there will be a corresponding increase of 
 persons committed to prison on summary con- 
 viction.' 
 
 This means, practically, that a multitude of 
 petty crimes and petty criminals are being created 
 by extending to country districts municipal laws 
 which impose penalties involving imprisonment. 
 For instance, it is no crime to play at snowball 
 on a country road, but it becomes a crime as soon 
 as that road is included in the borough. It is no 
 crime to own an unregistered dog on one side of 
 a stream to-day, whilst a man may be sent to gaol 
 
 .^02
 
 Up to Date 
 
 for it on the other side. To-morrow, or next 
 week, the boundary is extended, and then it is 
 criminal to own an unregistered dog on either 
 side of the stream, and so on ad infinitum. This, 
 the Commissioners think, is the cause of the 
 remarkable rise in the prison population during 
 1 901 -1 902; and if their explanation stood alone, 
 it would certainly be very alarming and dis- 
 couraging. But perhaps the following extract 
 from the chaplain of Durham Prison's report, 
 in the Prison Report of 1 901-1902, may have 
 a good deal of truth in it. This is what he 
 says : 
 
 ' The increase of crime appears to be mainly 
 due to the increase of drink, owing to the soldiers 
 and volunteers from the war spending the money 
 which they earned in South Africa in drink, treat- 
 ing all who will accept their hospitality. As 
 much as ^18 or ^^20 have gone in a single night's 
 revelry. It would be good if Discharged Soldiers' 
 Aid Societies could be established to protect our 
 brave men from falling a prey to the national vice, 
 and help them to procure employment.' 
 
 To this it may fairly be added that during the 
 war there was a general loosening of restraint 
 throughout the kingdom, and a widespread idea 
 
 Z05
 
 I. 
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 that things might be done with impunity which 
 could not be done in ordinary times ; and so, 
 perhaps, when the next Prison Report is issued for 
 1 902- 1 903 it will show that the average number 
 of the prison population has again fallen to the 
 level of 1 90 1, or even below it. 
 
 304
 
 XXI 
 
 FINAL 
 
 My last words must be words of thanks. In 
 my first chapter I made some reference to the 
 different treatment I met with from different 
 people in my social circle, as soon as it became 
 generally known that I was under a cloud. With 
 that experience in my memory, I was under no 
 illusions when I came out of prison in November, 
 1 901. I knew that I had yet to bear what is by 
 no means the lightest part of the punishment to 
 a man having once been in the position that I had 
 been in — the loss of friends, and the cold contempt 
 of those who had once been among my most 
 intimate acquaintances. I therefore made up my 
 mind that the only thing to do was to face the 
 world with eyes straight to the front, looking 
 neither to the right nor to the left, but leaving 
 it to everyone who might wish to recognise me 
 to make the first advance. I felt very sure, never- 
 theless, that of those whose attachment I valued 
 
 305 20
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 most, some, at all events, would not turn their 
 backs upon me, and I was not disappointed. I 
 have every reason to be grateful for the true- 
 hearted staunchness I have met with from many 
 whose goodwill was precious to me, whether their 
 social position was the highest or the humblest ; 
 for I may say that * all sorts and conditions of men 
 and women ' have shown great kindness and con- 
 sideration to me since my return, and no words 
 of mine can fittingly express my gratitude to them, 
 one and all. I cannot say in words what their 
 kindness has meant to me. More than anything 
 else, too, it has made up to me for the slights of 
 others who have seen fit to go out of their way 
 to show me that for the future they and I move 
 in very different worlds. 
 
 Naturally, I avoided going to places where I 
 should be likely to meet many people whom I 
 had formerly known in society. But I had no 
 idea of shutting myself up for fear of coming 
 in contact with people who might not wish 
 to know me. 1 went about and lived my life 
 regardless of anyone's attitude towards me. It 
 certainly has given me some curious glimpses 
 of human nature. I could mention many 
 instances of the way people have treated 
 
 306
 
 Final 
 
 me, kindly or otherwise, but I will only give 
 one. 
 
 Last July a lady, who had been one of the 
 first to welcome me back again, died after a 
 very short illness. She was beloved by all who 
 knew her — a brave, loyal friend, whose loss, not 
 only to her husband and children, but to all her 
 friends, was a deep sorrow and a heavy blow. 
 She and her husband had been to me and mine 
 more like brother and sister than friends only, 
 and they both behaved to me through all my 
 trouble, even when it first began five years ago, 
 with an unflinching loyalty which I daily remember. 
 After her death I had a letter from her husband, 
 saying he hoped I would attend the memorial 
 service that would be held at St. Mark's, North 
 Audley Street, as he knew she would have wished 
 me to be present. I knew that the greater part 
 of the congregation would consist of people 
 whom I had known before my downfall, and 
 many of whom I had not seen since, but I went. 
 After the service, when leaving the church, I 
 naturally was rubbing shoulders with many of 
 my old acquaintances. Some of them kindly 
 nodded or spoke to me. Others put on a glassy 
 look. When 1 got into the street, however, a 
 
 307 20 — 2
 
 Penal Servitude 
 
 man, the head of one of our greatest families, 
 respected and looked up to, not only by all who 
 know him personally, but by all who know him 
 only by hearsay, came up and shook hands with 
 me, and asked me to walk with him ; later in the 
 day I also received a letter from his wife, who is 
 a very old friend of ours, asking me to go and 
 see her. Well, as we were walking, carriage after 
 carriage passed us with people who had been in 
 the church, and some of whom had chosen not to 
 see me. Among them was an old friend of mine — 
 at least, I thought he was a friend — but, though I 
 had met him face to face more than once, he had 
 looked the other way. When coming out of the 
 church, though he was close to me, he took no 
 notice, but he saw the man, whom I have already 
 referred to, speak to me, and me walking with 
 him. That same day my so-called old friend met 
 me again, and this time he waved his hand and 
 smiled from ear to ear, profuse in his endeavours 
 to attract my attention. However, it was I this 
 time who looked the other way, as it was so very 
 evident that the reason he noticed me was because 
 he had seen who had spoken to me earlier in the 
 day. Such fair-weather friends are not worth 
 the keeping ; but, as I have said, the unwavering 
 
 308
 
 Final 
 
 fidelity ot those whose goodwill I prize most has 
 more than made up for the coldness of others. 
 In closing my book, I wish them all to know 
 that I shall always remember each of their indi- 
 vidual acts of kindness, and wherever they go and 
 in whatever they do I wish them, with all my 
 heart, good-luck. 
 
 THE END 
 
 BILLING AND SONS, LTD., PRINTERS GUILDFORD
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
 Los Angeles 
 
 This book is DUE on the last date stamped below. 
 
 ^'^r APR2 5t«i 
 
 1 
 
 
 RWe^J'^W'D^^^ 
 
 
 
 MW1018 
 
 m 
 
 
 rorm L9-100m-9,'52(A3105 
 
 ) 4.4.4: 

 
 e: 
 
 u - 
 ® S 
 
 N ° 
 
 I 
 
 •a 
 
 t3 
 
 
 
 iS 
 
 PLEA^?: DO NOT REMOVE 
 
 I 
 < 
 
 THIS BOOK CARD.R,' 
 
 1 
 
 UIO i^ 
 
 — 1 mil 
 
 
 
 n 0\ 
 
 § 1 ir^ ^ 
 
 
 EZJ 1 1 1 ^ r" =3 
 
 
 <-3 1 ^1 1 rt i<= — 1 
 
 ^^ 
 
 mi 
 
 .8N4 
 
 WUMBER 
 
 University Research Library , 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 < 
 
 
 O 
 
 
 r 
 
 
 ■o 
 
 
 H 
 
 
 
 
 
 n 
 
 
 o 
 
 
 •0 
 
 
 
 _ J 
 
 
 
 
 J 
 
 
 . ] 
 
 
 
 
 
 fr 
 
 
 c 
 
 
 -< 
 
 
 X 
 
 
 o