GIBRALTAR
Over-sea prisons continued till late date at Bermuda and
Gibraltar--Major Griffiths' personal connection with
Gibraltar--Called to supreme control by threatened outbreak--His
association with convicts--Their demeanour and characteristics--His
difficulties in administration--Curious cases--False
confessions--Sea-captain who had cast away his ship--Ingenious and
daring attempts to escape--A vanishing specimen of prisoner--The
gentleman convict--The forbidden weed.
When the British colonies with sturdy, independent spirit refused almost
unanimously to be the receptacle for the criminal sewage of the mother
country, it became of paramount importance to find other outlets of
disposal. The perfected system of penal servitude now in force was of
slow growth, and at the beginning many places were utilised that could
voice no protest. Two isolated strongholds, Bermuda and Gibraltar, were
pressed into service without question; they were both crown possessions
at the mercy of the authorities and plausible reasons could be offered
for turning them into convict prisons. They were at no great distance,
easily accessible by sea, and could very nearly guarantee safe custody.
Then the labour of the prisoners would be available there for defensive
purposes and colonial development. In both places many monuments to
their skill and industry are still preserved; both are decisive points
in the national strategy; one at least has a glorious history and the
other may any day prove of signal value to the ocean communications of
Great Britain.
It was my fortune to be closely associated with the convict prison of
the so-called impregnable fortress of Gibraltar, which was for some time
under my personal supervision, and I had abundant opportunities for
observing the traits and peculiarities of identically the same classes
as those who have provided the materials for the historical chapters
already compiled.
My call to functions of control came with dramatic suddenness and
surprise. I was plunged into the middle of new and strange surroundings
without a word of warning. There had been two outbreaks at the prison,
where a weak executive had broken down and a collection of turbulent
characters was encouraged to oppose and defy authority. An outbreak was
imminent at any moment, I was told, as I galloped up to the scene of
disturbance and proceeded to take charge. I might indeed have been at
Port Arthur or Norfolk Island, but for the comforting reflection that
above me the guns of the fortress showed their formidable teeth, tier
above tier, and that several thousands of the best troops in the world
were within easy reach to check peremptorily any breach of the peace.
The likeness might have been carried further, for there were many among
the convicts who had made the dread voyage across to the Southern
Hemisphere, who had been in the chain gangs and in assigned
service,--veteran survivors of the dark days of transportation and the
makeshifts that replaced it. Five hundred paraded for my inspection, and
as I slowly walked down the ranks I made my first acquaintance with the
physiognomy and demeanour of felons. Many exhibited the peculiar
features now commonly assigned to them by the criminologists; the
lowering brow, the prognathous jaw, the handle-shaped ear. These were
largely the born criminals of the great Italian savant Professor
Lombroso, "having projecting ears, thick hair, thin beards, prominent
frontal eminences, enormous jaws, square protruding chins, large cheek
bones, and frequent gesticulations." I may note the description of
another observer. "Their cringing and timid ways," he says, "the
mobility and cunning of their looks; a something feline about them,
something cowardly humble, suppliant and crushed, makes them a class
apart,--one would say dogs who had been whipped; with here and there a
few energetic and brutal heads of rebels."
I cannot say that the submissive air was greatly noticeable, when I
first saw them. They might have been a pirate's or a slaver's crew;
their costume was nautical, a tarpaulin hat, round jacket, wide duck
trousers and low shoes. Their faces were mostly unpleasing; their tone
and demeanour were arrogant and aggressive. They held their heads high
and looked me insolently in the face. I could see plainly that the bonds
of discipline had been relaxed, and that there had been no firm hand on
them of late; indeed it was the mental failure of my predecessor which
had brought me there in his place to try my prentice hand upon a (to me)
new and unruly team. No doubt there were many grievances abroad among
them. The old comptroller, as the supreme chief was styled, had
introduced many irksome regulations and at the same time withdrawn many
small privileges and indulgences that had come to be looked upon as a
right and were much missed. What would be my attitude toward my charges?
It was quite evident that from the moment I appeared I became the
cynosure of every eye. Every one was watching me closely, curiously,
seeking to make out what kind of man I was.
We soon grew better acquainted. A prominent part of my new duties was to
give a personal interview to any convict who applied. I found that
afternoon that almost every one had put his name down to see me, and
presently I took my seat in the chair of authority, without the smallest
previous knowledge, to listen to complaints, grant requests and answer
questions of the most intricate kind. I soon found that I was quite
unable to deal with matters so entirely new to me. I had hardly a word
to say. The only possible course was to acquire knowledge without delay.
Laying hands on all the authorities available, books of rules, standing
orders, printed circulars, official correspondence--I retired to the
comptroller's house, where my servants had made me up a rough and ready
home. I studied the voluminous mass of details far into the night, every
spare minute the next day and again late into the next night. I worked
on, conning my lesson diligently, painfully, but with ultimate success.
By the third day, Monday, when the applicants again paraded, their
numbers already largely increased, I was in a position to dispose pretty
summarily of all but the most complicated affairs.
It was in these interviews, which were accorded in private if so
desired, that I first gained an insight into convict character, its
guilefulness, its duplicity, its infinite art in seeking to gain the
ends in view; to evade or modify the regulations, often harsh enough, to
secure a modicum of comfort, an atom more food, lighter and less irksome
labour, a little sympathy in listening to a "case" and obtain support
for a petition to have a trial revised and secure pardon or mitigation
of sentence. As a newcomer and absolute tyro, I was held fair game by
every specious impostor, who could "pitch" a harrowing, heart-rending
tale. I was victimised very early by the curious craze of the criminal
mind for false confession, guilt assumed, without a shadow of proof,
for short-lived glorification or a period of idleness while
investigation was in progress.
One of the first cases of this kind made an extraordinary impression on
me. I was entirely befooled. The play was so well acted by such finished
performers that in my inexperienced innocence I was easily carried away.
A convict whom I will style X came to me with tears in his eyes,
evidently under the influence of the strangest emotion, and asked to
speak to me alone. He desired to give himself up as the real perpetrator
of a certain atrocious crime, a murder in the city of London which had
hitherto baffled detection. He was a tall man with a long yellow face
set in coal black, stubby hair, and with baleful black eyes, deep set
under bushy black eyebrows. He was in the most agitated state of mind.
Remorse most profound and agonising possessed him as he poured forth his
piteous tale and enlarged upon the horrible details of the murder. It
was impossible not to yield him full credit. If I had any doubt, it
would have been removed when his accomplice whom he betrayed was brought
in. I will call him Y.
A second scene was now enacted,--a duologue with the parts in strange
contrast. X denounced his companion with virtuous indignation. Y
altogether repudiated the charge. The first told his story with all the
realism of manifest truth. The second denied it as stoutly as he could,
but I seemed to see the half-heartedness of conscious guilt. Y was a
weaker vessel; a round faced, chubby looking man, smug, self-sufficient,
inclined to be off-hand and jaunty as he faced me giving the lie to his
accuser. For a long time he fought, but with failing force before the
insistence of his opponent. Then, all at once, he threw up the sponge.
Yes; it was all quite true. They had killed the poor old woman, the bank
caretaker, had brained her with a knuckle-duster, and then stabbed her
to the heart.
My course was plain. I was bound to report the strange story to my
superiors and ask for instructions. The two convicts were held strictly
apart, lodged in separate cells, given writing materials and required to
set forth their confessions at length, which were forwarded to England.
An answer came in due course. There was not one syllable of truth in the
story. Neither X nor Y had been within a hundred miles of the scene of
the crime. One of them, indeed, was actually at the time in prison for
another offence. They had heard of the crime, had put their heads
together while on the works where they laboured in association, and had
concocted the whole fraud by which I had been so completely misled. This
was the first spurious confession that had come within my purview, but
by no means the last. The practice is common enough among criminals,
both inside and outside the prison. The reasons are generally the same.
The convict, as in this case, hopes to be remanded for a new trial, and
to lead an idle life while awaiting it.
The inexperienced prison officer is very apt, and not strangely, to be
imposed upon also by eloquent and persistent protestations of innocence.
No one is guilty in gaol. A French _aumônier_, "chaplain," once called
upon his congregation in the prison chapel to answer him honestly and
truthfully, by holding up their hands, whether they acknowledged the
justice of their conviction. Only one hand was held up in response. I
was as gullible as any other beginner until repeated disappointment
hardened my heart. One of the first cases that worked a change was that
of the coxswain of my gig. It was a smart little craft, the favourite
plaything of my predecessor, who had manned it with a crew of convicts
dressed like men-of-war's men, and the coxswain was an ex-master
mariner, who had earned a long sentence for casting away his ship. W,
the man in question, and I became very good friends. He was a neat,
civil spoken, well conducted sailor, and I weakly let him see that I
took an interest in him. He came to me on an early occasion praying that
his case might be reconsidered. He assured me that he had been
wrongfully convicted, the victim of a base plot fabricated and sworn to
by some of his crew who hated him for ruling them with too tight a hand.
There was not a word of truth in the charges brought against him, and if
there were only a criminal court of appeal he would very speedily be
released.
I confess I was won over by his specious pleading. I liked the man and
was sorry for him, and I promised to make a full inquiry. There was a
file of the London _Times_ on the shelves of the Gibraltar garrison
library and it was easy to turn to the number containing the full
proceeding of the trial. All doubt was immediately dispelled, and I saw
at the first glance that I had once more been imposed upon. The charge
rested upon the clearest evidence, and the facts were proved beyond the
shadow of a doubt. Captain W. had deliberately prepared his ship for
destruction. It was shown that he had gone himself into the hold and had
bored holes in the ship's side with an auger and scuttled her. She was
cast away, and sank, but within reach of shore and of diving operations,
which proclaimed the criminal ill-treatment of her skipper, to whom the
possession and use of the augers were distinctly brought home. The evil
intention was further shown by the valueless cargo shipped and the large
amount for which it had been insured. After my experience with X, I
rather slackened in my excessive sympathy with my unfortunate charges
and was prepared to believe that they had had as much fair play as comes
to most of us in this crooked world.
The fate which eventually overtook this gig and its convict crew well
illustrates the difficulties of management in an oversea prison in near
proximity to a foreign country. Spain is within a stone's throw of
Gibraltar, and at the time of which I am writing there was no
extradition of criminals. The question was complicated by the British
reluctance to give up political refugees, and Spain would make no
difference between classes. No treaty of extradition was possible which
did not extend to all, and the convict at Gibraltar was well aware that
he was safe if he set foot on Spanish soil. These facts were known in
the prison, for local convicts were also confined there, and they could
one and all see the Spanish shore a few miles away. There was always the
chance of seizing a boat and escaping to the other side of the bay.
On one occasion a ship's cutter was seized and the fugitives made off.
The warning gun was fired, the flag was run up at the yard-arm on the
signal station on the top of the rock, and the alarm given at the
dockyard. Some one immediately ordered out the convict gig to go in
pursuit with an armed escort. The crew bent manfully to their oars and
quickly overhauled the chase, but by this time they were half way across
the bay. The temptation was too strong for loyalty. The crew of the gig
rose upon the warder, disarmed him and consigning him to the bottom of
the boat, carried it and him to Algeciras, where all parties landed
without let or hindrance. The Spanish authorities were by no means
overjoyed at the arrival of these desperadoes, but would not arrest
them. They took to the wild hill country around and were a terror to
quiet folk until they were gradually taken up for new offences or were
shot down by the _quadras civiles_.
Escape was the dazzling lure before the eyes of the Gibraltar convicts
and more than one ardent spirit strove to compass it. The patience and
ingenuity exhibited by one man was really marvellous. He was employed
alone in a remote workshop and had discovered that it communicated with
one of the hollows or caves with which the great oolitic rock is
honeycombed. In this he had constructed and kept concealed a boat built
of the nondescript materials that came to his hand--scraps of canvas,
disused cement bags and small pieces of timber. It was not unlike a
collapsible boat, in three separate compartments for convenience of
carriage, which could be made into one tiny dingy or coracle sufficient
to keep one man afloat. He expected to be able to launch this fragile
craft unobserved, choosing a favourable opportunity, and to commit
himself to the waters of the Straits of Gibraltar, a narrow passage ever
crowded with shipping, where he hoped to be picked up by some craft. He
had laid by a store of provisions saved from his meagre rations, which
he carried out daily from the prison. It was his abstraction of food
that betrayed him to a jealous comrade, who treacherously gave him away
and led to the detection of his undoubtedly clever scheme. The intensity
of his disappointment when discovered was quite pathetic.
A seemingly much more serious affair was a plot set on foot for a
combined attempt to break prison after rising upon the guards. When the
matter was reported to me, it had all the aspect of a dangerous
conspiracy and it imposed upon me, but I have reason now to think it was
all a hoax. Convicts have no loyalty to each other and their best laid
plans "gang aft agley," for the secret is rarely kept. Some one usually
turns traitor. The scheme is at times a pure invention devised by some
astute prisoner seeking to curry favour by his revelations to the
authorities. If it has any foundation in fact, there is a race between
the traitors, each anxious to be the first in betrayal and thus render
himself safe.
On this occasion the dread news was broken by picking up an anonymous
letter giving the particulars of the coming disturbance. Then came a
very confidential message from a patient in the hospital whom I visited
and who gave me some startling news. A deep laid conspiracy was afoot to
rise while at work in a distant quarry, to overmaster warders and
military guards and march straight on board the admiralty brig employed
to remove the heavily laden lighters from the quarry. To cast her loose
would be the work of a moment, and with steam up she might be taken
across the bay before the alarm could be given and pursuit organised.
The whole story seemed far-fetched but I could not ignore the warning.
Upon my requisition to the military authorities, the guards were
reinforced. They loaded ostentatiously before marching to the quarry,
and on arrival there it was found that the steam tug was absent on some
other duty. There was no outbreak, nor the semblance of one. The
turbulent spirits were cowed at this exhibition of formidable strength,
if indeed there were any who had contemplated mischief.
I must add a few words to the general description of the personnel of
the Gibraltar convict prisoners. They were interesting to me, many of
them as the survivors of the great tide of criminal exiles that turned
for years toward the antipodes. They were to be easily recognised by
those who had the key; their swarthy, weather-beaten complexions spoke
of long exposure to trying climates. They were hardy in aspect, with
muscular, well-knit frames, developed by much manual labour in the open
air. They had the bold, self-reliant, reckless demeanour of men who had
endured severe discipline and passed through it unbroken. They were
hard, bitter men, who had faced the worst and were willing to do it
again. Quarrelsome and of hasty temper, they might be cowed into good
order, but were ever ready to break out and resist authority, to assault
a warder or strike down a fellow convict with pick or shovel, or the
first weapon that lay to hand. The type was entirely new to me then, and
indeed I have seen little of it since, for they were a fast vanishing
species and are to be met with no more in the prison population.
I will pick out one or two for more particular mention. One who was
hopelessly "incorrigible," for instance, I will call H. This man
happened to be in one of his periodical, almost chronic fits of rage on
my first visit to the prison. My way had taken me across a drawbridge
leading from the line wall road to the top of a winding staircase that
descended to an inner gate which led straight into the main body of the
prison. This main prison, by the way, was little better than a shed,--a
long, low, two-storied wooden edifice, divided into bunks or cages shut
off from each other and a central passage by iron bars. This building
was filled with human beings, and, as we approached, the ceaseless hum
of voices, angry and even menacing, rose from it into one piercing note,
a yell or shriek of wild, or, it might be, maniacal, despair. We were
told that it was H, who had broken out again and was now in a separate
cell, and were asked if we would like to see him.
They took us through a detached block of strongly built stone cells in
their own yard lying close under the line wall, and by this time the
noise became almost deafening. Each cell had two doors; an outer door of
stout iron bars, protecting an inner one of wood. The bolt of this
second door was thrown back and exposed the interior. At that moment a
mad figure rushed forward with frightful imprecations, to be checked,
fortunately, by the outer iron gate; a wild and terrible beast, human
only in form, clad in a hideous particoloured garb, the badge of those
who had made a murderous assault on their guardians. He stood raving and
raging impotently, threatening us with fluent vituperative tongue to the
accompaniment of clanking chains. He was in leg irons and was also
manacled with "figure eight" handcuffs on his wrists, and so could do no
injury even to himself.
This H was one of a class who presently became a danger to London and
complicated the penal question by the alleged inadequacy of the
punishment. He was a man of cruel and ungovernable temper, addicted to
crimes of violence, who ill-used as well as robbed his victims. There
were others like him at Gibraltar, but none that equalled him in his
savagery and determined defiance of authority. Nothing seemed to tame
him; prolonged doses of dieting, punishment and cellular isolation had
no effect. He continued intractable to the last, and was one of those
withdrawn and brought home to England three years later when the
Gibraltar convict prison was abolished.
"Captain" P.--titular rank is generally preserved among prisoners when
speaking of or to each other--was of a different kind, irreconcilable
also, but his resistance was rather moral than physical. He was always
surly, sulky and impudent; inclined to be disobedient, but keeping
within the line of sharp reprimands. I remember him as a
smooth-speaking, supple-backed, cringing creature, anxious to show that
he had been well-bred and that he had occupied a superior station, but
dropping all at once into the other extreme if crossed or offended, when
his language was of the foulest and his manner disgusting. I met
"Captain" P. again under rather amusing circumstances. One afternoon
when standing among my gangs at work upon the foundation of the new
Wormwood Scrubs prison, I saw a well-dressed, gentlemanly looking man
approach under escort of the gate keeper. He wore a well-cut frock and a
shining silk hat, which he lifted courteously as he bowed low, to the
manifest delight of some of the convicts around. They knew him well. It
was "Captain" P. who had been an old comrade in Portland or Dartmoor,
and who, now a free man, had impudently decided to pay me a formal call.
He addressed me as an old friend, saying: "You were always so good to me
when I served under your orders at Gibraltar" (it might have been in
some distinguished cavalry regiment) "that I have ventured to intrude
upon you to ask if you can help me to some employment." I am afraid I
answered rather curtly and ordered him to be shown out of the enclosure.
Had he been a different man, penitent and well-disposed, with a
blameless prison character, and determined to turn over a new leaf, I
would gladly have given him a helping hand. But there had been a second
sentence since the term at Gibraltar, and I soon learned that he was a
hardened, habitual criminal. Oddly enough, at the very time of his
visit, a friend was standing with me who knew him personally in
previous days, when he was a captain in the British army and came to
grief over a forged check.
Life in a colonial convict prison was not eventful, and yet not
monotonous. Some of the more startling episodes have been recounted. The
chase for tobacco constantly kept us busy. Its use is strictly tabooed
in British prisons, but the forbidden weed will always find its way
inside. Nothing will check its introduction, and its presence is proved
by the fact that tobacco has a regular price in articles of food, the
only possible circulating medium. The traffic depends upon the
dishonesty of officials, who are bribed by prisoners' friends to pass it
in, the safe keeping and distribution being the work of the prisoners
themselves. At Gibraltar, where "free" people came and went in the
quarries almost unquestioned, large transactions were constantly afoot.
The new arrivals brought out cash and the "traffickers" were clever in
finding hiding places in the rock for the money offered and the weed
when bought. We made many searches for both the raw material and its
price, and I can call to mind long watches in the night for the agents
who brought in the stuff, and elaborate devices to catch the culprits in
actual possession of the forbidden weed.
A few months spent in this varied fashion was no bad preparation for the
new career on which I was about to embark. I was called to service in
the home department, and during many years was closely associated with
the entire penal system of Great Britain. From small beginnings, devised
under the pressure of great emergency, these experiments have grown into
the present system of secondary punishment. Opinions differ as to its
value and merits, but these will best be judged by independent critics
on learning what measures were adopted upon the cessation of penal
exile, and what grew out of them.