ADULT CRIMINALS AND THE NEW LAW FOR THEIR BETTER GOVERNMENT.
_Recent Legislation_.—_Statistics_.—_Lord Kimberley’s_ “_Habitual
Criminals_” _Bill_.—_The Present System of Licence-Holders_.—_Colonel
Henderson’s Report_.—_Social Enemies of Suspected Men_.—_The Wrong-Headed
Policeman and the Mischief he may Cause_.—_Looking Out for a
Chance_.—_The Last Resource of Desperate Honesty_.—_A Brotherly
Appeal_.—“_Ginger will Settle Her_.”—_Ruffians who should be Imprisoned
for Life_.
REGARDING the terms professional thief and habitual criminal as
synonymous, now that we come to consider briefly what are at present the
means adopted for the reformation of criminals and the suppression and
punishment of crime, and what the most recent and plausible suggestions
for amendment and improvement, we find the work already done to our hand,
and naught remains but to cull from the shoals of evidence _pro_ and
_con_ that have been lately set before the public.
The total cost of our prisons and prisoners for the year 1867, was
£657,129, distributed as follows: (1) Extraordinary charges for new
buildings, &c., £177,553 19s. 9d. (2) Ordinary charges £108,218 15s.
11d. (3) Officers’ salaries, &c., £213,285 15s. 5d., and (4) Prisoners’
diet, sick allowances, clothing, &c., £158,071 5s. 3d. The average
yearly charge per prisoner under each head of costs, was as follows:—(1)
Extraordinary charges £9 17s. 4d. (2.) Ordinary annual charges £6 0s.
3d. (making together £15 17s. 7d.). (3) Officers and attendants £11 17s.
1d. (4) Prisoners’ diet £6 11s. 1d., and clothing £2 4s. 7d. (together
£8 15s. 8d.), making a total per prisoner of £36 10s. 4d., or omitting
the extraordinary charge for buildings, &c., £26 13s. The average of £36
10s. 4d. is higher than the corresponding average for 1865–6 by £2 1s.
8d. The average of £26 13s. is higher than the corresponding average by
15s. 1d. These averages are calculated upon the total amounts under each
head of expenditure, and the total daily average number in all the
prisons. The average cost per prisoner naturally shows great variation
in different prisons. The highest is at Alnwick, viz.: £114 3s. 2d.
against £110 1s. 2d. in 1865–6, £108 2s. 5d. in 1864–5, and £88 15s. 11d.
in 1863–4, _with a daily average of one prisoner in each year_! At
Oakham, the average cost for 1866–7 is £80 13s. 3d., with a daily average
of 10 prisoners against £93 16s. 2d. in 1865–6, and £87 1s. 9d. in
1864–5, with the daily average of 8 prisoners in each of those years; at
Appleby £70 2s. with a daily average of 6 prisoners; at Ilford £51 6s.
with a daily average of 20 prisoners. The lowest averages are as
follows: At Hull £16 17s., with a daily average of 173 prisoners; at
Salford £16 17s. 8d., with a daily average of 568 prisoners; at Liverpool
£18 8s. 9d. with a daily average of 952 prisoners; at Devonport £18 12s.
4d., with a daily average of 58 prisoners; at Durham £18 16s. 9d., with a
daily average of 433 prisoners; and at Manchester £19 1s. 3d., with a
daily average of 631 prisoners. The following are the comparative costs
per prisoner for the whole of the prisons for each of the last six
years:—£24 3s. 4d., £23 7s. 5d., £23 7s. 10d., £24 3s. 3d., £25 17s.
11d., and £26 13s.
The total number of police and constabulary for the same year, is set
down at 24,073 as against 23,728 in the year preceding. The total cost
for the year is £1,920,505 12s. 2d. as against £1,827,105 16s. 7d. in
1866, an increase of upwards of 5 per cent. following an increase of
£78,647 17s. 1d., or 4.5 per cent. upon the amount for 1864–5. As
compared with the total costs for 1856–7, the first year for which
returns were made under the Act; the increase in 1866–7 amounts to
£654,926, or upwards of 51 per cent. The increase in the number of the
police and constabulary during the same period is 4,886, or upwards of 25
per cent.
The number of persons committed for trial in 1867 was less than the
number for any of the four years immediately preceding 1866. The
increase in 1867, as compared with 1866, is in the number of males, viz.,
328. In the number of females there is a _decrease_ of 206. The
following are the numbers committed for trial in each of the last 20
years:—
1848 30,349 1855 25,972 1862 20,001
1849 27,816 1856 19,437 1863 20,818
1850 26,813 1857 20,269 1864 19,506
1851 27,960 1858 17,855 1865 19,614
1852 27,510 1859 16,674 1866 18,849
1853 27,057 1860 15,999 1867 18,971
1854 29,359 1861 18,326
As already intimated in these pages, Lord Kimberley is responsible for
introducing the broad and important subject of Criminal Law Reform to the
legislature for its reconsideration and reformation. In introducing this
bill for the suppression of crime, his lordship reminded the peers
assembled that in the year 1853, after a very full discussion with
respect to transportation it was resolved, partly on account of the evils
of the system, and partly on account of the strong remonstrances of our
Australian colonists to whom our convicts had been sent, that it should,
to a considerable extent cease, and that accordingly an Act was passed
imposing for the first time the sentence of penal servitude as a
substitute for transportation in the greater number of cases. From that
time transportation was limited to Western Australia and the Bermudas.
The numbers sent to Western Australia did not average more than 460 per
annum. The colonists, however, despite this moderate consignment, felt
by no means flattered by the distinction conferred on them, and in
consideration of their strong remonstrances, in the course of a few years
transportation to Australia entirely ceased.
Penal servitude was the arrangement substituted, and the chief feature of
it was the ticket-of-leave. The system promised well, but no sooner was
it fairly at work than the public took alarm at the number of convicts
scattered over the country holding these tickets, and then another change
was resolved on. A commission, presided over by Lord Carnarvon, was
appointed to examine the whole question of penal servitude, and the
result was a report containing several important recommendations.
Foremost of these was that sentences of penal servitude which had been as
short as three years, should not, in future, be passed for shorter terms
than seven years. Another, almost equally important, was to the effect
that convicts sentenced to penal servitude should be subjected in the
first place to nine months separate imprisonment, and then to labour on
public works for the remainder of the term for which they were sentenced,
but with a power of earning by industry and good conduct an abridgment of
this part of punishment. The provision under which police supervision
has since been carried out, and the conditions under which licences
should be earned by good conduct, were also laid down. As further stated
by his lordship, when the Act of 1864 was under consideration, great
doubts were expressed whether it was possible to carry out a satisfactory
system by which the good conduct of convicts and their industry when
employed on public works could be so measured that they should earn an
abridgment of their sentences. Experience, however, showed that the
system in its working was to a great extent successful, especially when
the management of the business in question fell into the hands of Colonel
Henderson, who succeeded the late Sir Joshua Jebb. Under Colonel
Henderson’s supervision it has been found possible to exact from convicts
the really hard and patient industry which is necessary before they can
obtain a remission of their sentences. The value of the work performed
by convicts at the three convict prisons—Portsmouth, Portland, and
Chatham—was during the year 1868, £106,421; while the cost of maintaining
those establishments was £110,532, so that the earnings nearly equalled
the whole expense to which the country was put; indeed, as regards
Chatham, where there are great facilities for remunerative work in making
bricks for public works, there was an actual profit. In 1867 the average
daily number of convicts at Chatham was 990, and the value of their
labour was £40,898 7s., while the cost of their maintenance and
supervision was £35,315 18s., there being thus a surplus of £5,582 9s.
Under this new and improved system, in which the feature last quoted
shows so satisfactorily, crime decreased. In 1865–6 the indictable
offences committed numbered 50,549, and in 1866–7 they were 55,538,
showing an increase of 4,989, or something under 10 per cent. From 1856
to 1862, the convictions excluding summary ones, the annual average was
13,859, while in 1867 the number was 14,207. His Lordship explained that
he began with 1856, because in the previous year the Criminal
Jurisdiction Act was passed, enabling a considerable number of crimes to
be dealt with summarily. Although this shows an apparent increase from
13,859 to 14,207, it must be remembered that in the interval the
population increased by nearly two and a-half millions, so that there is
a decrease rather than an increase in proportion to the population.
Satisfactory, however, as was this result, it appeared to Lord Kimberley
that, as we naturally obtain fresh experience from year to year, fresh
opportunities of committing crime being discovered, and fresh means of
meeting these offences, it is necessary from time to time to re-adjust
our system, and make it more complete. Another reason for carefully
scrutinising, and seeing whether we cannot improve our system, is the
complete cessation of transportation; for though during the last few
years we have not sent out to our colonics any very large number of
convicts, it is obvious that for 500 convicts a year to remain in this
country involves a considerable increase of the convict population. The
number of males now on licence is 1,566, and of females 441, in 1870 it
will probably be 1,705, and about ten years hence it will probably be
something under 3,000.
These, however, form but a small portion of the great criminal class. Of
this latter the average of 1865–6, 1864–5 and 1863–4, shows the following
results:
Known thieves and depredators 22,959, receivers of stolen goods 3,095,
prostitutes 27,186, suspected persons 29,468, vagrants and tramps 32,938,
making a total of 122,646. In the metropolis alone there were in 1866–7,
14,648 persons living by dishonest means, and 5,628 prostitutes. The
number in 1865–6 being 14,491 and 5,554.
The above being in the main Lord Kimberley’s grounds of justification for
bringing forward his “Habitual Criminals’ Bill,” let us take its first
provision, that applying to convicts, who on the strength of a
ticket-of-leave are in the enjoyment of conditional liberty, and inquire
what is precisely the system it is intended to supersede, and what are
the practical results of the workings of this last mentioned system,
viz.: that which on the recommendation of the committee, under the
presidency of Lord Carnavon, became law in 1864. The following
memorandum as to the present system of licence holders reporting
themselves to the police, under the Penal Servitude Amendment Act, 1864,
was issued recently by Colonel Henderson, Commissioner of Police of the
Metropolis:—
“A male licence holder is required personally to report himself at
the principal police-station of the district in which he resides
within three days of his liberation. A printed descriptive form of
the licence holder is sent from the prison to the police with the
address where the man, previous to his liberation, stated he intended
to reside. The officer on duty, when the licence holder reports
himself, instructs him in what he is required to do, and also
delivers to him a printed notice. No further steps are then taken by
the police for a month from that date, when, if the licence holder
again reports himself, he is considered as complying with the law.
“After inquiry to ascertain if the address given is a correct one, no
further supervision is kept over him by the police, and his lodgings
are not again visited.
“If a licence holder neglects to report himself as above, or is seen,
or suspected of leading an irregular life, then the police make quiet
inquiry, and, as is frequently the case, if it is found that he has
left the address he was living at, his description is inserted in the
_Police Gazette_ with directions for apprehension.
“The employers are never informed by the police that they are
employing a licence holder.
“Licence holders apprehended for offences have complained to the
magistrates that the police harass them, but on investigation such
statements have always proved to be without foundation.
“No case has ever been known of police levying black mail on licence
holders.
“The Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, 39, Charing Cross, with the
sanction of the Secretary of State, undertakes the care of licence
holders.
“The licence holders who wish to place themselves under the care of
this Society are required to report themselves, on liberation, at the
King Street Police Station, Westminster, where they are served with a
notice.
“A messenger from Millbank Prison accompanies the licence holders to
the police-station, and after this form is gone through, all local
police supervision ceases until a report is made from the Society to
the Commissioner.
“Of 368 male licence holders discharged into the Metropolitan Police
district in 1868, 290 placed themselves under the care of the
Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society, either on discharge or
subsequently.
“There have been difficulties in consequence of this divided
jurisdiction, but in the event of this bill passing, the supervision
of convicts who place themselves in charge of the Prisoners’ Aid
Society, will be carried on by the police, in conjunction with the
officers of the Society, and can be so arranged as to avoid any undue
interference with the men; in fact, it is quite as much the interest
of the police to endeavour to assist licence holders to get honest
work, as to arrest them if they misconduct themselves, and for this
purpose it would be quite sufficient if the licence holder were bound
by the conditions of his licence to report change of residence and
employment, the monthly report being of no particular value, so long
as proper supervision is exercised by the police.
“As regards the arrest of licence holders, or of persons who have
been twice convicted of felony, it is clear all must depend on the
personal knowledge of the police constable of the person and
antecedents of the suspected person.
“Under ordinary circumstances, no constable interferes with any
licence holder, nor would he arrest any man on suspicion, without
previously reporting the circumstances to the Commissioner, who would
order quiet inquiry to be made, and give instructions, if necessary,
for the man’s arrest.
“Identification would be rendered more easy than at present, by the
proposed central registration.”
As the law at present stands, then, in the event of a ticket of leave man
failing to comply with the police regulations, and on his being conveyed
before a magistrate, it is provided that if the magistrate is satisfied
that he is not earning an honest living, he may be committed to undergo
his original term of imprisonment. Under the restrictions of the
proposed new Bill, however, much more stringent arrangements are
suggested. The onus of proving his honesty will rest with the man who
holds the ticket. “A licence holder may at any time be summoned by a
police constable before a magistrate, and called upon to show that he is
earning an honest livelihood, the burden of proof resting on him; if he
cannot prove his honesty, he may be committed to undergo his original
sentence of Penal Servitude.”
Now it is evident on the face of it that the above quoted clause of the
proposed “Habitual Criminals Bill” is beset by many grave objections. In
the first place, to vest such an amount of irresponsible power in the
police is a step hardly warranted by one’s experience of the intelligence
and integrity of the “force,” satisfactory on the whole as it may be.
There can be no question that as a rule the superintendents and
inspectors and sergeants are in every respect equal to the duties imposed
on them; only for the unenviable notoriety lately achieved by a
functionary still higher in command, commissioners also might have been
included in the favourable list.
It is equally true, too, that the great majority of the men of the
“force” discharge their duty with efficiency; at the same time it is
undeniable that there are exceptions to the good rule. But too
frequently do our criminal records remind us that virtue’s perfect armour
is not invariably represented by the helmet and the coat of blue. Only
lately there occurred an alarming instance of this. A gang of plunderers
and receivers of stolen goods was apprehended, and presently there
appeared on the scene an individual, then an inspector of railway
detective police, and formerly holding a responsible position in the
Metropolitan force, taking on himself, with a coolness that bespoke his
long experience, the office of screening the thief and arranging his
escape from the law’s righteous grasp. Richards is this fellow’s name,
and he was evidently well known to a large circle of acquaintance, whose
fame is recorded in the records of the Old Bailey. With amazing audacity
Mr. Richards addressed himself to the two detective policemen who had the
case in hand, and offered them ten pounds each if they would accommodate
his clients by committing perjury when the day of trial came. Happily
the integrity of the two officers was proof against the tempting bribe,
and the unfortunate negotiator found himself even deeper in the mire than
those his disinterested good nature would have aided. At the same time
one cannot refrain from asking, is this the first time that Mr. Richards
has evinced his obliging disposition, and the still more important
question, does he stand alone, or are there others of his school? As is
the case with all large communities, the police force must include in its
number men malicious, prejudiced, wrong-headed and foolish. Probably
there are no serious grounds for the alarm that under the convenient
cloak the clause in question provides, the policeman, unscrupulous and
dishonest, might by levying black mail on the poor wretches so completely
in his power, reap a rich and iniquitous harvest, and render nugatory one
of the Bill’s prime provisions. This is an objection that carries no
great weight. No law that could be passed could put the criminal, the
burglar, and the house-breaker more at the mercy of the dishonest
policeman than he now is. As repeatedly appears in our criminal reports,
the sort of odd intimacy that commonly exists between the thief and his
natural enemy, the policeman, is very remarkable; the latter is as well
acquainted with the haunts of the former as he is with the abodes of his
own friends and relatives. Should the enemies meet in the street, the
acquaintance is acknowledged by a sort of confident
“I-can-have-you-whenever-I-want-you” look on the one part, and a half
devil-may-care, half deprecatory glance on the other. When the crisis
arrives, and the thief is “wanted,” he is hailed as Jack, Tom, or Bill,
and the capture is effected in the most comfortable and business-like
manner imaginable.
Under such an harmonious condition of affairs, nothing could be easier,
were they both agreed, than bribery and corruption of the most villanous
sort, and, taking Colonel Henderson’s word, “that no case has ever been
known of police levying black mail on licence holders,” and further,
considering the inadequate pay the policeman receives for the amount of
intelligent and vigilant service required of him, the country may be
congratulated on possessing, on the whole, such an almost unexceptionally
good servant.
It is the wrong-headed policeman, probably, who would work the greatest
amount of mischief in this direction. The busy, over-zealous man,
neither malicious, dishonest, nor vindictive, but simply a little too
anxious to win for himself a character for “shrewdness and intelligence.”
This would probably be the young policeman, desirous of making up for his
lack of experience by a display of extraordinary sagacity. To such a
man’s home-bred, unofficially cultivated ideas of right and wrong, it
would appear of small use “suspecting” an individual, unless he
immediately set about testing him with the utmost severity to know the
extent to which the suspicion was justified.
To be sure, an attempt is made in the Bill, as it passed the Lords, to
guard against the weaknesses and shortcomings of constables by making it
incumbent on them to obtain the written authority of a superior before
they arrest and take a man before a magistrate; but really this may mean
just nothing at all. It may be assumed that all the evidence a director
of police would require before he granted a written authority, would be
the declaration of the policeman applying for it that he had fair grounds
for making the application. Undoubtedly he would be expected to make out
a good case; but that, as an over-zealous and prejudiced man, he would be
sure to do. The superintendent, or whoever it was that had power to
issue a written warrant for a “suspect’s” apprehension, could not, by
examination of the prisoner, convince himself of the justice of the act
of his subordinate, to do which would be to usurp the magisterial office.
And the process would probably be attended with this disadvantage,—that
the said written order for arrest would wear an importance that really
did not belong to it. If a man were arrested simply on the authority of
a common policeman, the chances are that the magistrate would scrutinise
the case narrowly, and be guided to a conviction solely by the evidence
and his own discretion; but the case would come under the new act before
him to a large extent prejudiced. He is instructed that the warrant that
legalised the man’s apprehension was not issued in vague supposition that
it might he justifiable: an official of the law—a man high in
authority—has sanctioned the arrest, and here is his written testimony
that he considered the step expedient.
Again, let us for a moment contemplate the difficulties that must always
attend the proving of his honesty by a man who, according to the high
authority of the Lord Chancellor, has “no character to lose.” “As to
what was said about the injury done to a man’s character by supervision,
he must observe that a man’s character was gone after two convictions.
It was idle to say that after two convictions a man had a character.”
In the case of a man against whom nothing criminal was ever suspected, it
might be easy enough for him to prove his honesty any day, or any hour of
the day, he might be called on to do so; but it is altogether different
with the individual who dare not even lay claim to a character for
honesty, to prove that the suspicions entertained against him are
unfounded. It should be borne in mind that the difficulties of the poor
wretch’s condition almost preclude the possibility of his making a show
of earning his bread in a worthy manner. In the majority of cases he
will be found to be a man without a trade, or, if he has one, he will
probably sink it, and endeavour to keep out of sight of all who knew him
and the story of his downfall, by hiding amongst the great multitude who
turn their hands to any rough-and-ready labour that will bring them a
shilling. There are hundreds and thousands of men in London, and indeed
in all great cities, who “pick up” a living somehow—anyhow, and who,
though they all the time are honest fellows, would find it difficult to
account for, and bring forward evidence to show, how they were engaged
last Monday, and again on Wednesday, and what they earned, and whom they
earned it of. Such men “job about,” very often in localities that, in
the case of a man under police supervision, to be seen there would be to
rouse suspicions as to his intentions. For instance, many a shilling or
sixpence is “picked up” by men who have nothing better to do, by hanging
about railway stations and steamboat wharves, and looking out for
passengers who have luggage they wish carried. But supposing that a man,
a “ticket-of-leave,” was to resort to such a means of obtaining a
livelihood, and that he was seen “hanging about” such places day after
day by a watchful detective who knew who and what he was,—with what
amount of credulity would the authorities receive his statement that he
was “looking out for a chance to carry somebody’s trunk or carpetbag”!
In all probability the naïve assertion would provoke a smile on the face
of the magistrate who heard the case, and there would be “laughter” in
court.
Again, as is well known, hundreds of men seek work at the docks. It
might be supposed by their innocent lordships that nothing could be
easier than for a man to prove his employment at such gigantic and
sternly-regulated establishments as the London or St. Katherine Docks,
with their staff of liveried officials and responsible gate-keepers. The
dock-labourer, on his admittance, is furnished with a ticket, and when he
leaves he is searched so as to make sure that he has stolen none of the
valuable goods scattered in every direction. But it is a fact that no
system can be looser or more shambling or shabbier than that which rules
in the drudgery departments of these great emporiums for ship-loading and
warehousing. Every morning the dock-gates are besieged by a mob
clamorous as that which in the old time swarmed about the door of the
casual-ward; and if rags and patches and hunger-pinched visages go for
anything, the quality of both mobs is much of a sort. It is only men who
can find nothing else to do who apply at the docks for work, for the pay
is but threepence an hour, and the labour, hoisting-out and landing goods
from the holds of ships, is cruelly hard; and it is not uncommon to
employ a man for an hour and a half or two hours, and then discharge him.
But it is better than nothing, and it is the “ready penny”—emphatically
the penny—that the miserable, shamefaced, twice-convicted man, with some
remnant of conscience and good intent remaining in him, would seek as the
last resource of desperate honesty, all other sources failing him. But
it would be next to impossible for him to prove that he had been working
at the docks; no one knows him there. He might be there employed twenty
times, and each time in a different gang, and under a different ganger.
His workmates for the time are strangers, bearing not names, but numbers.
Were it to save his life, he would find it hard to prove that he
occasionally found a “job” at the docks, and, despite all his honest
exertions, he would he liable to have his ticket revoked, and be sent
back to finish to its full length his original sentence.
Again, it might even happen that a suspected man able to prove his
honesty would find himself almost in as complete a fix as the one who,
through circumstances over which he had no control, was unable to do so.
Under the existing system, we have Colonel Henderson’s word for it,
masters are never informed by the police that they are employing a
license-holder; but he would cease to be assured this immense advantage
if Lord Kimberley has his way with him. As Earl Shaftesbury pertinently
remarks: “A holder of the ticket-of-leave goes before a magistrate; and
what happens? He proves that he is earning an honest livelihood, and the
magistrate dismisses him. He returns to his work, and his employer
dismisses him also. It has occurred before now that men have been
dismissed by their employers under somewhat similar circumstances. How
can you compensate a man for such a loss as that? You cannot do it; and
yet you expose men who may be earning an honest livelihood to the danger
of that happening to them if they refuse a demand for hush-money, or in
any other way give offence to a dishonest police-constable. I know at
the present moment a young man who, though convicted, is now in
respectable employment, and in the receipt of good wages. He is living
in terror, lest, under the circumstances to which I have referred, he may
be brought before a police-magistrate. Depend on it that hundreds of men
in that position are now watching the progress of this Bill.
“On the authority of the late Sir Richard Mayne it has been stated that
the police have, through the clause that insists on convicts reporting
themselves monthly, been enabled to furnish employment to a good many of
the ticket-of-leave men; this, however, is very doubtful. That some
situations may have been obtained for these men through the exertions of
the police and the Discharged Prisoners’ Aid Society may be true; but of
this I am certain, that whatever returns the police may make of the
places they have obtained for released convicts, they have not obtained
anything like the number that those men obtained for themselves before
the adoption of so stringent a provision.”
There is undoubtedly a depth of criminality to which it is possible for a
man to descend, putting himself utterly beyond reach of anything but
human compassion. His conversion is quite hopeless, and he is no better
than a predatory wild-beast, whose ferocity will endure just as long as
his brute-strength remains; he would probably bite his best friend at his
dying gasp. The sort of ruffian here alluded to will perhaps be better
understood by aid of the following illustration, “drawn from life” not
many months since. It is a case of a ruffian committed for trial for
“garotting” and nearly murdering a gentleman. The delectable epistle was
written by garotter “Bill” to his brother; and was intrusted to a
prisoner, who had served his time and was about to quit the gaol, for
hand-delivery. Either out of fear or forgetfulness, however, the letter
was left behind and discovered by the authorities.
“Dundee Prison, July 18th, 1868.—Dear Brother, the only thing I am
afraid of is that moll; if you can manage to square her I fear
nothing; but if she swears she saw me have him by the throat it will
not go well with me, for they are most d—d down on garotting. Then
again, if she says she saw him with that amount of money, by —! they
might put me in for the robbery too; and there is seven years dead
certain. You don’t know what a b— like that will say. It can surely
to God be squared between so many of you, and only the moll to come
against me. If the bloke is in town he could be easily squared, I
think; you could get him sweet, put the gloves on him, and things
like that, and get him to say he cannot swear to me in court; that
would be all that was wanted; or it is very easy giving that moll a
dose. Put Ginger up to it; who the h— would take notice of a w—
kicking the bucket? I would do it for you. If any of them is
squared, tell Ginger to just sign M. H. at the bottom of her letter,
so as I may know. I think it would be a good idea for my mother to
get the bloke privately, and make an appeal to him; he would have a
little feeling for her, I think; if you was getting him into the
Garrick the wifey could talk to him so fine. If you only had one of
them squared that’s all that is wanted; for I am certain there is no
more against me than them two. Set your brains to work, and stick at
nothing; tell them not to be afraid of perjury in this case; they
can’t be brought in for it nohow; swear black is white; I must get
off if they do the right thing; swear to anything; swear the b— wigs
off their heads; there is no danger of being brought in for perjury
in this case, not a d—d bit.—BILL.”
At the head of the letter the following was written across the page:
“Poison the moll if she will not do what’s right; by C—! I would
think d—d little of doing it to save my brother! Ginger will fix her
if you tell her to.”
The following was written inside the envelope of the letter:
“They must not forget about me having a sore hand; that might help me
too, as it would not be very likely I could seize him by the throat
and compress the same, as it is stated in my indictment. That will
be a good point, I think, he being a stout man. Tell them to be sure
and stick to not seeing the bloke, and that I slept in the house that
night; not likely that I could hold him with one hand; they can swear
that my right hand was very sore, not fit to be used anyhow, as it
was, and no mistake.”
It came out in the course of the evidence that the meaning of the word
“bloke” was “a man whom a woman might pick up in the street;” that “moll”
was the name for a woman; and that “Ginger” was a nickname for one of the
female witnesses.
To ruffians of this school, if to any, applies Lord Carnarvon’s terrible
suggestion of imprisonment for life, without hope, or possibility even,
of release.
“It is idle to say that the subject of so many convictions is not
absolutely and hopelessly hardened: they belong to a class of persons
on whom punishment is only wasted, and the only thing is to shut them
up for the rest of their lives, and keep them out of the possibility
of doing any harm to society. I believe that such a course is best
for them and for society, and that no objection to it can be
reasonably urged. The convict-establishments of this country are
already paying their way, and the surplus cost is very light; on the
other hand, if you look at the cost which a criminal puts the State
to in his detection, trial, and other criminal proceedings, it is
perfectly clear that the cheapest course for the country would be to
shut him up. As far as the man himself is concerned it is also the
most humane and the kindest course. He exchanges a most miserable
state of life outside the prison-walls, for one of comparative
cleanliness and order inside. And if you calculate the time which
such a man has spent in prison—broken only by the shorter intervals
during which he has been let loose and again recaptured—it will be
found that the difference between the period actually spent in prison
and a lifelong sentence would really be very slight in amount.”
As need not be mentioned, however, habitual criminals of the type above
quoted are by far the exception, and not the rule. Experience teaches us
that to become a ticket-of-leave man is not invariably to be converted
from a human creature to a callous brute,—blind and deaf in vice, and
doggedly determined so to continue to the last; give him a fair chance to
amend, and in very many cases he will embrace it, thankfully even. The
statistics of the Prisoners’ Aid Society encourage us to hope better of
even the worst of the criminal class. As has already been shown, the
convicts themselves recognise and gratefully appreciate the advantages
held out to them by the humanitarians whose head-quarters are by Charing
Cross. Of 368 male convicts discharged in one year, only 78 neglected to
make application for the bounty. It appears from the Society’s most
recent return that the total number of discharged prisoners assisted by
the association since May 1857 was 5,798, but the average number had
recently decreased, because fewer prisoners had of late been released on
license. The number of those who had applied to the Society during the
first six months of last year (1868) was 145, of whom 26 had emigrated;
44 had found good and constant employment in the metropolis; 15 had gone
to sea; 25 had been sent to places beyond the Metropolitan
Police-district, and placed under the supervision of the local police,
and 35 had been classed as unsatisfactory and bad: but these included all
those who were known to be in honest employment, but were so classed
because they failed to report themselves to the police, as required by
the Act.
It remains to be seen whether the Commons will give countenance to the
new and severe measures sought by the Lords to be adopted against the
convicted man at liberty under ticket-license. One thing is certain, it
would be better to do away altogether with tickets-of-leave than use them
as stumbling-blocks to a man’s reformation. The only object of a
ticket-of-leave is to give the holder a chance of returning to honest
courses some months earlier than, under the rigid term of his sentence,
he would be enabled to. Undoubtedly it is necessary to guard against, as
far as possible, an abuse of the privilege. Full and sufficient
opportunity should be allowed a man to follow honest pursuits, if he be
so inclined; but it is only fair that the authorities should reserve to
themselves the power of holding him in tether, so to say, so as to be
able to haul him back to fast anchorage, should his ill-behaviour make
such a step desirable; but meanwhile the tether-line should run slack and
free—it should by no means be wound about a man’s hands so as to impede
his honest use of them, or about his neck so as to strangle him. At
Wakefield we are informed there is an organisation by which every
prisoner on his discharge—whether on a ticket-of-leave or otherwise—could
find a home for six or twelve months, till he is able to find employment
for himself, or till an employer came to look for him. Eighty per cent
of the persons attached to the Wakefield establishment had engaged in,
and settled down to, honest employment. Surely such a result should
encourage those in authority to found similar institutions in other parts
of the country.
* * * * *
To return, however, to the projected Habitual Criminals’ Bill. It is not
the ticket-of-leave man alone who has reasons for quaking lest it should
become law; quaking for fear of injustice, not justice, that is to say.
The class its stern provisions chiefly, and, as I venture to opine,
cruelly affect are those unfortunates who have suffered two distinct
terms of imprisonment. From the date of his second conviction a man is
to be subject to police supervision for a term of seven years. They have
the advantage over the ticket-of-leave man, that they are not required to
report themselves periodically at a police-station; but, like the
criminal of deeper dye, any day within their seven years of supervision
they are liable to be arrested by the police and taken before a
magistrate, to prove that they are not deriving a livelihood from
dishonest sources. Should they fail in doing so, they are to be
committed to prison for a year. Of the question itself, “What is an
habitual criminal?” remarks the _Times_, commenting on the communication
of its correspondent, “we say, take a walk with the police, and they will
show you the class in all its varieties as easily as you could be shown
the animals in the Zoological Gardens. Here they are,—men about whose
character and calling nobody would ever pretend to entertain a doubt. We
have been all perplexing ourselves with the possible fate of some
contrite convict disposed to become respectable, but thwarted in his
efforts by the intervention of the police. Why, among the real genuine
representatives of crime—among the people described by our
correspondent—there is not a man who dreams, or ever would dream, of any
honest calling . . . The profession has its grades, like any other; and
so here is a company of first-class thieves, and another company
representing the opposite end of the scale. At one establishment they
are fashionably attired, and not altogether ill-mannered; at another the
type is that of Bill Sykes himself, even to his bulldog. But through all
these descriptions, whether of house or inmate, host or guest, high or
low, thief or receiver, there runs one assumption which we press upon our
readers as practically decisive of the question before us. It is this:
that about ‘the habitual criminality’ of the whole class there is not, in
the mind of any human creature concerned, the smallest doubt whatever. .
. . The practice of the past generation was simple: some petty offence
commonly began, then as now, a criminal career. It was detected and
punished, and the criminal was sent back to his place in society. A
second, and perhaps a third, act of deeper guilt followed, and the
graduate in crime was condemned to transportation beyond seas. As long
as this punishment retained any terrors it may have been efficient; but
long before it was abandoned it had come to be recognised as an
acknowledged benefit rather than a penalty by those who were sentenced to
it. The result was the constant secretion of a criminal class on one
hand, and the removal on the other to another sphere when they became
ripe for the voyage—the removal being viewed as an encouragement to the
commission of similar offences. We must make the painful acknowledgment
that part of this dismal cycle cannot be materially altered. When a man
is convicted of his first criminal act, we cannot know whether it is an
isolated deed or whether it is the first-fruit of a lifetime. When he
has gone from less to greater, and has proved himself indurated in crime,
we are forced to protect society by removing him from it. . . . Nor does
the proposal involve that extensive and minute system of police
_espionage_ of which some people have been apprehensive. An honest man
can always keep out of such questionable circumstances; and unless he
places himself within them, he is as independent of the police as any
unconvicted Englishman. When a man has been twice convicted, it is
surely no great hardship to deprive him of the privilege of attempting
and plotting crime with impunity.”
III.—Professional Beggars.