AFTER CONVICTION――A GLIMPSE AT PRISON LIFE.
Charles Peace had not counted on receiving so heavy a sentence, and at
first he was much borne down. He had been for a long time under the
notice of the constabulary, who felt assured that he had perpetrated a
series of robberies without being brought under the ban of the law.
Had the authorities been oblivious to this fact, perhaps eighteen
months, or at the most two years, would have been the maximum
punishment awarded to him.
“Penal servitude,” says an authority on this subject, “is a thing many
people hear and read of a great deal, but about which only a certain
number know really anything.”
Mr. Charles Reade has touched the question in a masterly manner in his
powerful romance of “Never Too Late to Mend,” but happily for the
welfare of society at large, and criminals in particular,
modifications have been made in the treatment of prisoners since the
publication of Mr. Reade’s work.
Peace, as we have already seen, was selfish and unscrupulous.
He would have sacrificed his sister without the slightest compunction
of conscience if he could thereby have saved himself.
It transpired, however, at the trial, that he was the principal, his
sister and the woman James being but accomplices.
The bench took a righteous view of the question, and our hero simply
got his deserts.
He, however, endeavoured to make out that he was an ill-used man.
After the sessions had come to a conclusion, he was taken in the
prison van with a batch of convicts to the gaol where they were to
undergo the first probationary term of their sentences.
With a heavy heart, Peace once more entered the “Black Maria,” which
was to convey him to a convict establishment, with which he had never
had any previous acquaintance.
When the prison van arrived at its destination the convicts were told
to alight.
The first thing on entering the prison, each man was released from his
handcuffs, and told to seat himself on a long bench in the passage.
Peace, during the progress of the van through the town, had been
greatly annoyed at the shouting, screaming, and laughing of his fellow
prisoners, who were, however, now much more quiet and comparatively
well-behaved.
They were all subjected to a new and to Peace a most painful
operation.
He was well aware that it would be next to useless, if not quite
hypocritical, for one in his position to lay claim to any considerable
delicacy of feeling, or to be over scrupulous in matters of common
decency.
But there were occasionally, however, he found, even amongst convicts,
those who will bear a pretty long period of imprisonment, during which
they are subjected to a variety of contaminating influences, and yet
not have their susceptibilities completely destroyed. Of these he was
one, and he felt that the treatment he had to undergo was conceived in
a barbarous spirit, and was fitted to destroy utterly any feelings of
self-respect which his previous experiences had left in him.
Every part of his body was minutely inspected immediately on his
arrival, in order that he might not take any money or tobacco into the
prison.
Doubtless it is very desirable and even necessary that every
precaution should be taken to prevent such articles finding their way
into prisons――at least on the persons of prisoners; but the fact
remains that, notwithstanding these inspections, both money and
tobacco do find their way into prisons.
The trials of skill and invention which go on between the convict and
the inspector, like those between artillery and iron plates, have as
yet only proved that, given the power of resistance, the power of
overcoming it will be found.
One of his fellow-prisoners verified the truth of this conclusion by
taking five sovereigns into prison with him, notwithstanding all the
care and experience exercised by the inspector.
Every prisoner on first entering the convict service has to undergo
nine months of separate confinement in a cell by himself, working in
that cell, and never leaving it except for exercise or to go to
chapel.
Daring that nine months no remission is given; but for the remainder
of his time, if he obtains the full quantum of eight marks a day,
which, curiously, he earned by good conduct and the completion of his
day’s work, whatever that may be, he is allowed a remission of equal
to three months in each year, or one-fourth of his sentence, except
the nine months.
The full amount of marks for a man to earn in a year is 2920.
If less than this number is earned, so much remission is lost.
It is seldom that a man goes through the whole of his service without
losing some marks.
The day after the arrival of our hero and his fellow-prisoners they
were all ordered to strip a second time for medical examination, and
as a considerable time elapsed before Peace’s turn came he had to
remain in that state rather longer than was good for him.
It was useless to complain, he had to submit to the humiliating
process with the best grace he could.
When the inspection was concluded, he had his hair cut after the
approved prison fashion, and was put into his cell to make mats.
His cell was white as the driven snow. His domestic duties were
explained to him, and he was informed a heavy penalty would be
inflicted if a speck of dirt was discovered on the wall or floor of
his cell, or if his cocoa-bark mattress should not be neatly rolled up
after use and the strap tight, and steel hook polished like glass, and
his little brass gas-pipe glittering like gold.
He listened to all these injunctions with exemplary patience, having
made up his mind to be, if possible, a model prisoner. He had in view
the remission of his sentence, which was only to be gained by
exemplary conduct.
To a sanguine or irritable temperament the monotony of prison life is
almost insupportable.
Peace was nearly getting into trouble on the first Sunday he spent in
prison for a very unintentional violation of the prison rules.
In accordance with these rules, convicts are not allowed to turn their
heads in any direction in the chapel; if they do so it is the duty of
the attendant officer to take them before the governor, who, in all
probability, will punish them for their disobedience.
It is fair to assume that those who framed these rules had some good
end in view in being stringent in the matter of posture in religious
service.
The difficulty with Peace was to discover whether the spiritual
welfare of the prisoners or the preservation of a more than military
discipline amongst them, even in matters of religion, had appeared to
them to be of the greatest importance.
It is probable, however, that neither of these considerations decided
the question, but that the principal object of these regulations was
to preserve in the convict mind, even in the act of worship, the idea
of punishment in a perfectly lively and healthy condition.
Be that as it may, on Peace’s first Sunday in chapel with his English
Prayer-book before him he found himself quite unable to follow the
chaplain in the services in which he was engaged.
Turning over the leaves of the Prayer-book in the vain hope of finding
the proper place, and happening to cast his eyes over the shoulder of
a prisoner in front of him in order to find it, the movement caught
the eye of the officer who sat watching every face. Peace saw from the
stare and frown which followed, indeed, that he had committed some
grave offence.
He immediately resumed his proper attitude, and sat out the service as
right as his neighbours, and so escaped the threatened punishment.
“They are jolly particular in this establishment,” mused Peace.
“Mustn’t even look, it appears.”
Nothing, however, was said to him by the official, but he felt that he
had narrowly escaped being reported.
Every day the prisoners, male and female, old and young, were made to
attend chapel, and twice on Sundays.
The appearance of the sacred edifice quite upsets the idea of
“freedom” in religious worship.
The chaplain’s pulpit is perched high up against the wall at the end,
so as to enable him to get a view of his entire congregation;
otherwise this would be impossible, for while the larger number of
adult male prisoners occupy the body of the chapel, the women and
children are partitioned off on either side by a tall partition, which
quite precludes the possibility of their seeing beyond.
Before the great space where the men sit is a pair of tall iron gates,
and they are ranged on seats rising one above another with warders in
attendance, who are constantly on the watch.
The men are expected to look steadfastly before them, regarding
through the iron bars the preacher in his pulpit; they must raise or
lower their prayer-books with elbows squared, and all at once, like
soldiers in a drill.
They must not scrape their feet against the floor without having
afterwards to explain the reason of such a movement. They may scarcely
wink an eye, cough, or make any noise without danger of rebuke or
punishment.
It is a terrible and humiliating state of servitude these miserably
guilty creatures have to endure, but with all this it does not seem to
deter them from the commission of crime, for many, as soon as they are
released, have recourse to their old practices until they are again
caught, and sentenced to another and longer term of imprisonment.
Peace began to be weary of his monotonous life. One morning he said to
the under turnkey.
“I say, my friend, how long am I to be cooped up in this cheerful
little abode――not the whole of the time, I hope?”
“Prisoners are not permitted to talk out of hours,” said the turnkey,
looking straight before him, but not at his questioner.
“Ah! I beg your pardon, guv’nor; meant no offence.”
The turnkey, whose name was Wilson, looked hard at the prisoner, and
seemed lost in thought.
Peace felt a little uncomfortable. Perhaps the man would report him to
the governor.
“I beg your pardon again; I hope I’ve not offended you.”
The man shook his head and walked away.
“I’m sorry I spoke,” muttered our hero to himself.
The turnkey returned.
“Now, then, No. 34.”
“Well,” cried Peace, “what’s up now?”
“Prisoners shut their own doors,” returned the man. Peace closed the
door of his cell.
“Lively,” he ejaculated, “not to say encouraging. Well, I am blest,
this is a place a cove’s got to lock himself in, it appears.”
Peace had gone through the usual formula of prison life; one working
day was just the same as another.
He did his share of work, and his custodians had no reason to complain
of him as far as industrious habits were concerned; he kept his cell
scrupulously clean.
The cell in which Peace was confined was small enough in all
conscience. It was not much over seven feet in length, and four feet
five inches in breadth; its height being a trifle over eight feet. By
the side of the door was a small window of thick rough glass, and
beneath this was a little flap table, which had to be let down when
the hammock was slung.
As may be readily imagined, there was nothing superfluous in this
narrow prison house, only just enough to admit of a human being
existing in the narrowest possible compass.
Over the table was a small shelf. Below the shelf, and at the opposite
end of the cell to the window and flap table, was the hammock, which
was rolled up in the smallest possible compass, and strapped against
the wall.
There was a water spout, so ingeniously contrived that turned to the
right it sent a small stream into a copper basin, and to the left into
a bottomless close stool at some distance.
There was also a small gas pipe tipped with polished brass.
In one angle of the wall was a small commode or open cupboard, on
whose shelves were ranged a bright pewter plate, a knife and fork, and
a wooden spoon.
There was a grating at the bottom of the door for the air to come in,
and another for foul air to go out if it chose.
An ordinary stable bucket with iron handle and hoops was on the floor
alongside of a low wooden stool, a small hand broom, and in a corner
under the table a scrubbing brush and flannel. Two tin tallies, with
the number of the cell, prison, and hall, hanging behind the door,
completed the furniture of this lively and cheerless apartment.
The cellular system has, however, many advantages, and is a far better
arrangement than that adopted in the earlier days of prison
management.
At one time English gaols were denounced by Howard and others “as
schools for instruction in iniquity,” and there can be but little
doubt that to an extent this was true.
The poor dandy priest, Dr. Dodd, who was executed for forgery, spent
six months in Newgate before he suffered death by hanging, and during
part of his time he was forced to herd with the common rabble. The
change from the caresses and luxuries lavished on him by the silly
devotees of his green-room theology to the riot and ribaldry of the
gaol sorely tried the unstrung nerves of the pet preacher. When at
last he was accommodated with a separate apartment he wrote a poem,
entitled “Thoughts in Prison,” in which he copiously lamented the
evils of association and his own personal miseries.
The case of the unfortunate divine-about-town made a great sensation.
He really was hardly dealt with, for he had done all he could by
confession and restitution to atone for his crime.
Dr. Johnson fought for him nobly.
Twenty thousand people signed a petition for his pardon. Consequently,
when the ill-fated divine was hung and the poem published, hundreds of
fine ladies and gentlemen read, and perhaps deplored, his watery blank
verse, and thus most unexpectedly felt a transient interest in the
question of prison discipline.
But a change has come over us since the days of Dr. Dodd and
Faudleroy; though it would appear that the sympathy evinced by a
certain section of the community for murderers is still extanct.
The Rev. John Clay, who was for many years chaplain of Preston Gaol,
in discussing the question of prison discipline, says: “If we regard
the prisoner as a moral patient, the paramount object is to render him
as amenable as possible to the reformatory process. The tendency of
separate confinement is to lower the bodily organs and weaken the
faculties.
“The discipline must be modified to correct this tendency. The
prisoner probably lived a life of gross animal indulgence.
“Accordingly his animal propensities must be first lulled to sleep;
this is most effectually done by the repressing power of isolation.
“Plenty of fresh air, therefore, brisk exercise, and suitable diet are
necessary.
“If the diet is too low, it will turn depression into despondency; if
too high, it will produce excitement and irritability.
“The god of criminals is their belly, and to baulk the belly god to
the utmost extent is both wise and just.
“In consequence of lowering the vital energies, the brain becomes more
feeble, and therefore more susceptible.
“That is to say, the man becomes more impressible, though this is not
the invariable result.
“The cell will sometimes only increase the reserve of the sullen, the
stupidity of the dull, the idiotcy of the feeble, and the craft of the
cunning.
“Solitude is indeed a terrible solvent, but the main element in a
man’s character will sometimes withstand its potency when all other
characteristics are melted down.
“But, as a general rule, a few months in a separate cell renders a
prisoner strangely impressible.
“The chaplain can then make a brawny navvy cry like a child――he can
work on his feelings in almost any way he pleases. He can, so to
speak, photograph his own thoughts, wishes, and opinions on his
patient’s mind, and fill his mouth with his own phrases and language.”
In common with most philanthropists, the Preston Gaol chaplain
considered that almost all crime was traceable to three closely-linked
causes, drunkenness, ignorance, and the habit of living in filthy,
overcrowded dwellings.
But he maintained that these, in their turn, were due in a great
measure to the want of sympathy and intercourse between the upper and
lower classes. This cause the late Justice Telford animadverted on
while on the bench within a very short period of his death.
Of course the effect produced by the solitary cell depends on many
other things, such as temperament, previous habits, &c.
The sluggish, lymphatic man, with small lungs and small brain, adapts
himself easily to his solitude. Good food, light work, and a
sufficient allowance of visits to break and cheer the monotony of his
cell, reconcile him to his position; he becomes almost as passive as a
vegetable.
Uniformly submissive, he gives no trouble, and makes an excellent
prisoner.
On the other hand, the large-lunged, large-brained man of sanguine
temperament is affected very differently. To him the cell is a severe
punishment; he chafes and frets under restraint, and most likely grows
irritable and sullen.
Probably he breaks the prison rules.
An ignorant, stupid gaoler would try by sharp punishment to coerce a
man of this kind to submission, but to goad and madden him still more
would be the only result of such an attempt.
Not improbably a duel between prisoner and gaoler would be provoked,
and perhaps some tragedy, like that enacted at Birmingham Gaol, be the
issue. The details of this tragedy are treated in a masterly manner by
Mr. Charles Reade in his “Never Too Late to Mend.”
Those who are in the habit of having prisoners under their charge hear
some extraordinary stories of crimes.
While Peace was undergoing the probationary term of the sentence
passed upon him, more than one member of a light-fingered family of
some celebrity were inmates of the same prison.
A brief sketch of this family, every member of which Peace knew
perfectly well, is given in the gaol chaplain’s report, which, as it
is reliable, may furnish the reader with some little insight into
criminal life:――
“Trained thieves and pickpockets,” says the chaplain, “differ from
mere tramps, both as requiring a far greater amount of plunder to
support them, and as more constantly and actively seeking it.
“While the tramps are always pedestrian, and are content to herd in
the most sordid lodging-houses, the professional thieves resort to
ale-houses and taverns, travel by rail, and altogether maintain a
style of living unattainable by meaner rogues.
“They differ again from the ‘resident bad characters,’ inasmuch as
they never work if they can help it, but live entirely upon the fruits
of their daily villainy.
“Though Preston is not yet of sufficient magnitude and importance to
maintain a body of resident pickpockets, it seems to repay the trouble
of frequent visits from members of the Manchester, Liverpool, and
Sheffield corps. The great majority of cases tried at the sessions, in
which it was thought necessary to inflict transportation, have been
professional thieves whose head-quarters were at Manchester.
“At certain periods of his life Peace made that town his head-quarters
also.
“I have had repeated conversations with many of these professionals,
and I shall need no apology for entering into details.
“The first case to which my special notice became attracted was that
of three young men, two of them only boys, and a girl apprehended for
a shop robbery at Preston――an offence seldom ventured upon by thieves
of their class because considered “dangerous”――_i.e._, involving
greater risk of detection than their ordinary practice, and a severe
sentence in the event of a conviction.
“The names of the culprits were John O’Neill, Richard Clarke, Thomas
O’Gar, and Ellen O’Neill.
“On committal their true characters were at once apparent.
“On their trial numerous previous convictions at Manchester,
Liverpool, and Wakefield, &c., were proved, and being once more found
guilty, sentences were passed upon them to secure the public for some
years from their depredations.
“These unhappy convicts who, previous to their trial, were cautious
and reserved, underwent a change afterwards.
“Individual separation, and the consequent working of memory and
reflection upon minds too young to be quite hardened, produced the
usual result.
“One after another, and each ignorant of what their associates had
done or purposed, they gladly availed themselves of the opportunities
to unburden their memories, if not their consciences.
“The following is a sketch of the history now under notice, and I am
too well assured that hundreds of similar sketches might be made by
any one who has the opportunity of studying from the abundance of
models supplied by the great towns of this country:――
“An Irish soldier, named Clarke, on his discharge from the army, with
a pension of a shilling a day, settled first at Stockport and then at
Manchester with his family, consisting of his wife, three boys, and
two girls.
“The father occasionally worked at his trade as a shoemaker, and could
have earned a comfortable living by it.
“The two elder boys and the elder girl obtained employment at the
factories; the girl, however, after a little time exchanged her
occupation for domestic service, in which she continued a year or two.
“The parents, as is too frequently the case, bestowed no moral or
religious care upon their children, who in consequence soon picked up
bad companions, and beginning with petty theft, like Laura Stanbridge,
at such places at Knott Fair, gradually entered upon a course of
systematic crime.
“The second son, Richard, led the way, and all the rest of the
children, with the exception of the youngest girl, followed in quick
succession.
“At first the parents remonstrated, scolded, and gave good advice, but
never hesitated to accept all that was offered to them of their
children’s ill-gotten gains.
“In a short time the father became ‘a great drunkard,’ while the
mother, it is evident, encouraged and assisted practices which
provided her with the means of enabling her and her husband to live in
idleness and luxury.
“The man does not appear to have quitted Manchester, but the woman
took a more active part in the proceedings of her children, frequently
making long journeys to meet one or other of them on discharge from
prison, and occasionally making herself useful in passing stolen bank
notes.
“One of the occasional associates of this family, named James O’Neill,
attracted by the skill and success with which the girl exercised her
vocation, after a short courtship married her.
“‘The askings,’ said Ellen, ‘were put up at Leeds, and I filled up the
three weeks by going to Sheffield and York. At the first-named place I
fell in with an old friend of mine, named Charles Peace, who advised
me to think twice before I threw myself away as he termed it. I got
about £10 or £11 at both places together.’
“After O’Neill’s marriage with Ellen Clarke he was supported almost
entirely by his wife’s skill, living, like her father, in a constant
state of drunkenness, and only making himself useful now and then by
_shading off_――_i.e._, screening the operations of his more adroit and
acute partner.
“A great extent of country was traversed by this gang on their
plundering expeditions, making Manchester the centre of their
operations. They organised expeditions to all parts of the kingdom,
or, to speak accurately, they started in a spirit of errantry, with no
more plan than might be involved in the determination to remain a long
time away, and to visit as many places as might hold out a good chance
of booty. Now associated, now separated, forming temporary leagues
with new comrades, occasionally caught and sentenced to _short
imprisonments_, they roamed the country, ‘_working_’ the fairs,
markets, railway stations, steeple-chases, &c., &c.
“‘About, this time,’ said Richard Clarke, ‘I was fifteen, and my gains
were between £9 and £10 a week.
“‘It went in keeping my mother (to whom remittances were made by
Post-office orders) and in public-houses.
“‘I was dressed like a gentleman’s son, with a cap, a round jacket,
and a turn-down collar.’
“Though young Richard was cautious, ‘I never ran a chance,’ said he,
‘of _throwing myself away_――_i.e._, taking more than I wanted, and
running unnecessary risks.’
“Sometimes, indeed, he did not look for money because he had enough.
“Ellen Clarke and the youngest boy, Edward, were the boldest and most
successful of the family, and the girl as well as the mother was not
wanting in a certain kind of family affection.
“We find her starting from Manchester to Gloucester in order, if
possible, to obtain a councillor for Richard, who had been put back
for trial on the charge of picking pockets.
“Unsuccessful in her object, however, and leaving Richard in
Gloucester, she occupied some time in travelling about, chiefly in
Yorkshire.
“She went to Hull to meet her eldest brother John on his discharge
from prison there.
“‘I waited till he came out,’ said she, ‘and then he leathered me for
being away from home.’
“Ellen Clarke, indeed, possessed a natural disposition which, had she
been blessed with Christian parents, might have contributed to their
and her own credit and happiness.
“Her narrative throughout betrays the wish to palliate their conduct,
and at her interview with them after her conviction she appeared quite
forgetful of herself, and only solicitous to assuage their anxiety
about her, and to warn her brother Edward from his dangerous courses.
“This determined and skilful girl-thief of seventeen, who at the
latter period of her short run of crime was not satisfied with less
than a weekly booty of £10 or £20, trembled very much when she made
her first successful essay upon the pocket of a young woman, from
which she abstracted eighteenpence.
“‘I met,’ said she, ‘the young woman again in a short time, and she
was crying; I heard her say the money was her mother’s. I _cried too_,
and would have given her the money back, but I was afraid of being
took up.’
“What an affecting contrast between this girl’s character and fate as
they _were_ and as they _might have been_.
“And how sad to think that our backward civilisation possesses as yet
no means of saving from moral destruction thousands who, like this
poor child, possess natural qualities which by God’s blessing would
amply repay the labour of cultivation.
“As I have said, after sentence was pronounced upon the gang, the
reserve and hardihood which the different members of it had previously
exhibited, gave way.
“Richard Clarke was the first to yield; his sister, who seemed more
attached to him than her husband, next softened.
“O’Gar, whose demeanour had always been quiet and humble, after
meeting with his mother, entirely threw off his obduracy.
“It has been the long-established practice in this gaol to permit
interviews between convicts newly sentenced to transportation and
their near relations with more frequency than is usually allowed,
partly from a feeling of compassion to all the parties, and partly
from a hope that in such cases as the present one, warning may be
taken by those who witness the convict’s misery should they be in any
danger of treading in his steps.
“I was present at two meetings between the Clarkes and their
relatives.
“The visitors on the first occasion were the father, the boy, Edward
Clarke, and a young man introduced as a cousin.
“They were all expensively dressed for their station; the father’s
appearance was rather prepossessing, the boy, though good-looking and
well clad, showed to an experienced eye the unmistakable and
undisguisable physiognomy and manner of a bold and practical thief.
“Creditable natural feelings were shown by all parties, and many tears
were shed by all but the girl, who seemed most anxious to keep up the
spirits of the others.
“Old Clarke, habituated to the short imprisonments of his children,
seemed unable to conceive that he saw them in a more serious
predicament. Almost the first words he spoke were――
“‘Don’t fret. Sure you’ll not be here more than five months. I’ve sent
a letter to General W――――, and he’ll soon get you off.’
“The convicts themselves were well assured that such expectations were
utterly vain, but the father could not be made to comprehend that
General W―――― neither could or would interfere with the course of
justice.
“After the interview Richard Clarke told me that the young man
introduced as a cousin was no relative at all, but a former associate,
then living with the old Clarke’s, and named M‘Giverin.
“At the second visit there came both the old Clarkes, O’Neill’s
mother, Edward Clarke, the younger sister――a fine-looking child of
eleven――and a girl who lived with the Clarkes as Richard’s mistress.
“Old Clarke, not content with bringing M‘Giverin again, also
introduced another ‘cousin,’ a well-dressed man of thirty.
“When Richard Clarke, the convict, was asked who these two men were,
his father slipped forward and answered for him, repeating the
falsehood he had already told, and persisting in it until his son
plainly declared the real name and character of the two ‘cousins.’
“When remonstrated with for practising such duplicity at such a time,
all that could be obtained from the wretched man was――
“‘Well, sir, I ax your pardon. Sure I did not know the rules of the
place.’
“At one moment he appeared oppressed with the bitterest feelings, and
the next was chatting with an air of eager satisfaction.
“When his relatives had gone Richard Clarke made the following
statement――
“‘My little brother told me this morning that last Saturday night he
got £15 in sovereigns at the Bank Top Station, and that yesterday
(Monday) he got £5 in Manchester. The two men that came to see me this
morning are Thomas M‘Giverin and Henry Kelly. M‘Giverin has been a
thief about five years, and has two brothers who are thieves. Kelly is
about thirty years old; he has been a thief _in all ways_ about twenty
years. He is only just out of Liverpool Gaol, where he got six months
for a watch. I think him and M‘Giverin came to see me out of
curiosity――to see whether I was _hard_ or no.’
“I have dwelt longer on the history of this family of pickpockets than
may seem necessary, but I have done so from a desire to lay open as
far as I can what is too little known, the character and proceedings
of this portion of _la classe dangereuse_, to impress upon the public
the enormous loss it sustains by their depredations, and to suggest
the necessity of resorting to more efficient means for the repression
of the evil, which, I believe, to be greatly on the increase.
“There are now many thousands of pickpockets robbing at the rate of
£300 to £1000 a year, who boldly follow their trade under the
idea――too much justified by past experience――that their particular
line of practice involves but small risk of transportation, while its
gains are certain and easily obtained.
“Even when apprehended ‘legal assistance’ is generally forthcoming to
aid the chances of escape.
“A short time after the conviction of the Clarkes a boy named O’Brien,
alias Johnson, alias _Slaver_, was caught in the attempt to pick a
lady’s pocket in Preston.
“The boy’s accomplice, a man who had trained him, and who lived upon
the produce of his robberies, escaped and reached Manchester in time
to secure the professional services of a rather celebrated attorney,
who came to Preston to appear for ‘Slaver,’ and extricate him from his
dangerous position.
“The boy’s skill as an apprentice pickpocket made it worth his
master’s while to incur the expense of £10 for having the best
‘professional aid.’
“‘Slaver’ was convicted, however, as a rogue and vagabond, and
sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.”
We must conclude this chapter on prisoner and prison life, and recur
to this interesting subject in a future number, as we have to
chronicle a much more heinous offence than robbery, this being the
taking of human life.
Peace had not been many weeks in gaol before another prisoner was
lodged therein charged with a capital offence.