This prisoner lay in the next bed to mine, and among the many death-bed scenes I witnessed while in prison, I never saw one where the fear of death was so apparent, or the state of mind so appalling to the beholder.

The man had been a bully, and an avowed infidel. The prospect of death had now come upon him with awful suddenness. Fear and trembling took hold upon him, and as he thought of his past life, and the possible judgment seat, before which he might the next moment be summoned to appear, remorse and doubt seemed to torture him more than physical pain. At the closing scene he was evidently trying to believe, but could not, for he kept repeating, "If there be a God, if there be a God I hope He will forgive me; but I can't believe it, indeed I can't!" and so saying he expired.

Another death-bed scene impressed me much. The patient was paralysed in his lower extremities and could scarcely walk, but his general health appeared pretty good, and he was not confined to bed. He had a talent for mechanics and arithmetic, but a very bad temper and a very bad heart. His crime was sacrilege. In the next bed to his there lay a patient who was dying, and being in great pain was making a noise, which disturbed the studies and peace of mind of the other. A quarrel arose between the two on the subject. High words ensued. Curses, deep, black, loud, and long, soon followed, too soon for the officer to prevent, and there would certainly have been a fight if the dying man could have got out of bed, but the interference of the officer put an end to the disturbance. It was their parting words taken in connection with what followed, that made a deep impression upon me:—"If it wasn't that you are dying I would blacken your eyes for you," cried the mechanic. "How do you know I am dying? You look as like dying as anybody, you miserable cripple," retorted the other. "Ah! I'm tough stuff, you'll not see me die in a hurry." The cripple who uttered these words went shortly afterwards to bed, was seized with a paralytic affection, which took the power of speech from him. He never uttered another syllable, but lay in bed for about a week, making frantic motions with his lips. I forget which of these two men died first, but they were buried together in the same grave.

Another death at this time excited a good deal of conversation among the prisoners. The patient had been tried under the Transportation Act, one of the bye-laws of which enacted that for every prison "report," or offence, the prisoner would lose one month of his remission. But convicts being usually punished under the most recent law, without reference to its being different from that under which they had received sentence, the prisoner I now refer to was sentenced to lose three months of his remission for one offence, that of having an inch or two of tobacco on his person. He had undergone nearly the whole of this additional punishment, when, only a few hours before his time came to leave the prison to meet his motherless children, for whom he seemed to have a very strong affection, he died suddenly of heart disease.

Some prisoners expired on the very day for their liberation. Some died screaming aloud that they were poisoned. Many died like the brutes, and a very few departed in peace, with a prayer on their lips. The great majority died as they had lived, and were forgotten by the spectators almost before their bodies had been laid in the grave.



CHAPTER VII.

THIEFOLOGY—WHAT THE UNINITIATED CONVICT MAY LEARN IN PRISON.

As a means of beguiling the time while in the hospital, I used to enter into long conversations with those of my fellow prisoners who were willing to gratify my curiosity, with a view of ascertaining their mode of life when out of prison. At first it was somewhat difficult for me to follow them in their talk, in consequence of their excessive use of "slang" terms; but in time I not only came to understand the nomenclature of thiefology, but also to use it fluently, as I found it more acceptable to my companions to do so, and rendered them more favourably disposed towards me.

One of my fellow prisoners was particularly communicative and obliging, and gave me a great deal of well-meant advice, no doubt, as to how I might live at the public expense outside the prison walls, as well as explanations in every department of crime. I remember the following dialogue taking place between us, which also serves to show how an ignoramus in the science, or a young country lad, perhaps for the first time convicted of crime, might be instructed in vice, and incited to continue a career he had perhaps very thoughtlessly, or under strong temptation, began.

"Harry," I asked, "what's that 'bloke'[6] here for, who occupies the end bed?"

[6] Man.

"Twineing."

"Twineing! What's that?"

"Don't you know that yet? why you must be a greenhorn not to know that. Well! I'll tell you. Suppose you start in the morning with a good sovereign and a 'snyde'[7] half-sovereign in your pocket; you go into some place or other, and ask for change of the sovereign, or you order some beer and give the sovereign in payment; it's likely you will get half-a-sovereign and silver back in change. Then is the time to 'twine.' You change your mind, after you have 'rung'[8] your snyde half 'quid'[9] with the good one, and throwing down the 'snyde' half, say you prefer silver; the landlord or landlady, or whoever it is, will pick up the snyde half-quid, thinking of course it is the same one they had given you!"

[7] Counterfeit.

[8] Substituted.

[9] Sovereign.

"Is that a good game, do you think?"

"Well, that depends on the party. If he has got good 'togs' on, looks pretty decent, and can work it well, he may make a good living at it."

"How much do you suppose?"

"If he can manage to begin every morning with yellow stuff, he may make a couple of 'quid' a day; but if he can only muster white stuff, why of course he can't make so much."

"Two pounds a day would do if it could be got regularly, but I suspect there are not many who make that?"

"Oh! I have known them make much more than that, but of course it varies, some days nothing may be done, but the great thing is to have something to start with."

"Do you never think of trying to make money at work?"

"Work! no, by jingo! I'll never work; that's all they can make one do in prison, and it will be time enough to work when we get there."

"I have heard you speak of 'hoisting,' how do you go about that?"

"Ah! that's a much better game, but it requires a fellow to be rigged out like a 'toff,'[10] and they generally have a 'flash moll,'[11] with them at that job. She can secrete articles about her dress when in a shop looking at things, and that's one way of 'hoisting.' Jewellers' shops are the best places for that game. I know a bloke who made several hundreds at it; he took fine lodgings, and his moll looked quite the lady, so he orders some jewellery to be sent on sight; he prigs the best of it and bolts. Then you can get snyde jewellery made to look the same as real stuff, and when you are in the shop with your moll, she is trying on a ring perhaps, when you put the snyde one in its place and she sticks to the right one."

[10] Gentleman.

[11] Prostitute of the gayest sort.

"I am afraid that game would be above my abilities?"

"Well, I'll tell you what I did once, and what you may do when you get out, when winter sets in; you can have some other game in summer, perhaps go hawking, and do a bit of thieving when you see the coast clear. My brother and I and another bloke went out 'chance screwing,' one winter, and we averaged three pounds a night each. My brother had a spring cart and a fast trotting horse, so when it began to grow dark, off we set to the outskirts of London. I did the screwing in this way. Wherever I saw a lobby lighted with gas, I looked in at the key-hole. If I saw anything worth lifting I 'screwed' the door—I'll teach you how to do it—seized the things, into the cart with them, and off to the next place. Now big Davey goes out about the same time as you, and he knows a bloke with a cart, and so you may do very well all winter at that game; but be sure to leave off by nine o'clock as you would get it very hot if caught after that time!"

"Well! I shall see big Davey, perhaps, but don't you think 'highflying' would suit me better, although I know little about it?"

"Oh! that's above your mark, a 'highflyer' is a bloke who dresses like a clergyman, or some gentleman. He must be educated, for his game is to know all the nobility and gentry, and visit them with got-up letters, and that kind of thing, for the purpose of getting subscriptions to some scheme. A church-building or missionary affair is the best game. There is only one good 'highflyer' in the prison. I knew him get 150l. from a gentleman in Devonshire once, and he thinks nothing of getting 30l. of a morning."

Finding my friend so communicative and apparently so experienced in the various branches of his profession, I took advantage of every convenient opportunity to ascertain from him the meaning of the slang terms which my comrades made use of when conversing together, but through ignorance of which I was often unable to understand exactly what they were talking about. On another occasion I accordingly asked him the meaning of a number of these terms which I had thus heard bandied about from time to time amongst them. On asking him about 'macing' he replied—

"Macing means taking an office, getting goods sent to it, and then 'bolting' with them; or getting goods sent to your lodgings and then removing. I'll tell you a game that you might try now and again as you have a chance, and that is 'fawney dropping,' you know 'fawney' means a ring. Well, you must have a 'pal,' and give him a 'snyde' ring with a ticket and the price marked on it. When you are walking along the street and see a likely 'toff' to buy the ring, your 'pal' goes on before and drops it, you come up behind him, and in front of the gentleman you pick up the ring, which is ticketed, say five pounds. Well, you turn to the 'toff' and say to him that you have found a ring which is entirely useless to you, as you never wear these articles, and ask him to purchase it. He will most likely look at the ticket, and see it marked five pounds, and if you say you will let him have it for three pounds, or two pounds, or even for one pound, if he hesitates, it is also likely he will buy it, thinking he is getting a great bargain."

"What do you mean by 'snow-dropping?'" I asked.

"Oh!" said he, "that's a poor game. It means lifting clothes off the bleaching line, or hedges. Needy mizzlers, mumpers, shallow-blokes, and flats may carry it on, but it's too low and paltry for you."

"Who do you mean by mumpers and shallow-blokes?" I enquired.

"Why 'mumpers' are cadgers; beggars in fact. There's old Dick over in that bed there; he used to go 'mumping,' and when he got boosey with too much lush he stole some paltry thing or other, and being so often convicted they have 'legged'[12] him at last. They can't make an honest living, and can't make a living by thieving; but, you know, it's different with you. You could make a fair thing by 'snotter-hauling,' even if you cannot get on at 'fly-buzzing,' which would suit you well enough; but it's better to stick to one good game, and get as expert at that as you can, for then you don't run so much risk, and you can keep a sharper look out after the 'coppers'.[13] Talking of mumping: old Dick used to go to the farm-houses with a piece of dried cow-dung, and ask for a bit of butter to put on it. Very often they took pity on him and gave him lots of meat; for they thought he must be very hungry to eat the cow-dung, which of course, you know, was only a dodge. In order to get to Liverpool once from some place up the Mersey, whence the fare down was a shilling, Dick went on board the steamer and asked the captain what he charged for lambs. 'A penny a-head,' says the captain. 'Oh! that will do,' says Dick; and away he goes among the passengers. When they were collecting the fares Dick holds out his penny, which was all the 'tin' he had in the world. 'The fare's a shilling,' said the captain. 'Yes, it may be,' said Dick, 'but I asked you the fare for lambs. My name is Lamb; I'm an innocent creature, and the long and the short of it is I've only a penny. If you can't take it, just give me a sail back again.' That chap over there with the one arm is a regular 'mumper,' and he is a strong, robust fellow, able to work with any man in the prison; but he can make ten times more by 'mumping,' and I do not blame the like of him going on that 'racket.' Every man for himself in this world. Do you see that little old man with a cough on him? Well, his game is 'needy-mizzling.' He'll go out without a shirt, perhaps, and beg one from house to house. I have known him to get thirty 'mill-togs'[14] in one day, which, at a 'bob' apiece, would fetch their thirty shillings. When he can't go on that 'racket,' he'll turn 'mumper' and wood merchant (which means a seller of lucifer matches); and sometimes he will take to rag and bone collecting."

[12] Sentenced.

[13] Policemen.

[14] Shirts.

"What do you call a 'shallow-bloke?'"

"He is a cove that acts the turnpike sailor; pretends he has been shipwrecked, and so on, or he gets his arm bandaged, and put in a sling. I once knew two blokes who went to an old captain's house on that game, and as they were not able to reply to some of his nautical questions, he and his son gave them a regular horsewhipping. When they got home they boasted to a lot of their 'chums' how much they had screwed out of the old captain. This induced some of them to go on the same 'racket,' and of course they met with the same warm reception. These 'shallow-blokes' turn 'duffers' sometimes. They get some 'duffing' silk handkerchiefs and cigars, and go about selling them for smuggled goods; or perhaps they will take to singing in the streets. But I spoke of 'snotter-hauling.' Although I think you are too old for that 'racket'—and unless you were very hard up and in a crowd, I would not bother about it. It would not pay for the risk run. It does best for 'kids.'[15] A little boy can sneak behind a 'toff' and relieve him of his 'wipe' as easily as possible. I know a little fellow who used to make seven 'bob' a-day at it on the average; but there were more silk 'wipes' used then than there are now."

[15] Boys.

"What do you mean by 'lob-sneaking,' and 'Peter-screwing?"

"Why, 'lob' means the till, and 'Peter' means a safe. Stealing the till and opening the safe is what we call 'lob-sneaking and Peter-screwing.'"

"And what is 'jumping' and 'jilting?'"

"'Jumping' is getting into a house through the window; and 'jilting' is getting in on the sly, or on false pretences at the door, and sneaking what you can find. It's not a bad game to go into hotels, for instance, as a traveller, and as soon as you see a chance to sneak anything, to bolt with it. I know some fellows who make a fair living in this way."

"Then there is 'twisting' and 'fencing?'"

"When you go into any place where hats, coats, or umbrellas are left in the lobby, you can take a new 'tog,' or a new hat, by mistake for your own. That is 'twisting,' or ringing the changes. Then the 'fence-master' is the fellow who buys stolen property. I will give you the names of some of these blokes in London before you go out. You must know where to dispose of a 'super,'[16] or whatever you get, or it would be of no use to you. You know what 'buzzing,' or pocket-picking is, of course; and you have heard of working on the 'stop,' most likely. Which means picking pockets when the party is standing still; but it is more difficult on the 'fly.' You must remember that. I remember once going along Oxford Street, and I prigged an old woman's 'poke,'[17] on the 'fly.' She missed it very quick, and was coming after me when I slipped it into an old countryman's pocket as I was passing. She came up and accused me with stealing her purse. I, of course, allowed her to search me, and asked her to fetch a 'bobby,' if she was not satisfied. Well, I followed the old countryman and accused him of stealing my purse. And, my Crikey! if you had only seen how the old codger looked when he found the purse in his pocket. I threatened to give him in charge of the first 'copper' I saw; and he was so frightened that I actually got a 'quid' out of him to let him off."

[16] Watch.

[17] Purse.

"Well now, tell me about 'snyde-pitching.'"

"Snyde, you know, means counterfeit or bad, anything bad we call snydey. Snyde-pitching is passing bad money; and is a capital racket, especially if you can get rid of 'fins.'"

"What are 'fins?'"

"Five pound notes, or flash notes. I can give you the address of one or two fellows who make bad coins, and you can pass one or two when you see a fair chance."

"What do they charge for sovereigns, for instance?"

"The charge depends on the quality, you can get them at from six to fifteen shillings. Those at fifteen shillings no one can discover. They are the weight, the size, and all that is required. The low-priced ones of course you must run more risk with. Making bad coins is one of the best games out, and you can carry it on with less risk. For instance you can have your place where you work so blocked up that before anyone can enter, you will have time to destroy all your dies and tools; and melt or 'plant' your metal, and without them they cannot convict you. I know a bloke in Birmingham now, who was getting up Scotch one pound notes when I was 'copt,' and he is a capital hand at the trade. He once made a good deal by making snyde postage stamps."

"But one would require to know something about the different metals before they could be able to make 'snyde.'"

"Yes, that is necessary, but I think I know who will tell you. He has got twenty years, and is not likely to get a chance of doing more at the trade. These fellows who follow that racket are rather close, and don't want to tell anyone."

"The other day I heard a bloke talking about a 'picking-up moll' he used to live with. What did he mean by that?"

"O! that's a very common racket. He meant a 'flash-tail,' or prostitute who goes about the streets at nights trying to pick up 'toffs.' When she manages to do this her accomplice the coshman (a man who carries a 'cosh' or life preserver) comes up, when she has signed to him that she has got the 'toff's' watch and chain, and quarrels with him for meddling with his wife. Whilst the quarrel is going on the moll walks off with the booty. I know one coshman who pretends to be a missionary, and wears a white choker. Instead of quarrelling, he talks seriously to the 'toff' about the sin of fornication, and advises him to pursue a more becoming life in future, and finishes off by giving him a religious tract!"

"Now I have nearly finished my questions, but whilst there is time tell me about 'magging,' and 'mag-flying.'"

"Magging is not so good a game as it used to be. It means more particularly, swindling a greenhorn out of his cash by the mere gift of the gab. You know if it were not for the flats, how could the sharps live? You can 'mag' a man at any time you are playing cards or at billiards, and in various other ways. As for 'mag-flying,' that is not good for much. You have seen those blokes at fairs and races, throwing up coppers, or playing at pitch and toss? Well these are 'mag-flyers.' The way they do it is to have a penny with two heads or two tails on it, which they call a 'grey,' and of course they can easily dupe flats from the country."

"How do they call it a 'grey,' I wonder?"

"I suppose they have named it after Sir George Grey, because he is a two-faced bloke."

"Well then tell me about 'locusing,' and 'bellowsing.'"

"Locusing is putting a chap to sleep with chloroform, and bellowsing is putting his light out. In other words, drugging and murder."

"Now then, shew me how to hang a fellow up, or put the 'flimp' on him, as you call it."

"D'ye see that bone in the wrist? Just get that on the windpipe—so," (shewing me practically how to garotte). While at this interesting experiment we heard a voice cry, "Cheese it, cheese it, Harry! there's the 'Screw' looking at you!" which warned us that the prison warder was also taking notes, and my lesson for that day came to a rather abrupt conclusion.



CHAPTER VIII.

ANOTHER COMPANION—A CAREER OF CRIME—HIS OPINIONS ABOUT RELIGION AND CHURCH RATES—AN INCURABLE: HIS OPINION ABOUT FLOGGING.

Another of my companions in hospital gave me the particulars of his history in answer to my enquiries. I give them precisely in his own words:—

"I was about fifteen years of age before I stole any money, or got into any trouble; but I used to 'nick' little things, such as fruit, &c., when I was a kid. My father kept a small shop, but I was bound an apprentice to a very peculiar branch of the Sheffield trade; and before I had finished my apprenticeship I committed my first crime. I was playing at bagatelle one night, and lost all my cash, and as I was anxious to win it back, I broke into my master's premises, and took all the money that was in the cash-box. I got 'copt,' and was sent into the county jail. When I came out I enlisted in the army. My father bought me off after I had been in the regiment a short time. I then took to hawking, but I did not make much money at that, so I enlisted again,—deserted, and got flogged; and the flogging made me a blackguard;—committed another crime, and got out of the army. Afterwards I committed other crimes, and was at last copt and sentenced to five years' penal servitude. I was sent to do most of it at Gibraltar. After coming home I resolved I should make a fair trial to gain an honest livelihood. I had about thirteen pounds of a gratuity coming to me, and by the aid of the vicar I got all that at once, and set up as a greengrocer. But as I was not very well acquainted with the business I soon lost my little capital, and I resolved to try and get work at my trade. I called on all the 'gaffers' in that business, but none of them would employ me. Those who knew me would have nothing to do with me; those who didn't wanted a character, which of course I could not give. Well, I went two days without tasting a bit of food; but on the third I ate some turnips. On the fourth day I became so desperate with hunger that I determined on going on the 'cross.' I commenced, and committed seventeen burglaries right off, in various parts of the country. The first was in my own town, and the moment I got the 'wedge'[18] 'planted'[19], I went to the police-office and asked for a bed for the night, as I had no money. Next day, early, there was a great hubbub about my job. One of the police came to the office and swore it must have been done by me; but when the superintendent told him that I had slept in the station-house all night, and that it could not have been me, he never said any more about it. The next place I robbed was a church; but all the rest were shops. I was tried for the church and two of the other jobs; but I got off the former, as the clergyman prosecuted me, when it ought to have been some other official connected with it. I pleaded guilty to the second charge against me; and it's that I'm now here for. When I was in prison, waiting for trial, I called myself a Roman Catholic, and was visited by the priest. One day I confessed to him that I had robbed a church, and that I was very sorry for it—and so I was, upon my word. That's the only crime I ever committed which gave me any trouble. Well, the priest was thunderstruck, and looked daggers at me; but when I told him it was a Protestant church, he gave me absolution, and said the crime was not so bad as he at first thought."

[18] Silver-plate.

[19] Hidden.

"What religion do you profess now?" I enquired.

"Well, I'm down in the books now as a Protestant, or Church of England man; but I do not believe all that churchmen believe. I think there's a good deal of humbug about what is called Christianity altogether. I have tried several creeds, and there's none of them squares exactly with my ideas."

"Which of them have you tried?"

"I was eighteen months a Mormon. My uncle is an elder in their church; but I got enough of them one night at a meeting. After the business was concluded, one of the members proposed that the lights should be put out during the remainder of the proceedings.—My Crikey! that night was enough for me.... I was in earnest at first though; and when I was baptised and anointed, I intended to have gone out to the settlement in America."

"What do you object to in the Church of England?"

"Oh! I don't pay much attention to these matters. I like a good man, no matter what church he belongs to. For instance, the Presbyterian minister at 'Gib.' was a first-rate man; and so is that chaplain at Pentonville, the Rev. Mr. Sherman. But I am of the barber's opinion about church-rates."

"What was his opinion?"

"Well, a certain barber opened a shop down our way, and shortly afterwards was called on to pay the church-rates. 'Church-rates,' says he, 'what have I to do with church-rates? I never go near the church. I belong to the dissenters.' 'Well, but you know the church is always open to receive you, and every Sunday the doors are open for you to come and worship; and you ought to consider it a privilege to be permitted to attend on the ministration of God's Holy Word,' was the reply. 'I do not consider it a privilege to go to a church I don't believe in,' said the barber. 'I go to a different church, which I am pleased with, and therefore I won't pay you any rates.' 'But you know the law will compel you to pay them.' 'Oh, then, there they are; if the law says so, it must be done.' 'Well, as you have paid me so promptly I shall be a regular customer of yours, and will now have a 'shave' and my hair cut,' said the collector. He only continued for a short time, however, to patronize the barber, having found a shop nearer home and more convenient. But at the end of the year the barber made out his account all the same as if he had continued his custom as he had promised to do. When the collector got the account, he said, 'How's this? I don't owe you a quarter of this sum; you must have made a mistake. I have only been so many times at your shop altogether, and yet you charge me as if I had gone all the year round.' 'My dear sir,' replied the barber, 'you know that my shop, as by law established, is always open to receive you, excepting Sunday, when your shop is open, so that you may avail yourself of my skill, and you ought to consider it a very great privilege to be permitted to do so.' 'I don't consider it any privilege to get that from you which I can get from others that I happen to prefer, on the same terms, and therefore I refuse to pay your account.' 'Then, it appears, I am obliged to pay your account whatever it may be, whether I get value for it or not, but yet you are not obliged to pay me mine unless you do get value for it, even when you promise to take value. Good morning.' 'Good morning,' said the collector; and the barber retired.

"You will see from this colloquy what the barber's notions were about church rates. Now, I have an idea that it is most unjust for one set of religious men to force their neighbours who differ from them, to help to pay for the support of their church, particularly when they are able themselves to do all that is required in that way, if they were willing. This mainstay and foundation being rotten, the fabric cannot be secure. The churchman acts unjustly in this, and to act unjustly is anti-christian: therefore the churchman is no Christian any more than I am a Dutchman."

"Well, we'll leave the church question at present. Have you anything more to tell me about yourself? Have you never thought seriously about changing your mode of life when you get out of prison again? An intelligent fellow like you would do well in America, and I would strongly recommend you to leave the country as soon as you get your liberty."

"As to altering my conduct, I tell you that when I was in the separate cells, I did resolve on it, and began to pray and read good books, but after I got among the other prisoners I gave it all up again; I should like to go abroad well enough, but I shall not have funds for it, so I must stop at home."

"Then do you intend to go thieving and robbing again?"

"Well, I shall never go another day without food, that's certain. If I can get it honestly, good and well; if not I'll steal: why should a man starve in a Christian country?"

"You have the workhouse to go to."

"The workhouse! it's a second jail: I would nearly as soon be in prison, and when you have a chance of getting off without being caught, it's better to run the risk and chance it, for all the difference there is or ever can be between the workhouse and the prison. They can't make a man work unless they feed and clothe him, any more than they can make a steam engine go without fuel. Well, give me food and I'll work; work is no punishment to me, if I can get meat to support it, and if I don't I can't, that's all about it. But what's the good of making me work for years, at work that will not be of any use to me when I get out? I have only learnt one trade, there are only a very few men in that trade, they won't employ me; then what am I to do? Starve in a Christian country? It isn't likely; and as for the workhouse, I shall never go to it as long as I can be fed in prison, with the chance always of keeping out of both?"

"Suppose they should flog you next time?"

"In the first place, I have a disease on me now that would prevent me from being flogged, so that I have no fear of flogging. But, even if I was able to stand flogging, all the difference it would make to me, would be to make me keep a sharper eye after the 'coppers.' Small game would not then tempt me so much. I should look after larger stakes, go in at heavier jobs, and calculate well my chances of escape before going to work. Once I had made up my mind to commit a crime, and saw the coast clear, the chance of all the floggings in the world would not deter me. I'll find you fellows in the prison to-day who will take a good round flogging for a pound of tobacco! now do you think that the mere chance of the lash would hinder these men from attempting to get hold of a few hundred pounds' worth of jewellery? It's not likely. Thieves weren't frightened into honesty by the gallows, nor would they be now, if they were to be cut into mince-meat. Thousands might be led into honest ways if suitable work was found for them, but it would require to be very different work from that of the 'navvy,' and then many of them have to be learned to work before they could make a living at all."

"Then you don't think flogging did you any good at all?"

"Certainly it did not; and what's more, you will never find a man doing much good after being flogged. It either makes him an invalid, or a desperado. It may make him quiet under authority, but it ensures the very opposite when he is free."

This prisoner was a more than usually clever and intelligent type of a numerous class of convicts—not the most difficult class to cure, but the next to it, perhaps. Unlike the city-bred professional thief, he had been taught to work, and such work as he could perform was no punishment to him. Unlike the professional, he goes out of the prison hesitating, wavering, as to his future course: willing to take work if suitable; determined to avoid the workhouse; easily tempted to steal, resolved to do so rather than starve; but, on the whole, anxious to make a comfortable livelihood. He had one son, and I remember well how glad he was when some benevolent person wrote to him to say that he had been bound an apprentice to a respectable trade. He is now dead. Another of my companions was of a somewhat different class, and a much more difficult subject to deal with. He told me that he was fifty-seven years of age. I asked him how long he had been a prisoner, not adding his sentences together, but how long he had actually been in prison.

"Thirty-seven years," he replied.

"How old were you when you got into trouble first?"

"Fourteen."

"What was your first sentence?"

"Seven years' transportation."

"How did you like Australia?"

"Well, the place is well enough, and a man can get a living easier abroad than he can at home. But I have been rather a queer customer in my time. I don't believe there's a man in this prison, or in any prison, who has gone through more hardships and punishments than I have done."

"Were you ever flogged?"

"Flogged! I should think I have. Just wait until night, when I am going to bed, and I'll let you see my back all in ridges with the cat."

"What effect had the flogging on your conduct?"

"Flogging takes out one devil and puts in seven. That's the effect it had on me. But there's not one in a hundred could stand the floggings and punishments I have endured. I had ten years once in Australia, and I was in the penal class most of the time, and, by jingo! they know how to punish there."

"Suppose I were to offer you 20l. to be flogged, would you accept the money and take the flogging?"

"I should think I would, and that very quick, too. I would as soon take a bashing as bread and water for seven days."

"Then a bashing, as you call it, would not frighten you from committing a crime?"

"If I thought I was going to be caught even, I should not commit a crime. A 'flat' or a 'mumper' may do a job to get into prison, but I never do anything unless I believe I am to escape. It's the getting caught, that's the crime, the punishment you have got to chance. A fellow needn't begin thieving if he is to be frightened at punishment; he would never make a living at it. It requires a fellow with a good heart to be a thief, I can tell you; and if his heart is not in the right place, he'd better keep on the square."

"Now, tell me; do you never think seriously about your evil ways? You are getting up in years, and although you appear to be very robust in your general health at present, you cannot expect to live very much longer in this world."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I do sometimes think of leading an honest life. But I am so hardened now to all punishment that I don't care very much what I do. It's not easy for a man at my age to change all of a sudden to be a Christian, and then it's so difficult to get work suitable for one's abilities, that I am almost driven to go on the cross. I have a very good brother, who has been very kind to me, and I've been thinking several times of going home and getting work from him. He is the only man who ever did me a kindness since I was fourteen years of age, and I love and respect him very much."

This man had been longer in prison than any other I met with. He had been five times a convict. I considered him the very worst of a certain class of prisoners that I ever knew, and feel quite convinced that he will not be many weeks out of prison. He was constantly trafficking with his fellow-prisoners, and when he could get a chance to steal, his hands would be at work. I remember his being in the cook-house for a time, and almost every day he stole several pounds of mutton or beef. He would steal anything for an inch of tobacco. He was turned out of the cook-house on suspicion, but they never could punish him for theft except on one occasion, which happened in the following manner.

The prisoners were in the habit of getting a pint of oatmeal gruel for supper. This pint of gruel was supposed to contain two ounces of meal; but in order to make it part better it was made thinner, so that every night there was a surplus. This surplus the prisoners thought belonged to them, and some of the officers permitted the orderlies for the day, who served it out, to divide whatever remained amongst the prisoners in their own wards. The authorities, however, did not allow the prisoners more than a pint:—no matter whether it was thick or thin, no matter whether there was only one ounce of meal in it, back to the cook-house and the swill-tub the surplus must go. Some officers adhered to the rule, others did not. The officer in charge of the prisoner referred to was one of those who did, and when my friend helped himself to a pint out of the surplus gruel he was "reported" the same evening (which happened to be a Saturday). On Sunday the governor, departing from his usual custom, came to his cell, and passed sentence on him there. When the prisoner came out of 'Chokey,' as the punishment cells are called by the prisoners, he came to me about the Sunday sentence of a hungry man for taking a pint of gruel, which in some proportion belonged to himself. He fancied it was not legal to pass sentence on a Sunday, and thought he might get back the time he had forfeited, by appealing to the director. I told him I did not approve of the conduct of the governor, but at the same time expressed the opinion that the director would not interfere in his case. (Whether he did so or not I am unable to say, as I was removed before the director's visit was due.) This prisoner was a big stout man, above thirteen stone weight, and there was nothing the matter with him except a diseased leg. This leg was rather a convenience to him than otherwise. If he disliked any work he was put to, he could always get rid of it by making his leg sore, and this could not be prevented, nor brought directly home to him. When he was at Dartmoor prison he was always in hospital; but now, as his work pleased him better he seldom troubled the doctor. On the contrary, when about due to go home, that is when he arrived at his last stage, and became entitled to beer and other privileges, he wanted to get out of the invalid prison, where these privileges are not allowed unless the state of the invalid requires them, and to be sent to the public works where they would be granted.

Many convicts are so afflicted that they can almost compel the doctor to admit them into the hospital. So whenever they are put into some billet they like they are well, and whenever they are put into one they dislike they send in a sick report, and the medical officer in general must admit them. This was the case with the prisoner I have referred to. Moreover, I question if he was ever a single day in the prison without doing something that was considered wrong, and yet he was very seldom detected or punished. Every day he was trafficking, frequently he was stealing, and he told lies as a rule. Speaking the truth was quite an exceptional matter with him. Thieves generally consider it to be a virtue rather than a sin to tell a lie to save a 'pal' from punishment, but in cases where their own interests are not specially at stake, they can speak the truth as well as other men. But this prisoner seemed utterly incapable of speaking the truth, even when falsehood brought no advantage to him.



CHAPTER IX.

ANOTHER PRISONER—"HAPPY AS A KING"—CURE OF A DOCTOR—THE TOBACCO AND FOOD EXCHANGE—ANOTHER JAIL-BIRD—CIVIL AND LAZY—UNDESERVED REMISSION—PRISON DIRECTORS, AND HOW THEY DISCHARGE THEIR DUTIES—I PETITION TO GO ABROAD ON "INSUFFICIENT GROUNDS."

Another prisoner I knew had been about thirty-two years in prison—he was paralyzed, and if he had been allowed a little tobacco daily, would have been as happy as a king, and never sought to leave the prison. He generally sold most of his food to other prisoners for tobacco; occasionally he was detected and punished, and I always observed that he came out of 'Chokey' fatter than when he went in. Neither was his an exceptional case in this respect. The penal diet, which mainly consists of farinaceous food, will keep up the flesh, though not the strength, as well as the regular diet. In Scotland I have seen prisoners get stout in appearance on the oatmeal! but on the other hand they generally broke out in boils, after being six or nine months without other varieties of food; and I have also known very stout men lose two or three stone in weight in as many months. I am inclined to believe that tobacco is beneficial in cases of insufficient food. I do not use it myself, nor do I think it beneficial to those who have plenty of food, but the reverse. I have known prisoners, however, who had good health in the Scotch prisons, when they used tobacco—and fortunately for them, the weed and many other luxuries are easily obtained there, if you only know the way and have money. If I had known at the commencement of my prison career what I now know, I might have had mutton chops daily, if I had been inclined to adopt some of the 'dodges' I afterwards learnt. I knew one prisoner who obtained his end in a somewhat questionable way. He had made some complaint to the doctor, who, as usual, paid very little attention to it. On seeing that he was not to receive any medical aid by fair means, he resorted to foul, and took up a certain utensil, full to the brim, and emptied its contents in the face and over the shirt-front of the hapless pill-compounder. The remedy was doubtless severe, but the disease was chronic and the improvement marked and rapid. The prisoner got good diet and was soon after in good health.

The price of tobacco at the "Thieves' Palace or Invalid Criminal Hotel," for so the Surrey Prison was sometimes designated by the inmates, was about one shilling per ounce, when I left. It seldom went below 10d. At first when I arrived, there were yards of it in one place or another, but the crime of having a bit of it found on the person, being now severely punished, the convicts keep it out of sight more carefully and are more on their guard, seldom having more on their person than they can swallow. All 'fly' men who use tobacco can procure it in any convict prison; but the 'flats,' have to deny themselves the prisoners' greatest luxury, but even they sometimes get a taste of it by selling their food. An inch of tobacco will fetch four ounces of cheese, or mutton, it will also procure one and a-half pounds of bread. Sometimes it is worth more, according to the business abilities of the trader. The exchange of food is a daily custom. One prisoner with a good appetite requiring double the allowance of food, will give four ounces of cheese for twenty-three ounces of bread, or five ounces of mutton for the same quantity. In this way the man with the capacious stomach gets it filled, and the man with a dainty appetite gets better food. All this sort of traffic is quite contrary to the prison rules, and in the case of tobacco it is severely punished, but prisoners will have it, and many of them do have it regularly. The prisoner referred to at the commencement of this chapter was remarkable for his love of the weed, and it was not often he missed a day without getting a taste of it, at the sacrifice, however, of nearly all his food. He was only fit for the jail or the workhouse, and would commit a theft rather than deny himself a single meal."

"I will mention only another of my companions in hospital, whose case will illustrate with what wisdom and discrimination the prison directors and governors use the powers delegated to them, encouraging the well-behaved and reforming the penitent convict!"

This prisoner had been a long time a convict. I asked him when he was first convicted.

"In 1838," he replied.

"What sentence did you then receive?"

"I got two sentences, one seven years and the other eight years, making fifteen together, and I did about seven years and eight months out of the fifteen years.

"You got a free pardon, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Did they not send you abroad, then?"

"My health was not very strong and I did my time at the ships."

"How did you like them?"

"Oh, very well, there was not so much of this stupid humbugging-us-about system as there is now, but we were not kept so clean. The Scots-greys were frequently on the march on the clothes of the convicts."

"What was your next sentence?"

"Life."

"How many years did you have to do?"

"I got off on 'medical grounds' when I had done about two years and a-half. I got 'copt' again, however, and was sent back to do 'life' a second time; then I was liberated after I had done seven and a-half years more, making ten years altogether out of two 'life's.'"

"What have you got this time?"

"Ten years."

"What do you intend to do when you get out this time?"

"Why, it's no use trying to get work; I am not able for anything very hard now, and I think I shall make snyde half-crowns."

"You'll get caught again if you commence that game."

"No I won't. I did that when I was out last, and several times before, and I have never been caught yet for that job. I can go and buy silver spoons, and get tools that I can destroy in a few minutes."

"But why not go to the workhouse?"

"The workhouse! why, the workhouse in our country is as bad, if not worse than this, and this is bad enough. No; I will never enter a workhouse as long as I can get anything to steal. Some workhouses are better than this; but then when you steal you are not always caught, and you have yourself to blame if you're 'copt.' I will steal the very first chance I get, as soon as I get out at the gates. They won't give me work I can make a living at, and I'll not starve nor want a single meal. I'll have better mutton the day I get out than we have here, perhaps, and it will cost me nothing."

This prisoner was a thorough jail-bird, quiet and civil to his officers, growling at his food, slow at work, but always doing a little—a very good example of the type "civil and lazy." He received his ten years' sentence about four years ago, when it was customary for those who had revoked a licence to be refused a remission of sentence a second time. But, in September, 1864, he was credited with two-and-a-half years' remission, and in the summer of 1865 he was credited with another three months, unasked, unexpected, and in the latter case, quite inexplicable consistently with justice to others. Indeed, the only explanation which can be given of this undeserved and unexpected leniency is to suppose that the prison officials, like shopkeepers, treat their "regular" customers best, and that they do not see any reason why their business should not be encouraged, and the prisons kept as full and quiet as possible by the same methods as other men adopt who have to make an honest living by their trade. We have seen the effects of cotton famine, and I am sure matters would have come to a sad pass if we were to witness a convict famine, and to be compelled to open our workhouse gates to the starving families of our convict guardians.

It is very natural, and in a sense, laudable, that these latter should seek by such means as are available to them to prevent the occurrence of any such calamity. Hence, civil quiet ruffians, like the prisoner I have referred to, are encouraged. They are an article with which they have little trouble, and out of which they can make both profit and capital.

My own case was somewhat different. Once out of prison I was not likely to return; neither was I of the "sort" prison officials are accustomed to manage. Moreover, my eyes were open, and my future was not quite so certainly in their hands as to warrant them in feeling secure that what I saw might not hereafter be described for the information of others. The difficulties I experienced in gaining even the slightest concession were great, and contrast strangely with the case I have mentioned. A few months previous to my discharge from hospital, I gave in my name in the usual manner as being desirous to speak with the visiting director. I may here explain that there are four directors of convict prisons in England. One of them had the manners and the reputation of a gentleman; two of them may indeed have been men of ability, but their deportment to the convicts was certainly not calculated to give them any more exalted ideas than they already possessed of the civility and good manners obtaining amongst those above them; the fourth was the beau ideal of a bully, and his influence on the convict the statistics of the prison will show to have been baneful in the extreme.

The powers of these directors are much more extensive than that of the magistrates in our county prisons. In the latter, the visiting magistrate will ask the prisoners if they have any complaint to make; but this is not the case with the convict director, whom none can approach without giving formal notice, and who generally leaves the prison followed by the curses and maledictions of the majority of the prisoners. In reality, the prison director holds absolute sway over some thousands of his fellow men; there is no appeal from his decisions; his court is held, and prisoners are sentenced and punished, but there are no reporters for the press. The wholesome influence of public opinion does not penetrate that secret and irresponsible tribunal. Such being the case, it is to be lamented that we cannot or do not find men to fill the office who are capable of discharging its duties with fairness and civility. Before I sought an interview with the director, I had written a letter to the late Mr. Cobden, in which, after narrating the particulars of my case, I expressed the hope that he might feel it consistent with his public duty to endeavour to procure for me the same treatment with reference to liberation as had been extended to other prisoners who had suffered the loss of a similar limb at the same prison before me. This was considered improper language, and the letter was suppressed. When called before the authorities on this occasion, I asked them to point out all the objectionable passages, in order that I might know what to omit in writing it another time. But this they would not do, and all the satisfaction I could get was that my letter might not only be shown to the Home Secretary, but also be noticed in the House of Commons, and that they might be blamed for passing it. The idea of my letter being noticed in the House of Commons was new and not very agreeable to me, but I also thought it very improbable that such would be the case, and remarked in reply that there was nothing in the letter that a prisoner could be justly blamed for writing, and that its publication could not have an injurious effect on the public interest. This was not denied, but the letter was suppressed nevertheless, and I presume, still lies among many similar documents which have from time to time met with the same fate.

On the morning following my application for an interview with the director, I was informed that I could not see him on that occasion, as he was expected that very day. This refusal appeared strange to me, inasmuch as I knew of other prisoners who were permitted to speak to the director who had not given in their names earlier than I did. There was nothing for it, however, but to wait patiently for another month, and to give in my name a second time, when I was permitted my first interview with a prison director. I remember it well.

The director was seated at a desk in the governor's room, with the governor likewise seated at his side. A large book lay on the desk, in which the director wrote, or was supposed to write, what the prisoners requested or complained of, what punishments he awarded, with all the particulars regarding the offences, what answers he gave to complaints, requests, &c. Not a very trustworthy book that, I should say. In front of the desk stood two warders with staves in their hands, and between these two men I was placed. I asked the director, very politely, if he would be kind enough to look into my case, and recommend me to the Home Secretary for the same leniency as had been extended to other three prisoners, who had each lost a leg in prison from disease, shortly before me.

"No prisoners have lost their legs from disease; there was some accident connected with it."

This was the reply made to me, in a gruff, bullying tone of voice. I then begged his pardon, and commenced to give the names of the prisoners whose cases I had mentioned. But when the director saw that I was familiar with the cases he would not permit me to proceed, and refused peremptorily to look into my case. I then asked him to be kind enough to allow me to petition the Home Secretary on the merits of my case, as I petitioned the first time solely on the ground of having lost my leg, and being in bad health.

"No, no, no! that will do. Call the next man."

And I was bundled out of the room, with the prayer on my lips that I might never more be compelled to speak to such a man. Convicts, I may add, are freely permitted to petition the Home Secretary every twelve months; at this time nearly eighteen months had elapsed since I petitioned first. To show that I had some grounds for my request, I will mention the cases of the prisoners who had lost limbs at the same prison shortly before me.

A.—Sentence nearly double mine. Crime, rape on his own daughter. He had only been a short time in prison when his leg required to be amputated, in consequence of disease in the knee-joint. He was told by the doctor, before the operation, that he would be liberated on recovery. Patient died.

B.—A regular thief, with many previous convictions. Lost a diseased limb. Was offered his liberty by the authorities, and his license was issued, but his father would not receive him. He ultimately died in prison.

C.—A French housebreaker who had been in English prisons before. Sentence, seven years. Lost his leg in consequence of disease in the knee-joint, and recovered speedily. He was sent home a few months after the operation, and before he had been so long in prison as I had been at the time of my request.

I now felt rather unhappy under the severity with which I was treated, and wrote a letter to my brother, in which I mentioned having seen the visiting director; but this letter was also suppressed, and I was warned not to mention the director's name in any letter, or inform my friends of the suppressed letter to Mr. Cobden. I felt hurt at its suppression, for its spirit was most unobjectionable; and the governor seemed to think so too, for he allowed me a sheet of paper to write to the director. My object in this letter was to obtain permission to petition the Home Secretary for liberty to go abroad. At this time all healthy and sound prisoners of my age, who had received the same sentence, were about due for their "ticket," in Western Australia; and as I did not see why the loss of a leg should cause me to be kept in prison for years after they were liberated, I resolved to petition to go abroad. I accordingly wrote my letter to the director, carefully excluding any reference to my treatment in the government prison, so as not to give any offence. An answer came back, in suspicious haste, that I was to petition the Home Secretary in the very same language as I had used in the letter. I was not exactly pleased with this, as I wished to say something about the merits of my case; but there was no help for it, and I must petition as I was told, or not petition at all. I petitioned accordingly, in precisely the same language, merely using the third instead of the first person singular. But it was of no use. Indeed I do not believe the petition was ever sent to the Secretary of State at all. All these documents go in the first instance to the directors, and they are understood to deal with them as they think proper.

Sometimes their machinery gets out of order, and the method by which these things are done gets to be exposed. Two cases where answers were received to petitions which were never sent, are very familiar to the majority of convicts. In the one case the prisoner had drawn his paper, but delayed writing the petition. The reply came notwithstanding, "Not sufficient grounds." In the other case the petition was discovered mislaid in the office, or some other part of the prison, after the prisoner had received his answer. The official replies to petitions appear to be stereotyped, and the names of the petitioners are merely written on the margin. One reply does for any number of petitions, and all the officials have to do is to write the name of the prisoner who draws petition paper on the margin of the answer, about a month after the paper has been issued. On the day I wrote the last petition I was discharged from the hospital, and transferred down-stairs to a room containing twenty-four prisoners.



CHAPTER X.

THE PRISON—DAILY ROUTINE—READINGS IN PRISON—QUARRELS AMONG THE PRISONERS—PROTESTANTS VERSUS CATHOLICS—SCHOOL—SUNDAYS IN PRISON—"SACRAMENT BLOKES"—TURNING POINT IN PRISONERS' CAREER.

My readers must now descend with me from the hospital, to what the convicts termed the twenty-four bedded room in the prison. In the cells and in the hospital, quietness reigned, but in the twenty-four bedded room it was different. Here the prisoners talked and conducted themselves very much as they felt inclined, and in the evenings the noise and tumult was sometimes beyond description. The inmates were constantly changing, some going upstairs to hospital, some coming from it, and every now and again there were fresh arrivals from other prisons. The daily routine observed here and in the similar wards was as follows:—

We started out of bed at half-past five a.m., summer and winter; washed, dressed, and made our beds, and two or three times every week assisted in scrubbing the floor. At six o'clock the officer opened the room door and counted us. At half-past six we had breakfast. About twenty minutes past seven we were ranked up in the corridor, and counted a second time. At half-past seven we were in chapel. At eight o'clock we were on parade and counted a third time. Those who worked outside and were receiving full diet went to their work. Those who worked inside walked on the parade until half-past eight. They were then ranked up and counted for the fourth time; and at nine o'clock all were at work. At 11.45 we were counted for the fifth time, and at twelve o'clock we were at dinner. At 12.50 we were again ranked in the corridor and counted for the sixth time. At one o'clock we were on parade and counted for the seventh time, before exercise commenced. At ten minutes after two we were counted for the eighth time, and at two we were all again at work. When we left off work in the evening we were counted for the ninth time, amongst the party with whom we worked, and for the tenth time when we returned to the ward. At half-past five we got supper, and at half-past seven we were ordered to bed. At eight o'clock we were commanded to cease talking, and at nine o'clock the night officer counted us for the eleventh time and left us to repose. I used to rejoice when bed-time came, for I then could be alone and at home. Then there were no prison walls for me, for I had ceased brooding over the past, and endeavoured to peer into and prepare for the uncertain future. In winter and spring, when the weather was cold, it used to be rather trying for me to stand so long on parade being counted. About an hour or an hour-and-a-half was spent in this way each day. Then the clothing of those of us who worked indoors was the same on the coldest day in winter as on the hottest day in summer. This was an excellent arrangement for keeping the hospital supplied with patients. I knew many who suffered from this cause, and some who attributed their death to the want of proper under-clothing. I felt the cold more perhaps than the others, as my hands were exposed holding my crutches, and my speed in walking could never get beyond that of a goods train, whilst my companions could run at express speed when it suited them.

My employment was knitting and reading aloud to the prisoners. At that time, and up to a very recent date, it was the custom where fifty or a hundred prisoners were at work, for one of the prisoners to read aloud an hour every forenoon and afternoon. When I commenced this reading, my audience were very careless about listening, unless when I read some amusing work of fiction. Indeed, other prisoners did not attempt to read any book of a more solid description. But during the years I was engaged in this way I had the most abundant and satisfactory testimony that I had obtained an influence over the minds of the prisoners, and had succeeded in attracting their attention to general literature in a more effectual manner than any of my predecessors.

My readers will have been accustomed, perhaps, to regard convicts as very ignorant men, but it must be borne in mind that they belong to all classes of society, and if I were to speak of them in the mass, I should say that they were much more intelligent and as well educated as the ordinary peasantry of England. When I commenced reading in prison there were a good many works in the library, which were afterwards withdrawn as being too amusing for the place. These were such works as "The Last Days of Pompeii," "Now and Then," "Adam Bede," "Poor Jack," "Margaret Catchpole," "Irving's Sketch-book," "Dickens's Christmas Tales," &c. There still remained periodicals with tales in them, and these with a mixture of historical, biographical and other-works, constituted the general reading in the work-rooms. The periodicals I note in the order of their popularity, "Chambers's Journal," "Leisure Hour," "Good Words," "The Quiver," "Sunday Magazine," and "Sunday at Home." The reading of an article in the "Leisure Hour," entitled the "Thief in the Confessional," was the chief cause of the readings being discontinued both in the work-rooms and the hospital. As this happened recently and the particulars are still fresh in my memory I will narrate them here. There were readings aloud in four hospital and three work-rooms in the prison. In the hospital the Roman Catholics were kept by themselves, and had a Roman Catholic reader. In the prison they were scattered among the Protestants, and in the three work-rooms referred to, perhaps about one-fifth of the prisoners were Roman Catholics. In these rooms a Protestant reader was appointed, and there was no disturbance about this arrangement until the arrival of a few Fenians, and a zealous or rather an officious priest.

Shortly after their arrival the other Roman Catholic prisoners became for the most part Fenians, and religious animosities soon sprang up among the prisoners. Macaulay's History of England was being read by one of my fellow prisoners, in one of the work-rooms, or sheds, as they were called, when one of the ignorant and bigoted members of the Roman Catholic creed got up and objected to its being read, and complained to the governor on the subject. The governor, anxious perhaps to please the new visiting director, who was reported to be a Roman Catholic, took the complainant's part. The reading of the book was discontinued, to the great exultation of the Roman Catholics: however, I got the same book, and it was read from beginning to end in the work-room where I was employed! the chaplain and the more intelligent Roman Catholics considering it a very suitable book for the purpose. About this time I wished to be exempted from reading on account of my health, and when I could get a substitute I did give it up for some time; but the substitutes available were not popular with the prisoners, and it was very difficult to find suitable readers amongst them. Two of the Roman Catholics wanted to read, one was a Fenian and a literary man, the other was an ignorant conceited professional thief and an avowed infidel, but they were not allowed: meanwhile the article I have referred to as appearing in the "Leisure Hour," was read in one of the sheds, and it so offended some of the Roman Catholics and the professional thief and infidel who was not allowed to read, that he took the matter before the director, who ordered all reading aloud to be discontinued throughout the prison!

This decision illustrates the usual method adopted by convict authorities in dealing with questions connected with the treatment of prisoners. If a privilege is granted to the convicts and one out of 600 abuses that privilege the 599 will be deprived of it. It was no matter whether the privilege had a good or bad effect upon the majority of the prisoners, if it gave the governor and the directors any trouble they soon put an end to it. If it was a good thing for the prisoners and tended in any way towards the diminution of crime, to have these readings, the directors could have separated the Roman Catholics from the Protestants without any difficulty. If it was a bad thing why was it continued so long? The Roman Catholics had one legitimate ground of complaint, however, in the chaplain having frequently ordered articles to be cut out of "Chambers's Journal," "Good Words," &c. The prisoners naturally asked "Why cut out anything? why not let us judge for ourselves? If the books are good let us have them whole; if bad, reject them altogether; or if there is to be cutting out, why not cut out 'The Thief out of the Confessional,' which is so offensive to the true Catholic?" I happened to read several of the articles which were so cut out, and in several cases one number of a periodical got bound up and in circulation with the condemned article in it. I here note a few articles which were placed in the chaplain's Index Expurgatoriam, 1st—"Evasions of the Law," an article which appeared in "Good Words," and I may remark that convicts could scarcely be made worse by reading it, for they knew all it contained and probably more than the writer of it did. 2nd—A review of a work by a female warder, in "Chambers's Journal." 3rd—The last half of "The Franklins," a story in the "Leisure Hour." 4th—An article on the "Prisoners' Aid Society" which appeared in the "Quiver," some years ago.

In addition to my employments of knitting and reading, I had to go to school one half-day every week for about twelve months, or until a certain class were exempted from attending. On entering the school the prisoner sat until the roll was called, and after half-an-hour was thus spent, he read a couple of verses from the Old Testament, and then listened to an explanation of the passage read. This done, he wrote a short time in his copy book, if he felt inclined, and the proceedings were wound up by a short lecture on some scientific subject. I fear there is not much good done in our convict schools. Teaching, or trying to teach, men ranging from thirty to eighty years of age, who are determined not to learn, or at least so careless about the matter that they never can learn, seems to me a waste of public money. Young men sometimes learn a good deal of French, arithmetic, &c., in prison, but it is not at the school, but from their fellow prisoners that they receive such instruction.

My Sunday routine differed from that of the other days of the week, chiefly in having chapel-going substituted for work, and being allowed to be in bed an hour longer in the morning.

Shortly after taking up my abode in the twenty-four-bedded room, the diet was changed, and this was the cause of much noise among the convicts. The day fixed for the alteration was a Sunday. The former Sunday's dinner consisted of soup, mutton, and potatoes. The new Sunday dinner was dry bread and four ounces of bad cheese. On being served with this, the prisoners began cursing and swearing, and calling the head officials all the bad names they could think of: "This is what they call Christianity, is it, the —— hypocrites? Starving a man on Sundays above all days, and then taking us up to that chapel to tell us about mercy and forgiveness and loving our neighbours! This is the way to reform us and make us better, is it?—By jingo! I will make somebody pay for all this yet. I'll not get my next bit for nothing," &c., &c. Such was the burden of the conversation on this and succeeding Sunday afternoons. To force men to go to hear the Word of God preached when their hearts are full of evil thoughts and their mouths full of curses is far from being a likely mode of leading men to Christ. The chaplain's position in the pulpit used to strike me as being something like that of a farmer sowing good seed broad-cast over a field so overgrown with tares, that the seed could never reach the soil. If he attempts to clear the soil of the weeds, to win the hearts of the prisoners, he finds the whole system of prison discipline arrayed against him. That discipline breeds and encourages the growth of every evil passion in the heart of man, and he, the chaplain, is part of that system: he lives by it, and he is not allowed to interfere with it, at all events he never did so. When prisoners complained to him of some injustice or some cruelty, they got for reply: "I am here to preach the Gospel, and I can do nothing in the matter."

Chaplains paid by the State, and forming part of the penal establishment, can never do much good to the prisoners, except in so far as they operate as a check upon the cruelty or neglect of the governor and other officers. Missionaries having no connection with Government, might do some good amongst them. At the time I commenced to attend the prison chapel, I learned that a score or so of convicts took the sacrament. Some of them were truly pious, as far as one could judge in such matters, others were unfit or unworthy partakers, the whole of them were called by the other prisoners "Parson's men," or "Sacrament blokes," and it used to pain me to hear them scoffed and mocked at. It was a great victory if they could be got to swear on the evening of the communion day: I never could make up my mind to become a "Parson's man," for reasons perhaps not very satisfactory, even to myself. In the first place I belonged to another branch of the church; then I had only one leg and could not kneel at the altar, and would have felt while standing something like a beggar in dirty rags in a fine pew among silks and satins; then again I would have lost my influence over many of my fellow-prisoners. I may have been wrong in all this, but as I once said to my fellow-prisoners when appealed to on the subject of religion, "There are only three cardinal points in my religious belief, and these are simple and easily remembered—believe in Christ, love God, and love my neighbour; what I do inconsistent with the last I know to be wrong. It is inconsistent, I think, with the latter, for Protestants to revile and speak evil of Roman Catholics, and vice versa, therefore I disapprove of discussions and arguments on religious belief among prisoners, as they usually lead to feelings incompatible with true neighbourly love." Such was my reply to a question addressed to me by a convict during a hot debate between the Protestants and Roman Catholics, and it allayed the storm instantly. As a rule I avoided and discountenanced all discussion on theological subjects.

After I had been four weeks in the prison I began to get a little downhearted at finding myself so far removed from sympathy. In the hospital I had an occasional chat with a Scripture-reader, but here there was no one with whom I could have any intellectual conversation, and no visitors were allowed. I felt very sad and dispirited for a time, and wrote to my friends that I should like to have a visit from a clergyman of my own persuasion who resided in London. I got for a reply a visit from some of my own friends, who mentioned that the gentleman whose visit I desired was too much occupied with his own flock to look after a lost sheep like me. I notice this chiefly in order to remark that this was a kind of turning point in my prison career: the point at which the generality of prisoners turn from bad to worse, and when long imprisonment ceases to be an instrument for good; when human sympathy is sought, and by the great majority of prisoners sought in vain, and when in consequence they seek to obtain the sympathy of their evil companions, and begin in earnest that downward career which knows no shame, and finds its goal in the convict's grave.



CHAPTER XI.

INDISCRIMINATE ASSOCIATION OF PRISONERS—TRANSPORTATION, AND THE CAUSE OF ITS FAILURE—A GUNSMITH.

As I have already said in a previous chapter, one of the most glaring defects in our present system of penal servitude, viewed as a means of reformation as well as of punishment, is the indiscriminate association of all classes of criminals, or rather all criminals with a certain sentence, irrespective of the nature of the crime they have committed, the previous character of the criminal or the probability of his re-admission into society as an honest and useful member of it. I have met in the same ward prisoners of widely different characters and antecedents, whose crimes afforded conclusive proofs that in habits, disposition, and general conduct, they would never, in the natural order of things, become associates, compelled by law to mate with each other as equals, and to learn of each other how to injure, not how to benefit society and themselves. There are, for instance, certain crimes which a man may commit under the influence of strong passions, aroused in moments of great temptation, such as rape; or of great provocation, such as manslaughter; or committed under the pressure of misfortune, or to avoid, impending ruin, such as forgery or embezzlement, which do not necessarily prove the criminal to be of habitually depraved habits, or generally of a violent and vicious disposition. I found as a rule prisoners guilty of these crimes undergoing their first sentences. Prison life and prison associations were new to them as to me. They had no inclination to repeat the offence, or to pursue a career of crime, but rather disposed to redeem their character, and live an honest and industrious life. Yet this class of prisoners are condemned, in addition to the loss of liberty and character, to live in constant contact, for years it may be, with the professional thief and house-breaker, the burglar, and the garotter, who has been frequently convicted, and whose whole life is spent between the prison and the "cross." The natural and inevitable result of this is contamination. Even in the case of men possessing high principle and of great moral fortitude the effect would be deteriorating and pernicious. With men of weak resolution, strong passions, and a comparatively low standard of morality, the consequences cannot be doubtful in the majority of cases. They gradually lose self-respect, cease to think of reformation or amendment, in time they come to envy the hardened stoicism and "gameness" of the practised ruffian, learn his language, imbibe his notions of life, and finally resolve, since character, self-respect, and all else that bind them to morality and virtue are lost, that they will compel society to make amends for the ruin it has brought upon them. It is from this class I am persuaded that the ranks of our born and bred convicts are so largely and so constantly supplemented. Yet how easily and how speedily might this source of supply be diminished, if not altogether closed.

The old Transportation Act, although it may not have provided for any such separation as that I have just indicated, and although it was based on what I consider pernicious principles, was undoubtedly the most effectual plan for getting rid of our criminal population, and in its operation the most merciful to the prisoner of any of our recent parliamentary enactments. Had its provisions been efficiently and judiciously administered, we might still have been sending convicts to our colonies. But the business of exporting our "dirty linen" was grossly mismanaged. The merchant who hopes to succeed as an exporter must study carefully the class of goods suitable for the market he proposes to supply, and send only those he is confident will be approved of and meet a ready sale. But our prison authorities, by some fatality, so organized the system of selection of convicts for transportation that those who were, of all men, the very last a young and virtuous community would seek, were forced upon them, whilst those for whom there was a constant demand, and who would have regarded transportation and liberation abroad as the opportunity for escaping from social prejudice, of retrieving their lost character, and of commencing anew a life of honesty and industry, were condemned to pine in the prisons at home, and in too many cases, to adopt a career of crime when their sentences expired. The first and great commandment the prison authorities regarded in their selection was, that the prisoner should be physically healthy, sound in wind and limb; and the second was, that he should have been a certain time in prison at home after receiving his last sentence and conducted himself well whilst there. No enquiry was made into the prisoner's previous history, employment, education, or general disposition and habits, which, one would naturally have thought necessary before any intelligent opinion could be formed as to the probabilities of his future career abroad. Now, although the qualifications of health and good conduct might seem to be good and sufficient grounds on which to make such a selection as was required for transportation, those acquainted with prisoners and prison life will at once perceive that they were very far from being so. In the first place, a great many of the prisoners who would have adopted an honest life and been a benefit to the colonies if they had been sent there, but who were rejected on account of ill-health, had become diseased in prison and in consequence of their imprisonment, and would in all probability have recovered their usual good health before they had reached their destination abroad. These were generally men of education, and accustomed to generous diet, but the prison discipline and scale of dietary soon told upon their health, and disqualified them in the eyes of the prison officials for the boon of transportation. Even if their health was not restored by the sea voyage and liberation abroad, it was only exchanging the hospital abroad for the hospital at home. If the experiment succeeded, who may estimate its value to him who was the subject of it? Again, "good conduct," as indicated by the standard of our prison authorities, is anything but a trustworthy criterion of the convict's true character and disposition. It does not mean that the prisoner has shown himself honest, industrious, or well disposed, or in any active sense what the phrase is ordinarily supposed to mean; indeed the system of penal servitude does not permit the prisoner any opportunity of showing that he is so. All that "good conduct," in prison official language means is, that the prisoner has not broken any of the prison rules, and is therefore a purely negative quality; scrupulous obedience to prison discipline and regulations, with severe penalties attached to transgression, is a very sorry basis on which to found a character of good conduct in a convict. The consequence was, if one of the greatest ruffians that ever entered the prison gates were to make up his mind, as I have known many of them do, to go abroad, he knew that he had only to study the rules of the prison and obey them for a certain length of time, and he would obtain his object, and be let loose among the innocent colonists, to rob and murder as he found opportunity. Thousands of such men, who had purposely behaved themselves well in the prison at home, with the grim determination of making amends for their restraint by a career of increased violence and ruffianism abroad, were thus let loose upon colonial society, and there is no wonder that the colonies rose up in indignation and shut their ports against them. As a rule, it was the hardened criminal whose reformation under existing laws was, I may safely say, entirely out of the question, who, on the score of health and good conduct, most perfectly fulfilled the conditions required by the prison authorities, and most frequently had the boon of transportation extended to him. Accustomed by long and frequent experience to prison diet and discipline, and to all the "dodges" for augmenting the one and evading or modifying the other, he could keep himself in perfect health under circumstances which would send a less experienced and more sensitive man to the hospital in a month; whilst his familiarity with all the petty rules and regulations of the prison, which the novice is in constant danger of breaking (quite unintentionally), enabled him to steer clear of any offence that could be reported if he thought it for his interest to strive for the convict's prize. In fact, "good conduct," as exemplified by a convict according to the prison standard, affords no more reliable evidence of his moral qualities and industrious habits, than proficiency in drill affords of the moral character of the private soldier.

It is quite clear that selection on these terms could only by a rare accident find the suitable men for sending abroad. And yet it is my firm conviction that I, or any other man possessing ordinary intelligence and insight into human character and experience of convict life, could, with the utmost ease, have selected from the inmates of our prisons a very large number for exportation, whom our colonists would have been glad to receive, and who would have been rescued from a life of ignominy or crime at home. The question may very naturally be asked—Why could not our prison officials have done the same? The only answer I can give is that our prison officials (excepting the very highest) are directly interested in maintaining and increasing, and not in reducing, the number of our convicts, and they are therefore inclined to favour the liberation of those whom they are pretty sure will soon return.

As a fair and forcible example of the advantage which might have been taken of the "Transportation Act," in dealing with a certain class of prisoners, and also as an illustration—not nearly so forcible as others I have alluded to, and will yet notice—of the fault of the authorities in the matter of selection, I will mention one case. Three young men received sentence of twenty years' penal servitude for rape. One of them, quite a youth, was more a spectator of than a principal in the crime, the other two being the really guilty parties. The three were in due course sent to Portsmouth. The guilty pair were sent abroad, and liberated before the end of five years from the date of their conviction. One of them is now married and settled comfortably abroad, and the other lodges with him. The other prisoner, being young and not very muscular, received some injury while at work and was sent to the Invalid Criminal Hospital in Surrey, and has to remain in prison, in a state useless to himself and to society, for eight or nine years longer than his more guilty companions.

But the day has gone by for successful re-establishment of a penal colony. I do not think there are many who would commit crimes for the express purpose of getting abroad, unless the colony was very attractive; but no country where officers can be got to reside will ever be looked upon with dread by the majority of criminals. A penal colony, I am convinced, would have no deterring influence on the minds of those convicts who are most difficult to deal with. It would have such an effect upon certain classes of prisoners, but their numbers are small, and less expensive remedies might be found even more effectual in their cases.

When convicts leave prison they could be divided into three classes. First, those men who are not only determined to live honestly, but who in all human probability will never again enter a prison; their number may amount to about ten per cent. of the whole. Another class leave prison with the deliberate intention of committing crime, and their number may be about forty per cent. The third class, comprising about fifty per cent. of the whole, belong to the hesitating, unsteady, wavering class. Many of this class do manage to keep out of prison, but at least one half of them return, and, along with the forty per cent. of professionals, bring up the number of the re-convicted to seventy per cent. Now, it must be quite clear that if we would reduce this number, it is to the fifty per cent of waverers that our efforts must be principally directed. The other classes either do not require or will not benefit by our endeavours. Our present law is altogether unable to cure the professional thief. I never heard, and I never met with a convict who ever heard, of any of this class being converted into honest men by the operation of our present system, nor do I believe it possible to point to a single case. The professional thief lacks three virtues—economy, industry, honesty. Now, under the present system it is positively forbidden to give him any practical lesson either in economy or honesty; industry, indeed, might be taught him, but he rarely if ever receives an intelligent lesson, for it must be remembered that enforced labour does not teach the labourer industry, but is more likely to inspire him with an aversion to it. All that can be done with the professional thief, under existing laws, beyond the punishment of confinement and vigorous prison discipline, possibly, is to give him such work to do as he can do, or be readily taught to do, and that work not to be of the kind usually done in prison, but such as will compensate to some extent for his maintenance in prison, and enable him to live honestly out of it should he so elect.

On my right hand, in the twenty-four-bedded room, lay a city-bred professional thief, acquainted with all the brothels and sinks of iniquity in London, and his disgusting conversation chiefly related to such places. Like many of his class, his constitution was delicate, and his appetite somewhat dainty. The prison fare and hard work were undoubtedly severe punishment to him; but no punishment could frighten him into honesty. He knew no honest trade by which he could support himself, but if he had been taught one in prison such as suited his strength and talents, and had been taught only the policy of honesty, and been then sent to a country far removed from his old haunts, where his newly-organized trade would be more profitable than thieving, the possibility is he would have become a useful man in the world. On the expiration of his sentence, which was three years, he went home and wrote back to one of his "pals" in prison, under an assumed name, that he had been to the Prisoners' Aid Society, and had obtained as much of his gratuity as he could, to buy a barrow and some fruit, as he meant to turn costermonger. He added, however, that he did not like fruit-selling, and returned to his old trade of "gunsmith," gunning being the slang term for thieving, or going on the cross. The real fact was, that he never intended anything else than being a "gunsmith," but only used the deception in order to obtain a little more money from the Aid Society than he otherwise could. As soon as he got his barrow and stock he sold all off, and in a very few months I had him for a companion again, with a seven years' sentence. I remember asking whether he preferred a sentence of seven years' penal servitude, or three years in Coldbath Fields?

"Three years in Coldbath Fields! why that would kill me. I would as soon have fifteen years here."

The only good trait discoverable in his character was his ardent affection for his mother. When he has completed about five years and three months he will be liberated again, if he is alive, and again he will return to crime; and it is almost impossible that such a man can do otherwise; and as long as our prison authorities regard convicts as mere living automatons, all modelled after the same fashion in iniquity, our convict and county prisons, viewed as reformatories, will remain quite inoperative for good, but very potent for evil.



CHAPTER XII.

HOW REBELS AGAINST SOCIETY ARE MADE—I AM REMOVED TO A SMALL ROOM AMONGST MURDERERS—THE "HIGHFLYER" AGAIN—HOW A YOUNG GENTLEMAN WAS MADE A WARNING TO OTHERS.

A certain class of criminals—it would be very wrong to say all—may be looked upon as rebels against society, and assuming that they are so, it would be difficult to conceive a more effective method of promoting and disseminating the spirit of rebellion than that which is adopted in our convict establishments. We collect all these rebels from the various counties into a few localities, 600 here, 1000 there, and 1500 somewhere else, and along with them we place a certain proportion of comparatively untainted men. We subject them to a course of rigorous discipline in matters of diet and exercise, the sole effect of which is to stimulate them still more against society. We allow them a certain amount of intercourse with each other; liberty to the old to contaminate the young; to the veteran ruffian to enlist and drill the new recruit; to all to plan their new campaigns, and hatch new conspiracies, and then disperse them throughout the country to sow the seeds of sedition, and raise the standard of rebellion wherever they may go. This is really what is being done in our convict prisons. Take an extreme case, and keep out of sight altogether the characters and dispositions of our criminals, and imagine a hundred of England's most steady, honest, and industrious working men placed in our convict establishments for a few years, and what would be the result? It would most probably be this: if they were young, and had only received an imperfect education, fifty of them would join some branch of the thief profession if kept by force in convict society for three years; seventy of them would do so if kept for six years; and if kept ten years, they would almost all be corrupted, and become when liberated a source of corruption themselves.

But if the hardened and incorrigible criminals were really punished in any proportion to the others the system would have a kind of consistent iniquity about it which it does not possess. My left-hand companion was an old agricultural labourer, one of a large class to whom a convict prison is no punishment. He had been brought up to work, and although an old man, he could work far more than a city thief, and yet not work hard. He had brought up a family who were all scattered abroad. He had now no real home when out of prison, and his third penal sentence of fourteen years was very much lighter punishment to him than fourteen days, with loss of character, would be to anyone in the upper or middle classes of society. I met many such men in prison, and I used to ask them how much money they would take to do my sentence in addition to their own? One would say 100l., another, 50l., another 40l., and some would even take considerably less.

Imprisonment with hard labour will never have the slightest effect in deterring such men from committing crime. Labour that would soon kill many other men would not punish them, but they would prefer it even to sitting in school. Rough fare they can do with, as long as it fills the belly. They have no other ambition to gratify. With the stomach distended and a quid of tobacco in their mouths, they are as happy as kings, and very careless about liberty. Many of them when they leave the prison, leave home. To such men, and to all the class of vagrant and pauper criminals, a convict prison means a comfortable home, where they are fed and clothed, and bathed and physicked, and have all their wants supplied, without trouble or care, in exchange for their liberty and such labour as they can easily and cheaply perform. To the professional thieves a convict prison is a Court of Bankruptcy, to be avoided if possible, and to be made the most of when unavoidable. A place of punishment no doubt, but punishment nearly useless and entirely misdirected. To the man who has wrought for his living at some honest trade, up to the commission of his first known offence, who has been accounted respectable by his neighbours, and who belongs to a class of society with whom loss of character is utter ruin—a convict prison is a Hell. If he happen also to be a man of thought and education, it will in addition appear to be an institution for robbing honest tax-payers, and a nursery of vice and crime, which all good men should endeavour to reform or destroy.

In the small room to which I was now removed, the lodgers were quiet, inoffensive men, and in a few cases apparently religious.

During my residence in the prison I was frequently removed from one room to another, to suit the convenience of the prison authorities. Fortunately I had no rent to pay, no economy to study, no opportunity to practice honesty, and my effects were easily carried about. Obedience—the soldiers' virtue—and civility, were all I had to study, and these were not difficult to practice in my own case. One class of prisoners in these rooms were elderly men, who had committed murder, or manslaughter, and who, from their age and infirmities had missed being sent to Western Australia. I knew upwards of twenty of them, and generally speaking, they were quiet, inoffensive men, with no inclination to steal or to do wrong. Several of them had very hot tempers, all of them, indeed, who committed their crimes under the influence of anger; others I sympathized with a good deal, inasmuch as they had been sorely tempted, and seemed penitent and honest.

One of them had brought up a family of honest working men. After the death of their mother, he married and lived with another woman, who was addicted to intemperance, and he was so annoyed at her conduct and by her tongue, that his passion obtained the mastery over him, and in a moment of frenzy he killed her. This prisoner had had his arm broken at Portland, which prevented his being sent abroad, whence he would have been liberated by this time.

Another case was that of a comparatively young man, who shot his sweetheart because she had chosen another man just as the prisoner was looking forward to his marriage with her. He tried to shoot himself at the same time, but the shot passed through the jaw and cheek bones, leaving him in a sadly disfigured condition to meet his doom of penal servitude for life.

I met several cases where murder was committed through jealousy. One man murdered his wife for flirting or cohabiting with another man. A second murdered the paramour and spared his wife, and so on. In the majority of these cases, the prisoners were very unlikely to commit a second offence.

There was one very peculiar case which I will here mention. The prisoner was the worst cripple perhaps in the prison, and the quietest man in it. He rarely spoke to anyone unless he was first spoken to, and his answers were very brief. This man committed a deliberate murder; although he had only one arm and but one good leg. He lay in wait for his victim, and his motive for perpetrating the deed was not money but revenge. The person he killed had injured or defrauded his father before he died, and being unable to obtain justice he took revenge, and is now paying the full penalty. He sits in the workroom along with the others, but being paralyzed he is not compelled to work at anything.

Another peculiar case was that of a man who had starved his mother to death, in order to obtain possession of her money. He was a miser, and was often taunted for his crime by the thief fraternity. He was the filthiest neighbour I ever had. Most of the prisoners are cleanly in their habits, but this one was the reverse. He would have his food stored away beside him, rather than give it to a fellow prisoner. He was not a great eater, and at one time there was more food about than the prisoners could consume; but whatever he got he kept until it was taken from him. After being confined for about thirteen years, he was allowed to go to North America, on a conditional pardon, to a son who lived there. Among the many petitions I drew out for prisoners to copy, his was the only one that ever succeeded. I have written petitions for dying men to the Home Secretary, for permission to go out and die at home, and many without any just grounds at all, but none succeeded, save the one I have mentioned above.