THE VISITING JUSTICES.
SOMETHING was indeed up; a letter, in fact, that I had clandestinely
written had been intercepted. Personally I was indifferent to the
result; the worst had been done to me when I found myself in prison.
Degrees of punishment had no terrors for me, and I was equally callous as
to whether employed in a “situation of trust” or languishing in a
punishment cell. To me all appeared tarred with the same brush, and I
loathed the privileges and punishments, the indulgences and deprivations,
the spiritual comforts, and every other contingency with the same
intensity. As regards the turnkey, however, my sympathy was enlisted.
Here was a poor man, with a wife and family, liable to dismissal, and
even imprisonment, if convicted of carrying letters. At the time I was
at a loss to understand how the traffic could possibly have been
discovered. I was confident I had not been observed writing, and had
seen the letters securely secreted in the warder’s pouch. Unless, then,
he had been guilty of some indiscretion, the discovery seemed impossible.
Such a contingency as foul play from without never entered my head, and
yet, alas, such a thing had actually occurred. A servant in the family
of one of my correspondents had lately been detected in a series of
systematic thefts from her employers, extending over many months. The
discovery naturally involved her immediate dismissal, and by way of
gratitude for their refraining from prosecuting her, she purloined my
letter, and assuming a position of authority, called at the prison and
produced the document. Her motive was clearly revenge, but the truth (as
it always does) eventually came out, and the mystery that shrouded the
transaction for months has happily been dispelled, and the temporary
doubt (almost excusable) that associated the act with very dear friends
has given way to a regret that I could ever have doubted their honour.
As to the thieving, sneaking wretch, she decamped with her spoils; and
though her photograph has been freely distributed in the “three ball”
quarter, she has hitherto evaded discovery. For my part I would gladly
subscribe a trifle for the present address of Mrs. Smith. With the
mystery that surrounded everything that occurred in the place, I tried in
vain to ascertain whether anything had really been discovered, but day
after day passed, and the affair had apparently blown over. This,
however, was an erroneous impression; it was only the lull that precedes
the storm, and not a stone was being left unturned to sift the matter.
The turnkey, at the time only suspected of complicity in the matter, was
carefully watched. When he left of an evening his every footstep was
dogged, and a nightly report of his rambles duly made. A letter, too,
that he foolishly posted in a neighbouring pillar-box pointed indirectly
to his connivance, and subsequent inquiries at the district receiving
office made matters possibly clearer. A close relationship exists
between such Government institutions as post-offices, prisons, and
police-stations, which affords greater facilities to constituted
authorities for unearthing mysteries than to ordinary mortals. I was
ignorant in those days of this affinity, and an easy prey to such
trumpery contingencies; but I eventually reduced the trafficking to a
science impossible of detection, and unfailing in its results. Can it be
wondered at—surrounded as one is by underpaid officials, who begin at
twenty-one shillings and twenty-three shillings a week, with a gradual
increase, after years of toil, to a possible twenty-eight shillings, and
with a prospect, after twenty years’ service, of receiving a pension of
ten shillings a week—can it be wondered at, I ask, that these worthy men
are unable to resist a bribe? I should regret to have to prove my words,
but if I was in the position again, I think I could undertake to be in
daily communication with the outer world, despite bolts and bars and the
“special” observation I was always subject to. This is no idle boast, as
subsequent events will prove; and the authorities have only themselves to
thank for exercising no discretionary power in their treatment of
prisoners, when the facts I mention prove conclusively that a great
difference does exist and always will between the vagrant and the
gentleman, even in prison, in more ways than one. The underpaid turnkey
is still more unfairly handicapped, and it resolves itself into his
choosing between my £5 and the Government £1. What more natural than
that he should elect the former, when the most ordinary precaution will
guard against detection. I don’t think the authorities ought to begrudge
the so-called gentleman this solitary advantage. No one can deny that
six months to a man of education is an infinitely severer trial than
eighteen to a costermonger. The one has to battle with the mind,
conscience, remorse, shattered prospects, loss of caste, a blighted
future, food, clothing, surroundings, all inferior to what he has been
accustomed to; to submit, moreover, to be addressed by inferiors in a
tone of authority, besides a hundred-and-one other humiliations
impossible to remember: the other finds himself amongst friends, loses
nothing by his incarceration, is better clothed, fed, and housed than if
he were at home, and, in the case of an artizan, reverts to his every-day
employment; and yet this is seldom taken into consideration, and justice
is ladled out to gentleman and vagrant alike. I cannot assert this as my
own experience, for justice was indeed tempered with mercy to me, and I
am fully sensible of the consideration I received, both at my trial and
hereafter. Under ordinary circumstances one would be accused of
ingratitude for breaking rules and deceiving those in authority who had
treated one well, but I never took this personal view of it. I was
fighting a system that I despised, not individuals that I respected. So
I looked on it as a game of “brag,” a kind of “French and English,” a
question of bolts and bars _versus_ brains, where the latter had
apparently the worst of it, where undue importance was attached to
watching and spying, and nothing left to one’s parole. About a week
after my transfer (I was now in the needlework ward, and being initiated
into the mysteries of darning stockings) I received a summons to appear
before the Governor. I knew now that the letter-writing had been
discovered, or, as my friend the turnkey had expressed it, “Summat was
up.” He told me, in a few words, that it had come to his knowledge that
I had been sending out clandestine letters, and requested me to inform
him if that was the case, and who had been my channel of communication,
adding that he was prepared to take down any statements I might feel
disposed to make. The idea of denying it never entered my head—I was
perfectly indifferent as to what might happen; I thereupon informed him
that I had written, as he alleged, three letters, and that I was quite
prepared to bear the consequences. I, however, respectfully declined to
give him any information as to my _employé_. I was then requested to
wait outside, and the order was given to send for Mr. B—. “Well,” I
thought, “if poor old B— tells them as much as I have he need not fear
being identified as my brother conspirator.” A moment later, and I was
recalled: a glance at the unhappy B— convinced me that fear had robbed
him of his self-possession, and that he had not observed the salutary
advice he had given me as to “telling ’em nothink.” His face was the
colour of a boiled turkey, and the keys at his side (a sorry burlesque on
authority) were rattling from tremour. The Governor then said, “Mr. B—
has admitted that he took a letter for you, so I presume you have now no
objection to admit it.” In courtesy to the nervous donkey I asked him if
that was correct, and on his replying in the affirmative, I at once made
a clean breast of it. The poor man was thereupon suspended from duty,
and a week later summarily dismissed. I tried to make him every
reparation in my power, and shortly after I procured him a billet at
thirty shillings a week, but when I sent to his lodgings I found he had
left. I heard afterwards he had gone into the country, where I hope by
this time he has recovered his position. My case had yet to be dealt
with, and as the Governor was not qualified to adjudicate on such a
serious offence as this is considered, I was remanded to appear before
the Visiting Justices. I heard terrible rumours of these avenging
Solons, and of the floggings, solitary confinements, and other
barbarities that followed in the wake of their fortnightly visits, and
was prepared—but perfectly indifferent—for the worst. My information for
the most part was derived from brother malefactors, and consequently
likely to be considerably exaggerated. I found, indeed, that this was
the case, and when the eventful day—Black Wednesday—arrived, I discovered
that the dreaded justices were a full bench of Middlesex magistrates, my
old friends who had smashed, pulverized, and otherwise annihilated
Barnabas Amos on my representations, and who I hoped and believed were
gentlemen capable of weighing the pros and cons of my peculiar case. My
expectations were more than verified. The punishment cells, as I had had
them described, and of which I hereafter got a bird’s-eye view—_from
outside_—were not inviting abodes. There are twelve of them, fitted with
double doors, warranted to preclude all sound from penetrating beyond.
They contain no furniture, except a plank and a stool, both fixed to the
floor, and the two blankets and rug that constitute the entire bed and
bedding are issued every night and removed every morning. Water is
supplied three times a day, and the food is stirabout and dry bread,
administered on homoeopathic principles. Books there are none—indeed,
the subdued light would make them superfluous; the occupants, moreover,
have no employment, the distraction of oakum-picking even being
fiendishly denied them. Men who had undergone this punishment told me
that the effect was indescribable, this combination of gloom, idleness,
and profound silence, and their wasted appearance after a fortnight’s
incarceration fully confirmed their assertions. The penalty, as I was
credibly informed, for sending a letter out was ten days at least in the
punishment cells; and a preliminary I underwent of being carefully
weighed on the morning of the eventful day raised the betting in my
estimation to six to four on the cells. A kind friend expressed great
sympathy for me, but feared I must make up my mind to this degrading
punishment. But he was wrong; the weighing was superfluous, and I got
off with a reprimand.
The Middlesex magistrates having heard the case, which was put before
them in the kindest light by the Governor, and taking into consideration
the dastardly act, whereby the offence was in a measure discovered,
informed me through the chairman that they knew my position and were
sorry for it, pointed out the gravity of my offence, and finished with an
admonition—a treatment that only gentlemen could have accorded to such as
I. This generosity induced me to register a mental vow that I would not
abuse their kindness. I felt indeed as if I were on my parole; but the
foolish act of an illiterate jailor—instigated, I suspect, by a
vindictive snob—a few days after, armed with the authority, but incapable
of discriminating between the treatment most likely to be deterrent to a
man like myself and that desirable with a costermonger, turned me from my
good resolutions. I saw it was a question of the “best man wins,” that
confidence was a thing that never entered their heads, and that I had
nothing to gain by passive submission. For the first and only time in my
career I felt insulted, and determined henceforth to double my
precautions, to evade every regulation, and to lose no opportunity of
bribing everything and everybody with whom I came in contact. The act
that decided me in this course was being formally searched. A few days
after my admonition I was unexpectedly visited by two warders, and
ordered to change everything I had on for a fresh supply, which they
brought in. Meanwhile my cell was turned upside down. The salt was
capsized into the plate; my bed minutely examined; the table and stool
tapped and shaken; and matches struck and poked down the ventilators; and
when they discovered I had neither pencil nor paper, I was left to
readjust my apartment. As I said to them at the time, nobody in his
senses would have supposed that a man who had so lately escaped a severe
punishment would be such a fool as to incur the risk of possessing
contraband articles. As a fact, I had got rid of all my combustibles a
few days before; and if any of the officials can remember a stoppage in a
certain drain about that time, they can make a pretty shrewd guess at
what became of them. The above incident may, I hope, attract the notice
of someone in authority, and be the means of giving a discretionary power
to governors of prisons as regards the treatment of a certain class of
prisoners. Sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander, and
it’s for the authorities to decide whether certain results cannot be
attained by tact that can never be assured by brutality.