I PETITION THE HOME SECRETARY--DOCTOR PRONOUNCES ME "QUITE
WELL"--"SCHEMERS;" THEIR TREATMENT AND FATE--DEATH-BED SCENES.
About two months after the amputation of my leg, feeling and believing
that my health would never be restored in confinement I wrote a
petition to the Home Secretary, in the expectation that I would be as
mercifully considered as my predecessors in misfortune. While my
petition was under consideration I was encouraged in my expectations by
the fact that one of my companions who had nothing the matter with him
but a dislocated hip joint, was liberated on medical grounds three or
four years before his time was up. My hopes were somewhat damped,
however, by another circumstance which just then occurred. The prison
director arrived on his monthly visit, and on passing through the ward,
the medical officer who accompanied him stopped at the foot of my bed
and informed him that I was the man whose leg he had amputated, and
that I was "quite well now!" The director, seeing me in bed and looking
very poorly, and noticing the general stare with which the doctor's
remark was received, asked in a somewhat doubtful way, "Is he quite
well?" "Oh! yes quite well," the doctor replied; and off they went.
I was sixteen months in hospital after the above remark was made, and I
was then unable to get up to have my bed made, nor did I leave my bed
during the whole winter and spring that succeeded! I received an answer
to my petition, shortly after the visit to which I have referred, in
the usual form of an official negative, "Not sufficient grounds." Being
now free from acute pain, I conversed freely with my companions, and
taught some of them to spell, read, and cypher. After I was able to get
out of bed I read aloud for an hour every evening, for the benefit of
all the patients. In time I became popular, and intimate with many of
them. I wrote letters and petitions for them, encouraged them with good
advice, and succeeded in obtaining considerable influence over them.
In return for these trifling services, which also to some extent
relieved the monotony of the long period I spent in hospital, they told
me their history and experiences. I learnt their slang and thiefology,
and as a theorist became tolerably conversant with all the mysteries by
which the professional thief and scoundrel preys upon society.
The first of my companions who attracted my attention was a young
Scotchman. He appeared to be a very strong hearty fellow, but when he
attempted to walk, he was the most pitiable looking cripple imaginable,
and excited the sympathy of all who saw him. His sentence was
twenty-one years, four of which he had undergone at this time. He had
been invalided home from the convict establishment at Bermuda, was
shipwrecked off the Isle of Wight on the return voyage, and had been
some months in the hospital previous to my arrival. He was in the habit
of being carried up and down stairs to exercise on the backs of the
nurses, and was getting full diet and porter. About four months after
my arrival, he one morning suddenly started out of bed, shouted
"Attention," at the top of his voice, in defiance of the prison rules,
and ran about the room like a lamplighter, to the utter amazement of
all present. This man was what the prisoners term a "schemer," and he
was certainly the very best actor of his class I ever met with. It will
be acknowledged that he played his part well, when even during the
shipwreck he had never made the slightest attempt to move, and kept up
the deception for many months in a prison hospital, where the majority
of the patients are put down as "schemers" unless they have an outward
sore, or some natural malady with palpable external symptoms. When the
doctor came his rounds, he could do nothing but stare at the fellow,
who started up and told him with a laughing countenance that he had had
a dream in the night, about being miraculously cured, and in the
morning he found he could walk as well as ever he did. The doctor never
opened his lips; the patient was discharged, and although the other
patients cried aloud that he ought to be punished, no further notice
was taken of the matter.
This "schemer," I learned, had been a great sufferer from pleurisy at
Bermuda, and was very weak when he was put on board ship, where he
commenced his scheme; and had it not been for new regulations which
were then put in force, there is no doubt he would have accomplished
his object, which was "Liberation on medical grounds." He had
petitioned the Home Secretary shortly before he threw his crutches
aside, declaring that he had met with an accident at Bermuda from a
stone falling on his back, and so injuring the spine that both his legs
were paralysed. He had received a reply to the effect that his petition
would be answered so soon as the authorities heard from Bermuda the
particulars of the accident, and it was a few days after this that the
miraculous visitation took place.
I asked him why he did not wait for the final answer to his petition
before exposing his scheme? "Oh," he replied, "I knew very well if they
wrote to Bermuda I should get no time off. I met with no accident,
although I said so in my petition." "You will be very fortunate," I
said, "if you get the customary remission after this affair, I fear
they will punish you?" "Look here," said he, "I have another scheme in
my head, and you will see I'll not fail this time. I'll get out to
Australia, and by the time I arrive I will be due for my liberty."
"Well, that will certainly be better for you than being kept eight or
nine years longer in prison here; but how are you to manage to get
abroad unless the authorities choose to send you?" "Oh! I will work
that. I'll now be as bad in my conduct as possible; and I'll half
murder some of the officers if they don't send me away; and that very
soon too."
True to his threat, the fellow commenced a course of bad conduct,
knowing it would ensure his passage to Western Australia; and in a
comparatively short time he gained his object, and I have no doubt he
is now at liberty abroad.
About the time the above conversation took place another "schemer"
arrived, and was located a few beds from me. He had been a clerk in a
government office, was respectably connected, and a very intelligent
young man. He pretended he could not use his legs. The doctor's eye
being now somewhat opened, he told him there was nothing the matter
with him, recommended him to get well again as fast as possible, and
threatened him with the electric battery, and even hot irons, if that
did not succeed. The prisoner did not take advice, however, and the
battery was tried upon him. After being stripped several times, and
made to cry out with pain, to the great amusement of his
fellow-prisoners, he ultimately took to crutches; first two, then one,
with a stick; then the stick only; then nothing at all. He was
afterwards removed to another prison.
I saw several other cases, similar to the one I have just mentioned, of
pretended loss of the use of the legs, or partial inability to walk;
but as there was no marked difference in the cases, I need not notice
them. There was, however, an amusing incident connected with one of
them which I may mention. This prisoner was allowed a little porter
every day, which was served out about one o'clock. One day at that hour
he happened to be in an adjoining room with his crutches (he could walk
a little) when another prisoner cried out, "Porter, porter; quick,
quick!" On hearing this cry, and afraid of losing his liquor, he bolted
out, ran down the room, and had swallowed his porter before he had
discovered that he had left his crutches behind him.
Such cases as these injure the really sick, particularly those whose
symptoms are not very apparent. Many prisoners adopt these schemes in
order to get into hospital, where they get better food, less work, and
have the chance of being with a favourite "pal." Others will make
themselves ill by swallowing tobacco, soap pills, or anything they know
will make them sick. There are others again who are afraid to enter the
hospital lest they should be poisoned with a sleeping draught, or some
other medicine carelessly administered; and when they hear of any
sudden death in hospital they are ready to swear "his light has been
put out by the doctor." On the other hand I have known it to happen
that a prisoner went and complained to the doctor, who roughly told him
he was a "schemer," and the following week the prisoner was dead.
Another time a healthy looking old man, with chest disease, complained
to the doctor of pain in that region. He was dosed repeatedly with
salts and senna--the medicine for schemers--and in less than a
fortnight he was buried.
I could mention many cases similar to the above, and also others where
the prisoner was his own murderer--if I may use the expression--but I
will merely mention one of them. The patient in this case was afflicted
with dropsy, and some affection of the heart. He had been receiving two
ounces of gin for a short time, which he fancied was doing him good,
and being partial to that variety of medicine, he was annoyed when it
was ordered to be discontinued. Accordingly he resolved to make himself
ill again, in order to get the allowance of gin, and swallowed a large
piece of tobacco, which brought an increase to his heart complaint; and
notwithstanding that the greatest attention was paid to his case by the
doctor, before morning he was dead.
This prisoner lay in the next bed to mine, and among the many death-bed
scenes I witnessed while in prison, I never saw one where the fear of
death was so apparent, or the state of mind so appalling to the
beholder.
The man had been a bully, and an avowed infidel. The prospect of death
had now come upon him with awful suddenness. Fear and trembling took
hold upon him, and as he thought of his past life, and the possible
judgment seat, before which he might the next moment be summoned to
appear, remorse and doubt seemed to torture him more than physical
pain. At the closing scene he was evidently trying to believe, but
could not, for he kept repeating, "If there be a God, if there be a God
I hope He will forgive me; but I can't believe it, indeed I can't!" and
so saying he expired.
Another death-bed scene impressed me much. The patient was paralysed in
his lower extremities and could scarcely walk, but his general health
appeared pretty good, and he was not confined to bed. He had a talent
for mechanics and arithmetic, but a very bad temper and a very bad
heart. His crime was sacrilege. In the next bed to his there lay a
patient who was dying, and being in great pain was making a noise,
which disturbed the studies and peace of mind of the other. A quarrel
arose between the two on the subject. High words ensued. Curses, deep,
black, loud, and long, soon followed, too soon for the officer to
prevent, and there would certainly have been a fight if the dying man
could have got out of bed, but the interference of the officer put an
end to the disturbance. It was their parting words taken in connection
with what followed, that made a deep impression upon me:--"If it wasn't
that you are dying I would blacken your eyes for you," cried the
mechanic. "How do you know I am dying? You look as like dying as
anybody, you miserable cripple," retorted the other. "Ah! I'm tough
stuff, you'll not see me die in a hurry." The cripple who uttered these
words went shortly afterwards to bed, was seized with a paralytic
affection, which took the power of speech from him. He never uttered
another syllable, but lay in bed for about a week, making frantic
motions with his lips. I forget which of these two men died first, but
they were buried together in the same grave.
Another death at this time excited a good deal of conversation among
the prisoners. The patient had been tried under the Transportation Act,
one of the bye-laws of which enacted that for every prison "report," or
offence, the prisoner would lose one month of his remission. But
convicts being usually punished under the most recent law, without
reference to its being different from that under which they had
received sentence, the prisoner I now refer to was sentenced to lose
three months of his remission for one offence, that of having an inch
or two of tobacco on his person. He had undergone nearly the whole of
this additional punishment, when, only a few hours before his time came
to leave the prison to meet his motherless children, for whom he seemed
to have a very strong affection, he died suddenly of heart disease.
Some prisoners expired on the very day for their liberation. Some died
screaming aloud that they were poisoned. Many died like the brutes, and
a very few departed in peace, with a prayer on their lips. The great
majority died as they had lived, and were forgotten by the spectators
almost before their bodies had been laid in the grave.