“JUSTICE TEMPERED WITH MERCY.”
I HAD now been many months in hospital, though all the care and kindness
I received seemed incapable of improving my condition. Strengthening
medicines, stimulants, tonics, all failed to rouse me, and the tempting
food, that I had only to suggest to have provided, could not induce me to
eat. I was subjected to a minute medical examination, and my lung was
found to be affected. Later on a further examination proved that the
malady was slowly progressing. To remain in prison was certain death, so
my case was submitted to the Home Secretary, who, with the humanity that
has characterised his tenure of office, ordered my immediate discharge.
I shall never forget the morning when an impulsive turnkey rushed into my
room, and saying, “It’s come!” hurriedly disappeared, and I understood
that her Majesty’s gracious pardon had arrived, and I was free.
The preliminaries for departure were somewhat long in my case, and it was
nearly eleven o’clock before I bade adieu to gloomy Clerkenwell. I had,
however, been by no means idle. The resumption of my clothing was a
matter of time and difficulty; and though they had, by the kindness of
the Governor, been considerably taken in to suit my diminished
proportions (eighteen inches in the girth and seven stone in weight),
retained a hang-down appearance in the vicinity of the neck and
shoulders, that involved an immense expenditure of pins and ingenuity.
The clothes of prisoners after admission into prison are, as a rule,
subjected to a very necessary process. I do not know whether any
discretionary power exists as to dispensing with the rule in certain
cases, but it seemed incredible that mine should have undergone the usual
formula without retaining a vestige of the fact. Clothes are, however,
subjected to a process of modified cremation, and placed in airtight
lockers, and smoked in a phosphoric preparation supposed to be
antagonistic to the respiratory organs of creeping things. But the smell
of fire had not passed over mine, and I can only suppose that the
ceremony had been dispensed with as a graceful compliment to the
executors of my deceased tailor, whose representative I last met at the
“House of Detention.” My hat, too, had either considerably expanded, or
my head had considerably contracted, for it necessitated at least a yard
of brown paper between the brim and my cranium, before being padded to
wearable dimensions.
As I passed through the office, I caught the first glimpse of myself in a
respectably-sized looking-glass, and could hardly believe that the
scarecrow I saw was really myself. But what mattered it if I had half a
lung more or less than of yore?—I was free! I was not going to die in
prison, and contribute in my person an additional item to the dead-house
inventory board.
With what different sensations did I again find myself in the office
which I had not entered since my arrival some months before. It seemed
as if all the formula would never be completed, and I would almost have
foregone the handsome donation of ten shillings I had earned for laming
malefactors to have got out a moment earlier. But business is business,
and the labourer is worthy of his hire, and in a few moments I had
received a rare gold coin (at least so it appeared to me at the time),
known as half-a-sovereign. The warder that had accompanied me from the
hospital now sent for a cab, and as I drove through the ponderous gate a
load appeared to fall off my mind, and though shattered in health, as I
breathed the free air of a London fog, my lungs began to expand as they
had not done for months.
The usual hour for the jail delivery is 9 A.M., when gangs, varying from
ten to a hundred, are daily discharged. As they pass the wicket one by
one, each man is presented with a breakfast order, entitling him to an
unlimited supply of coffee and bread-and-butter at an adjoining tavern.
This kindly act takes its origin from a private source that cannot be too
highly commended, and though I failed in discovering its identity,
understand it is in no way connected with the “Prisoners’ Aid Society.”
Every detail connected with a prisoner on discharge reflects credit on
the Government. A vagrant enters prison hungry, filthy, and penniless.
He again emerges with his linen washed, his clothes fumigated, money in
his pocket, and provided with an ample breakfast. Such treatment has not
its parallel in any other country in Europe, and I cannot refrain from
offering my testimony in opposition to the usually accepted and erroneous
impression, and confidently assert that the British criminal is, if
anything, far too generously treated in every respect.
On my way I stopped at a tobacconist’s and bought the biggest cigar I
could find. It was, I believe, a good one, though for aught I knew it
might have been brown paper. My sense of taste had apparently forsaken
me, and it was days before I lost the sensation of having sucked a
halfpenny. A friend I met soon after did not at first recognise me.
“Good gracious!” he said, as he looked at my diminished circumference,
“you’re not half the size you were.” “My dear fellow,” I replied, “you
forget I’ve been lately _confined_.”
The sense of taste that had apparently forsaken me was for a time
accompanied by a loss of voice; at least it seemed so, for acting on the
force of habit, I could not bring myself to speaking above a whisper; and
a waiter at the — Hotel seemed to think he was serving a lunatic as I
asked him in a mysterious whisper for a pint of champagne. But the
events of the day were too much for my strength, and before 7 that
evening I had fainted, and was again in bed, under the care of an eminent
physician. A careful examination next day confirmed the opinion of the
prison surgeons, and I was ordered forthwith to the South of France, or
anywhere from cruel London. Door handles caused me considerable surprise
for days: they appeared, indeed, as superfluous additions that I was
totally unaccustomed to. A morbid craving for old newspapers now seized
me, and I again discovered the importance that seemed to attach itself to
my late escapades. I am happily not a vain or unreasonable being: had I
been so I might have found ample grounds for either when called upon to
pay sixpence for a _Daily Telegraph_, and one shilling for a _Truth_ at
their respective offices, for copies containing references to my case.
As it was, I merely concluded that the bump of avarice was equally
developed in the Jew and the Gentile newsvendor.
And now the time has come to close my reminiscences. To continue them
would be apt to lead me into drivel, an adjunct I have tried to avoid. I
make no attempt at justifying my work—though as a literary production it
is beneath criticism—being quite aware that many will consider my
resuscitating the past an act of bravado. In this I cannot agree with
them, for though guilty of a portion of the offence with which I was
charged, and which I unhesitatingly admitted, I am happy to know that
cruel circumstances prevented my refuting at the time a fraction of the
thousand and one lies that were laid to my charge. Not the most trivial
incident appears to have passed unnoticed, and the omission to pay for a
pennyworth of bloaters has been since transformed into a crime, and
carried, as only cowards can, to quarters most likely to injure me. And
one scurrilous society journal, notorious for its “enterprise” rather
than its “truth,” had the impudence to hint that I had made money at
cards by foul play (I who have lost a fortune by gambling); but this I
attribute to personal malice, and in return for my once publishing a
scheme of a shady nature projected by its owner. This precious
prospectus is in my possession, and at the service of any one with a
taste for the perusal of rascally documents. I had indeed intended
publishing it, but ultimately decided not to add to this volume of
horrors, on the principle that “two blacks don’t make a white.” Whether
it sees the daylight at the next general election is another affair. The
marvel is I have not been associated with the “Clapham Junction Mystery,”
or discovered to be the chief of the Russian Nihilists. These remarks
are not incapable of corroboration. The link then missing has since been
found; and more than one lawyer, and a certain high official, know the
truth; and the only deterrent to a very thorough _résumé_ of the case is
the pain it would cause to others. For my own part, I should not object,
and if any shadow of the “possibility” of the truth lurking in my
assertion is to be extracted, it may commend itself by the publicity I
have given to my experiences—a frankness not usually associated with
_unmitigated_ guilt. But after all, is it worth it? For my part, I
value the world’s patronage as much as I do its odium. I’ve tested and
accurately appraised both!
My motive, too, has been to present prison life in a truer light than I
have hitherto seen described, and, with a few trifling exceptions, and a
necessary transposition of names and places, to give the outer world an
insight into that mysterious community that lives and moves and has its
being in their very midst. The erroneous impression that exists as to
the harsh treatment of prisoners has, I trust, in a measure been removed.
To represent a prison as an elysium would be absurd. It is intended as a
deterrent, though considering the wild beasts it has to deal with, it may
be questioned whether it is not far too considerate in the matter of
food. Nor can it be denied that the rules are framed, and their
execution carried out by officials actuated as a body by humane and
honourable principles. That there are black sheep in every grade must
also be conceded, and if their responsibilities were curtailed, and in
some cases transferred, considerable advantage would, I think, ensue. A
man of education and worldly experience, circumstanced as I was, is
probably capable of forming a juster estimate of things as they really
exist than a Governor or any otherwise well-informed individual: and as
my remarks have been suggested in no spirit of acrimony, but, on the
contrary, under a sense of obligation, it is to be hoped that the seed
sown in Clerkenwell may bring forth fruit in Whitehall. That my remarks
are disinterested nobody will be foolish enough to deny, and whether
acted on or not is a matter of perfect indifference to me. At the same
time, a probe here and an inquiry there will manifest the weak points of
the “system,” and convince the highest in authority that there are more
things in a prison than are dreamt of in their philosophy. My
conclusions have been drawn in a great measure from the treatment of
others. For my own part, I often fancy my past experiences are a dream,
so difficult is it to believe that the treatment I received, and immunity
from degrading employment except in name, are compatible with
“imprisonment with hard labour.” And if even one of the many objects I
have aspired to is attained, the blank that divides the past from the
future will not have been endured in vain.