THE WOMEN’S WARDS
Various outbreaks among the women—Drumming on the doors—The dumb
cell—What happened at Durham—The Ladies’ Association—Greatest trouble
from Convicts in passage to the Antipodes—McCarthy—Anne Williams—Julia
Sinclair Newman’s extraordinary persistence in wrong-doing—Supposed
to be mad—Returned from Bethlehem as sane—Mr. Nihil’s vain attempts
to transfer her—No strait-waistcoat or means of restraint will
prevail—Finally transferred to Van Diemen’s Land.
IT is a well established fact in prison logistics that the women are
far worse than the men. When given to misconduct they are far more
persistent in their evil ways, more outrageously violent, less amenable
to reason or reproof. For this there is more than one explanation.
No doubt when a woman is really bad, when all the safeguards natural
and artificial with which she has been protected are removed, further
deterioration is sure to be rapid and reform hopeless. Again, the means
of coercion in the case of female prisoners are necessarily limited.
While a prompt exhibition of force cannot fail sooner or later to
bring an offending male convict to his senses, a woman continues her
misconduct unchecked, because such methods cannot be put in practice
against her. Although in some cases the men have made a temporarily
successful fight against discipline, in the long run they have been
compelled to succumb. On the other hand, there are instances known of
women who have maintained for months, nay years, an unbroken warfare
with authority, and who have won the day in the end. Never beaten,
they continued till the day of their release to set every one at
defiance. That obstinacy which has passed into a proverb against the
sex, supported them throughout, of course, coupled with a species of
hysterical mania, the natural outcome of the highly strung nervous
system.
A curious example of their strength of physical endurance, and their
almost indefatigable persistence in wrong-doing deserves to be
mentioned here, though it occurred some years later on. A strange fancy
all at once seized a number of women occupying adjoining cells to drum
on their doors with the soles of their feet. There is no evidence to
show when or how this desire first showed itself; but in less than a
week it had become general almost throughout the female prison. To
accomplish her purpose a woman lay full length on her cell floor,
just the right distance from the door, and began. She was immediately
answered from the next cell, whence the infection spread rapidly to
the next, and so on till the whole place was in an uproar. These cell
doors being badly hung, were a little loose; they rattled, therefore,
and shook, till the whole noise became quite deafening and incredible.
Some women were able to keep up the game for hours together, day
after day; in several cases it was proved that they had drummed in
this way for several weeks. They soon worked themselves into a state
of uncontrollable excitement, amounting almost to hysteria. After
a time many became quite prostrate and ill, and had to be taken to
the infirmary for treatment. The physical exertion required in the
operation was so great that women so employed for barely an hour were
found literally soaked in perspiration from head to foot, and lying,
without exaggeration, in pools of moisture. In numbers the kicking
superinduced diseases of the feet, the whole skin of the sole having
been worn away; for it is almost needless to observe that very early in
the affray shoes and stockings were altogether destroyed, and it came
to be a question of bare feet. Several methods were tried to put an end
to this unpleasant practice—strait waistcoats, dietary punishments,
and so forth—but all without avail. In that particular instance the
disturbances continued till the women had fairly worn themselves out.
Later outbreaks of a similar character were met and subdued in an
altogether different fashion. The introduction of “ankle straps,”
which confine the feet as handcuffs do the wrist, was found a highly
efficacious treatment—this, and the invention of the “dumb cell.” From
the latter no sound can possibly proceed; however loud and boisterous
the outcry within, outside not a whisper is heard. When women feel
that they are shouting and wasting their breath all to no purpose, they
straightway succumb. But even more has since then been accomplished by
purely moral methods than by these physical restraints. It has been
found that the simplest way to tame women thus bent upon misconduct
is to take no notice of them at all. When a woman discovers that she
ceases to attract attention by her violence, she alters her line of
conduct, and seeks to attain her ends by other and more agreeable
means. The most potent temptation with them is the desire to “show
off” before their companions. A curious sort of vanity urges them on.
It is all bravado. Hence we find that when these tremendous “breakings
out,” as they are termed in prison parlance, occur, they originate
almost entirely among the women who are associated, in other words,
who are free to come and go and communicate with one another. Separate
them, keep them as much as possible apart and alone, and you remove
at once the strong temptation to gain an unenviable notoriety at the
expense of the discipline of the establishment. This was proved by the
experience of later years. Thus at Millbank in 1874 there were only
three instances of this sort of misconduct, and in the previous year
only four.
Weakness in enforcing the rules, yielding too readily to the women’s
tantrums, and letting them have their own way are soon taken advantage
of by the turbulent spirits in a gaol. I had a notable experience
of this much later in a northern prison, when one of Her Majesty’s
inspectors. The female prison population in the north are a rough,
headstrong lot, very difficult to manage, and at that time the chief
matron was a timid person, who found it pleasanter to give way than to
drive, and, of course, the warder staff took their tone from her. It
transpired afterwards that it was the custom to let the prisoners who
should have been in cellular separation collect together in parties of
four or more in one of the large workrooms, where they could gossip and
idle their time away for hours together, never doing a hand’s-turn of
work, and thus persistently breaking the regulations. I had a suspicion
that the female “side” was in bad order, and on one of my visits—I
never gave notice of them, but dropped in always by surprise—I went
immediately to that part of the prison. The warder who answered my bell
and opened the door looked flurried at the sight of me, and I passed in
quickly, to find the interior in some confusion. There was a scurrying
of feet, a jangle of excited voices, and a loud banging of cell doors,
clear indications that things were not all right. If I had any doubt,
it was removed by the sight of the matron, who was stooping over a
trap-door that gave access to the heating-chamber below, and pitifully
entreating the women to “Come up all of you and be good girls.” I
guessed what was wrong. It was the winter season, and the place below
warm and cosy, just where such women would love to linger. There could
be no doubt what was happening, and stepping across hastily I added my
voice to the matron’s, bidding them peremptorily to “come up.”
“Lord save us, it’s the major!” was the affrighted reply. They knew my
voice and obeyed, creeping up the stairs one by one, till all, a dozen
nearly, stood ranged in a row before me, and I desired the matron to
take their names down, then to lock up each woman in her own cell. Next
moment they were off, running for their lives in an entirely opposite
direction. With a suddenness that was startling they broke away and
made for the staircase, and up it to the top story of the prison
building, above the highest ward, and into the close gallery just under
the roof, whence they could reach the skylights and clamber out on to
the slates. We knew they had reached the upper air, for their shouts
were heard all over the prison, and they could be seen from the yards
below, from the neighbouring streets indeed, dancing and performing
wild antics on the roof above. We were all greatly puzzled how to deal
with them. Persuasion was futile and it would be both difficult and
dangerous to climb along the sloping roof, seize each woman in turn,
and drag her down. After much debate I decided to leave them where
they were—a “night out” would cool their blood, and they could neither
do nor come to great harm in the alley under the roof, to which they
would no doubt return of their own accord.
Meanwhile I sent to a friendly magistrate hard by, begging him to meet
me at the prison next day early, for I wished to have recourse to his
powers of punishment, having none myself. I made other preparations
to deal with my mutineers, and, passing on to an adjacent town, saw
the Governor of the prison there, requisitioned from him all his
“figure-of-eight” handcuffs, and carried them back with me next morning
in a bag. The situation remained unchanged; the women were still under
the roof, but no longer had access to the slates, for by means of a
ladder the skylights had been reached and secured from the outside.
Then the male officers went upstairs and, after a sharp scuffle,
extracted the women from the alley under the roof, and brought them
one by one to their cells. No sooner were they incarcerated than
the magistrate and I visited them, and he ordered each woman to be
handcuffed, as the law permits when fears are entertained that she will
do herself or another mischief. There was never another outbreak among
the female prisoners there.[6]
But to return to Mr. Nihil. It appears that during his reign the
condition of the female pentagon was always unsatisfactory. We find
in his journal constant reference to the want of discipline among
the female prisoners. Thus: “The behaviour of the female pentagon is
frightfully disorderly, calling for vigorous and exemplary punishment.
Women contract the most intimate friendship with each other, or the
most deadly hatred.” The bickering, bad feeling, and disputes were
increasing. After inquiring into one case, the governor observes,
“Before the afternoon was over the combatants had the whole pentagon
in an uproar. One smashed her windows to bits, and so did the other.
They had to be taken to the dark; but Walters produced a knife, and
would have wounded the matron.” Again, “I had to reprove strongly
the taskmistress and warders for the laxity of discipline prevalent
therein.” Later on, when the rules of greater seclusion came into
force, he again remarks, “On the female side there is great laxity, no
discipline, no attempt to enforce non-intercourse. Instead of a rule
by which each individual would be thrown on her own reflections, and
secluded altogether, the female pentagon is in fact a criminal nunnery,
where the sisterhood are linked together by a chain of sympathies and
by familiar and frequent communications.... Although, to the ladies
who visit them, the females repeat Scripture and speak piously,
the communications which many of them carry on with each other are
congenial with their former vicious habits, their minds being thus kept
in a state at once the most depraved and hypocritical.”
These ladies to whom the governor refers were members of the
celebrated “Ladies’ Association,” headed by Mrs. Fry, whose long
ministrations among female convicts at Newgate have gained them a
world-wide reputation. Having undoubtedly done excellent work where
crying evils called for reform, they were eager for fresh fields of
labour. Accordingly they came and tried their best. It would be hardly
fair to deny them all credit, or to assert that, because the women
continued ill-conditioned throughout, the counsels and admonitions of
these ladies had altogether failed of effect. It is obvious, however,
from Mr. Nihil’s remarks, that their services tended to produce
hypocrisy rather than real repentance. The fact was there was a marked
distinction between the work they had done at Newgate and that to
which they put their hands in the Penitentiary. In this latter place
the women were really sedulously cared for; they had an abundance of
good food, clean cells, comfortable beds; they bathed regularly; they
had employment, books, and the unceasing ministrations of a zealous
chaplain.
Newgate, on the other hand, when first visited by Mrs. Fry, was a
perfect sink of abomination, rivalling quite the worst pictures painted
by Howard. There could hardly have been a more terrible place than the
women’s side. All that Mrs. Fry and her companions accomplished is now
a matter of history.
But the condition of Millbank under Mr. Nihil was not that of Newgate
and other prisons in 1816. It could not be said the Penitentiary
prisoners were neglected. No fault could be found with their treatment
generally, or the measures taken to provide for their spiritual needs.
Long before the arrival of the “Ladies’ Association” the religious
instruction of the female prisoners may be said to have reached a point
of saturation: the preaching and praying, if I may say so, had been
already a little overdone. Hence it was that their advent deepened only
the outward hypocrisy and lip service, and was productive of little
good.
The most serious annoyance entailed upon the governor of Millbank
was the charge of female transports awaiting transportation. None of
these were worse than a certain Julia Newman, who was a Penitentiary
prisoner, and whose case I shall describe at some length, taking it as
a type of the whole.
But there were many others among the female convicts who were also
very desperate characters indeed; such as the woman from Liverpool,
concerning whom the governor of the gaol wrote to say that she was so
desperate that he thought it would be necessary to send her tied up
in a sack. Mary McCarthy, was another, who was brought in handcuffs
from Newgate, with a note to the effect that she required the greatest
attention. She had several times attempted to strangle herself, and had
therefore been handcuffed day and night and constantly watched. “She
is a most artful, designing woman, and will succeed, if not well looked
after, in her attempts to destroy herself.”
Mr. Nihil found McCarthy submissive and tractable, but after the above
caution he thought it advisable to continue the handcuffing, intending
to withdraw the restraint as soon as she abandoned her intention to
commit suicide. At the end of two days she managed to rid herself of
her handcuffs, having very small wrists; but as she evinced no signs
of violence or intractability they were not replaced, the governor
thinking, from his experience with Newman, that effectual and complete
restraint was impossible if the prisoner was determined. McCarthy
was, however, constantly watched, and for ten days she remained quite
quiet. On the 21st of October, a fortnight after her admission, she
begged her warder, Mrs. West, to come into her cell and teach her to
stitch. Mrs. West did so readily, and all was calm and peaceable for a
while. Suddenly, without giving Mrs. West a moment’s warning, McCarthy
stabbed her from behind, inflicting one severe wound on the forehead
and the other under the ear. She appears to have used the utmost
violence. Mrs. West got up, streaming with blood, and made for the cell
door, which she bolted behind her, thus securing the prisoner inside.
Assistance was called at once, but on going back to the cell McCarthy
was found on the floor insensible, with a big bruise on her forehead.
She continued in this kind of trance for twenty-four hours. It was a
marvel to every one how she had got the weapon, for in consequence of
her known suicidal tendencies she had been furnished with neither knife
or scissors. However, on returning from exercise, as it was afterwards
ascertained, she had seen a knife lying on the floor in the passage,
and stooping, as if to pull up her shoe, had managed to secrete the
knife in her sleeve. So unprovoked and murderous an attack, coupled
with the previous attempts at suicide, indicated a maniacal ferocity.
The succeeding trance corroborated the suspicions; and although the
prisoner had exhibited great art in concealing her weapon, such cunning
was not inconsistent with mania. She had also attempted to effect her
escape by making a large hole in the ceiling of her cell. Therefore,
a well known physician, Dr. Monro, was now sent for, and at once, on
hearing the whole story, certified the prisoner to be insane. She was
now in the infirmary, her feet and arms bound to the bed by several
ligatures. The surgeon removed those on her arms, on which the governor
thought it prudent to put her into handcuffs. In the night she was
caught in the act of getting her feet loose, and was evidently bent on
some further mischief. Thus baffled, she remained sullen for some time,
then sent for the governor and made a clean breast of it, having been
moved thereto by a passage in one of the Psalms, which another prisoner
who watched her had been reading aloud. The expression she noticed was
about “going away like lost sheep.” She told the governor that while
she was in the trance she knew some gentlemen had come to see her, and
that one of them was a mad doctor. “I don’t think doctors know much
about madness,” she added, “or they’d a’ understood me better.” Mr.
Nihil was now pretty sure that McCarthy was no lunatic, but Dr. Monro
and Dr. Wade adhered to their former opinion, so she was removed to
Bethlehem.
Another woman, Ann Williams, who was received from Bath, proved a very
desperate character. The governor of Bath gaol, who brought her up to
London, declared he had never had so much trouble with any prisoner
before. She also was determined to make away with herself, and the
first time left alone she had jumped out of a window an immense height
from the ground. This country gaoler, on seeing the cell to which she
was destined in the Penitentiary, protested that it would be highly
dangerous to allow her to have pewter pint, or spoon, or cell stool.
The moment her hands were loosened she would be sure to thrust the
spoon down her throat, or attack some one with the stool. Even the
sheets should be removed, for she was capable of tearing them into
slips to make herself a halter. Directly she arrived at Millbank she
tried to dash her brains out by striking her head violently against the
wall—emulating in this respect another prisoner for whom, some years
later, a special head-dress was provided, a sort of Turkish cap padded
at the top, merely to save her skull. Williams’ language was dreadful,
and she refused all food. The governor now suspected her strongly of
artifice, and the doctor recommended that she should be punished with
bread and water diet. That night she grew extremely turbulent. She
was then tied down to her bedstead, and a sort of gag, brought from
Bath for McCarthy, used, which was effective in curbing her rage.
This gag was a wide piece of strong leather, having perforated holes
to admit of breathing, but which completely silenced her horrible and
violent expressions. After starving herself for four days she had still
strength enough left to get out of her handcuffs, and would have done
much mischief had not the other prisoners who were watching her held
her down by the hair. After greasing her wrists it was found possible
to replace the handcuffs. This was another case in which it was thought
advisable to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt, and she was
also removed to Bedlam.
It was quite within possibility that in these two cases madness was
proved. But it is often difficult to draw the line between madness
and outrageous misconduct; and the latter is sometimes persisted in
order to make good a pretence of deranged intellect. Among the female
prisoners there are numerous instances of this—and as a matter of fact
among the males also. Cases of “trying it on,” or “doing the barmy,”
which are cant terms for feigning lunacy, used at one time to be more
frequent than they are now, when longer experience protects prison
physicians from deception.
The case of Julia St. Clair Newman—or Miss Newman, as she was commonly
called in the prison and out—attracted considerable attention in
its time, becoming indeed the subject of frequent discussion in
Parliament, and being referred at length to a Select Committee of the
House of Lords. Inside the walls Julia Newman was for many months the
centre of all interest; she was a thorn in the side of all officials,
visitors, governor, doctor, matrons, and even of her fellow-prisoners.
Apparently of Creole origin—at least it was certain that she had been
born in one of the West India Islands—she came home while still a
child, and was educated at a French boarding-school. When sixteen she
returned to Trinidad with her mother, remained there a year or two,
and again came to England to live on an allowance made them by Julia’s
guardian. But whether this allowance was too small, or their natural
proclivities would not be repressed, they soon got into bad ways.
Repeatedly shifting houses, they moved from one lodging to another,
always in debt, and not seldom under suspicion of swindling and fraud.
Three months in the King’s Bench was followed by a lengthened sojourn
in Whitecross Street Gaol; then came more shady transactions, such
mistakes as pledging their landlady’s plate for their own, making away
with wearing apparel and furniture, or absconding without payment of
rent. At length, having left the apartments of a certain Mrs. Dobbs
in a hurry, they packed up—quite by accident—in one of their trunks
a silver spoon, some glasses, and a decanter, the property of the
aforesaid Mrs. Dobbs. For this they were arrested, and as soon as they
were in custody a second charge was laid against them for stealing
a ring from a woman in the King’s Bench, which Julia indignantly
denied, declaring that she had picked it up in the pump yard—where of
course there were plenty of rings to be had simply for the trouble of
stooping. Naturally the jury disbelieved the Newmans’ explanation of
both counts, and mother and daughter were found guilty and sentenced to
transportation.
They were evidently a pair of ordinary commonplace habitual
swindlers, deserving no special notice. But their rumoured gentility
gained for them a species of misplaced sympathy; and they were
excused transportation, to be sent instead, for reformation, to
the Penitentiary, where they arrived on the 11th March, 1837. Of
the mother it will be sufficient to say at once that she was an
inoffensive tractable old woman, who bore her punishment with patience,
and eventually died in prison. But Julia was cast in a different
mould. Under thirty,—according to her own statement she was only
nineteen,—full in figure, and florid of complexion, possessed, as was
afterwards proved, of extraordinary physical strength, she displayed,
from the first moment almost, an incorrigible perversity which made
her in the end a perfect nuisance to the whole establishment. There
was something ladylike about her when she was in a peaceable mood.
Inexperienced people would have called her a gentlewoman. Not handsome
or even good looking, but decidedly “interesting,” the matrons said
when questioned before the Select Committee. She was accomplished:
could draw and paint, and was very musical; sang beautifully—and
certainly during her stay at Millbank she gave plenty of proof of the
strength and compass of her voice; and with all this she was clever,
designing, and of course thoroughly unprincipled.
The day after her reception she endeavoured to tamper with the
wardswoman; seeking to obtain paper and pencil “to write a letter to
her mother.” When taxed with this breach of rules, she declared the
wardswoman wanted to force the things upon her. Then she was found to
have cut a page out of “The Prisoner’s Companion,” a book supplied
to all. Questioned privately, Newman with many expressions of grief
confessed her guilt. Mr. Nihil, who was still quite in the dark as to
her real character, pardoned this offence. She was next charged with
an attempt to induce a fellow-prisoner to pass on a message to her
mother—the substance of which was that the elder Newman was to impose
upon the chaplain by a hypocritical confession, in order to obtain thus
the daughter’s release, Julia promising when free to contrive means
by which the mother should also be discharged. The “dark” became her
lot for this, and to it she again returned the following week, for
refusing to clean out her cell. When the governor reasoned with her,
she merely said she would be happy to pay some other prisoner to do it
for her. This second visit to the dark brought her under the doctor’s
notice, who ordered her to the infirmary, as she declared she was too
weak to walk downstairs. Her face having grown quite pale and ghastly,
help was sent for, when it was discovered that she had whitened it
with chalk. She again visited the dark, and when released began again
to communicate with her mother. Several “stiffs”[7] were intercepted,
in which she tried to persuade her to smuggle a letter out to their
solicitors. This discovery led to a strict search of Julia’s cell and
person, when large quantities of writing paper were found upon her,
though “how she procured the paper, or the pen, or how she manufactured
the ink, continued a mystery implying great laxity of supervision.” Her
anxiety to write thus checked in one direction found vent in another:
with the point of her scissors she had scratched upon the whitewash of
her cell wall four verses of poetry. The words were harmless, and as
she asserted that she felt it a severe restriction being kept apart,
the governor admonished her well for this offence.
This leniency was quite thrown away. A fresh attempt at clandestine
correspondence came to light within a week or two. Newman passed a
letter at chapel to Mary Ann Stickley, which was found in the other’s
bosom, the substance of it being that Newman professed a great regard
for Stickley, and begged of her to excite the hatred of all the other
prisoners against Ware for her recent betrayal of Newman. A second
letter was picked up by Alice Bradley in front of Newman’s cell,
addressed to a prisoner named Weedon, whom she abused in round terms
for making a false charge against the governor to the effect that he
had called her (Newman) by some horrid epithet—“which she could _never_
believe of that good man.” Newman’s cell was again searched, when an
ink bottle was found in the hopper,[8] and some substitutes for pens.
Her letters were found replete with artifices respecting modes of
communication. Her next form of amusement was to manufacture a big rag
doll for herself, out of a breadth of her petticoat. When this was
discovered Newman was at exercise walking in the yard, and she heard
that her cell was about to be thoroughly searched. Whereupon she ran
as fast as she could, back to her ward, and endeavoured to prevent the
matrons from entering her cell. When searched herself she resisted
violently, but with the assistance of the wardswoman some written
papers were taken from her, also some leaves from the blank part of
her prayer-book, also written over.
“I understand,” says the governor, “a most extraordinary scene took
place when the prisoner apprehended a search. She rushed to the stove
and thrust certain papers into it, which but for the promptitude of the
wardswoman, who behaved admirably, would soon have succeeded in putting
them beyond investigation. They were however rescued, upon which she
threw her arms round the warder’s neck, kissed her vehemently, went
on her knees, supplicated concealment, tore her hair, and by such
passionate demonstrations evinced the great importance she attached to
the papers. The warder wept, the taskmistress contributed her tears,
the wardswoman was overcome, but all stood faithful. In the midst
of the screaming and confusion came the schoolmaster, who was also
assailed with all the tender importunities of the fair prisoner, but
all in vain.”
By this time the governor arrived upon the scene, the officers
partially recovered from their consternation, and Newman, much less
excited, was disposed to make light of the document recently esteemed
so precious. She said it was only a copy; the original had been torn
up. “What is it then?” “A paper from which my mother and I expect to
gain our liberty. It relates to a person who was the cause of all our
misfortunes.” On inspection it proved to be a statement, or dying
confession, of one Mary Hewett, tending to exculpate the Newmans at
her own expense—probably a draft of what Julia Newman wished Hewett to
say.
Three days later Julia was reported to be in a state of fury. Loud
screaming proceeded from her cell. “I found her in a most violent
paroxysm of rage,” says the governor. “It was most painful to see it.
Not genuine madness did she evince, but that species of temporary
frenzy to which an actress by force of imagination and violent effort
could attain. Towards me she expressed the utmost abhorrence, and
slammed the door in my face. I sent for the surgeon and some male
officers, for her screams and yells, her violence in tearing her hair,
and knocking her head against the wall, made it probable that forcible
restraint would be necessary.”
The surgeon did not wish to have her placed in a dark cell, nor even
in a strait waistcoat, and at his recommendation she was taken to the
infirmary and put in a room by herself; but she was not removed without
a continuance of violent screaming, to the disturbance of the whole
place. Papers were found in her cell, on one of which was written
“a lampoon, composed in doggerel verses, in which she vented the
bitterness of her revenge. I (Mr. Nihil) was the principal object of
her ridicule. It is melancholy to see a young girl of talent and some
attainments so bent upon deception, and when foiled in her artifice
abandoning herself alternately to studied malice and furious rage.”
She remained in the infirmary for three days at the special wish of
the surgeon, though the governor wanted to have her back in her cell.
All the time she continued to feign insanity—a clear imposture of
which the doctors, the governor, and the assistant chaplain were all
convinced. The governor visited her to endeavour to convince her of the
folly and hopelessness of this course; but the moment she saw him she
addressed him with the most insulting expressions, and seizing a can
full of gruel threw it at his head. She was restrained from further
violence, but continued to use the most outrageous exclamations, to the
disturbance of the whole prison. The surgeon now consented to have her
removed to a dark cell; and the governor remarks, “I can account for
her personal hostility to myself thus. She has been defeated in several
attempts to carry on clandestine communications. Until Monday last she
cherished a hope of getting back among the other prisoners, where she
might still prosecute her schemes; but on that day I again refused her,
and my refusal was such as it was hopeless for her to try to alter it.”
She continued in the dark, amusing herself by singing songs of her own
composition, “too regular and too much studied for the productions
of a genuine mad-woman.” She slept well, and ate all the bread they
gave her. The visitor, Mr. Crawford, saw her, and recommended another
medical opinion. Accordingly Mr. White, the former surgeon to the
establishment, was called in, and stated that her madness was assumed,
but he recommended she still should be treated as a patient.
Goaded at length by the continued annoyance, the governor writes to the
committee as follows: “I submit that the case of Julia Newman calls for
some decisive proceeding. There has been time enough—eleven days—to
put to the test whether she is mad in reality or only in pretence. She
has contrived to set all discipline at defiance, continually singing
so as to be heard in every part of the establishment. Her conduct
excites universal attention, and furnishes an example of the grossest
insubordination. If the prisoner is mad, she ought forthwith to be sent
to a mad-house; if not, she ought to be sent abroad as incorrigible.
Yesterday she showed a disposition to return to her senses, as if
tired of the effort of simulation, but did not know how to get out of
her assumed character. To-day she is as bad as ever. No doubt in time
she would come all right, but in the meantime what is to be done with
her? I cannot venture to place her among other prisoners. If she is
to be kept apart the whole time of her imprisonment (of which three
and a half years are unexpired), there is every reason to expect a
constant recurrence of violence and other modes of annoyance; for she
has no respect for authority, and after assaulting the governor and
counterfeiting madness with impunity, she will be emboldened to act as
she likes. If put into a dark cell doubts as to her sanity will arise,
and perhaps her own self-abandonment to violence may superinduce real
madness, and then it will be said that our system at the Penitentiary
had driven her out of her mind. She is far too dangerous a character to
be sent into a ward with other prisoners. She has already tampered with
eight or ten other prisoners, perhaps more.”
There was no end to her deception. In one of the papers taken from her
she asserted that certain property was secreted in a flower-pot, and
buried in a garden in Goswell Street, at the house of one Elderton. The
governor applied to Sir F. Roe, at Bow Street, who said, “Newman has
been before me already. She was charged in an anonymous letter with
infanticide; but on investigation, I found the letter was a malicious
composition of this Mr. Elderton. The letter contained many revolting
particulars, and charged Newman with the utmost barbarity.” The letter
was sent for and examined by Mr. Nihil, who at once recognized the
writing as Newman’s own; and she had evidently written it with the
object of ruining Elderton’s character, and to appear herself as the
victim of a conspiracy. “So wily, ingenious, clever, and unprincipled a
deceiver as this prisoner cannot, I submit, after all that has passed,
be placed amongst others without endangering the subordination and
discipline of the whole ward; and unless the committee are prepared to
direct that she be kept altogether apart, I hope they will bring the
matter to a crisis and send her abroad,” wrote the governor.
For a month this violence of demeanour continued. She was found
uniformly ungovernable. In her cell, when searched at regular
intervals, clandestine writings were always discovered; in one of which
was a long and critical examination of the character of the young
Queen, who had just come to the throne. Mr. Nihil began to despair.
“Julia Newman having continued her pretended madness up to the present
time, to the frequent disturbance of the prison, and having committed
innumerable breaches of order, it became my duty to put a stop to her
proceedings,” he says.
There was no chance of getting rid of her by transportation, as the
last shipload of female convicts for that season had sailed, and there
would be no other till the spring. “This being the case, I thought it
necessary to converse with the prisoner, with a view of convincing
her of the folly of carrying on her attempts, and warning her of the
consequence of any further disturbance. I found her with her head
fantastically dressed, and other ridiculous accompaniments. She would
not hear me—darted out of her cell—stopped her ears, and uttered
several violent exclamations. I made several attempts at expostulation,
but in vain, and therefore I sent her to the dark.” The surgeon thought
her madness all deception. Again: “As my visits to Julia Newman are
only signals for violence, I have abstained from visiting her in
the dark, but inquired into her demeanour from the surgeon. He said
that in his presence she affected to beat herself violently, and
passionately to wish for death. Afterwards, in a manner very unlike
a mad-woman, she said she had been put into a dark cell, but it was
a matter of perfect indifference to her whether she was in a dark or
light cell. As the surgeon turned away she swore at him violently.”
Next day she hammered out her drinking-cup quite flat; and when being
locked up for the night, asserted loudly that she was quite well,
singing and shouting violently. There was an obvious effort of bravado
in her madness. Still the same report comes from the surgeon: “J. N.
continues her affected madness.” The governor sends word he will let
her out of the dark as soon as she promises to behave herself; and then
Miss Neave, one of the lady visitors, goes to her by the governor’s
request, “in the hope that the conversation of a lady, against whom
she could have no prejudice, might have a salutary effect.” It proved
ineffectual. The prisoner said she did not want to be preached to;
would not listen to a word from Miss Neave, threw water at her, singing
also, and shouting in a most powerful voice, so as to baffle all her
attempts. Miss Neave was quite convinced the prisoner’s insanity was
feigned, and that she was only acting a part. At length she was removed
to a sleeping cell in the infirmary for treatment, and here after a
first paroxysm of rage, in which she smashed a basin into atoms, she
assumed a timid aspect, and when spoken to by the taskmistress, wept
like a child. “In the hope she might be a little softened,” says Mr.
Nihil, “I spoke to Miss Frazer, another of the visiting ladies, who
agreed to go to Newman, saying that Julia had always received her with
gentleness and apparent pleasure. On this occasion, however, Newman
behaved with frightful violence, refusing to have any visit, dashing
her can upon the table, and seeming as if she would strike Miss Frazer
if she could. She had already blackened her own eyes, and she appeared
so possessed by despair, that Miss Frazer thought she might do herself
some serious injury, and that her hands should be secured.”
Two days later we read: “Julia Newman is worse than ever. The doctors
say she is not mad, at least Dr. Monro did. Mr. Wade is doubtful.” The
governor himself was of opinion that she was only carrying on a deep
scheme: He says, “I suggested to Mr. Wade, a day or two ago, that if
any circumstance had arisen to make it probable that she was really
deranged, we had better have another opinion, and send her to Bedlam;
but there does not seem any ground for this step. But is the prisoner
to defy all authority, now that the doctor has removed her from the
dark to the infirmary? Certainly not. I therefore called upon the
doctor to report whether there was any danger in subjecting her to
fresh punishment for fresh offences. The surgeon thinks there would be
considerable risk in sending her to the dark cell on bread and water at
present. Had I received a different answer, I should have proceeded
forthwith to act upon the reports against her; but the committee will
see how I am situated. She is too ill for punishment, and gets more
violent and refractory than ever. Her acts of misconduct are: refusing
to take her dinner, tearing up her prayer-book, singing loudly all
the fore-part of the evening, and refusing her breakfast; grazing her
nose, so that her face presents the most frightful appearance; asking
for a can of water and then throwing it all over the taskmistress.”
No further steps are taken at the moment, beyond providing a special
strait waistcoat to be used in case of emergency. But she still
continues in the infirmary. About 7 o’clock that evening she is heard
screaming loudly. After some time the governor sends to ask the
surgeon if he was aware of it. Answer comes to say that he is ill in
bed. Second message (oh, cunning governor-chaplain!): “Would it be
objectionable to her health to remove her to the dark?” Surgeon, asking
only to be left in peace, replies, “Nothing to prevent her being placed
anywhere.” This is all the governor wants. Off she goes to the dark,
where she remains till she is reported to be singing as loudly as ever
in her cell, and won’t give up her rug. Next she is found lying on her
back, with a handkerchief knotted tightly around her neck. As soon as
she was better, she uttered the following impromptu:—
“What a pity hell’s gates are not kept by dame King,
So surly a cur would let nobody in”—
Mrs. King being the infirmary warder. Then the assistant chaplain
visited her, and was treated with the utmost insolence. She attacked
Mrs. Dyett, another matron, and knocked the candlestick out of her
hand, “triumphing at the same time at her exploit. Upon this I ordered
her to be confined in the strait waistcoat made expressly for her under
the directions of the surgeon.” Some time after this the doctor visits
her, and finds she has not only rid herself of the restraint, but she
has also torn the waistcoat and most of her own clothes to atoms.
Nevertheless, he thinks her so unwell that he removes her again to
the infirmary. From this, in the course of a few days, she returns to
her ward. The cell, however, could not hold her, and she soon forced
her way out into the passage. Another new, and much stronger strait
waistcoat, specially constructed, was now put on her by a couple of
male officers. Within an hour or two it was found slashed to ribbons,
and on a close search a pair of scissors were discovered under her arm,
accounting no doubt for the destruction.
Her next offence is to slap a matron in the face. Again the strait
waistcoat is tried, this time a newer and a still stronger one; but it
is found too large to be of any use, so the old method is resorted to
and she is sent to the dark instead. For a time she appears tamed, and
for quite a month she remains quiet, though still “unconformable.” She
is, however, next reported for making three baskets from the straw of
her mattress and part of the leaves of her Bible. She has written a
long incoherent statement, probably with a stocking needle for pen, and
some blood and water for ink. The warders when questioned showed great
lack of desire to perform their duties. The truth is, the prisoner was
very difficult to deal with, and they were all more or less afraid
of her. “It is no wonder,” says the governor, “that a person of her
strength, violence, and mental superiority, combined with reckless
determination and obstinacy, should inspire these terrors; and I really
cannot blame these officers. Without perpetually searching her person,
as well as her bedding, it would be impossible to guard against the
practices just reported, but this would occasion perpetual disturbance,
leading to no good end, but doing much mischief in the Penitentiary.”
Convinced that Millbank’s means of punishment are totally inadequate to
attain the end of reforming her, or compelling obedience, the governor,
to avoid constant worry, was content to leave her quite to herself,
keeping her apart—in itself a heavy punishment—and restricting her to
bread and water when she broke the rules.
Newman, however, would not consent to be forgotten. Her next offence
was to refuse to give out her cell stool, and when the door was
opened she flung it with great violence at her warder’s head, but
the latter fortunately evaded the blow. The governor and the male
officers together repaired to the spot in order to remove this most
rebellious and dangerous prisoner to the dark. Her subsequent conduct
was all of the same stamp. None but the most prominent features admit
of being reported, her life here being in fact one continued system
of insult and contempt. “In the dark cell she levelled her tin can
at the surgeon, and the contents fell upon the taskmistress; had
either of them been struck by the vessel it might have been of serious
consequence. Her cell has since been examined, and several figures
and other articles have been discovered. They exhibit extraordinary
resource and ingenuity, unhappily directed to the flagitious purpose of
destroying property and manifesting contempt of authority.”
As soon as she went to the dark, the surgeon recommended that she
should be removed to the infirmary, as she appeared much exhausted.
“I thought it necessary to remonstrate against this,” says the
governor, “as it appeared ill-timed lenity. I am very reluctant to
liberate the prisoner from punishment for several reasons. Every fresh
victory which under the plea of ill-health she has achieved, has been
productive of increased insolence; and I have often lamented to see
her indulged with arrowroot and similar niceties at the very time she
has been defying all authority. The female officers entertain just
apprehensions in waiting on her in the usual manner when restored to a
sleeping cell, and with regard to the mode of punishing her on fresh
offences I am quite perplexed. I might again send her to the dark,
again to be restored in an unsubdued state to a sleeping cell, and so
on continually, but I am obliged to resort to male assistance, and this
I find by experience has a very injurious effect upon the other female
prisoners, many of whom take it into their heads to brave all female
authority, and require the men to be sent for before they will submit.”
The governor thinks, “All prisoners whose insubordinate spirit does
not yield to the ordinary method of treatment, should be reported as
incorrigible and removed.... The moral injury they do to the residue by
long continued examples of rebellion is incalculable.”
The assistant chaplain reported on 12th December, that he found
Julia Newman exceedingly exhausted, and that the news of a letter
from Trinidad to her mother failed to rouse her. She had only eaten
a little of the crust of her bread, and he was alarmed as to the
consequences which might follow if she were allowed to remain longer
in the dark cell. Mr. Nihil was still firm. He says: “I remarked that
her exhaustion was owing not to confinement in a dark cell, but to an
obstinate refusal to eat her bread; and that I could not compel her to
eat; if she would not eat unless humoured in this instance, she might
as well refuse to eat unless I let her out of the prison, and that I
should not be justified in complying from apprehension of danger to her
health thus wilfully incurred. In like manner it seemed now as if she
chose to starve herself because she was not allowed to throw stools at
the heads of officers. But of course I have no desire to keep her under
punishment a moment after she shows a disposition to conform to the
regulations and maintain that quietness I am here to enforce.”
The surgeon was now sent for, and asked what he thought. He was afraid
it would be necessary to remove her on the ground of safety, being
persuaded she would sacrifice her life sooner than yield.
“If you think she cannot be kept under punishment with safety, I must
submit to your opinion,” said the governor. “It is for you to determine
that, otherwise I must distinctly object; for the duties of my office
will not permit me to give in to her while she continues insubordinate.”
“It’s not the dark cell,” replied the doctor, “that constitutes her
danger, but her persistent refusal to eat so long as she is kept there.”
“Very well then,” said the governor; “you may remove her. I cannot
stand in the way and prevent you from acting on your own judgment.”
The surgeon went, and in five minutes returned.
“Well?”
“There’s not much the matter with her yet. Directly she saw me she
began to sing and scream, with a voice as loud as if she had lived
always on solid meat. She pelted me with bread—refused to come and have
her pulse felt—abused, insulted me in every way, and finally said she
was just as well in the dark as anywhere else.”
Under these circumstances it was decided to leave her where she was
for the present, especially as a forcible removal might have created a
general disturbance in the prison.
The next step in the case was her removal to Bethlehem Hospital as mad.
But even this was misconstrued; for when, in the February following
(1838), a discussion arose in the House of Lords as to alleged
ill-treatment of prisoners in the Penitentiary, Newman’s case was
mentioned as one in which, on the other hand, culpable leniency had
been shown. Those who found fault declared that she had been sent to an
asylum, not because she was mad, but because by birth a lady. The same
people declared that it was well known that she was not mad, and that
she never had been. The matrons at Bethlehem knew this well, and had
told her to her face that she was only feigning; whereupon she ceased
to feign. Then as it was clear she was not mad, it was equally clear
that Bethlehem was not the place for her.
Accordingly, she was returned to the Penitentiary; and back she came,
exhibiting throughout the most sullen contempt, and persistently
refusing to open her lips. Directly she arrived she again began her
tricks. Deliberately insolent refusals to execute the orders she
received, and open contempt of punishment, were the leading points on
which she differed with the authorities. Again the governor urges on
the committee that she may be removed by transportation, she being,
under existing circumstances, both intractable and incorrigible. “If
I am to maintain discipline where she is, it must be by entering
perpetually into fresh and perplexing contests, the outcome of which
may be very awful as respects the prisoner and exceedingly embarrassing
as respects the institution,” he writes. She next pretends to wish to
lay hands upon herself, and her rug is found torn up and converted into
a noose. It was hanging to a peg in her cell, like a halter ready for
use. The authorities considered it advisable therefore to place her in
restraint, in a new strait waistcoat which fitted close. In an hour or
two she had torn it all to pieces. The next proceeding was to confine
her hands in a very small pair of handcuffs, and to pinion her arms
with strong tape. The waistcoat appearing to have been cut, she and
her cell were searched, but no knife or scissors could be found, and
only a piece of broken glass which she must have used for the purpose.
She soon afterwards loosened the tape, and was then bound with strong
webbing to the bedstead. Next morning she was found to have got rid of
the handcuffs, had cut the webbing to pieces, broken her windows, and
destroyed her bedding. One of the female warders was therefore sent to
a surgical instrument maker’s to purchase some effectual instrument of
restraint, and returned with a muff-belt and handcuffs, all united,
and ingeniously contrived to defeat the struggles of lunatics—quite a
new invention. Before long she completely destroyed the muff and got
rid of the handcuffs attached to it. She was next secured to the wall
by a stout chain.
An officer, Mrs. Drago, who visited her just now, asked her why she
should make such a figure of herself, pretending to be mad too, when
she wasn’t. “I’ve been advised to do it by my solicitor. If I can only
get out, I’ll soon manage to get my mother out. I’m a person of large
fortune, and can make it worth any one’s while to do me a good turn.
Mrs. Bryant used to, but she’s gone. That used to be my larder, over
there,”—pointing to the window blind. Her evident object was to tamper
with Mrs. Drago, and this of itself gave evidence that she could not be
very mad.
The chain by which she was now confined was put round her waist, passed
through a ring in the wall, and padlocked. “This security was of short
duration,” says the governor, “before morning she had slipped through
the chain. It was again placed on her in a more effectual manner,
under, instead of outside her clothes.... As she had destroyed so much
of her bedding I ordered her to have no more bedclothes. In the evening
she made the most violent demand for a blanket, and said she was dying
of cramp and cold.... As a matter of discipline I thought it my duty
to refuse the blanket unless ordered by the surgeon. When she heard
this she quite frightened the female officer with the frightful and
horrible imprecations she uttered.”
In consequence of her getting out of her chain the manufacturer of
restraints for the insane came to devise some fresh expedient for
confining her. He made a pair of leather sleeves of extra strength,
and fitted them himself. They came up to her shoulders, were strapped
across, then also strapped round her waist, and again below, fastening
her hands close to her side.
Next morning the taskmistress took the sleeves to the governor. In
the night Julia had extricated herself from them, and then cut them
into ribbons, using a piece of glass she had secreted. A new strait
waistcoat was now made for her, and she was specially measured by the
manufacturer already mentioned; but it could not be ready before the
morning, so she was left without restraint that night. Many of the
officials were afraid she would commit suicide, but not Mr. Nihil.
However, next morning she was found with her clothes torn to rags, and
part tied tightly round her neck. As a measure of precaution the new
strait waistcoat was then put on, after she had been first carefully
searched. A strong collar was also put round her neck to prevent her
biting at the waistcoat with her teeth. “I lament exceedingly,” says
Mr. Nihil, “the necessity of resorting to such measures; but what is
to be done with this violent and obstinate girl?” Next morning she was
found to have got at the waistcoat with her teeth in spite of the
collar, then one hand loose, after which she relieved herself of the
apparatus altogether.
She was now left free, while fresh devices were sought to restrain
her, but in the midst of it all came an order for her removal to Van
Diemen’s Land, whither she was in a day or two conveyed in the convict
ship _Nautilus_. And here the curtain falls upon her stormy life.