A few minutes afterwards the red-haired warder returned with what he
called "some dinner." It consisted of a little brown loaf, two or three
coarse potatoes, and a dirty-looking tin of pea-soup. I was hungry, but
I could not tackle this food. From my earliest childhood I have always
had a physical antipathy to pea-soup. The very sight of it raises my
gorge. Nor have I any special relish for potatoes, unless they are of
good quality and well cooked. I therefore munched the brown bread,
and washed it down with cold water. It was a Spartan meal, but a very
indigestible one, as I can certify from painful experience. Why a
prisoner's stomach should be so grossly abused by a sudden change
of diet passes my comprehension. Surely it would not be difficult to
introduce the prison fare gradually. There is real danger in a shock
to the basic organ of life when all the other organs are painfully
accommodating themselves to a radical change of environment. Weak men
are sometimes shattered by it. Those who talk about the healthiness of
prisons (a subject on which I shall have something to say by-and-bye)
would be astonished at the quantity of physic dispensed by the doctor.
My constitution is a strong one, and a dyspeptic old friend used to envy
my "treble-distilled gastric juice." Before I went to Holloway Gaol I
scarcely knew, except inferentially, that I had a stomach; and while I
was there I scarcely knew I had anything else.
After dining I walked up and down my cell--tramp, tramp, tramp. How the
time crawled, weary hour on hour, like a slow serpent over desert sands.
There was nothing to read, nothing to do, nothing to hear, and nothing
to see. I was steeped in nothing. And as the senses were unexercised,
thought worked on memory till the brain seemed gnawing itself, as
a shipwrecked man might assuage his thirst at his own veins. Then
imagination, the magician, lovely in weal but terrible in woe, began to
weave his spell, and visions arose of dear loved ones agonising beyond
the prison walls, to whom my heart yearned through the dividing space
with an intense passion that seemed as though its potency might almost
annihilate our barriers. Alas! hearts yearn in vain. Nothing avails but
strength, and what we cannot achieve the Fates never bestow. My cell
walls stood cold and impassable around me, like sentinels of destiny,
too vigilant for evasion and too strong for resistance. Brute force
overmatches even genius and divinity in the ultimate appeal. Prometheus
lies chained to his Caucasian rock, in eternal pain though in eternal
defiance; and Napoleon frets away his mighty life at St. Helena watched
by the callous eyes of Sir Hudson Lowe.
About three o'clock my cell door was again unlocked and I was invited to
take a bath. In the corridor I met my two fellow prisoners, and we were
all three marched back to the reception room. Three good baths of warm
water were awaiting us. What a glorious luxury after the six days'
confinement, without any means of washing one's skin! Some of the
prisoners, I understand, regard the first bath as the worst part of the
punishment. They are brought up in dirt, and love it; like the Italian
who deserted the English girl he was engaged to, and justified himself
by saying: "Oh, if I marry her, she wash me, and then I die." We,
however, splashed about in our baths, uttering ejaculations of pleasure,
and congratulating each other on at least one pleasant bit of prison
experience.
The doors of our bath-rooms were about five feet high, with an open
space of nine or ten inches between the bottom and the floor. Over the
top of these an officer passed us each a couple of shirts (under and
over), a pair of drawers, a pair of trousers, and worsted stockings.
The drawers and the under-shirt were woollen, and the outer-shirt coarse
striped cotton. The trousers seemed a mixture of cotton and wool. They
are brown when new, but they wash white, and look then very much like
canvas. My pair was a terrible misfit, and had to be exchanged for
another nearly twice the size. We were also provided with a net bag to
put our own clothes in. My good black suit, dirty linen, hat and boots,
were all crushed in together After this performance the bags are hung
up, and either the next day, or at their leisure, the officials make an
inventory of the contents, and stow them away until the day before the
prisoner leaves, when they are taken out in readiness for donning on the
blessed morning of release.
Clad in shirt, trousers and stockings, we walked from our baths to the
reception room, where we found several officers and the Governor and
Deputy-Governor, who had apparently come to superintend our toilet. Each
of us was fitted with a new pair of shoes, a waistcoat and a coat. These
arrangements were the subject of a good deal of pleasantry. Our garments
were not of a Bond Street pattern; indeed, it takes a very handsome man
to cut an elegant figure in a prison suit. I maliciously remarked to Mr.
Ramsey that he looked like a gentleman out yachting; but somehow he
was unable to see himself in that light. My own clothes were sadly
defective. The biggest shirt-collar they had would not button round my
throat, and the longest stock was so inadequate that a special one had
to be made for me. Nor would the biggest coat fasten across my chest.
A broad expanse of waistcoat yawned between the button and the
button-hole. Fancying that my complaint was merely fractious, the
Deputy-Governor--a tall, powerful man--tried to pull them together, and
miserably failed. "Well," he said, "it's the largest in stock, and we
can't give you what we haven't got." "Yes," I exclaimed, "that's all
very well; but if I go about with an open throat like this I shall get
an attack of bronchitis. Pray let me have a stock as soon as possible.
And do you really mean that you can't possibly find me a bigger coat?"
The Deputy-Governor eyed me smilingly as he said, "Come, Mr. Foote,
don't be so particular; the clothes don't quite fit you now, but they
_will_." And the worst of it was _they did_. My coat, however, was
always tight across the chest. I changed my trousers and waistcoat as I
grew slimmer, but the solid structure of my back and chest (built up by
athletics in youth and sustained by lecturing in manhood) always taxed
the resources of the establishment in the matter of coats.
One by one we went into the booking-clerk's office again, where we were
scaled and our weights entered in a book. Then we had an interview
with the doctor, whose duty it was to examine us to see whether we were
suffering from any complaint. I was pronounced quite sound. Dr. Gordon
spoke pleasantly then, as he always did afterwards. "I suppose you've
lived pretty well?" he said. "Not epicureanly," I answered, "but still
well." "I'm afraid you won't like our hospitality," he rejoined. "I
suppose not," I replied grimly. "However," he continued, "I shall put
you on third-class diet at once, and order you a mattress." What the
third-class diet was the reader shall learn presently. The second-class
diet, which I should otherwise have had for the first month, consists of
nothing but bread and sloppy meal-and-water, three times a day. Mr. Kemp
had to put up with this wretched fare for a while, and he tells me he
was ravenously hungry morning and night, so that it was a luxury to pick
up a chance piece of bread from a dinner-tin in the corridor or from a
friendly prisoner "off his feed."
Bathing, clothing, and doctoring over, we were marched back to our
cells, each loaded with a new mattress and a pair of clean sheets. A few
minutes later I was summoned to the schoolroom with Mr. Ramsey, where
we were furnished with pen and ink and a sheet of foolscap to write our
"petition" to the Home Secretary. The schoolmaster officiated on this
occasion. He was a tall, pleasant-looking man, something over forty,
with a tendency to baldness. I believe he instructs prisoners who cannot
read or write in those useful arts. But his general duty is to play
factotum to the chaplain. He takes the singing class, leads the music
in chapel, plays the harmonium (the chaplain always calls it the organ),
acts as parson's clerk, and reads the lessons when his superior's throat
is hoarse with raving. He has a clear and powerful voice, which often
serves him in good stead. The congregation has a knack of getting out
of time and tune when the melody is unfamiliar; this, in turn, distracts
the choir, who flounder hopelessly, until the schoolmaster drags them
back by putting full steam on the harmonium and singing at the top of
his voice. Every Sunday afternoon, at least, he was obliged to display
his vocal prowess in this manner. After every one of the commandments
read out by the parson the prisoners chanted the response, "Lord have
mercy upon us, and incline our hearts to keep this law." Nine times they
chanted thus, gathering momentum as they went along, so that they took
the tenth in brave style. But, alas! the tenth was different. "Lord have
mercy upon us, and write all these thy laws in our hearts, we beseech
thee," were the words, and the tune was correspondingly altered.
Fortunately, just at the point of change, there was a strong
_crescendo_, which gave the schoolmaster a fine opportunity of asserting
himself. Dragging them back was impossible, so he drowned them, and
concluded with the solemn _diminuendo_ amid the breathless admiration
of the audience, who went wrong and wondered at his going right every
Sunday with the most astonishing regularity.
Looking after the library was the part of the schoolmaster's duty which
brought him in frequent contact with me. I always found him very civil
and obliging; and from all I could ascertain he was not only generally
liked in the prison, but considered a better gentleman than the
chaplain.
My "petition" to the Home Secretary was a lengthy document. I assigned
many reasons for considering our sentence atrocious. I will not recite
them, because they will easily suggest themselves to the readers who
have followed my narrative. In conclusion I asked, if our release was
impossible, that we might be treated as first-class misdemeanants,
according to the general European custom in the case of press offenders,
or at least supplied with books and writing materials. Sir William
Harcourt sent no answer for a month. At the end of that interval the
Governor called me into his office and read out the brutal reply: "The
Home Secretary requests Colonel Milman to inform Foote and Ramsey that
he sees no reason for acceding to their request."
That was the only instruction Colonel Milman ever received from the Home
Office concerning us. Two months later, when public opinion was more
fully aroused in our favor, Sir William Harcourt allowed paragraphs to
circulate in the papers, stating that orders were given for our being
granted every indulgence consistent with our safe custody. It was a
brazen lie, which we were prevented from contradicting by the prison
rules. So carefully is every regulation contrived for shielding
officials that a prisoner is not allowed, in his quarterly letter,
to give any particulars of his treatment. Sir William Harcourt also
permitted the newspapers to announce that our health would not be
allowed to suffer. Another lie! When, after six weeks' incessant
diarrhoea, I complained that my stomach would not accommodate itself
to the prison food, and asked to be shifted to the civil side, where I
could provide my own, Sir William Harcourt did not even condescend to
reply, although he was duly informed that if Mr. Ramsey and I had been
found Guilty at the Court of Queen's Bench, on our third trial, Lord
Coleridge would not only have made his sentence concurrent with that
of Judge North, but also have removed us from the criminal-wards to the
debtors' wing. Nay, more. When Mr. Kemp had to be taken to the hospital,
where he was confined to his bed, and so weakened that he had to be
assisted to the carriage on the morning of his release, Sir William
Harcourt would not remit a day of his sentence, or take any notice of
his representations. It is well that the public should know this, and
contrast Sir William Harcourt's treatment of us with his treatment of
Mr. Edmund Yates. From the first I had no expectation of release. I told
Colonel Milman that Sir William Harcourt was merely a politician, who
cared for nothing but keeping in office; and that unless our friends
could threaten some Liberal seats, or seriously affect a division in
the House of Commons, he would keep us in to please the bigots and the
Tories.
Our "petition" to the Home Secretary being finished, we returned to our
cells, where tea was served at six o'clock. It consisted of gruel, or,
in prison parlance, "skilly," and another little brown loaf. The liquid
portion of this repast was too suggestive of bill-stickers' paste to be
tempting, so I made a second meal of bread and water.
The red-haired warder gave me a lesson in bed-making before he locked
me up for the night. Hammocks had been dispensed with in Holloway
ever since Sir Richard Cross groaned in the travail of invention, and
produced his masterpiece and monument--the plank bed. Yet so slow is the
official mind, that the rings still lingered in some of the cells.
The plank bed is constructed of three eight-inch deals, held together
laterally by transverse wooden bars, which serve to lift it two or three
inches from the floor. At the head there is a raised portion of flat
wood, slightly sloping, to serve as a bolster. For the first month (such
is Sir Richard Cross's brilliant idea) every prisoner, no matter what
his age or his offence, must sleep on this plank bed without a mattress,
unless the doctor sees a special reason for ordering him one. During the
second month he sleeps on the plank bed three nights a week, and during
the third month one night. Sleeps! The very word is a mockery. Scores
of prisoners do _not_ sleep, but pass night after night in broken and
restless slumber. Fancy a man delicately brought up, as some prisoners
are, suddenly pitched on one of these vile inventions. He tosses about
hour after hour, and rises in the morning sore and weary. He has no
appetite for breakfast, and is low all day. The next night comes with
renewed torture, and on the following day he is still worse. He then
applies to see the doctor, who gives him a bottle of physic, which
forces an appetite for a while. But it is soon powerless against the
effects of nervous exhaustion, and before the poor devil can obtain
relief, he is sometimes reduced to the most pitiable condition. I
have seen robust men in Holloway, by means of this plank bed and other
superfluous tortures of our prison system, brought to the very verge
of the grave; and I can scarcely control my indignation when I remember
that Mr. Truelove, at the age of seventy, was subjected to this
atrocious discipline.
The mattresses are stuffed with fibre. They are tolerable at first,
but in a few weeks the stuffing runs into lumps, and your mattress gets
nearly as hard as the plank. Shaking is no good; I tried it, and found
it only shifted the lumps out of the places my body had forced them in,
and left me to repose on a series of hillocks. I got my mattress changed
once or twice, but ordinary prisoners are seldom so fortunate.
I retired to rest early that first evening in Holloway. The day had been
eventful, and I slept heavily. Breakfast the next morning was a second
edition of the tea--bread and skilly; and again I refreshed myself with
the little loaf and cold water.
Soon after breakfast I was invited to attend chapel. It was a welcome
summons, for the cell is so drearily monotonous that any change is
agreeable. The corner of the chapel we entered was partitioned off
from the rest of the building, and capable of seating twenty or thirty
prisoners. Besides ourselves, there were present ten or twelve boys,
three or four old men, and two or three persons who looked slightly
imbecile. The service was read by the chaplain, whose voice was loud,
authoritative, and repellant. Some people would call it gruff. It was
certainly the most unpersuasive voice I ever heard. As I listened to
its domineering tones I could hardly refrain from laughing, for they
elicited an old story from the depths of memory. An aged pauper lay
dying, and in the parson's absence the master officiated at the sinner's
exit from this world. "Well, Tom," he began, "you've been a dreadful
fellow, and I fear you are going to hell." "Oh, sir," said the poor old
fellow, "you don't say so." "Yes, Tom," the master rejoined, "I do say
so; and you ought to be thankful there's a hell to go to."
After chapel we spent an hour or so in our cells, and were then
conducted to the basement of the reception wing, where we met the
Governor, who conducted us through several dark passages that led to the
foot of a spiral iron staircase. We ascended this, and found ourselves
on the ground floor of the criminal side of the prison. Four wings
radiated from a common centre, distinguished by the first four letters
of the alphabet. I was taken to the first cell in the first wing, Mr.
Ramsey to the second cell in the second wing, and Mr. Kemp to the second
cell in the third wing; our numbers being A 2, 1--B 2, 2--and C 2, 2.
Colonel Milman personally placed me in charge of a warder who has since
left the prison, and I believe the service. He was a good, kind-hearted
fellow, who never spoke harshly to anybody. Following me into my cell,
he took pains to "put me through the ropes." Before leaving he said,
"I'm very sorry to see you here, Mr. Foote. I've been reading your
case in the papers. It's a great shame. But I'll do my best to make you
comfortable while you're with me." And I must say he did.
There were several prisoners standing mute in the corridor outside, and
I remarked that they were a pale looking crew. "Yes," said the warder
sadly, "confinement tells on a man." Then he gently closed and locked
the door, leaving me alone to begin my long ordeal, with the words
humming in my ears like the whisper of a fiend--Confinement tells on a
man!