While a man is in health, he can endure hardship, and support himself
under the pressure of almost any calamity; but when his health fails,
he sinks down a nerveless victim, and lies exposed to the mercy of
those evils he can no longer resist. It is the sick that, of all the
sufferers in this world, most need the pity and compassion of their
fellow mortals, and whose neglect and sufferings cry the loudest to
heaven. To sickness, all are equally exposed, the high and the low,
the virtuous and the vicious, the saint and the sinner; and not to
compassionate and relieve them, is a crime which speaks the deep
depravity of the heart, and which will by no means pass unpunished.
But if the want of sympathy and tender feelings for the sick, is such
a crime, what must be said of that man, who can sport with their
misery, and take an infernal satisfaction in increasing it?
The sick in Windsor prison are considered as _criminal_ in their
sickness, and _punished_ rather than comforted. It is not often that a
prisoner can get into the place appointed for the sick, until his case
is hopeless, and not always then, for many die before they can
convince the keepers that they are sick. A very convenient excuse for
this neglect is, that many have pretended to be sick, and have been
treated as such, when they were perfectly well. This I know is true,
and such hypocrites cannot be too severely dealt with; but this is no
good reason why one who really needs attention, should be neglected.
It is, however, another instance of visiting all for the crime of one.
The By-Laws require that "some fit person shall be appointed as a
physician, whose duty shall be to visit the prison as often as once in
every week, and oftener, if found necessary, to inquire into the
health of the prisoners, to give directions relative to the conduct
and regimen of the sick, and admit such patients into the hospital as
he may judge necessary." Another regulation in the By-Laws, in respect
to the sick, is, that they shall take no medicine in any part of the
prison except the hospital, unless they are unable to be removed
thither; and the obvious meaning of the Laws is, that no medicine
shall be prescribed by any but the physician. It is equally obvious
that the physician is to be called upon whenever a serious complaint
is made by any of the prisoners. Nor is it less obviously implied,
that the sick shall be treated kindly. Such is the Law; let us see the
practice.
When complaint of sickness is made by any of the prisoners, the keeper
who has the care of the sick is sent for, and if the person is unable
to work, he is taken to his room and shut up there to get well. No
physician is sent for, except, perhaps, in one case out of fifty; and
the patient is allowed no food but a dish of crust coffee and a piece
of bread, once in twenty-four hours. This is his diet while he remains
sick. When he is first shut up, he has an emetic given him, or a
blister applied to his breast. This is almost always done, no matter
what the complaint is; and should the physician attend twenty times at
the hospital, he can scarcely ever see him. Sometimes the patient is
bled, and all this is done by a man who has no _right_ to prescribe,
and who is as ignorant of all medicine as he is of the feelings of a
kind and generous sympathy; and done too in a place where the Law
_forbids_ the use of medicine. But what are laws to tyrants? If the
person has a firm constitution he generally outlives such cruelty, and
returns to his work; but if his complaint continues, after much time,
he is handed over to the physician, and takes his chance for life or
death in the hospital.
I do not mean to reflect, generally, on the conduct of the physicians.
With but few _serious_, and a number of _minor_ exceptions, their
conduct has been alike honorable to themselves and ornamental to their
profession. The great difficulty with them, is, they have no
_authority_ to do any thing; the most they _can_ do is to _advise_, in
no instance can they _command_; and their advice is followed or not,
as best suits the convenience or disposition of their master. If any
officer in a prison ought to have supreme authority, it is the
physician. Life and death are in his hands, and he ought to have all
the power necessary to the full discharge of his professional duty.
His prescription should be something more than _advice_, and he should
have authority to punish all disobedience to his orders, and all
cruelty or inhumanity to the sick. If the physicians of Windsor prison
had been invested with this power, such have been their general
reputation for skill and humanity, that many an hour and month of keen
distress would have been spared to the prisoners, and more than one
life been preserved.
It cannot have escaped the notice of any one who has seen the
treatment of the sick, that the keepers consider them no better than
dogs, and are determined that they shall have no peace, sick or well.
The iron-hearted discipline of the place is enough to rive the
stoutest soul, and crush a heart as hard as marble; and in not a
single instance has a prisoner escaped from it, if he has been there
three or four years, without a ruinous impression that will go with
him to his grave. But by a refinement of torture, which would be
patented in the Court of the Inquisition, this mountain of
uncalled-for oppression is rolled over, with double weight, on the
sinking frame, and fainting heart, and trembling soul of the sick and
dying. And to cover all this unearthly and inhuman conduct with a
mantle, starred with _mercy_, and serene with _kindness_, the By-Laws
are sent up every year to the Legislature, breathing the spirit of
heaven, and written with tears of heart-bleeding compassion.
Heaven-daring hypocrisy! I appeal to the keepers themselves--to the
angels who have hovered over the sick--to the ghosts of Ellis and
Burnham, whether there is a single drop of human feeling in the
treatment of the sick. Away with the By-Laws as evidence against the
declarations I have just made. How often has liberty triumphed in the
Statutes of an unhappy country, long after tyranny had fettered every
hand and every tongue in the empire. How often has piety remained in
the letter of the prayer book and liturgy, years and centuries after
the _spirit_ had gone up to heaven, and the snows of human guilt had
extinguished the last spark of the altar.
Not only are the sick neglected and unpitied by the officers and
servants of the prison, the _Ministers_, also, neglect them. I have
known men lie six months in the hospital, and die, without being
visited by a single clergyman, or having even one christian call to
pray with them. This speaks but little for the piety of Windsor; but
such is the fact. It ought however to be understood, that the
clergymen of that town are always willing to attend to any of the
duties of their office, as well _in_ the prison as _out_ of it, when
they know that they are wanted. I make but one exception to this
remark, and that is only a _partial_ one, for Mr. How--d was not
_always_ what I am condemning. The great blow, then, must fall
ultimately with the greatest weight on the keepers. But still, when
the great and the pious men of the village were weeping over the
miseries of sin in the far distant Isles of the Pacific, and in the
lands of the rising and setting sun, and sending their property in
Bibles, Tracts, and Missionaries to "the farthest verge of the green
earth;" is it not a little wonderful that they should so have
forgotten the "prison house," and the sin-ruined prisoners, famishing
for the bread of life, in their own town, and within their own sight,
as not to have blessed them with a single visit from their itinerant
mercy? Would not a little attention to the wants of the neighborhood
have been at least _excused_?
Neglected, however, as they are by Christians, many of the suffering
tenants of that gloomy abode, have an arm to lean upon which bears
them up, and a sun to shine around them, whose beams create their day.
While the earth is disappearing, and their heart-strings are breaking,
they can sing--
How sweet my minutes roll,
A mortal paleness on my cheek,
And glory in my soul!
It would gladden the hearts of christians to reflect on the happy
deaths that have been witnessed in that place. There, religion appears
in all her loveliness. When there is no kind friend to watch the
fading cheek and close the sightless eye--when a mantle of everlasting
black is falling on all the beauties of earth, and hiding the sun,
moon, and stars for ever--when the blood is stopping, a cold and
clammy sweat is gathering on the temples, and the heart is sinking
down into the stillness of death; then it is that the value of that
principle is appreciated, which charms all fears away, and calms the
throbbing heart, and lights up in the soul the brightness of eternity.
Then, in that immortal ecstacy that nothing but God can inspire, it
enables the happy possessor to join with the millions who have gone
before him, in this triumphant farewell to this vale of tears:--
On Jordan's stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan's fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie,
O the transporting rapt'rous scene,
That rises to my sight;
Sweet fields array'd in living green,
And rivers of delight.
No chilling winds, nor pois'nous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and fear'd no more.
Fill'd with delight, my raptur'd soul
Can here no longer stay;
Tho' Jordan's waves around me roll,
Fearless I launch away.
After a prisoner dies, his friends can have his body if they wish it.
If they do not call for it immediately, it is buried in the
prison-yard; but if they should call for it any time afterwards, it
would be disinterred and given to them.
The ceremony at the funeral is usually appropriate and solemn. Laid in
a decent black coffin, the body is placed where all the prisoners can
see the face, as they pass in Indian file by it. A clergyman always
attends, makes some remarks, and then prays; after which the corpse is
laid in the grave, and his memory is soon lost.
The house of the dead is no place to make a reflection, and the grave
of the individual may be thought by many to be the place in which all
that pertains to him should be buried. In general, perhaps, this is
true, but not always; and I shall, before I leave the buried remains
of the prisoners, record some facts which ought not be forgotten.
After their death, very sympathetic letters are written by order of
the keeper, or by the keeper himself, to the friends of the deceased,
stating how kindly he was treated, and how peacefully he died. I was
called upon to write one of these letters, and I have not forgotten
what directions were given me by the very man whom the dying prisoner
considered his murderer.
During the prisoner's sickness, he frequently writes to his friends;
but as his letters are examined by the keeper, and not sent unless
approved, he cannot state his real condition and treatment, but must,
in order to have his letter sent, at least _imply_ that he is treated
kindly. Hence many a friend is led to feel grateful to the officers,
when perhaps their cruelty has caused the very death they deplore.
The circumstance I am now going to relate, involves the clergyman who
attended the funeral of an old prisoner, who had given no signs of
repentance, it is true, nor had he been the greatest sinner on earth.
The remarks made on the occasion were as follows, verbatim et
literatem, for I recorded them in stenography at the time.--"As I was
coming down here," said he, "I was thinking of an old slave of a
southern planter. Returning home one day, he was told that his master
had gone a long journey, from which he would never return. He asked
where he had gone, and was told that he had gone to heaven. 'No, no,'
said the slave, 'Massa no gone to heaven. When Massa go a journey he
talk about it a great while before hand, and make great preparation,
but me never hear him say any thing about going to heaven.' I know
nothing," said the preacher, "about the man who is going to the grave,
but these thoughts came into my mind as I was coming from my house,
and they struck me as appropriate to this occasion. Let us pray."
No comment is necessary on such insulting language over the ashes of a
fellow mortal. Such a polluted stream denotes the quality of the
fountain from which it flowed.
The next chapter will contain a diversity of cases to illustrate the
remarks in this.