THREE MONTHS IN A SCOTTISH PRISON--BEGIN MY STUDY OF THE CONVICT AND
HIS SURROUNDINGS--AN OLD JAIL BIRD--A SOLDIER--AN INNOCENT CONVICT--MY
FIRST CRACKSMAN ACQUAINTANCE--CONSPIRACY TO MURDER AN OFFICER AND
ESCAPE--MY REMOVAL TO ENGLAND.
The paroxysm of grief and indignation which followed my return to
prison gradually subsided, and after a few days I became in some
measure resigned to my fate, and determined as far as possible to make
the best of it. Indeed, in some respects the change in my circumstances
was for the better. The oatmeal treatment, it is true, was still
continued, but with this difference that I now got more of it, and a
still further and most welcome addition of a pennyworth of good milk
and a pennyworth of eatable bread per diem. I remained on this diet
during the three months and a-half which elapsed before I was removed
to England.[2] Unfortunately, during this time my stomach, though
craving for animal food, would not accept the oatmeal, or chief portion
of my diet, and accordingly I was in the practice of dividing it
amongst my fellow prisoners.
[2] Perth, where the diet is more liberal, was not then opened
for convicts.
I mentioned my case to the medical officer, but had to rest content
with a little quinine and the assurance that I would be sent to England
in a day or two, where I would get a few ounces of animal food daily.
To add to my troubles, one of my ankles began to swell, but after some
time, and by the application of flannel bandages, the swelling
decreased and the limb seemed quite sound again.
These were not encouraging circumstances, however, under which to
commence a long period of imprisonment, the less so, as from what I had
observed, I feared that in the event of illness I should have to submit
to a very limited amount of medical attendance. Probably, in
consequence of being frequently imposed upon by the prisoners, and
having private practice to attend to, doubtless of a more remunerative
character, the medical officer was exceedingly rapid in his progress
through the prison, and not more so in that than in his diagnosis and
prescriptions. With the pangs of hunger constantly gnawing within me,
and the dread of bad health and a ruined constitution haunting me day
and night, I endeavoured by constant occupation to obtain some
mitigation of my sufferings. I read all the books I could get hold of,
wrote farewell letters to friends, hoping and believing that I would be
sent to Western Australia, as it was then the practice to do with all
healthy convicts of my own age who had received similar sentences. I
also seized every available opportunity of conversing with the old
"lags," or convicts, about prison life, and it was here I received my
first lessons in slang and thiefology, and began my study of the
convict and his surroundings.
But I could not yet think of myself as a convict; I had the usual
prejudice, or rather horror of the species, entertained by the middle
class, and declined to accept the offer, made in kindness, of having a
neighbour in the same cell with me. I was compelled, however, to take
exercise for some minutes every day, together with another prisoner,
and I was usually best pleased when I happened to be put into the same
crib with one who had been a convict before. It was during these daily
rounds that I witnessed with sadness the evil effects of sending boys
or lads to prison for a few days or weeks for some petty theft, and
placing them in constant contact and association with the habitual and
reputed scoundrel and ruffian. These men are always willing to make a
convert, and they generally succeed, for the battle is half won ere
they bring their forces on the field. It is here that the juvenile
offender is nursed in villainy, here he learns the inducements to
crime, and from the lips of the hardened and experienced ruffian he
hears of exploits and deeds of darkness, which inflame while they
pollute his imagination, and he longs to be free that he might add some
daring feat of wickedness to the catalogue he has heard. There can be
no doubt that the indiscriminate association of all grades of criminals
is one of the most prolific sources from whence our convict prisons
receive their constant and foul supply. It was in one of these open-air
cribs that I was initiated into the mysteries of prison politics and
prison slang, for the convict has his "policy" as well as the
government, and also his official, or rather professional nomenclature,
in which he enshrouds its meaning. To be an adept in prison politics
is, first of all to know and understand all the prison rules and
regulations, not for purposes of obedience, but evasion; to discern the
disposition and habits of the prison officers, with the view of
conciliating or coercing them into trifling privileges or concessions;
to know the various methods of treatment, diet, and discipline at the
different prisons, and the character and disposition of their
governors; to contrive to be sent to the prison which is supposed to be
the most comfortable; and to know when and where good conduct and bad
conduct will be productive of the best results in the way of removal or
remission of sentence. In my solitude, and with the prospect before me
of a long experience of such company, these conversations with my
fellow-prisoners, possessed a certain kind of interest for me. I was
also always eager to learn as much as I could of their previous
history, and the cause of their imprisonment. One day, as I was taking
my daily outdoor exercise, I observed an old man in the convict dress
cleaning the prison windows a short distance from me, and I asked my
neighbour in the crib who he was. "O! that's a beauty," said he. "He
was walking down the street lately, along with another chum like
himself, when a gentleman noticed them and asked them into a
photographer's to get their portraits taken, and gave them a shilling
each as being the two ugliest specimens of the human race he had ever
seen!"
"How long has he been in prison?" I enquired.
"Goodness knows!" he exclaimed; "I think about eight or nine-and-twenty
years, and the longest sentence he ever had, except the first, was
sixty days!"
"What are his offences usually?"
"Oh, nothing but kicking up rows in the streets, or smashing a window.
Last time it was for a fight with a poor man with a large family. He
got up the fight on purpose, and as both were about to be apprehended,
he says to the man he was fighting with, 'Jack, give me half-a-crown
and I'll swear all the blame on myself;' poor Jack was glad to accept
the offer, so when they were taken before the magistrate the old beauty
said--'Please sir, it was me that assaulted that man, and as I am
entirely in the fault I hope you will give me all the punishment.' So
Jack got out rejoicing, and the beauty got in, chuckling over his
half-a-crown, and speculating on the feast he would get with it when
his sixty days expired!"
"How long does he generally remain out of prison?" I then enquired.
"Why," said my friend, "two days is a long time for him; if he is
beyond that time he will come to the prison and beg a meal!"
"Why does he not go to the poorhouse?" I asked.
"Because he is more accustomed to the jail, and likes it better. He is
generally employed in cleaning windows and other parts of the prison,
and he likes a 'lark' with the prisoners, most of whom he knows!"
Finding my companion so communicative I continued my enquiries, and
asked him, "What young fellows are these in the next cell?" "They have
both been in the army," he replied. "One of them committed a small
forgery, I think he forged the captain's order for some boots. He
expected to get 'legged,'[3] and get out of the army, but he has been
sucked in. They only gave him a few months' imprisonment, and he will
have to go back to his regiment again when his time's up. His brother's
now at Chatham, doing a four years 'legging,' but he hasn't to go back
again to the army. This fellow swears he'll commit another crime as
soon as he gets out!"
[3] Penal servitude.
Whether this threat of committing another crime was carried out or not
I cannot tell, but in the earlier years of my imprisonment I came in
contact with several prisoners who had committed offences for the
purpose of getting out of the army. Of late years I have not met with
any having been perpetrated with that motive.
Noticing a delicate, melancholy-looking young man opposite to us, I
enquired who he was. "O! I pity that man very much," said my friend.
"He has got a sentence of twenty-one years' penal servitude, and is as
innocent of the crime as the child unborn."
"How do you know he is innocent?" I asked, in amazement.
"The guilty man has turned up, now that they cannot punish him, and
confessed."
Shortly after this conversation took place, I had an opportunity of
learning, from the lips of one of the principal offenders in the case
for which this young man was unjustly punished, the following
particulars in reference to it, which I give in my informant's own
words:--"I and other two miners like myself went to a horse-race a few
weeks ago. Towards evening we got a little on the spree, and I asked my
two chums to come along and see a woman of my acquaintance. This woman
was kept by a gentleman in the neighbourhood, but this was only known
to a few. She was about forty years of age, and although she was
supposed by some to be 'fast,' I knew long before that she was 'loose.'
Well; as we were all enjoying ourselves in this woman's house, who
should come in but her brother! and so, to clear her character with
him, she swore a rape against us. But the worst of it was, that that
poor married man there got convicted instead of one of us. When we ran
from the house, the other fellow split out from us, and after we got
away a bit, we met the married man. As we were chatting together we
were all three arrested. The woman, it seems, had an ill-will either to
that man or his wife, and she swore against him on that account. And we
have all three got twenty-one years a-piece."
I was glad to hear afterwards that this man got his liberty after
suffering six months' imprisonment. But had it not been for great
exertions on the part of his friends, he would have had to pay the full
penalty. I have known, in the course of my prison experience, about a
dozen well authenticated cases of innocent convictions, but only two of
them succeeded in getting a pardon. The one after enduring about
eighteen months' imprisonment, the other a shorter period, but strange
to say his pardon arrived on the very day of his death in prison.
I have generally observed in cases of rape, and crimes of that kind,
when the female was advanced in life, that the crimes were not so black
in reality as they were represented in the newspapers, and that the
offenders, if not made actually worse in prison, would be much more
easily cured than the thief genus, who require special, and as I think,
very different treatment to that which they now receive.
In this prison I also made the acquaintance of a professional
"cracksman," or burglar. He was a man of fair education, good
appearance, and considerable natural ability; much above the average of
his professional brethren. He had been living luxuriously in London, on
the fruits of his professional industry and skill. Till now he had
escaped all punishment, with the exception of a few months'
imprisonment, for a "mistake" committed at the outset of his
professional career. In answer to my enquiries as to his case, he
volunteered the following information:--
"A few weeks ago, one of my 'pals' (companions) showed me the
advertisement of a Scottish jeweller, wherein he boasted of his safe
having successfully resisted the recent efforts of a gang of burglars.
I said to my pal, 'Get Bob, and let us go down to-morrow by the mail
train to Scotland, and we will see what this man's safe is like.' We
all three came down here a few weeks ago, inspected the jeweller's
premises, and decided on doing the job through an ironmonger's shop at
the back. We had got the contents of the ironmonger's till, and were
just through the intervening back wall, when the 'copper'[4] heard us,
and signalled for another 'bobby'[4] to come and help him. Out I
sprang, and had a fight with the policeman, and got knocked down
insensible. My pal bolted and got off; Bob and I got 'copt,'[6] and as
we had first-class tools on us, new to the authorities here, they have
given it us rather hot."
[4] Policeman.
[5] Caught.
"Do you think you could have opened the safe? I understand those patent
locks are very difficult to pick," I remarked.
"Oh!" said he, "I would not waste time trying to pick the lock. Drill a
hole and get in the 'jack,' and I can bring power to bear on it
sufficient to open any safe. The great thing is to be able to get the
_time_, the work I can easily do; then Bob, my pal, is one of the
best blacksmiths in England, and as true as steel. I always take him
with me in a job of that sort."
It so happened that I had a very good opportunity of proving that the
burglar's high opinion of his "pal's" ability was not without
foundation. On our removal to England, the "cracksman," was leg-ironed
to me as an additional security against his making his escape. There
were five couples besides ours, and after we arrived at our
destination, and whilst the prison blacksmith was engaged hammering and
punching off my irons, Bob, with a smile of contempt at his efforts,
took up some tools that lay beside him and liberated the other five
couples before the blacksmith had freed me and my clever companion.
The chief incident which occurred during my imprisonment in Scotland,
was a conspiracy among the convicts to murder the night officer and
make their escape in a body. I was not considered "safe" for the job,
and knew nothing of it until it had miscarried. The chief conspirator
was my friend the "cracksman," who made tools out of portions of his
bedstead, that opened not only the lock of our own cell, but that of
every other cell in the prison, if required. The prisoners were
generally in couples in each cell at that time, and the plan agreed
upon was as follows: One of the convicts was an old man subject to
fits, and it was arranged that he was to feign a fit for the occasion;
the assistance of the night officer was to be called, who was to have
his "light put out" by the fellow prisoner of the one in fits, who was
a strong muscular fellow. Meanwhile the "cracksman," whose cell was
opposite, was to unlock the cell doors of all the prisoners in the
plot. This dark and desperate scheme was frustrated, however, by a
little lad, who had heard two of the convicts conversing about it. His
term of imprisonment expired on the day preceding the night fixed for
the accomplishment; and he gave information to the governor, who placed
officers with fire-arms in the ward all night. Next morning the
suspected prisoners were searched, and the lock-picking instruments
were found on the "cracksman," and there the affair ended. The only
result which followed the discovery of the plot, so far as I could
discover, was that we were removed from this prison to England rather
earlier than we otherwise should have been.
Previous to our removal, the governor, who was a very sensible man
compared with those under whom I was afterwards placed, told me that I
was about to be sent to England along with some of the worst characters
he had ever known; that they were all leaving the prison with the
character of conspirators, except myself; that he had given me the best
character he could give to any prisoner, and that he hoped and believed
I would reap the benefits attaching to good conduct, and be liberated
long before my companions. But I was not born under a fortunate star.
Almost all my companions had longer sentences than I had. Bob and the
cracksman had two years longer; but as they managed to secure the
convict's prize, they were sent out to Australia, and were liberated, I
believe, two years before me. Some prisoners with sentences twice as
long as mine were also liberated earlier than I was; and I remember
alluding to this circumstance in a letter to my friends, written when I
had been about four years and a-half in prison; and for doing so my
letter was suppressed.
The night of my departure for England at last arrived, and I found
myself for the first time placed in heavy leg-irons, along with eleven
others. We were put into the prison-van for the railway station; and as
soon as we were seated in the carriage there commenced a scene which
baffles all description. Some of my fellow-prisoners commenced
shouting, some screamed and laughed, others mocked and jeered, whilst
above all curses loud and deep hurtled through the stifling air, and
made night hideous with the sound. Their yells and oaths still ring in
my ears, and that which was to my companions a scene of the utmost
jollity and mirth was to me the nearest approach to hell my imagination
had ever conceived. It was a cold spring night that witnessed my
degrading departure; when I arrived at my destination in Yorkshire one
of my legs was considerably swollen. It is a cold spring night now;
that swollen limb has for years been in the tomb, and the dismembered
trunk, on its "Ticket of Leave," has not yet returned to its long-lost
home.