conscience _la muette_; shame is simply _la rouge_. In English slang, as
Mr. Horsley remarks, “the delicate expression ‘fingersmith’ is descriptive
of a trade which a blunt world might call that of a pickpocket. Or, again,
to get three months’ hard labour is more pleasantly described as getting
thirteen clean shirts, one being served out in prison each week. The
tread-wheel again is more politely called the everlasting staircase, or
the wheel of life, or the vertical care-grinder. Penal servitude is
dignified with the appellation of serving her Majesty for nothing, and an
attempt is even made to lighten the horror of the climax of a criminal
career by speaking of dying in a horse’s night-cap--_i.e._, a halter.” So
that while the better things of life are degraded, there is a tendency to
elevate those that truly indicate degradation.
The criminal slang of France and Italy has been studied in its
psychological bearings much more thoroughly than the English, by Mayor,
Lombroso, and others. Lombroso considers that the most marked and most
curious characteristic of criminal slang is that already noted by which a
thing is designated by its most salient qualities from the criminal point
of view. Thus the advocate becomes the _blanchisseur_ or _imbiancatore_
(washerman); the _juge d’instruction_, the _curicux_ or the _père
sondeur_; the sermon, _l’ennuyeuse_ or _tediosa_; the purse is _la santa_;
the court, _la juste_. “The guillotine,” remarks M. Joly, “is designated
without imprecation, without contempt, without hatred, but with a wealth
of expressions and with a resignation, one might almost say a fatalistic
humour, which is not reassuring for them--or for others. The executioner
himself is called the _juge de la paix_.”
_Etrangler un perroquet_ is to drink a glass of absinth, the allusion
being to the colour (green), and also, it is said, to the sensation in
swallowing the absinth, and to other minute points. A prostitute is the
_hôtel du besoin_, a _Louis-quinze_, and also the _bourre-de-soie_, in
allusion, it is said, to murmured offers and a silk dress; the brothel is
_le cloaque_. In Venetian slang a promise is called a shadow. In Bavarian
cant a playing card is _karzerweg_--the road to prison.
Very strange, remote, and bizarre are some of these slang synonyms, full
of coarse ironies and jests. _Paradouze = paradis_ (_douze_ instead of
_dise_); _saucisse = moi_ (by way of _moi-s-aussi_); _crottard =
trottoir_; _blanchir du foie_ = to intend betrayal (play on _foi_);
_perdreau = pederaste_ (_pedro-pédero_); _herbe sainte = absinthe_; _être
dans l’infanterie_ = to be pregnant (_enfanter_); _moulin à vent =
derrière_; _pape = verre de rhum_ (_Rome_); _veronique = lanterne_
(_verre_); _vert-de-gris = absinthe_ (play on _vert_ and _verre_, with
allusion to its deleterious properties); _demoiselle du Pont-neuf_ (that
all may go over) = prostitute; _apaier_ = to assassinate; _boire dans la
grande tasse_ = to drown oneself; a knife is a _lingre_ (from Langres, the
French Sheffield); the _souteneur_ (a prostitute’s bully) is called by the
English word _fish_, or some similar name (_poisson_, _goujon_,
_baraillon_, _maquereau_); the prostitute is called _morue_, and _Banc de
Terre-Neuve_ is applied to that portion of the Parisian boulevards lying
between the Madeleine and the Porte Saint-Denis.
Sometimes the slang of criminals, like that of the rest of the world,
commemorates an historical fact. To dethrone in France is _juilletiser_.
The sun is _le grand Jablo_, Jablochoff’s electric lamps having been the
first used to illuminate Paris. A _coup de Raguse_ is a defection, in
allusion to the Duke of Ragusa. In Italy a drunkard is called a Frenchman,
a beggar a Spaniard, a card-sharper a Greek. In Spain a thief is called a
_Murcio_, from the province of Murcia.
Words are frequently abbreviated. As examples, Lombroso mentions _tra =
travail_; _ces mess = ces Messieurs_ = the police; _chand = marchand_;
_lubre = lugubre_; _abs = absinthe_; _avoir ses aff = avoir ses affaires_
(_menstrues_); _mac = maquereau = souteneur_, of a prostitute.
Very curious are the large number of foreign words, in more or less
corrupted form generally, which are to be found in criminal slang. In the
German cant Hebrew words are numerous; German and French in Italian;
German and English in French; Italian and Romany in English. “Hebrew, or
rather Yiddish,” Lombroso observes, “supplies the half of Dutch slang, and
nearly a fourth of German, in which I counted 156 out of 700, and in which
all the terms for various crimes (except _band-spicler_ for a cheater at
dice) are Jewish.” The presence of archaisms, classical and mediæval, is
also curious.
It is more interesting to find a revelation of the things in which the
criminal is most intimately interested by noting the wealth and variety of
synonyms for certain words. Thus Cougnet and Righini found 17 words for
warders or police; 9 for the act of sodomy; 7 for plunder. French cant has
44 synonyms for drunkenness, besides 20 for drinking, and 8 for wine, in
all 72; while there are only 19 for water and 36 for money.
This slang is largely of ephemeral life, but a considerable proportion is
permanent. Its tendency is, however, to die out. The modern
professional criminal avoids slang as he avoids tattooing.
[Illustration: PLATE XIII.]
§ 8. _Prison Inscriptions._
Whenever the average human being is secluded for any considerable length
of time from his fellows, he experiences the need of embodying some
literary or artistic expression of himself. This instinct seems to be
deeper and more wide-spread than that which induces some people to leave
their names or other sign manual--the frothiest efflorescence of vain
moments--on the places they visit. There is no vanity here, and it is an
instinct from which no individual, whatever his degree of culture, is
exempt; it is indeed scarcely distinguishable from the instinct which
leads to the production of heroic works of art. The expression must vary
with the individual. I knew a room, the residence of a long succession of
medical students during certain weeks of seclusion involved by hospital
duty, of which the walls were covered by inscriptions, humorous or broadly
witty, cleverly artistic sketches, happy lines from the classics. Each
person’s inscription is after his kind: Mgr. Darboy, the Archbishop of
Paris, writes in the form of a cross, “O crux, mentis robur, ave;” Bill
Sykes at Clerkenwell writes, “Lads, your only friend here is your brown
lofe and pint of thick.”
In general, it seems, the lower the order of culture the more complete and
trustworthy is the inscription as an expression of individual
peculiarities. “The child loves to speak to himself,” as Dr. Corre
remarks; “the negro, and especially the negress, think aloud; and if from
restraint or distrust the criminal keeps silent his most intimate
thoughts, he feels himself compelled to fix them wherever he may find
himself, on the walls of his prison, or on the books that are lent to him.
It is for himself, for himself alone, that he writes what he cannot or
dare not say, and these revelations are very curious for the
psychologist.” His desires and lusts, his aspirations, his coarse satires
and imprecations, his bitter reflections, his judgments of life, are all
recorded in these prison inscriptions on whitewashed walls, cell doors,
margins of books, tin knives, and the bottoms of skilly cans and dinner
tins. In Italy they have been studied in reference to their psychological
significance with characteristic thoroughness by Lombroso; and in England
Mr. Horsley and Mr. Davitt have recorded a considerable number.[71] The
Italian inscriptions, on the whole, are marked by a greater preponderance
of the sentimental, reflective, and imprecatory elements; the English are
generally very practical and material, dealing with food questions, or
giving a concise statement of the event which led to the individual’s
incarceration, with occasional tendency to moral aspiration and didactic
exhortation. Mr. Horsley notes that comparatively few inscriptions are
found on the women’s side, but that these are obscene much more frequently
than on the men’s side. I conclude from Lombroso’s very comprehensive
collection that this remark also holds good of the Italian inscriptions.
It should be added that every inscription is an infringement of prison
regulations; it is “a vulgar question of bread and water to the hungry
author,” and the impulse which produces it must therefore be of
considerable strength.
Here are a few terse English examples of exploits, probably the work of
old hands, and recorded by Mr. Davitt and Mr. Horsley:--
“A burst in the City. Copped while boning the swag. 7 stretch, 1869.
Roll on 1876. Cheer up, pals.”
“Little Dicky from the New Cut. 10 and a ticket. Put away by a Moll”
(_i.e._, sold by a prostitute).
“Fullied for a clock and slang” (_i.e._, committed for trial for
stealing watch and chain).
“Poor old Jim, the lob crawler, fell from Racker, and got pinched”
(_i.e._, James and Racker having gone out to commit till robberies,
the former was apprehended, and the latter escaped).
“For seven long years have I served them,
And seven long years I have to stay,
For meeting a bloke in our Alley,
And taking his ticker away.”
“The judge he seven years gave me,
Transported to Van Diemen’s Land,
Far away from my friends and relations,
And the girl with the dark velvet band.”
The last writer was at Dartmoor, and introduced Van Diemen’s Land because
of the exigencies of rhyme.
The delights of food inspire much verse, and dissatisfaction with its
quality or quantity a large number of remarks:--
“I had for my dinner, ochone! ochone!
One ounce of mutton and three ounce of bone!”
“Here’s luck to the pint of skilly!”
“Lord save me from starvashun!”
“One more month then out we go,
Then for feed of hot Coco;
Fried Bread and steak, Plenty of Beer,
Better luck than we get here.”
“Cheer up, boys, down with sorrow,
Beef to-day, Soup to-morrow.”
“O for a pot of beer!”
“Love is a great thing,” writes an Italian philosopher, “but hunger
surpasses everything.”
“O who can tell the panes I feel,
A poor and harmless sailor,
I miss my grog and every meal;
Here comes the blooming jailer.”
A poet, Crutchy Quinn by name, known to Mr. Davitt, and who was himself
acquainted with seven of the prisons he characterises, wrote as follows
with a nail on the bottom of a dinner can:--
“Millbank for thick shins and graft at the pump;
Broadmoor for all laggs as go off their chump;
Brixton for good toke and cocoa with fat;
Dartmoor for bad grub but plenty of chat;
Portsmouth, a blooming bad place for hard work;
Chatham on Sunday gives four ounce of pork;
Portland is worst of the lot for to joke in--
For fetching a lagging there’s no place like Woking.”
Quinn, in spite of his name, was not an Irishman, but two-thirds of the
prison-poets, Mr. Davitt found, are Irish.
From the more miscellaneous group of sentimental, religious, moral,
didactic, and reflective sayings may be quoted the following:--
“The heart may breake, yet may brokenly live on.”
Mr. Davitt found a book at Newgate with “Good-bye, Lucy dear,” written
throughout it, and at the end--
“Good-bye, Lucy dear,
I’m parted from you for seven long year.
ALF. JONES.”
A poet of a more caustic school had added beneath this--
“If Lucy dear is like most gals,
She’ll give few sighs or moans,
But soon will find among your pals
Another Alfred Jones.”
Remarks against women are by no means rare, as the following given by
Lombroso--
“La donna è un essere inutile; io la stima soltanto quando la ch...
NAPOLEONE I. EMPEREUR.”
And another Italian writes--
“He is a poor deluded fool who believes in the love and honour of
women.”
But the women reciprocate this sentiment, and in an Italian illustrated
magazine a woman writes--
“In this stormy sea which is called the world I have only found
fleeting pleasures and cruel disillusions. And if I felt any happiness
I had to pay for it with bitter tears. Never believe in the love of
men: for them love is a pastime. When you have sacrificed for them
honour, family, religion, interest, youth, they will turn their
shoulders to you with contempt, in search of other loves. That is the
kind of thing that man is.”
But the same woman writes passionately to her accomplice in murder,
robbery, and adultery--
“Questo foglio dal cuor ti mando,
L’ho scritto ieri sera lacrimando,
L’ho scritto avante cena,
Senza inchiostro e senza penna.
La punta del mio cuore era la penna,
Il sangue delle mia vene era l’ inchiostro,
Se penna e calamaio poco ti costa,
Se merito pietà ti prego d’ una riposta.
Addio, Addio,
Addio, mio bene,
Addio, mio amore,
Tu sei il mio cuore,
Per ti morirò.
1886.”
Another woman’s inscription is a pathetic recollection of an old ballad--
“I wish to God my baby was born,
And smiling on its father’s knee,
And I, poor girl, lay in my grave,
The green grass growing over me.”
Beneath a design of a funeral monument a thief wrote this inscription
(translated from Lombroso)--
“Here lies the body of poor Tulac Who, tired of stealing in this
world, Goes to steal in another. His happy relatives have erected this
memorial.”
Very significant of mental vacuity in solitude are some inscriptions given
by Mr. Horsley:--
“21,000 times have I walked round this cell in a week.”
“3330 bricks in this cell.”
“131 black tiles, 150 red tiles in this cell.”
Good resolutions and moral exhortations are not uncommon:--
“It’s no good crying, you have got to do it, then after you have done
it don’t do it any more; I wont.”
“Cheer up, girls; it’s no use to fret.”
“Brethren in adversity, turn your heart to God and be happy.”
“Good-bye all. Give up drink.”
“½ pint whisky brought me here--took the pledge for 2 years--renewable
for ever.”
“The Lord saith, It is good to be here.”
“The Almighty for master, the devil for servant. Amen.”
“Fear God and scorn the Devil, then you will not be here again.”
The Italian inscriptions supply a more dubious exhortation:--
“O thieves! our profession is ruined by those rascally judges. But
courage! Forward!”
This brief account would not be complete if I neglected to give some
specimens of the imprecations, crude erotic aspirations, and perverse
instincts which occupy some considerable space in Lombroso’s collection. I
will leave them untranslated:--
“Abbasso il direttore delle carcere e il capo-guardia, che sono due
avanzi di galera. A morte le gafe [warders] e tutti le spie, a morte
il capo-guardiano delle carcere, a morte l’Arca che sono la rovina di
tanti giovani.”
“Mia adorata stella, quando potrô ch...?”
“Pensare che in questo stesso luogo vi sono tante bighe [women] che
hanno volontà di farsi infilzare e non possono e tanti p... che
infilzerebbero un cane altro che una f... e non possono farlo.”
“Pare impossible. Che si possa stare tanto tempo senza piantare il
membro in una f... od in un culo. Eppure sono già 22 mesi che me lo
meno due volte ogni quattro giorno e non sono ancora tisico.”
The last I will give was written by a woman in a religious book, and is
translated by Lombroso from the Piedmontese dialect--
“La Marietta del taglio salute le sue amiche che fanno la porca come
lei, e saluta tutti i giovanotti che l’hanno ch... Menatevi una volta
l’uccello al mio gusto, che io me la meno al vostro, e quando sarô
libera venite a trovarmi che ce l’ho sempra calda e stretta tanto che
volete. Allegri!”
§ 9. _Criminal Literature and Art._
M. Joly has made some interesting investigations (which he has recorded
recently in the _Archives de l’Anthropologie Criminelle_) concerning the
favourite reading of French prisoners. He found that such criminals do not
read either Molière or Voltaire. Nor do they care for the psychological
novel of character and analysis; they have no taste and no capacity for
introspection; they prefer the _rococo_ style, and an old romance in five
or six volumes called _Épreuves du Sentiment_ is a great favourite at La
Grande Roquette. This is what we should expect from that sentimentalism
which has already been noted. But among the favourite prison novelists
Alexandre Dumas is _facile princeps_. We must not seek to explain this by
finding in Dumas a response to specific criminal instincts. In this matter
prisoners are at one with a very large body of non-prisoners, with George
Sand, Tolstoï, and Rossetti at their head. It is the universally human
quality in the prolific novelist, the anodyne of his entrancing and
unflagging interest, the satisfaction which he offers to the love of
adventure, by which Dumas fetters the criminal as well as the man of
genius. The female prisoners at Saint Lazare, unlike the male prisoners,
are constantly asking for Voltaire’s books, which, however, the sisters
are not able to supply. They are very fond of Henri Conscience, the
Flemish Walter Scott, a preference which is also by no means shared by
the men, and they delight in all sorts of innocent and sentimental
love-stories, although their marginal annotations to these do not always
admit of reproduction.
If the favourite reading of those whose criminal career is decided is of
so innocent a character, the same cannot always be said of the literature
read by the immature. There is ample and unquestionable evidence to show
that a low-class literature in which the criminal is glorified, as well as
the minute knowledge of criminal arts disseminated by newspapers, have a
very distinct influence in the production of young criminals.[72]
Tropmann, a notorious French murderer, was influenced by novels. The
famous criminal Lacenaire, who glorified himself and was glorified by
others, has had an influence in the production of crime down to our own
day. After every celebrated or startling crime, some weak-minded and
impressionable persons go and commit the like, or give themselves up to
the police under the impression that they have been guilty of the crime.
It is youths and children who are especially prone to the imitation of
criminal events from books or from real life. After the murders associated
with the name of Jack the Ripper several murders by young children took
place throughout the country.
It is not, usually, until he is in prison that the criminal tries to find
literary expression for himself. This expression takes chiefly the form of
verse, nearly always of a rude character, often affected or boastful, but
not seldom vigorous or pathetic. A criminal has been known to declaim from
the scaffold a poem on his own death; another asked and obtained
permission to present his defence in verse. It would be difficult to give
stronger proof of a predilection for verse forms.
A song, of which this is a translation, was heard in a Russian prison:--
“In this spot where infamy has placed for ever her dwelling, two angels
pant, having in their hands a cross.... But at night, with measured steps,
slowly, slowly, watching the prison, the sentinels turn. Within these
walls are sadness and terror. Without are life, gold, and liberty.... But
the black echo of that slow, slow step warns me: Thou shalt stay, stay.”
This was written and most sweetly sung by a man who had cruelly murdered
his wife.
The poetic productions of English criminals, however numerous, are of no
great interest; they seem to appear at their best in the inscriptions
already given. Mr. Davitt has a chapter on “Prison ‘Poets,’” but what he
has to say of them is not encouraging, although he tells us that
Portsmouth has the reputation of being “a community of imprisoned
songsters,” and such a specimen as the following does not produce much
desire for more--
“’Twas one fine morning I left Wakefield Jail,
Myself and comrades we did cry our fill,” etc.
One could write as well as that without being a convict.
Lamb and other good judges thought well of Thomas Wainewright, the forger
and poisoner. As a man of letters he enjoyed considerable reputation as a
critic, and was certainly a man of refined artistic tastes.[73] It is
to-day not easy to detect in him many signs of critical insight or fine
literary ability. He was one of the writers of that “Dandy and Silver Fork
School” of whom Hazlitt says:--“Macassar Oil, Eau de Cologne, Hock and
Seltzer Water, Atta of Roses, Pomade Divine, glance through the page in
inexhaustible confusion, and make your head giddy.” His writing is but the
vain froth of a nauseous life. The following extract is fairly
characteristic:--“It appears to us that the time requireth not the hand of
genius to give it a gusto for the tastes and feelings of what are called
the lower orders,--rather the reverse! We want more macaroni and
champagne, less boxing and bull beef. Now, Mr. Drama [Hazlitt] of the
_London_ seems determined to show his readers that his stomach is
hearty--that he can relish bread and cheese and porter, which certainly
are very fine things in the country, and--when we can get nothing
else--and so far, all this is very well. But surely, in the centre of
fashion, we might be now and then indulged with more elegant
fare,--something that would suit better with the diamond rings on our
fingers, the antique cameos in our breast-pins, our cambric
pocket-handkerchief breathing forth Attargul, our pale lemon-coloured kid
gloves! some chicken fricaseed white, for instance; a bottle of Hock or
Moselle, and a glass of Maraschino.” These things and the like of these
were for Wainewright the only things in the world that seemed desirable,
and his passion for them lay at the root of his crimes.
In Italy we meet with a genuine, and often traditional body of criminal
songs which is of great interest. It is found in chief perfection in Italy
and the large neighbouring islands, Sardinia, Corsica, and especially
Sicily, where the civilisation is more primitive, and the level of
criminality much higher. In the _Canti Siculi_ of the able and
enthusiastic folklorist, Pitré, there are twenty-seven which he describes
as Prison Songs; with others rather similar in the same collection, the
total amounts to forty-one (4 per cent. of the whole), mostly declarations
of vengeance, laments for lost liberty, imprecations against judges and
police. Some are in praise of prison, as the following:--
“Carcere, vita mia, cara, felice!
Lo starmi entro di te come mi piace!
Se spiechi il capo a quel che mal ne dice,
O pensa che far perdere la pace.
Qua sol travi i fratelli e qua gli amici,” etc.
There are also fine notes of despair, and sweet recollections of the
absent mother or sweetheart. Sardinia, a land of brigandism and
assassination, has produced numerous criminal songs of interest. “The
Corsican songs collected by Tommaseo,” remarks Lombroso, “might be said to
be almost all the creation of brigands. Nearly all breathe vengeance for a
slain friend, or hatred against an enemy, and admiration for murder.” A
ferocious Corsican brigand, named Peverone, who used to leave his mark
behind by covering his victim with capsicums (peperoni), wrote verses
which, says Lombroso, “would not be unworthy of Laura’s sweet singer.” In
such a case as that of Corsica, we must, however, be very cautious how we
use the word “criminal.” In that land barbarous conceptions still rule; a
child is brought up from its earliest days in an atmosphere of robbery and
bloodshed; what in a more civilised country we call “crime” is there to a
large extent the normal social state. It is in Corsica that a parish may
vote a pension to a brigand (the _commune_ of Ciammance, for example, in
1886); that more than half the persons liable to serve as jurymen in an
_arrondissement_ (4400 out of 8000 in one instance) may themselves have
appeared behind the bar; and where a mayor (_arrondissement_ of Sartène)
may issue a proclamation in the following terms:--“Art. I. The carrying of
arms is formally forbidden on the territory of the commune of Levie. Art.
II. Exception is made in the case of persons notoriously in a state of
enmity.”
As a specimen of French criminal literature I will give a poem by Lebiez,
the young murderer spoken of in Chapter I.; it is addressed to a young
girl’s skull:--
“De quelque belle enfant restes froids et sans vie,
Beau crâne apprêté par mes mains,
Dont j’ai sali les os et la surface blanchie
D’un tas de noms grecs et latins,
Compagnon triste et froid de mes heures d’étude,
Toi que je viens de rejeter
Dans un coin, ah! reviens tromper ma solitude,
Réponds à ma curiosité.
Dis-moi combien de fois ta bouche s’est offerte
Aux doux baisers de ton amant;
Dis-moi quels jolis mots de ta bouche entr’ ouverte
Dans des heurs d’égarement ...
Insensé!... Tu ne peux répondre, pauvre fille;
Ta bouche est close maintenant,
Et la mort, en passant, de sa triste faucille
A brisé tes charmes naissants.
Triste leçon pour nons, qui croyons que la vie
Peut durer pendant de longs jours!
Et jeunesse, et bonheur, et beauté qu’on envie,
Tout passe ainsi que les amours!
Aussi, quand, vers le soir, âpre et dur à la tache,
Je travaille silencieux,
Mon esprit suit le monde et, tout inquiet, s’attache
A des pensers plus sérieux,
Je rêve au temps qui passe ... alors je te regarde,
Et, songeant aux coups de destin,
Sur ton front nu je crois lire en tremblant: ‘Prends garde,
Mortel, ton tour viendra demain.’”
When his papers were returned to him by the police, Lebiez wrote on the
margin of this: “Poor verses! but, bad as they are, they are a faithful
picture of the state of my mind in moments of solitude. In the world I am
amiable and gay. I am taken for a wild fellow, who mocks at everything;
but if they knew my character thoroughly, if they were aware that when I
laugh and joke I have just come out of a solitude of despair and tears! If
they knew that there are sobs at the bottom of my heart when smiles cover
my lips, they would not say that I mock at everything. My gaiety is only a
mask which hides the anguish which has for so long torn my heart.”
There are one or two examples of newspapers written and conducted by
prisoners. The Abbé Crozes, in his _Souvenirs de la Petite et de la Grande
Roquette_, gives us specimens and a facsimile page of one of these, the
_Tam-Tam_, which, however, only lasted a very short time. Here are a
couple of fragments from this remarkable journal:--
FABLE EXPRESS.
“Un grand tambour-major, pressé par la famine,
Dinait d’une maigre sardine
Et s’en régalait sur ma foi!
_Morale._--On a souvent besoin d’un plus petit que soi.”
ECHOS ET BRUITS.
“Nons apprenons avec plaisir à nos lecteurs le projet formé par la
Société Agricole de France, de se servir des oreilles de Transparent,
pour se livrer à des essais sur la culture des champignons.
L’abondance et la qualité du fumier que contiennent ces vastes
esgourdes, leur grandeur, leur système d’aération promettent aux
amateurs de cèpes les résultats les plus satisfaisants.”
Very different from the _Tam-Tam_ is the _Summary_, a newspaper published
at the Elmira Reformatory, New York. This newspaper, largely written by
prisoners and, at one time at all events, edited by a prisoner, contains,
besides original contributions and the news of the Reformatory, a summary
of general news; and by its tone and its method of selection, it compares
favourably, as it has been said, with many newspapers published outside
prison-walls. The following contribution to the _Summary_ is from “a
bright young burglar,” about eighteen years old, and is entitled “God and
the Robin”; it has an allegorical and personal significance:--
“Early in the morning, long before the lazy cock crows, you may hear
the robin singing his welcome to the sun. He has been watching through
the darkness for the first rays of coming day, and as they appear he
pours forth the melody as an expression of his joy. All is quiet till
his music rends the air, and as you listen you are inspired with
thoughts of Him who made the robin and you. Perhaps the sweet song is
a prayer of thanks to God for sheltering him from the dangers of the
night. Do they know of God? Who can tell? Perhaps He is the cause of
what we in our ignorance call instinct. Once as I listened to their
music I fell asleep, and dreamt of a house near the sea. It had a lawn
in front, on which was a robin hopping in search of food for her
young. But as she hopped about the sky seemed to grow darker. I knew
that a storm was approaching, and when it came I saw the robin cling
to the tree for shelter. But the wind was fierce, and it tore her from
the branch, and in spite of all her efforts it bore her away out over
the ocean, farther and farther from the land, till at last, when its
energy was spent, its fury gone, it left her on the ocean with no land
in sight to guide her to her home; and as she flew she thought of her
little ones at home, and of her mate. She thought she was flying to
them, but every little effort was taking her farther away, though she
knew it not. When at last she began to tire, she looked at the
restless waters, but they offered her no relief; and in her frightened
cry I seemed to hear her say, ‘O where shall I rest my weary wing?’
But in the murmuring of the ocean she heard no reply, so she could but
fly on till darkness came, when, utterly exhausted, she fell upon the
cruel waves and died. And He who made her will receive her when the
course of life is past. Cannot the little robin find in that house of
many mansions a place to rest her weary wing? Is heaven made for man
alone? Are not these little creatures who never offend God, but
worship Him with the purity and happiness of their little hearts,
entitled to the joys of hereafter? Who can doubt it?”
The following interesting dialogue in the Socratic manner--“An Imaginary
Conversation between two Members of the Casuistry Class”--is also by a
very young criminal, who was also something of a poet:--
“Did you not agree last Sunday with the member of our class who said
that life in prison is a state of slavery?
No, I did not. In fact, I am astonished at your question. I rather
think it is _not_ a state of slavery.
That is a very curious belief.
It may appear to be; but I think it can be proved to be logical. You
say that imprisonment for wrong-doing is slavery; but what is slavery?
I should define it to be the involuntary subjection of one person to
the will of another.
But cannot a person be a slave to passion and to other qualities of
mind as well as to persons?
Yes.
Then your definition is obviously incorrect. I would define slavery as
a state in which one’s actions are regulated by some power over which
he has no control. Would you agree with me?
Well, I think I would.
Very well. Having agreed upon a definition of slavery, we will discuss
whether life in prison is slavery. Now, let me ask, why are men sent
to prison?
Usually for violating the law.
Well, do you believe that men steal, for instance, voluntarily?
Undoubtedly.
Your tone is rather confident, so I daresay you can tell me _why_ men
steal?
In order to get certain articles that will enable them to live more
comfortably, or which they desire to have.
That is, you mean that they have certain feelings--such as laziness,
love of gain, etc.--which they wish to gratify?
Well, yes.
But if a man had not these feelings he would not steal?
I think not.
Then these feelings regulate his conduct in stealing?
It seems so.
But you agreed that he whose conduct is regulated by some power other
than his own free will is a slave.
Well, I am afraid you have caught me again.
But do you admit it?
I do.
Then he who prevents this man from stealing is emancipating him, not
enslaving him?
I see you are right.
Then one who is in prison for wrong-doing is a free man, not a slave?
Yes. But suppose that the man has been sent to prison unjustly; what
then?
To answer your question, I should have to know what your conception of
true freedom is. True freedom is, as it appears to me, the triumphing
of the spirit or better part of man over the flesh or weaker part;
that is, acting according to one’s highest conception of what is
right. Do you agree with me?
I do.
Then do you not think that the truly righteous man, be he in prison or
out, is free? Do you not see that a man who does right, even though he
lose fortune or life by doing so, is freer than the one who allows his
conduct to be regulated by fear, malice, or other passions? Remember
that a man may be free in a dungeon and bound down with chains, and
that he may be an abject slave and be clothed in purple.”
The _Summary_ perhaps does something to encourage priggishness, but
priggishness, it need scarcely be said, indicates a far higher moral level
than the vacuous brutality which lies behind so large a proportion of
prison inscriptions.
So far we have been dealing with writers who are first and above all
criminals. It is necessary to mention a few artists and men of letters
who, while distinctly criminals, are not primarily criminals. Villon is
generally named at the head of these, and with good reason, as he has
himself supplied the evidence by which he must be counted a criminal. But
Villon was a poet, and a great poet; his crimes never degraded his art. It
is worth noting that almost the only passage[74] which Lombroso quotes to
prove such degradation is, on independent grounds and apparently with
good reason, regarded by Jannet, Villon’s editor, as spurious.
Cellini, as self-revealed in his wonderful autobiography, bears more
distinct marks than Villon of instinctive criminality. Crime is, however,
rare among great sculptors; on the other hand it has been, as Lombroso
points out, very common among painters; numerous are the examples of
murder, cruelty, theft, sexual offences, among distinguished painters;
alcoholism is also very common.
Casanova, a man of various and extraordinary abilities, has in his
_Memoirs_, of which the strict historical accuracy is now generally
accepted, produced one of the most valuable and interesting records of the
eighteenth century, and at the same time a most complete and complaisant
history of his own criminal offences. It is difficult to say whether in
him the criminal or the man of genius is most prominent.
A living poet of some eminence, M. Paul Verlaine, furnishes an interesting
example of the man of genius who is also distinctly a criminal. M.
Verlaine is the chief of the so-called “Decadant” school. The precise rank
that he will ultimately take as a poet is not yet clear; while on the one
hand he has been unduly neglected, on the other he has been unduly
extolled. At his best he excels in delicate passages of vague and mystic
reverie, in sudden lines of poignant emotion. His style, a curious mixture
of simplicity and obscurity, is studded with words borrowed from the
criminal’s argot. His latest volume[75] contains poems which well show his
curious power of expressing the most delicate _nuances_ of sentiment side
by side with the crudest, most unabashed impulses of cynical depravity,
self-revelations of sexual perversity, which might have earned for the
book a title in a line of its own, “L’embarquement pour Sodome et
Gomorrhe.” I do not propose to quote any of these but from a short but
interesting series written during an imprisonment of several years at
Brussels. Here is a poem describing the life of the prisoner:--
“La cour se fleurit de souci
Comme le front
De tous ceux-ci
Qui vont en rond
En flageolant sur leur fémur
Debilité
Le long du mur
Fou de clartè.
Tournez, Samsons sans Dalila,
Sans Philistin,
Tournez bien la
Meule au destin.
Vaincu risible de la loi,
Mouds tour à tour
Ton cœur, ta foi
Et ton amour!
Ils vont! et leurs pauvres souliers
Font un bruit sec,
Humiliés,
La pipe au bec.
Pas un mot ou bien le cachot,
Pas un soupir.
Il fait si chand
Qu’on croit mourir.
J’en suis de ce cirque effaré,
Soumis d’ailleurs
Et préparé
A tous malheurs.
Et pourquir si j’ai contristé
Ton vœu tetu,
Société,
Me choierais tu?
Allons, frères, bons vieux voleurs,
Doux vagabonds,
Filons en fleur,
Mes chers, mes bons,
Fumons philosophiquement,
Promenons-nous
Paisiblement:
Rien faire est doux.”
I do not know any more interesting document in criminal literature than
one poem, _Læti et Errabundi_, contained in this volume. Fully to
understand the significance of this remarkable poem, it is necessary to
state that Verlaine’s imprisonment was due to an attempt on the life of
his comrade in sexual perversity, himself also a poet of some note. The
latter left Europe, and it is not now known whether he is alive or dead.
To him _Læti et Errabundi_ is addressed.
I quote the concluding lines:--
“On vous dit mort, vous. Que le Diable
Emporte avec qui la colporte
La nouvelle irrémédiable
Qui vient ainsi battre ma porte!
Je n’y veux rien croire. Mort, vous,
Toi, dieu parmi les demi-dieux!
Ceux qui le disent sont des fous.
Mort, mon grand péché radieux.
Tout ce passé brûlant encore
Dans mes veines et ma cervelle
Et qui rayonne et qui fulgore
Sur ma ferveur toujours nouvelle!
Mort tout ce triomphe inouï
Retentissant sans frein ni fin
Sur l’air jamais évanoui
Que bat mon cœur qui fut divin!
Quoi le miraculeux poème
Et la toute-philosophie,
Et ma patrie et ma bohème
Morts? Allons donc! tu vis ma vie!”
Verlaine’s very remarkable head, though large, is the head of a criminal
much more than of a man of genius, with its heavy jaw, projecting orbital
arches and acrocephalic occiput, with central ridge--the head which the
acute Lauvergne called Satanic, and which, in its extreme form, he
believed to announce the monstrous alliance of the most eminent faculty of
man, genius, with the most pronounced tendencies to crime. M. Verlaine has
long been a victim to chronic alcoholism, and the author of the _Fêtes
Galantes_ and of some of the most tender lines written in our day is now
most often found within the wards of Parisian hospitals.
“Je compte parmi les maladroits.
J’ai perdu ma vie et je sais bien
Que tout blâme sur moi s’en va fondre:
A cela je ne puis que répondre
Qui je suis vraiment né Saturnien.”
A few words may be added concerning criminal art as shown in design.
Lombroso reproduces numerous drawings, etc., made in prison. They are
generally very rough and slight, never beautiful, but frequently
expressive, rendering character, now and then, in face and attitude, with
ease and felicity. Scenes of murder or robbery, law courts, men hanging
from the gallows, women, mostly nude, with huge or pendent breasts, men or
women in extravagantly perverse sexual attitudes--these are the visions
which come to the criminal in prison, and to which he seeks, by such means
as may be within his reach, to give artistic expression. Sexual imagery,
not beautiful but gross and ugly, undoubtedly has the chief part in these
designs; but it is scarcely necessary to point out that the artificial
conditions under which the prisoner lives is largely responsible for this
characteristic of his art, although not for its generally deliberate
ugliness.
Dr. Laurent, in his work, _Les Habitués des Prisons_, has treated this
matter more completely than any other writer known to me, and has
reproduced some very characteristic and instructive examples of this art,
although he has not dared to reproduce the more extravagant designs which
he describes. What has chiefly impressed him among the large number of
drawings by prisoners which have passed through his hands is the absence
of any elevated thought, of any noble sentiment. In the erotic designs
there is occasionally an imaginative audacity, but love is always regarded
as a purely physiological act, and everywhere else the design is
pathetically commonplace; it is naturalistic in the lowest sense of the
word, adding nothing, suppressing nothing; and these drawings have
therefore a remarkable family likeness. If there is any great artist of
whom they ever remind us it is Ostade, with his perpetual research of the
mean and degraded, physically and morally, in humanity. Dr. Laurent draws
special attention to a design which appears to represent some winged
angel of hope; there is something in the bold, predaceous face of this
vulgar fairy, in the coarse firm attitude, so suggestive of the things
that alone have left a firm impress on the artist’s mind, that is very
pathetic. In one of those designs only is it possible to catch a glimpse
of the ideal; it is the figure of a woman by a clerk of some education,
and possessed of personal qualities which brought him into relation with
women of a somewhat superior type. The face in this drawing has a tender
and melancholy air; even here, however, the body is drawn in too crude and
realistic a manner. Where these artists succeed best is in the
photographic delineation of commonplace or unpleasant human types, such as
may be seen in large cities, especially after nightfall. There is usually
something hard, cynical, degraded in these types, in their whole bodies as
well as their faces; they remind us of what was said of portraits executed
by Wainewright, that he had contrived to put the expression of his own
wickedness into them.
These artists also do not succeed in caricature, and rarely attempt it. To
be successful here involves some judgment, delicacy, and insight, and
these the prison artists do not appear to possess.
In the nude, as I have already mentioned, prison artists take great
delight, and they even achieve a certain amount of success. There is a
certain Hogarthian vigour and ease with which the faces and forms of these
coarse, low-browed, animal, energetic women, with their large pendent
breasts, are brought before us. The only prison sketch I have seen showing
anything more than a crude sense of beauty, any real appeal to the
imagination, or distinct science of form and composition, is a group of
nude women in extravagant attitudes, which Dr. Laurent reproduces; he says
nothing of the artist, except that he was probably a Saint Anthony by
necessity, who, in this scene as of a Sabbath of witches, has given
expression to the dreams that tormented him. It is a genuine piece of
fantastic art, and seems to recall certain designs of the Belgian artist,
Félicien Rops. This design escapes to some extent--and to some extent
only--from the judgment which Dr. Laurent pronounces on the treatment of
sex by criminals:--“Sex is not for them a sacred and mysterious thing, a
mystic rose hidden beneath the obscure vault of the body, like a strange
and precious talisman enclosed in a tabernacle. For them it is a thing of
ugliness, which they drag into the light of day and laugh at.”
§ 10. _Criminal Philosophy._
One of the most interesting and instructive departments of criminal
literature is that dealing with the criminal’s mental attitude towards
crime. In considering the problems of crime, and the way to deal with
them, it is of no little importance to have a clear conception of the
social justification for crime from the criminal’s point of view. Not only
is he free from remorse; he either denies his crime or justifies it as a
duty, at all events as a trifle. He has a practical and empirical way of
his own of regarding the matter, as Dostoieffsky remarks, and excuses
these accidents by his destiny, by fate. “What contributes to justify the
criminal in his own eyes is that he is quite certain that the public
opinion of the class in which he was born and lives will acquit him; he
is sure that he will not be judged definitely lost unless his crime is
against one of his own class, his brothers. He is secure on that side, and
with so good a conscience he will never lose his moral assurance, which is
the main thing. He feels himself on solid ground, and by no means hates
the knout which is administered to him. He looks upon it as inevitable,
and consoles himself by thinking that he is not the first nor the last to
receive it. Does the soldier hate the Turk who sabres him? By no means!”
To be caught is the foolish part of the business. “You are a lot of fools
to get in here, myself included,” is one of the prison inscriptions noted
by Mr. Horsley. “Had God wished me to be different, He would have made me
different,” said Goethe. In the same spirit is the philosophy of crime set
forth by a man known to Lombroso: “If God has given to us the instinct to
steal, He has given to others the instinct to imprison us; the world is an
amusing theatre!” It is rare, however, for the criminal to take so lofty a
standpoint as this; more usually he bases the justification for his own
existence on the vices of respectable society--“the ignorance and cupidity
of the public,” as one prisoner expressed it--that he is shrewd enough to
perceive; “it is a game of rogue catch rogue,” a convict told Mr. Davitt.
A youthful French brigand in the days of Charles IX., as he impassively
ascended the scaffold, declared that he was innocent, because he had never
robbed poor people but only princes and lords, the greatest robbers in the
world. “We are poor rogues, and so hanged, while others, no less guilty in
another way, escape,” pleaded Captain Bartholomew Roberts’s fifty-two
pirates, executed at the beginning of the eighteenth century. “Law for the
rich but none for the poor,” is a modern English prison inscription which
would probably have expressed its writer’s meaning better if it had been
transposed. _Quels gredins les honnêtes gens!_
An Italian criminal wrote in a book of “Moral Maxims” by Tommaseo: “When
you have read this book become a priest or a master; if not it will be of
no use to you. There are fine maxims in this book, but maxims are no good
in this world, where the god of gold reigns alone. He who has money is
brave and virtuous; all the maxims of Tommaseo are of no use to him who
has none; he will still be treated with contempt.” A Milanese thief said
to Lombroso: “I do not rob; I merely take from the rich their
superfluities; and, besides, do not advocates and merchants rob? Why
accuse me rather than them?” “Knowing,” wrote the murderer Raynal, “that
three-fourths of the social virtues are cowardly vices, I thought that an
open assault on a rich man would be less ignoble than the cautious
combinations of fraud.” J. G. Wainewright, when in prison, said to a
visitor: “Sir, you city men enter upon your speculations and take the
chances of them. Some of your speculations succeed, and some fail. Mine
happen to have failed.” An Italian thief, one Rosati, said: “I am proud of
my deeds; I have never taken small sums; to attack such large sums I
consider a speculation rather than a theft.” Another Italian thief said
that there were two kinds of justice in the world: natural justice, that
which he himself practised when he shared the proceeds of his thefts with
the poor; and artificial justice, that which is protected by social laws.
The criminal is firmly convinced that his imprisonment is a sign that the
country is going to the dogs. A prison inscription quoted by Lombroso
runs: “I am imprisoned for stealing half-a-dozen eggs; Ministers who rob
millions every day are honoured. Poor Italy!” “We are necessary,” a
brigand chief said proudly to his judges; “God has sent us on the earth to
punish the avaricious and the rich. We are a kind of divine scourge. And
for the rest, without us what would you judges do?”
This conviction of the criminality of the honest is engrained in the
criminal mind, and one meets it at every turn. “Who doesn’t deserve the
galleys?” was a remark often heard by Dr. Lauvergne at the convict
establishment at Toulon, and the same idea was cynically expressed by
Lacenaire:--
“Buvons à la sagesse,
A la vertu qui soutient!
Tu peux sans crainte d’ivresse,
Boire à tous les gens de bien.”
Most people must have observed, in talking with persons of vicious
instincts, the genuine disgust which these so often feel for the slightly
different vices of others and their indifference to their own. So the man
in prison feels indulgence for his own offence and contempt for his more
cautious brother outside who continues to retain the respect of society,
feelings which the latter heartily reciprocates. Every individual,
whatever his position, feels the need of a certain amount of _amour
propre_. “I may be a thief, but, thank God, I am a respectable man.”
Among the criminal songs still found in Sardinia there is one (quoted by
Lombroso from Bouillier’s _Les Dialectes et les Chants de la Sardaigne_)
that may be quoted here. “Tell me,” asks Achea of the priest, “if I have
nothing to eat, and if I find wherewith to appease my hunger, may I take
the goods of another?” “Believe me, if you have nothing to eat, and you
meet with something, you would be a fool not to take it.” “That is a good
counsel, but here is a difficulty: what I have taken in this way, ought I
to return it?” “No. The observance of the law would subject you to a fast
too severe; you are a great fool if you do not understand that in the face
of necessity all things belong to all.” That is the morality of a lawless
and primitive society, but it has points of contact with some of the
latest and highest developments of social morality. Tolstoï would justify
it; as, to a certain extent, a respected archbishop has justified it.
“The laws of society,” remarked an educated convict to Mr. Davitt, “are
framed for the purpose of securing the wealth of the world to power and
calculation, thereby depriving the larger portion of mankind of its rights
and chances. Why should they punish me for taking by somewhat similar
means from those who have taken more than they had a right to? My dear
sir,” said he, “I deny your contention that there is any such thing as
honesty in the world at all.” This man, who had a considerable
acquaintance with literature and philosophy, maintained soberly that
“thieving was an _honourable_ pursuit,” and that religion, law,
patriotism, and bodily disease were the real and only enemies of humanity.
“Religion,” he would observe, “robbed the soul of its independence, while
society’s social laws, in restraining the desires and faculties given by
Nature to men for the purpose of gratification, declared war against the
manifest spirit of the law of our being.” Patriotism he termed “the
idolatry of an idea, in the stupid worship of which the peace of the
world, and the wellbeing of its inhabitants, were sacrificed by the
lawmakers and others who profit thereby.”
Lombroso found the following note written with a piece of iron in a
politico-economical work, under the chapter of “Considerations on the
Co-operative spirit”: “The best governed nation is that which has fewest
thieves. Do you want to abolish thieves? See to it that the working man
and the peasant have work to do, and are better paid for it; then they
will be content, and will have nothing to say against the government; in
consequence they will do their duty, and will not be forced to do evil.”
Another, reading a book about an official who had been removed from the
administration of taxes, wrote: “I advise you all to be public thieves,
and then you will be free citizens and men who are useful to society, and
will be decorated with medals and crosses. This man here was a public
thief; but I am only a private robber; if I had been a public one I should
not have been here.” Again: “Why are those who wear coarse breeches
treated in one way, and those who are dressed finely and wear yellow
gloves treated in another? Why are the first called thieves while the
others are said to have committed undue appropriation? Have not both
classes broken the commandment which says simply ‘Thou shalt not steal’?”
In a confession made to Gisquet, the prefect of police, a different
standpoint is taken up; the criminal justifies himself, not on moral
grounds, but as a man of the world: “You regret the robbery that I have
committed, and you call it a bad action; the insignificant act for which I
have been condemned is the first link in a chain which will not, I hope,
finish so soon. If I were not a thief by vocation, I would be one by
calculation. I have faced all the good and the evil of other occupations,
and I find that this is the best. What would have become of me among
honest men? A bastard, with no one to take care of me, what could I do?
Become a shopman, earn at the most six hundred francs a year, and having
sweated all my life, grow old and ill and finish at a hospital. Take men
in the mass and you will find them all humiliated, slaves, disgraced; it
is never talent and honesty that are recompensed; vice prospers more often
than virtue.
“In our profession we depend on nobody; we enjoy the fruits of our
experience and ability. I know well that we may end in prison; but out of
the 18,000 thieves in Paris not one-tenth are in prison, so that we enjoy
nine years of freedom against one of prison. Besides, where is the working
man who is not sometimes without work? For the rest, the working man has
to pledge his things at the pawn-shop, while we, when we are free, want
for nothing, and lead a life of constant feasting and pleasure.
“The fear of being arrested, and the pretended remorse that people talk
of, are things to which one soon gets accustomed, and which finish by
giving a pleasurable emotion.
“And then, if we are arrested, we live at the expense of others, who
clothe us, feed us, and warm us, all at the cost of those whom we have
robbed!
“I will say more. During our detention in prison we think out and prepare
new means of success.
“If I regret anything, Mr. Prefect, it is that I am condemned to only a
year. If it had been for five I should have been sent to a central prison,
where I should have met some old hands, who would have taught me some new
trick, and I should have returned to Paris clever enough to live without
working.
“They talk of thieves as of persons always in misery, and who always
finish their lives in prison; but they think of those whom they have seen
in their apparent state when arrested. They do not consider that many have
secret resources, and that most of them are clever enough to get on
without ever having anything to do with justice.” This man, it is clear,
had aspirations and ideals which, though they found satisfaction by a
different method, were much the same as those of ordinary persons. He
represents the professional criminal.
“Ah! too often it is forgotten,” wrote G. Ruscovitch, a prince among
forgers, the accomplished student of science, the perfect master of
half-a-dozen languages, “too often it is forgotten that criminals are
members of society. All these bodies, sometimes abandoned by all except
the satellites charged to guard them, are not all opaque; some of them are
diaphanous and transparent. The vulgar sand which you tread under foot
becomes brilliant crystal when it has passed through the furnace. The
dregs may become useful if you know how to employ them; to tread them
under foot with indifference and without thought is to undermine the
foundations of society and to fill it with volcanoes. The man who has not
visited the caverns, can he know the mountain well? The lower strata, for
being situated deeper and farther from the light, are they less important
than the external crust? There are deformities and diseases among us to
make one shudder; but since when has horror forbidden study, and the
disease driven away the physician?”