CRIMINAL SUPPRESSION AND PUNISHMENT.
_Lord Romilly’s Suggestion concerning the Education of the Children of
Criminals_.—_Desperate Criminals_.—_The Alleys of the Borough_.—_The
worst Quarters not_, _as a rule_, _the most Noisy_.—_The Evil Example of_
“_Gallows Heroes_,” “_Dick Turpin_,” “_Blueskin_,” _&c._—_The Talent for_
“_Gammoning Lady Green_.”—_A worthy Governor’s Opinion as to the best way
of_ “_Breaking_” _a Bad Boy_.—_Affection for_ “_Mother_.”—_The Dark Cell
and its Inmate_.—_An Affecting Interview_.
NO less an authority than Lord Romilly, discoursing on the alarming
prevalence and increase of crime, especially amongst the juveniles of the
criminal class, remarks: “It is a recognised fact, that there is a great
disposition on the part of children to follow the vocation of their
father, and in the case of the children of thieves there is no
alternative. They become thieves, because they are educated in the way,
and have no other trade to apply themselves to. To strike at the root of
the evil, I would suggest, that if a man committed felony, all his
children under the age, say of ten, should be taken from him, and
educated at the expense of the State. It might perhaps be said, that a
man who wanted to provide for his children, need in that case only to
commit felony to accomplish his object, but I believe that the effect
would be just the contrary. I believe that no respectable person would
commit felony for such a purpose, and that if we knew more about the
feelings of thieves, we should find that they had amongst them a species
of morality, and displayed affection for their children. My opinion is,
that to take their children away from them would be an effectual mode of
punishment; and though the expense might be great, it would be repaid in
a few years by the diminution in crime.”
Although Lord Romilly’s opinions on this subject may be somewhat in
advance of those commonly prevalent, there can be no question that they
tend in the right direction. Crime may be suppressed, but it can never
be exterminated by simply lopping the flourishing boughs and branches it
puts forth; it should be attacked at the root, and the thief child is the
root of the adult growth, tough, strong-limbed, and six feet high.
Precisely the same argument as that used as regards the abolition of
neglected children applies in the case of the infant born in crime. The
nest in which for generations crime has bred should be destroyed. It is
only, however, to the initiated that the secluded spots where these nests
may be found is known. A correspondent of the _Times_ lately made an
exploration, from the report of which the following is an extract.
“I was shown in the east and south sides of London what I may almost
say were scores of men, about whom the detectives, who accompanied
me, expressed grave doubts as to my life being safe among them for a
single hour, if it were known I had £20 or £30 about me; and above
all, if the crime of knocking me on the head could be committed under
such circumstances as would afford fair probabilities of eluding
detection. I don’t mean to say that these desperate criminals are
confined to any particular quarter of London; unfortunately they are
not, or if they were, there is only one particular quarter in which
we should wish to see them all confined, and that is Newgate. But no
matter how numerous they may be elsewhere, there is certainly one
quarter in which they are pre-eminently abundant, and that is around
the alleys of the Borough. Here are to be found, not only the lowest
description of infamous houses, but the very nests and nurseries of
crime. The great mass of the class here is simply incorrigible.
Their hand is against every man; their life is one continuous
conspiracy against the usages of property and safety of society.
They have been suckled, cradled and hardened in scenes of guilt,
intemperance, and profligacy. Here are to be found the lowest of the
low class of beershops in London, and probably in the world, the
acknowledged haunts of “smashers,” burglars, thieves and forgers.
There is hardly a grade in crime, the chief representatives of which
may not be met among the purlieus of the Borough. There are people
who have been convicted over and over again, but there are also
hundreds of known ruffians who are as yet unconvicted, and who, by
marvellous good luck, as well as by subtle cunning, have managed up
to the present time to elude detection. It is the greatest error to
suppose that all, or even a majority of the criminal classes are
continually passing through the hands of justice. Griffith, the
hank-note forger, who was tried, I think, in 1862, stated in prison
that he had carried on the printing of counterfeit notes for more
than 15 years. Of course this man was sedulous in concealing his
occupation from the police, but there are hundreds of others who
almost openly follow equally criminal and far more dangerous pursuits
with whom the police cannot interfere. Our present business should
be to look up these vagabonds, and our future vocation to destroy
their recognised haunts. It is no good killing one wasp when we
leave the nest untouched. Thieves, it must be remembered, are a
complete fraternity, and have a perfect organization among
themselves. The quarter round Kent Street, in the Borough, for
instance, is almost wholly tenanted by them, and the houses they
occupy are very good property, for thieves will pay almost any amount
of rent, and pay it regularly, for the sake of keeping together. The
aspect of this quarter is low, foul and dingy. Obscurity of language
and conduct is of course common to all parts of it, but it is not as
a rule a riotous neighbourhood. Thieves do not rob each other, and
they have a wholesome fear of making rows, lest it should bring the
police into their notorious territory. These haunts are not only the
refuges and abiding places of criminals, but they are the training
colleges for young thieves. Apart from the crimes which arise, I
might say almost naturally from passion or poverty—apart also from
the mere relaxation of moral culture, caused by the daily exhibition
of apparent success in crime, it is known that an organized
corruption is carried on by the adult thieves among the lads of
London.”
It is by laying hands on these children, and providing them with
employment, the pleasurable exercise of which shall of itself convince
them how infinitely superior as a “policy” honesty is to be preferred to
that which consigned their father to Portland, that we may do more good
than by the concoction of as many legislative enactments as have had
birth since Magna Charta. Of the children who are not the progeny of
thieves, but who somehow find their way into the criminal ranks, it is
undoubtedly true that pernicious literature, more than once alluded to in
these pages, does much to influence them towards evil courses. This is a
belief that is justified, not alone by observation and inference, but by
the confession of juvenile prisoners themselves. It is a fact that at
least fifty per cent. of the young thieves lodged in gaol, when
questioned on the subject, affect that it was the shining example
furnished by such gallows heroes as “Dick Turpin” and “Blueskin,” that
first beguiled them from the path of rectitude, and that a large
proportion of their ill-gotten gains was expended in the purchase of such
delectable biographies.
This, however, is ground that should be trod with caution. Useful as
such revelations may be in guiding us towards conclusions on which
vigorous action may be based, it should be constantly borne in mind that
it is not all pure and untainted truth that proceeds from the mouths of
the juvenile habitual criminal in gaol any more than from his elders
under the same conditions. A talent for gammoning “Lady Green,” as the
prison chaplain is irreverently styled, is highly appreciated amongst the
thieving fraternity. Boys are as quick-witted as men in their way, and
on certain matters much quicker. They are less doggedly obstinate than
most adults of the same class, and more keenly alive to mischief,
especially when its practice may bring them some benefit. I have
witnessed several instances of this, and many others have been brought
under my notice by prison officials. As, for instance, in a certain gaol
that shall be nameless, the governor has a fixed conviction that the one
huge fountain head of juvenile depravity is the tobacco pipe. And ample
indeed are his grounds for such conclusion, since almost every boy that
comes into his custody testifies to his sagacity. His old customers
never fail. He invariably questions the male delinquent on the subject,
and as invariably he gets the answer he expects, and which favours his
pet theory: “It is all through smoking, sir; I never knowed what bad
’abits was afore I took to ‘bacca.’” The probabilities, however, are
that the little villains are aware of the governor’s weakness, and humour
it.
It would seem so the more, because these same boys when quartered in
another gaol, the master of which rode a hobby of another pattern, alter
their tune so as to meet the emergency. There is a prison in the suburbs
of London, one of the largest, and as far as I have had opportunity of
judging, one of the best managed and conducted; but the governor of it
has his boy-weakness. He is quite convinced in his own mind that the
main spring of crime is the perusal of the sort of literature herein
alluded to. This is a fact generally known among the juvenile criminal
population, and they never fail to make the most of it when the time
comes. I went the rounds of his gaol with this governor on one occasion,
when the “boy wing” was occupied by about forty tenants, and in each case
was the important question put, and in the majority of cases it was
answered, “It was them there penny numbers what I used to take in, sir,”
or words to that effect, and the little humbug was rewarded by a pat on
the head, and an admonition “always to speak the truth.”
The same gentleman has another peculiarity; it does not deserve to be
stigmatised a weakness, its nature is so amiable. He has a firm belief
that the best way of “breaking” a bad boy, is to appeal to his bygone
affection for his mother. “The boy who is callous to an appeal of that
sort is past hope in my opinion,” said the worthy governor, and in
justice to the lads at the time in his keeping, I must confess that there
was not a callous one amongst them, for they all most dutifully wept, in
some cases bellowed as loudly as the stern restriction of the silent
system would permit, as soon as the delicate subject was broached.
The effect of this talisman was curiously exhibited in the case of a boy,
about as depraved and hardened a little wretch as it is possible to
imagine. He had only been admitted the previous day, and already he was
incarcerated in a dark cell for outrageous conduct.
I had never before seen a dark cell, and therefore had no idea of the
horrible place it was. A cell within a cell. The interior of the first
is so black that when the governor entered it I speedily lost sight of
him, and I was only made aware of his opening an inner door by hearing
the key clicking in the lock.
“Come out here, lad,” he exclaimed firmly, but kindly.
The lad came out, looming like a small and ragged patch of twilight in
utter blackness until he gradually appeared before us. He was not a big
lad, not more than thirteen years old, I should say, with a short-cropped
bullet-head, and with an old hard face with twice thirteen years of vice
in it.
The prison dress consisted of a sort of blouse and trousers, both of a
stout woollen material of slate colour. It was evening, and evidently,
the captive, hopeless of release that night, had, previously to our
disturbing him, composed himself for slumber. His method, doubtless
derived from frequent experience of so disposing his attire as to get as
much warmth out of it as possible, was somewhat curious: he had released
his trousers of their braces, so that they descended below his feet, and
the collar of his blouse was pulled up high over his ears. Owing to his
embarrassed habiliments, he shambled out of the pitchy blackness at a
snail’s pace, his white cotton braces trailing behind like a tail, and
completing his goblin-like appearance.
“This is a very bad lad, sir,” remarked the governor sternly; “he only
came in yesterday, and to-day while out for exercise with the others, he
must misconduct himself, and when the warder reproved him, he must swear
some horrible oath against him. It is for that he is here. How many
times have you been here, lad?”
_Lad_ (gulping desperately). “Three times, sir!”
_Governor_ (sternly). “What! speak the truth, lad.”
_Lad_ (with a determined effort to gouge tears out of his eyes with his
knuckles). “Four times, sir.”
_Governor_. “Four times! and so you’ll go on till you are sent away, I’m
afraid. Can you read, lad?”
_Lad_ (with a penitential wriggle). “Yes, sir; I wish as I couldn’t,
sir.”
_Governor_. “Ah! why so?”
_Lad_ (with a doleful wag of his bullet-head). “Cos then I shouldn’t
have read none of them highwaymen’s books, sir; it was them as was the
beginning of it.”
_Governor_. “Ah!” (a pause) “Have you a mother, my lad?”
_Lad_. “Boo-oh!”
_Governor_. “Answer me, my lad, have you a mother?”
_Lad_ (convulsively clasping the corners of his collars, and hiding his
eyes in them). “Ye-ye-ess, sir!”
_Governor_. “Ah, I thought so! where does she live?”
_Lad_. “Man-manchester, please, sir!” (a tremulous sniff, indicative of
the impending explosion).
_Governor_. “And what do you think would be her feelings could she see
you as you now are?”
_Lad_. “Boo-ooh” (here a writhe so agonized that a hand had to be spared
from his eyes to save his trousers from slipping down). “Boo-ooh! I was
just a thinkin’ on her when you opened the cell, sir! Boo-oo-ooh!”
_Governor_. “You were thinking of your mother, eh? Well, well, I’m glad
to hear that. If I let you go back to your own cell, will you promise
never to swear again?”
_Lad_. “Booh! yes, sir.”
_Governor_. “You may go, then.”
And with a countenance almost radiant with his unexpected stroke of good
luck, the incorrigible young thief grasped his trouser legs, and scuttled
up the long dim corridor till, except for his white tail, he was lost in
the darkness.
“They don’t like the dark cell,” remarked the humane governor, as he
gazed after the retreating figure; “anything rather than that.”
“The younger prisoners especially, I should say,” I returned.
“Oh, I don’t know that,” said the governor, at the same time, however,
shaking his head rather as a man who _did_ know, but did not care to say.