“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.
HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL
CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.
N^{o.} 5.] SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._
PET PRISONERS
The system of separate confinement first experimented on in England at
the model prison, Pentonville, London, and now spreading through the
country, appears to us to require a little calm consideration and
reflection on the part of the public. We purpose, in this paper, to
suggest what we consider some grave objections to this System.
We shall do this temperately, and without considering it necessary to
regard every one from whom we differ, as a scoundrel, actuated by base
motives, to whom the most unprincipled conduct may be recklessly
attributed. Our faith in most questions where the good men are
represented to be all _pro_, and the bad men to be all _con_, is very
small. There is a hot class of riders of hobby-horses in the field, in
this century, who think they do nothing unless they make a steeple-chase
of their object; throw a vast quantity of mud about, and spurn every
sort of decent restraint and reasonable consideration under their
horses’ heels. This question has not escaped such championship. It has
its steeple-chase riders, who hold the dangerous principle that the end
justifies any means, and to whom no means, truth and fair-dealing
usually excepted, come amiss.
Considering the separate system of imprisonment, here, solely in
reference to England, we discard, for the purpose of this discussion,
the objection founded on its extreme severity, which would immediately
arise if we were considering it with any reference to the State of
Pennsylvania in America. For whereas in that State it may be inflicted
for a dozen years, the idea is quite abandoned at home of extending it
usually, beyond a dozen months, or in any case beyond eighteen months.
Besides which, the school and the chapel afford periods of comparative
relief here, which are not afforded in America.
Though it has been represented by the steeple-chase riders as a most
enormous heresy to contemplate the possibility of any prisoner going mad
or idiotic, under the prolonged effects of separate confinement; and
although any one who should have the temerity to maintain such a doubt
in Pennsylvania, would have a chance of becoming a profane St. Stephen;
Lord Grey, in his very last speech in the House of Lords on this
subject, made in the present session of Parliament, in praise of this
separate system, said of it: ‘Wherever it has been fairly tried, one of
its great defects has been discovered to be this,—that it cannot be
continued for a sufficient length of time without danger to the
individual, and that human nature cannot bear it beyond a limited
period. The evidence of medical authorities proves beyond dispute that,
if it is protracted beyond twelve months, the health of the convict,
mental and physical, would require the most close and vigilant
superintendence. Eighteen months is stated to be the _maximum_ time for
the continuance of its infliction, and, as a general rule, it is advised
that it never be continued for more than twelve months.’ This being
conceded, and it being clear that the prisoner’s mind, and all the
apprehensions weighing upon it, must be influenced from the first hour
of his imprisonment by the greater or less extent of its duration in
perspective before him, we are content to regard the system as
dissociated in England from the American objection of too great
severity.
We shall consider it, first in the relation of the extraordinary
contrast it presents, in a country circumstanced as England is, between
the physical condition of the convict in prison, and that of the
hard-working man outside, or the pauper outside. We shall then enquire,
and endeavour to lay before our readers some means of judging, whether
its proved or probable efficiency in producing a real, trustworthy,
practically repentant state of mind, is such as to justify the
presentation of that extraordinary contrast. If, in the end, we indicate
the conclusion that the associated silent system is less objectionable,
it is not because we consider it in the abstract a good secondary
punishment, but because it is a severe one, capable of judicious
administration, much less expensive, not presenting the objectionable
contrast so strongly, and not calculated to pet and pamper the mind of
the prisoner and swell his sense of his own importance. We are not
acquainted with any system of secondary punishment that we think
reformatory, except the mark system of Captain Macconnochie, formerly
governor of Norfolk Island, which proceeds upon the principle of
obliging the convict to some exercise of self-denial and resolution in
every act of his prison life, and which would condemn him to a sentence
of so much labour and good conduct instead of so much time. There are
details in Captain Macconnochie’s scheme on which we have our doubts
(rigid silence we consider indispensable); but, in the main, we regard
it as embodying sound and wise principles. We infer from the writings of
Archbishop Whateley, that those principles have presented themselves to
his profound and acute mind in a similar light.
We will first contrast the dietary of The Model Prison at Pentonville,
with the dietary of what we take to be the nearest workhouse, namely,
that of Saint Pancras. In the prison, every man receives twenty-eight
ounces of meat weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult
receives eighteen. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and
forty ounces of bread weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult
receives ninety-six. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and
twelve ounces of potatoes weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied
adult receives thirty-six. In the prison, every man receives five pints
and a quarter of liquid cocoa weekly, (made of flaked cocoa or
cocoa-nibs), with fourteen ounces of milk and forty-two drams of
molasses; also seven pints of gruel weekly, sweetened with forty-two
drams of molasses. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives
fourteen pints and a half of milk-porridge weekly, and no cocoa, and no
gruel. In the prison, every man receives three pints and a half of soup
weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult male receives four
pints and a half, and a pint of Irish stew. This, with seven pints of
table-beer weekly, and six ounces of cheese, is all the man in the
workhouse has to set off against the immensely superior advantages of
the prisoner in all the other respects we have stated. His lodging is
very inferior to the prisoner’s, the costly nature of whose
accommodation we shall presently show.
Let us reflect upon this contrast in another aspect. We beg the reader
to glance once more at The Model Prison dietary, and consider its
frightful disproportion to the dietary of the free labourer in any of
the rural parts of England. What shall we take his wages at? Will twelve
shillings a week do? It cannot be called a low average, at all events.
Twelve shillings a week make thirty-one pounds four a year. The cost, in
1848, for the victualling and management of every prisoner in the Model
Prison was within a little of thirty-six pounds. Consequently, that free
labourer, with young children to support, with cottage-rent to pay, and
clothes to buy, and no advantage of purchasing his food in large amounts
by contract, has, for the whole subsistence of himself and family,
between four and five pounds a year _less_ than the cost of feeding and
overlooking one man in the Model Prison. Surely to his enlightened mind,
and sometimes low morality, this must be an extraordinary good reason
for keeping out of it!
But we will not confine ourselves to the contrast between the labourer’s
scanty fare and the prisoner’s ‘flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs,’ and daily
dinner of soup, meat, and potatoes. We will rise a little higher in the
scale. Let us see what advertisers in the _Times_ newspaper can board
the middle classes at, and get a profit out of, too.
A LADY, residing in a cottage, with a large garden, in a pleasant and
healthful locality, would be happy to receive one or two LADIES to BOARD
with her. Two ladies occupying the same apartment may be accommodated
for 12s. a week each. The cottage is within a quarter of an hour’s walk
of a good market town, 10 minutes’ of a South-Western Railway Station,
and an hour’s distance from town.
These two ladies could not be so cheaply boarded in the Model Prison.
BOARD and RESIDENCE, at £70 per annum, for a married couple, or in
proportion for a single gentleman or lady, with a respectable family.
Rooms large and airy, in an eligible dwelling, at Islington, about 20
minutes’ walk from the Bank. Dinner hour six o’clock. There are one or
two vacancies to complete a small, cheerful, and agreeable circle.
Still cheaper than the Model Prison!
BOARD and RESIDENCE.—A lady, keeping a select school, in a town, about
30 miles from London, would be happy to meet with a LADY to BOARD and
RESIDE with her. She would have her own bed-room and a sitting-room. Any
lady wishing for accomplishments would find this desirable. Terms £30
per annum. References will be expected and given.
Again, some six pounds a year less than the Model Prison! And if we were
to pursue the contrast through the newspaper file for a month, or
through the advertising pages of two or three numbers of Bradshaw’s
Railway Guide, we might probably fill the present number of this
publication with similar examples, many of them including a decent
education into the bargain.
This Model Prison had cost at the close of 1847, under the heads of
‘building’ and ‘repairs’ alone, the insignificant sum of ninety-three
thousand pounds—within seven thousand pounds of the amount of the last
Government grant for the Education of the whole people, and enough to
pay for the emigration to Australia of four thousand, six hundred and
fifty poor persons at twenty pounds per head. Upon the work done by five
hundred prisoners in the Model Prison, in the year 1848, (we collate
these figures from the Reports, and from Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s useful
work on the London Prisons,) there was no profit, but an actual loss of
upwards of eight hundred pounds. The cost of instruction, and the time
occupied in instruction, when the labour is necessarily unskilled and
unproductive, may be pleaded in explanation of this astonishing fact. We
are ready to allow all due weight to such considerations, but we put it
to our readers whether the whole system is right or wrong; whether the
money ought or ought not rather to be spent in instructing the unskilled
and neglected outside the prison walls. It will be urged that it is
expended in preparing the convict for the exile to which he is doomed.
We submit to our readers, who are the jury in this case, that all this
should be done outside the prison, first; that the first persons to be
prepared for emigration are the miserable children who are consigned to
the tender mercies of a DROUET, or who disgrace our streets; and that in
this beginning at the wrong end, a spectacle of monstrous inconsistency
is presented, shocking to the mind. Where is our Model House of Youthful
Industry, where is our Model Ragged School, costing for building and
repairs, from ninety to a hundred thousand pounds, and for its annual
maintenance upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year? Would it be a
Christian act to build that, first? To breed our skilful labour there?
To take the hewers of wood and drawers of water in a strange country
from the convict ranks, until those men by earnest working, zeal, and
perseverance, proved themselves, and raised themselves? Here are two
sets of people in a densely populated land, always in the balance before
the general eye. Is Crime for ever to carry it against Poverty, and to
have a manifest advantage? There are the scales before all men.
Whirlwinds of dust scattered in mens’ eyes—and there is plenty flying
about—cannot blind them to the real state of the balance.
We now come to enquire into the condition of mind produced by the
seclusion (limited in duration as Lord Grey limits it) which is
purchased at this great cost in money, and this greater cost in
stupendous injustice. That it is a consummation much to be desired, that
a respectable man, lapsing into crime, should expiate his offence
without incurring the liability of being afterwards recognised by
hardened offenders who were his fellow-prisoners, we most readily admit.
But, that this object, howsoever desirable and benevolent, is in itself
sufficient to outweigh such objections as we have set forth, we cannot
for a moment concede. Nor have we any sufficient guarantee that even
this solitary point is gained. Under how many apparently inseparable
difficulties, men immured in solitary cells, will by some means obtain a
knowledge of other men immured in other solitary cells, most of us know
from all the accounts and anecdotes we have read of secret prisons and
secret prisoners from our school-time upwards. That there is a
fascination in the desire to know something of the hidden presence
beyond the blank wall of the cell; that the listening ear is often laid
against that wall; that there is an overpowering temptation to respond
to the muffled knock, or any other signal which sharpened ingenuity
pondering day after day on one idea can devise: is in that constitution
of human nature which impels mankind to communication with one another,
and makes solitude a false condition against which nature strives. That
such communication within the Model Prison, is not only probable, but
indisputably proved to be possible by its actual discovery, we have no
hesitation in stating as a fact. Some pains have been taken to hush the
matter, but the truth is, that when the Prisoners at Pentonville ceased
to be selected Prisoners, especially picked out and chosen for the
purposes of that experiment, an extensive conspiracy was found out among
them, involving, it is needless to say, extensive communication. Small
pieces of paper with writing upon them, had been crushed into balls, and
shot into the apertures of cell doors, by prisoners passing along the
passages; false responses had been made during Divine Service in the
chapel, in which responses they addressed one another; and armed men
were secretly dispersed by the Governor in various parts of the
building, to prevent the general rising, which was anticipated as the
consequence of this plot. Undiscovered communication, under this system,
we assume to be frequent.
The state of mind into which a man is brought who is the lonely
inhabitant of his own small world, and who is only visited by certain
regular visitors, all addressing themselves to him individually and
personally, as the object of their particular solicitude—we believe in
most cases to have very little promise in it, and very little of solid
foundation. A strange absorbing selfishness—a spiritual egotism and
vanity, real or assumed—is the first result. It is most remarkable to
observe, in the cases of murderers who become this kind of object of
interest, when they are at last consigned to the condemned cell, how the
rule is (of course there are exceptions,) that the murdered person
disappears from the stage of their thoughts, except as a part of their
own important story; and how they occupy the whole scene. _I_ did this,
_I_ feel that, _I_ confide in the mercy of Heaven being extended to
_me_; this is the autograph of _me_, the unfortunate and unhappy; in my
childhood I was so and so; in my youth I did such a thing, to which I
attribute my downfall—not this thing of basely and barbarously defacing
the image of my Creator, and sending an immortal soul into eternity
without a moment’s warning, but something else of a venial kind that
many unpunished people do. I don’t want the forgiveness of this foully
murdered person’s bereaved wife, husband, brother, sister, child,
friend; I don’t ask for it, I don’t care for it. I make no enquiry of
the clergyman concerning the salvation of that murdered person’s soul;
_mine_ is the matter; and I am almost happy that I came here, as to the
gate of Paradise. ‘I never liked him,’ said the repentant Mr. Manning,
false of heart to the last, calling a crowbar by a milder name, to
lessen the cowardly horror of it, ‘and I beat in his skull with the
ripping chisel.’ I am going to bliss, exclaims the same authority, in
effect. Where my victim went to, is not my business at all. Now, GOD
forbid that we, unworthily believing in the Redeemer, should shut out
hope, or even humble trustfulness, from any criminal at that dread pass;
but, it is not in us to call this state of mind repentance.
The present question is with a state of mind analogous to this (as we
conceive) but with a far stronger tendency to hypocrisy; the dread of
death not being present, and there being every possible inducement,
either to feign contrition, or to set up an unreliable semblance of it.
If I, John Styles, the prisoner, don’t do my work, and outwardly conform
to the rules of the prison, I am a mere fool. There is nothing here to
tempt me to do anything else, and everything to tempt me to do that. The
capital dietary (and every meal is a great event in this lonely life)
depends upon it; the alternative is a pound of bread a day. I should be
weary of myself without occupation. I should be much more dull if I
didn’t hold these dialogues with the gentlemen who are so anxious about
me. I shouldn’t be half the object of interest I am, if I didn’t make
the professions I do. Therefore, I John Styles go in for what is popular
here, and I may mean it, or I may not.
There will always, under any decent system, be certain prisoners,
betrayed into crime by a variety of circumstances, who will do well in
exile, and offend against the laws no more. Upon this class, we think
the Associated Silent System would have quite as good an influence as
this expensive and anomalous one; and we cannot accept them as evidence
of the efficiency of separate confinement. Assuming John Styles to mean
what he professes, for the time being, we desire to track the workings
of his mind, and to try to test the value of his professions. Where
shall we find an account of John Styles, proceeding from no objector to
this system, but from a staunch supporter of it? We will take it from a
work called ‘Prison Discipline, and the advantages of the separate
system of imprisonment,’ written by the Reverend Mr. Field, chaplain of
the new County Gaol at Reading; pointing out to Mr. Field, in passing,
that the question is not justly, as he would sometimes make it, a
question between this system and the profligate abuses and customs of
the old unreformed gaols, but between it and the improved gaols of this
time, which are not constructed on his favourite principles.[1]
Footnote 1:
As Mr. Field condescends to quote some vapouring about the account
given by Mr. Charles Dickens in his ‘American Notes,’ of the Solitary
Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really wish for some few words
of information on the subject. For this purpose, Mr. Charles Dickens
has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at the close of that day.
He left his hotel for the Prison at twelve o’clock, being waited on,
by appointment, by the gentleman who showed it to him; and he returned
between seven and eight at night; dining in the prison in the course
of that time; which, according to his calculation, in despite of the
Philadelphia Newspaper, rather exceeds two hours. He found the Prison
admirably conducted, extremely clean, and the system administered in a
most intelligent, kind, orderly, tender, and careful manner. He did
not consider (nor should he, if he were to visit Pentonville
to-morrow) that the book in which visitors were expected to record
their observation of the place, was intended for the insertion of
criticisms on the system, but for honest testimony to the manner of
its administration; and to that, he bore, as an impartial visitor, the
highest testimony in his power. In returning thanks for his health
being drunk, at the dinner within the walls, he said that what he had
seen that day was running in his mind; that he could not help
reflecting on it; and that it was an awful punishment. If the American
officer who rode back with him afterwards should ever see these words,
he will perhaps recall his conversation with Mr. Dickens on the road,
as to Mr. Dickens having said so, very plainly and strongly. In
reference to the ridiculous assertion that Mr. Dickens in his book
termed a woman ‘quite beautiful’ who was a Negress, he positively
believes that he was shown no Negress in the Prison, but one who was
nursing a woman much diseased, and to whom no reference whatever is
made in his published account. In describing three young women, ‘all
convicted at the same time of a conspiracy,’ he may, _possibly_, among
many cases, have substituted in his memory for one of them whom he did
not see, some other prisoner, confined for some other crime, whom he
did see; but he has not the least doubt of having been guilty of the
(American) enormity of detecting beauty in a pensive quadroon or
mulatto girl, or of having seen exactly what he describes; and he
remembers the girl more particularly described in this connexion,
perfectly. Can Mr. Field really suppose that Mr. Dickens had any
interest or purpose in misrepresenting the system, or that if he could
be guilty of such unworthy conduct, or desire to do it anything but
justice, he would have volunteered the narrative of a man’s having, of
his own choice, undergone it for two years?
We will not notice the objection of Mr. Field (who strengthens the
truth of Burns to nature, by the testimony of Mr. Pitt!) to the
discussion of such a topic as the present in a work of ‘mere
amusement;’ though, we had thought we remembered in that book a word
or two about slavery, which, although a very amusing, can scarcely be
considered an unmitigatedly comic theme. We are quite content to
believe, without seeking to make a convert of the Reverend Mr. Field,
that no work need be one of ‘mere amusement;’ and that some works to
which he would apply that designation have done a little good in
advancing principles to which, we hope, and will believe, for the
credit of his Christian office, he is not indifferent.
Now, here is John Styles, twenty years of age, in prison for a felony.
He has been there five months, and he writes to his sister, ‘Don’t fret
my dear sister, about my being here. I cannot help fretting when I think
about my usage to my father and mother: when I think about it, it makes
me quite ill. I hope God will forgive me; I pray for it night and day
from my heart. Instead of fretting about imprisonment, I ought to thank
God for it, for before I came here, I was living quite a careless life;
neither was God in all my thoughts; all I thought about was ways that
led me towards destruction. Give my respects to my wretched companions,
and I hope they will alter their wicked course, for they don’t know for
a day nor an hour but what they may be cut off. I have seen my folly,
and I hope they may see their folly; but I shouldn’t if I had not been
in trouble. It is good for me that I have been in trouble. Go to church,
my sister, every Sunday, and don’t give your mind to going to playhouses
and theatres, for that is no good to you. There are a great many
temptations.’
Observe! John Styles, who has committed the felony has been ‘living
quite a careless life.’ That is his worst opinion of it, whereas his
companions who did not commit the felony are ‘wretched companions.’ John
saw _his_ ‘folly,’ and sees _their_ ‘wicked course.’ It is playhouses
and theatres which many unfelonious people go to, that prey upon John’s
mind—not felony. John is shut up in that pulpit to lecture his
companions and his sister, about the wickedness of the unfelonious
world. Always supposing him to be sincere, is there no exaggeration of
himself in this? Go to church where I can go, and don’t go to theatres
where I can’t! Is there any tinge of the fox and the grapes in it? Is
this the kind of penitence that will wear outside! Put the case that he
had written, of his own mind, ‘My dear sister, I feel that I have
disgraced you and all who should be dear to me, and if it please God
that I live to be free, I will try hard to repair that, and to be a
credit to you. My dear sister, when I committed this felony, I stole
something—and these pining five months have not put it back—and I will
work my fingers to the bone to make restitution, and oh! my dear sister,
seek out my late companions, and tell Tom Jones, that poor boy, who was
younger and littler than me, that I am grieved I ever led him so wrong,
and I am suffering for it now!’ Would that be better? Would it be more
like solid truth?
But no. This is not the pattern penitence. There would seem to be a
pattern penitence, of a particular form, shape, limits, and dimensions,
like the cells. While Mr. Field is correcting his proof-sheets for the
press, another letter is brought to him, and in that letter too, that
man, also a felon, speaks of his ‘past folly,’ and lectures his mother
about labouring under ‘strong delusions of the devil.’ Does this
overweening readiness to lecture other people, suggest the suspicion of
any parrot-like imitation of Mr. Field, who lectures him, and any
presumptuous confounding of their relative positions?
We venture altogether to protest against the citation, in support of
this system, of assumed repentance which has stood no test or trial in
the working world. We consider that it proves nothing, and is worth
nothing, except as a discouraging sign of that spiritual egotism and
presumption of which we have already spoken. It is not peculiar to the
separate system at Reading; Miss Martineau, who was on the whole
decidedly favourable to the separate prison at Philadelphia, observed it
there. ‘The cases I became acquainted with,’ says she, ‘were not all
hopeful. Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon,
more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (always in connexion
with their cant) so certain that they should never sin more, that I have
every expectation that they will find themselves in prison again some
day. One fellow, a sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than
probably any man in the United States, was quite confident that he
should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never touch anything
stronger than tea, or lift his hand against money or life. I told him I
thought he could not be sure of all this till he was within sight of
money and the smell of strong liquors; and that he was more confident
than I should like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and
glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all about it. He
had been the worst of men, and Christ had had mercy on his poor soul.’
(Observe again, as in the general case we have put, that he is not at
all troubled about the souls of the people whom he had killed.)
Let us submit to our readers another instance from Mr. Field, of the
wholesome state of mind produced by the separate system. ‘The 25th of
March, in the last year, was the day appointed for a general fast, on
account of the threatened famine. The following note is in my journal of
that day. “During the evening I visited many prisoners, and found with
much satisfaction that a large proportion of them had observed the day
in a manner becoming their own situation, and the purpose for which it
had been set apart. I think it right to record the following remarkable
proof of the effect of discipline. * * * * * They were all supplied with
their usual rations. I went first this evening to the cells of the
prisoners recently committed for trial (Ward A. 1.), and amongst these
(upwards of twenty) I found that but three had abstained from any
portion of their food. I then visited twenty-one convicted prisoners who
had spent some considerable time in the gaol (Ward C. 1.), and amongst
them I found that some had altogether abstained from food, and of the
whole number two-thirds had partially abstained.”’ We will take it for
granted that this was not because they had more than they could eat,
though we know that with such a dietary even that sometimes happens,
especially in the case of persons long confined. ‘The remark of one
prisoner whom I questioned concerning his abstinence was, I believe,
sincere, and was very pleasing. “Sir, I have not felt able to eat
to-day, whilst I have thought of those poor starving people; but I hope
that I have prayed a good deal that God will give _them_ something to
eat.”’
If this were not pattern penitence, and the thought of those poor
starving people had honestly originated with that man, and were really
on his mind, we want to know why he was not uneasy, every day, in the
contemplation of his soup, meat, bread, potatoes, cocoa-nibs, milk,
molasses, and gruel, and its contrast to the fare of ‘those poor
starving people’ who, in some form or other, were taxed to pay for it?
We do not deem it necessary to comment on the authorities quoted by Mr.
Field to show what a fine thing the separate system is, for the health
of the body; how it never affects the mind except for good; how it is
the true preventive of pulmonary disease; and so on. The deduction we
must draw from such things is, that Providence was quite mistaken in
making us gregarious, and that we had better all shut ourselves up
directly. Neither will we refer to that ‘talented criminal,’ Dr. Dodd,
whose exceedingly indifferent verses applied to a system now extinct, in
reference to our penitentiaries for convicted prisoners. Neither, after
what we have quoted from Lord Grey, need we refer to the likewise quoted
report of the American authorities, who are perfectly sure that no
extent of confinement in the Philadelphia prison has ever affected the
intellectual powers of any prisoner. Mr. Croker cogently observes, in
the Good-Natured Man, that either his hat must be on his head, or it
must be off. By a parity of reasoning, we conclude that both Lord Grey
and the American authorities cannot possibly be right—unless indeed the
notoriously settled habits of the American people, and the absence of
any approach to restlessness in the national character, render them
unusually good subjects for protracted seclusion, and an exception from
the rest of mankind.
In using the term ‘pattern penitence’ we beg it to be understood that we
do not apply it to Mr. Field, or to any other chaplain, but to the
system; which appears to us to make these doubtful converts all alike.
Although Mr. Field has not shown any remarkable courtesy in the instance
we have set forth in a note, it is our wish to show all courtesy to him,
and to his office, and to his sincerity in the discharge of its duties.
In our desire to represent him with fairness and impartiality, we will
not take leave of him without the following quotation from his book:
‘Scarcely sufficient time has yet expired since the present system was
introduced, for me to report much concerning discharged criminals. Out
of a class so degraded—the very dregs of the community—it can be no
wonder that some, of whose improvement I cherished the hope, should have
relapsed. Disappointed in a few cases I have been, yet by no means
discouraged, since I can with pleasure refer to many whose conduct is
affording proof of reformation. Gratifying indeed have been some
accounts received from liberated offenders themselves, as well as from
clergymen of parishes to which they have returned. I have also myself
visited the homes of some of our former prisoners, and have been cheered
by the testimony given, and the evident signs of improved character
which I have there observed. Although I do not venture at present to
describe the particular cases of prisoners, concerning whose reformation
I feel much confidence, because, as I have stated, the time of trial has
hitherto been short; yet I can with pleasure refer to some public
documents which prove the happy effects of similar discipline in other
establishments.’
It should also be stated that the Reverend Mr. Kingsmill, the chaplain
of the Model Prison at Pentonville, in his calm and intelligent report
made to the Commissioners on the first of February, 1849, expresses his
belief ‘that the effects produced here upon the character of prisoners,
have been encouraging in a high degree.’
But, we entreat our readers once again to look at that Model Prison
dietary (which is essential to the system, though the system is so very
healthy of itself); to remember the other enormous expenses of the
establishment; to consider the circumstances of this old country, with
the inevitable anomalies and contrasts it must present; and to decide,
on temperate reflection, whether there are any sufficient reasons for
adding this monstrous contrast to the rest. Let us impress upon our
readers that the existing question is, not between this system and the
old abuses of the old profligate Gaols (with which, thank Heaven, we
have nothing to do), but between this system and the associated silent
system, where the dietary is much lower, where the annual cost of
provision, management, repairs, clothing, &c., does not exceed, on a
liberal average, £25 for each prisoner; where many prisoners are, and
every prisoner would be (if due accommodation were provided in some
over-crowded prisons), locked up alone, for twelve hours out of every
twenty-four, and where, while preserved from contamination, he is still
one of a society of men, and not an isolated being, filling his whole
sphere of view with a diseased dilation of himself. We hear that the
associated silent system is objectionable, because of the number of
punishments it involves for breaches of the prison discipline; but how
can we, in the same breath, be told that the resolutions of prisoners
for the misty future are to be trusted, and that, on the least
temptation, they are so little to be relied on, as to the solid present?
How can I set the pattern penitence against the career that preceded it,
when I am told that if I put that man with other men, and lay a solemn
charge upon him not to address them by word or sign, there are such and
such great chances that he will want the resolution to obey?
Remember that this separate system, though commended in the English
Parliament and spreading in England, has not spread in America, despite
of all the steeple-chase riders in the United States. Remember that it
has never reached the State most distinguished for its learning, for its
moderation, for its remarkable men of European reputation, for the
excellence of its public Institutions. Let it be tried here, on a
limited scale, if you will, with fair representatives of all classes of
prisoners: let Captain Macconnochie’s system be tried: let anything with
a ray of hope in it be tried: but, only as a part of some general system
for raising up the prostrate portion of the people of this country, and
not as an exhibition of such astonishing consideration for crime, in
comparison with want and work. Any prison built, at a great expenditure,
for this system, is comparatively useless for any other; and the
ratepayers will do well to think of this, before they take it for
granted that it is a proved boon to the country which will be enduring.
Under the separate system, the prisoners work at trades. Under the
associated silent system, the Magistrates of Middlesex have almost
abolished the treadmill. Is it no part of the legitimate consideration
of this important point of work, to discover what kind of work the
people always filtering through the gaols of large towns—the pickpocket,
the sturdy vagrant, the habitual drunkard, and the begging-letter
impostor—like least, and to give them that work to do in preference to
any other? It is out of fashion with the steeple-chase riders we know;
but we would have, for all such characters, a kind of work in gaols,
badged and degraded as belonging to gaols only, and never done
elsewhere. And we must avow that, in a country circumstanced as England
is, with respect to labour and labourers, we have strong doubts of the
propriety of bringing the results of prison labour into the over-stocked
market. On this subject some public remonstrances have recently been
made by tradesmen; and we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they are
well-founded.
A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES.
An alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of
the parish of St. Wulfstan’s in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might
have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of
worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being
an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all
things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with
profound veneration to the griffins which formed the water-spouts of St.
Wulfstan’s Church, and he almost worshipped an old boot under the name
of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a forsworn broker, he had
bought for a drinking vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop
even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their
furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and
ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had
petitioned Parliament against every just or merciful change, which,
since he had arrived at man’s estate, had been made in the laws. He had
successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, waterworks,
infant schools, mechanics’ institute, and library. He had been active in
an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public
health, and, being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was
instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery
outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing
the pig-market from the middle of the High Street. Through his influence
the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to
remain where they were; namely, close to the Town Hall, and immediately
under his own and his brethren’s noses. In short, he had regularly,
consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was
proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this
conduct, he was highly esteemed and respected, and, indeed, his
hostility to any interference with disease, had procured him the honour
of a public testimonial;—shortly after the presentation of which, with
several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.
The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop’s views on the subject of public
health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though
they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the
ratepayers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances
and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist.
Moreover, he was a jovial fellow,—a boon companion; and his love of
antiquity leant particularly towards old ale and old port wine. Of both
of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a
visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his
clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the
deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr.
Blenkinsop.
He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk
exactly in a right line, it may be allowable, perhaps, to say that he
bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High Street,
awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below,
singing, not very distinctly,
‘With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,’
were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman
Blenkinsop, for their serenade.
In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine mediæval structure,
supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served
as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the
effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once Mayor of Beetlebury, and a great
benefactor to the town; in which he had founded almshouses and a grammar
school, A.D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St. Wulfstan; but
De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell’s time, and
promoted to the vacant pedestal, _vice_ Wulfstan, demolished. Mr.
Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to take a
view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it seemed almost
life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he could well
nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his bonnet,
beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm. So
vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophise the
statue.
‘Fine old fellow!’ said Mr. Blenkinsop. ‘Rare old buck! We shall never
look upon your like, again. Ah! the good old times—the jolly good old
times! No times like the good old times—my ancient worthy. No such times
as the good old times!’
‘And pray, Sir, what times do you call the good old times?’ in distinct
and deliberate accents, answered—according to the positive affirmation
of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses—the Statue.
Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his
senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any
other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question
between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale,
simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.
When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly
experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of
consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue’s
voice was quite mild and gentle—not in the least grim—had no funereal
twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be
expected to take by anybody who had derived his notions on that subject
from having heard the representative of the class in ‘Don Giovanni.’
‘Well; what times do you mean by the good old times?’ repeated the
Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some
composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken him
a little by surprise.
‘Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop,’ said the Statue, ‘don’t be astonished.
’Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favourite police,
the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don’t you know that we statues
are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I
will help you to answer my own question. Let us go back step by step;
and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean
the reign of George the Third?’
‘The last of them, Sir,’ replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, ‘I
am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days.’
‘I should hope so,’ the Statue replied. ‘Those the good old times? What!
Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for
paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with her
child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When
you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France,
which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you
saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good
old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?’
‘Not exactly, Sir; no: on reflection I don’t know that I can,’ answered
Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now—it was such a civil, well-spoken statue—lost
all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and scratched
his head just as if he had been posed in argument by an ordinary mortal.
‘Well then,’ resumed the Statue, ‘my dear Sir, shall we take the two or
three reigns preceding. What think you of the then existing state of
prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined
indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery
unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned
cell with the Ordinary for their pot companion. Flogging, a common
punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when
London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk
of being hustled and robbed even in the day-time? When not only Hounslow
and Bagshot Heath, but the public roads swarmed with robbers, and a
stage-coach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When, indeed,
“the road” was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman in
difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called “Captain”—if not
respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and
bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of
the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time
between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duellist was a hero, and it was
an honour to have “killed your man.” When a gentleman could hardly open
his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country
was continually in peril of civil war through a disputed succession; and
two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions,
actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage,
brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it,
Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as
constituting the good old times, respected friend?’
‘There was Queen Anne’s golden reign, Sir,’ deferentially suggested Mr.
Blenkinsop.
‘A golden reign!’ exclaimed the Statue. ‘A reign of favouritism and
court trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of
Bolingbroke’s, and Harley’s, and Churchill’s intrigues. The reign of
Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and of Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick!
I imagine you must go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr.
Blenkinsop.’
‘Well,’ answered the churchwarden, ‘I suppose I must, Sir, after what
you say.’
‘Take William the Third’s rule,’ pursued the Statue. ‘War, war again;
nothing but war. I don’t think you’ll particularly call these the good
old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were
they the good old times when Judge Jefferies sat on the bench? When
Monmouth’s rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize—When the King
tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in
consequence—Does your worship fancy that these were the good old times?’
Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they
were.
‘Were Charles the Second’s the good old times?’ demanded the Statue.
‘With a court full of riot and debauchery—a palace much less decent than
any modern casino—whilst Scotch Covenanters were having their legs
crushed in the “Boots,” under the auspices and personal superintendence
of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe,
and Dangerfield, and their sham-plots, with the hangings, drawings, and
quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and
Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the Great Plague and Fire
of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while
sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the
Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I
think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the “Merry
Monarch” the good old times.’
‘I feel the difficulty which you suggest, Sir,’ owned Mr. Blenkinsop.
‘Now, that a man of your loyalty,’ pursued the Statue, ‘should identify
the good old times with Cromwell’s Protectorate, is of course out of the
question.’
‘Decidedly, Sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. ‘_He_ shall not have a
statue, though you enjoy that honour,’ bowing.