CRIMINALS
The study of human nature is always interesting, but to study a
criminal is an engrossing task. Anyone who undertakes this had better
have no preconceived ideas; if he has he will have much to unlearn,
for no two criminals are alike. Prison is probably the worst place in
which to study a criminal. He is then under control; his actions are
not ordered by himself, but by others, and he must obey. He, naturally,
wants to make the best of his imprisonment; he, therefore, behaves
himself, and his true nature or his fatal passion is not exhibited.
When a dipsomaniac is detained where it is not possible for the passion
of drink to be gratified, that passion lies dormant; it seems extinct,
and the man flatters himself that it is dead; but when he is again at
liberty, the lust for drink springs into active and powerful life.
It is just so with the criminal. In prison there is no possibility for
him to indulge in his particular crime, therefore the lust for that
crime is for the time being non-existent; but with liberty his lust
again awakes, and the criminal finds, like the dipsomaniac, that not
in protected retirement, but in full liberty, with every temptation
around, and every possibility of falling, comes the time of danger;
then the battle has to be fought and the victory won, if it is to be
fought at all or ever won. At liberty I have seen such men; when at
liberty I have made friends of them, the shelter of my own house has
not been denied them, and I have had unique opportunities of studying
them, and of trying to find out what it is that leads an industrious
and skilled man again and again to the perpetration of crime.
The idle, loafing criminal has no attraction for me. I like him
not, and have neither time nor effort to waste on him; but for the
intelligent and industrious criminal I feel some degree of pity. I
speak with such men, and find that they not only know right from wrong,
but they can also weigh the consequences of their crime; moreover,
they know perfectly well that criminality does not pay, and never will
pay them. Further, many of them, in spite of repeated conviction, have
earnest desires to do right. Again, a frightful tragedy is compressed
into the life of a human being who earnestly wishes to do right, and
yet is compelled by some inward power to do wrong, absolutely wrong,
even to the perpetration of serious crime. Take the case of a really
industrious man, who has trained ability that enables him to lead a
comfortable life, and who, moreover, respects himself, and enjoys the
respect of others, a man who loves Nature and liberty, and likes to do
kind actions and good turns to other people. When such a man foregoes
business, home, comfort, liberty, and the opportunity of doing kind
deeds for the sake of indulgence in one particular crime, especially
when that crime--if undetected--can bring him but trumpery gain, what
doubt can there be but that the criminal is possessed of some kind of
mania?
Kleptomania, dipsomania, and homicidal mania by no means exhaust the
category of criminal manias that affect humanity. I have noticed for
years that many criminals are charged again and again with a repetition
of one kind of offence. Some people are born thieves, and will steal
on any and every occasion possible anything they can lay their hands
on; but the men and women I have in mind are altogether of a different
class, and limit their thefts to one particular article, never
stealing any other, and, what is more important, never feeling any
inclination or temptation to steal any other article or class of goods.
Only a short time back an exceedingly well-dressed man stood in the
dock at North London charged with stealing a watch from a jeweller’s
shop. He was of middle age, and quite intellectual in appearance. His
frock-coat with silk facings, his silk hat, gloves, etc., all combined
to make him as unlike a criminal as possible; yet when arrested with
the watch in his possession, he told the police at once that he was
well known at Scotland Yard; and so it proved, for there were nine
convictions against him. He had been at liberty for over two years, and
had lived honestly. His father, who was exceedingly well-to-do, and
was much respected in his profession before he retired from business,
allowed him sufficient money monthly to live upon. In conversation
with him, I learned his father’s address and the address where he
himself had been living. I wrote to his father, and the reply I got
was full of pity and love. He had no hard words of condemnation to
say about his son; he was very sorry, but he could not understand his
son’s inexplicable mania for stealing watches. There was no necessity
for him to steal a watch. His father had provided him with one, and
allowed him a sufficiency of money, for he was not in poverty. I saw
the people with whom he lodged, and they spoke in the highest terms of
him. For two years he had lived with them, and had won their esteem and
love; they had not the least idea that he had ever been convicted. Yet
eight times he had been convicted for watch-stealing. His first offence
was stealing a watch when quite a young man. After his discharge, his
friends got him an appointment on a ship making long voyages, and he
was away two years. No sooner does he come back to England, than again
he is in trouble for watch-stealing, an offence that he has repeated
so often that now, when over forty years of age, he finds himself in
prison for the ninth time for the same offence. He sat crying in the
cell after his last conviction, when I called him to me and begged of
him to tell me why he stole watches. He could not speak for a time, and
then he said: ‘I don’t know, indeed I don’t. Yesterday I was a happy
man, and now I am here.’ ‘But tell me how it happened.’ ‘All I can tell
you,’ he said, ‘is that as I was going along the street and passing
the jeweller’s shop, something said to me, “Go in and get a watch! Go
in and get a watch!” and I had to go in and get one.’ But he got it in
such an unspeakably clumsy and blundering way that it was impossible
for him to escape arrest.
Now, this man is a type of many; for to my knowledge there are
large numbers of criminals who commit but one sort of offence, and
are in every other direction honest and decent citizens. Here is a
good-looking middle-aged woman whom I have known for years, and who
twenty times at least has been sent to varying terms of imprisonment.
An incorrigible shoplifter she is called, and so I thought her till I
came to understand her. Repeatedly as she was charged, the pathos of
the whole thing grew upon me; for her silence in the dock and her tears
in the cells were irresistible, so we became friends, and she told me
her secret. When she came out of prison I found her decent lodgings,
hired a sewing-machine, and secured her plenty of work. She was not
idle, and was soon beyond the necessity of stealing. I flattered myself
we were on the way to success, and I said to her, ‘Your devil shall be
cast out!’ when all of a sudden the old offence was repeated, and again
to prison she went. My heart went out to the wretched woman as she
sat weeping in the cell. I could not condemn her, for I knew. With a
piteous look into my face she said, ‘Don’t blame me, Mr. Holmes, don’t
blame me; I can’t help it. I would if I could, but I must steal boots.’
Knowing this, I had provided her liberally with boots to minimize the
temptation, but all in vain; so far as I could ascertain she had not
stolen anything but boots. I determined to try a new plan with her, so
when she had served her term I sent her into the country to work I had
secured for her, hoping that change of scene and air might have a good
influence. She wrote me several letters, and sent me flowers and fruit,
but in every letter she wrote me boots were referred to, and in one,
otherwise lucid, she mentioned them without much reason four times. She
was not in need of boots, and though I knew it was not of much use, I
sent her a pair, but they did not prevent her from stealing others, and
far away from London she was sent to a month’s imprisonment. And so I
suppose it will go on to the end of the chapter, for she came back to
London, and though I have not seen her since, and have heard but once
from her, I have not the slightest doubt that she is in prison for her
old and oft-repeated offence.
But other manias, and much more dangerous and serious than watch or
boot stealing, exist, as I have found out to my sorrow. Seven years ago
a little man was waiting for me outside the police court. He wanted a
helping hand, he said, and had been advised to come to me. I looked at
him, and saw at once that he had character and backbone. He was about
five feet four in height, slightly built, and straight as an arrow,
evidently full of nervous energy, but his eyes told me plainly that he
had spent many years in prison. ‘What was your last stretch?’ I said
to him. ‘Fifteen years!’ ‘Burglary?’ ‘Yes.’ I knew by his sentence
that it was not his first term by any means, and on inquiry I found
that though only forty years of age he had been sentenced to more than
twenty-five years’ imprisonment and penal servitude at different times
for burglary. He had been released in May, and it was now the end of
June. With his gratuity he had bought a decent suit of clothes. He had,
he said, tramped London over to look for work, and now he found himself
footsore, helpless, and penniless. He’d had enough of prison; he did
not want to go back there. I looked closely at him and felt the dint
of pity, for I saw he had industry and talent. So I gave him my hand,
telling him that it should not be my fault if ever again he saw the
inside of a prison’s walls.
The redemption of that promise cost me much, but it taught me much;
it has shown me how good and evil exist side by side, and it has
taught me that tenderness, pity, and love may dwell in the heart of
the fearless criminal. It has taught me how hopeless is the lot of
the released criminal unless personal friendship be accorded him. He
was a bookbinder, and I could not get him work. He had a wife, and it
was expensive work keeping the pair. He was anxious to work, and my
failure to procure it disheartened him. I wrote scores of letters for
him, and made calls upon some firms, but no one would have him. ‘Not
in the union!’ said some. ‘Discharging hands!’ said others. ‘Could
not have a man like that at any price!’ said a third. ‘It’s no use,’
he said bitterly; ‘you see you can’t get me work. I shall have to go
back to it.’ I found a way out of the difficulty by buying him tools
and materials, and setting him up in business for himself. He was a
splendid workman, who could not do a slovenly job. I and my sons kept
him going for a month, and then, having various specimens of his work,
we canvassed for orders, and work became plentiful. But I learned much
in that canvassing. I called upon a number of very good religious
people--indeed, their goodness almost overpowered me, so effusive were
they in their good wishes and promises of work--work that never came
save in two instances, when it was expressly stipulated that I should
myself fetch away and return the work to them when it was finished,
and I was positively to keep their address secret; they were afraid
of being burgled. Yet they had shaken hands with me and said, ‘God
bless you, God bless you in your efforts for the poor fellow!’ When I
returned the work, they complained about the price. So I charged them
less, and made it up myself. They were not prepared to risk much more
than prayers on his salvation.
I was glad when work became plentiful, and such customers could be
dispensed with. For it did become plentiful. Several of our London
magistrates gave him good work, and took a great interest in him. He
was a constant visitor (for work) at the house of one of our judges.
Many clergymen in North London treated him with confidence and respect,
leaving him alone in their libraries for hours. Several of them
called on him more than once, presumably about work, but in reality
to strengthen and confirm him. Exact, methodical, industrious beyond
measure, honest in his dealings, he was to me a friend, a study, and a
delight. I never talked his past over with him, preferring to centre
his hopes and his thoughts on the future. He spent many hours in my
house, and one night over a pipe his secret came out. I told him that
I could not understand how such an intelligent, industrious, skilful
workman as he was could be a burglar. He not only knew it was wrong and
a crime, but he also knew it was folly, and could not pay. He looked at
me for a moment, and then said: ‘You have seen the power of drink; you
know the fascination of gambling. Bring drink, gambling, horse-racing,
and roll them into one, and they do not equal the fascination of
burglary. The silence of the night, every sense on the alert, the
element of danger, the chances of failure and success, all combine to
make burglary a fascination. Why do some men get drunk? Because they
must. So I was a burglar because I was compelled to be a burglar.’
There was no doubt about the truth of this; it admitted of no argument,
for his manner of saying it was convincing. But it troubled me, for
I felt that the demon might not be dead, but only sleeping, while he
himself laughed at the idea that he could again commit burglary. I had
misgivings, and began to cast about for some new weapon wherewith to
fight his enemy. He was then living and working in one furnished room,
for beyond his tools, etc., he had no goods. After he left me I said
to myself: ‘This man wants a stake in society--something to lose.’ I
provided that something next morning, for I took an unfurnished house
for him. I stood security for sufficient goods to furnish it nicely,
the payments to extend over two years. He and his wife moved in, taking
with them the tools, and when I called on them in their new home both
of them cried like children. I explained to him the conditions on which
the goods would belong to him, and what pride he would feel and what
satisfaction he would enjoy when he felt his home was his own, the
result of his own honest labours. Satisfaction! Why, he felt ecstatic
joy at the thought of it; his eyes fairly glistened, and he told me
that he would never waste a penny or an hour till he had paid for
everything. ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘and when you have worked for the goods, and
paid for them, and they are your own, how would you like some rascally
burglar to rap you on the head some night, and then clear your home
out.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘that’s a shrewd hit, but he had better not try
it.’ I said no more to him, but stayed for a cup of tea, when we drank
success to his new home.
Next morning he was waiting for me at the court; he wanted to speak to
me. He looked rather queer, so I asked him what he wanted to say to me.
‘I want to know whether you expect me to make a profession of religion
because you have got me a home?’ ‘Why do you ask?’ ‘Because I think it
right to tell you straightly that I do not believe in God or devil, and
I don’t think you would if you had been in prison, as I have. I can’t
make any profession.’ I looked at him and said: ‘We will leave God out
of the question, but you won’t have to search far for the devil, and
remember this, that when you have found him he is an ass.’ I told him
further that all I asked at present was that he should be as loyal to
me as he would be to one of his old pals, when he said: ‘Mr. Holmes, if
I ever do a dishonest action, I will bring you the key of the house,
and tell you about it.’
I kept him well supplied with work, and there was no holding him back,
for he worked too hard, and kept at it on Sundays till I found it out
and stopped him. In twelve months he had paid every debt, and the goods
were his own; more than this, he had won the confidence and respect of
all who knew him. He was a most tender-hearted fellow; he would not
kill a beetle or cockroach. I met him at his door one day with one in
his hand, which he threw away into a place of safety. When I asked him
why he did not kill it, he said: ‘Why shouldn’t the poor beggar live?
The world is big enough.’ About that time our only daughter lay dying.
Towards midnight he came two miles to inquire about her, and the next
morning before eight o’clock he came again, but when he saw the drawn
blinds he went away silently. When we buried the lassie, I saw him in
the cemetery, and after we had left the grave, he approached it and
placed his offering of flowers, without card or name, among the rest.
Two years passed, during which time I found him just and honourable in
his dealings; but trouble began, for his wife turned out a terrible
drunkard. She was a clever woman, who could do anything with her
needle, and was of great help to him in his work. I knew that she had
a past, for it was written in her face, and many a time when I have
seen them happy together in their nice home my heart has been glad,
for I felt that I was saving two. But the novelty of the husband’s
return wore off, the joy of a woman in the possession of a decent home
paled, and after two years’ sobriety the old drink craving asserted the
mastery, and she became sometimes pig and sometimes tigress. Scenes
ensued, and many times he came to my house till her drunken fury had
passed; but he would not leave her, declaring that it was most likely
his fault that she was as she was. At length it culminated in her
striking him one day in her frenzy because he had refused her money for
drink.
That night he broke into a boot warehouse, and was caught in the act.
He had been with the judge previously mentioned in the morning, and
had brought away plenty of work; at night he was in the hands of the
police. Five pounds of his own earnings were found on him when he was
searched. A sentence of three years was imposed, his ticket-of-leave
was revoked, and he had in all seven years to serve. ‘Don’t think too
badly of me. You know I have fallen; you know why I have fallen; but
you do not know--you cannot know--the hundreds of times that I have put
the horrible temptation from me.’ Thus he wrote me, and I believed him.
Not one word of condemnation had he for his wretched wife. Her remorse
was dreadful to see, but it only drove her to drink the more, and in a
few weeks the nice little home went. Not a vestige remained, and the
forlorn wretch was again out upon the streets, a homeless wanderer and
a drink-smitten vagrant; but not for long, for she soon disappeared as
completely as the home--into the grave or some workhouse infirmary in
all probability.
At intervals during his three years the man wrote to me from a convict
settlement, and slowly for him those three years must have passed.
But they ended at length, and some circumstances in his favour having
come to my knowledge, they were placed, through the help of one of our
magistrates, before the Home Secretary, who most kindly released him
again on ticket-of-leave. And so he came back to me.
Back; but how changed! Men must, I know, be punished; detained in
prison they unfortunately must be; but is it good to turn them into
wild animals? I was speechless at the sight of him. ‘What is the
matter?’ he asked. ‘Matter, man! Turn round and look in that glass!’
He did so, and then sat down and, covering his face with his hands,
cried like a child. He had not seen the reflection of himself for three
years, and he was horrified at himself. I ask again, Is it right to
send long-term men out of prison in such condition and appearance?
Their prison-made clothing is of itself enough to damn them; the
material is bad enough, but the cut and make are worse, while their
underwear has no semblance of make about it, and this man’s would have
probably fitted a man quite twice his size. The hair upon his head was
little more than equal in length to the hair on his face, and in both
cases it stood at right angles. It is cruel, it is wrong--nay, it is
more, for it is silly to turn men out of prison in such guise, and
expect them to go straight and to reform. There is, I know, a redeeming
influence to a man that is down, especially to a man of taste, in a
clean, well-fitting shirt. I know more, for I have seen some men find
positive salvation in a well-made, nicely-fitting suit of clothes.
Anything which helps a man to feel some degree of self-respect is
helpful to him; anything which detracts from self-respect does but the
more debase him, and render his position the more hopeless. The utter
absurdity of it is the more proclaimed when it is certain that the cost
of this man’s outfit, if reasonably expended, would have provided him
with decent clothing, which he would have respected, and which would
not have proclaimed to the world that its wearer had been a long time
in prison.
The criminal, having been punished, ought not to be branded, and it is
about time that the combined wisdom of our authorities found some plan
of reasonably and decently clothing such prisoners when discharged.
The matter is very simple and certainly not expensive, but it is of
vast importance; for good intentions, hopes and resolutions wither
and die in the mind and heart when the body is habited in prison-made
clothes. Such men carry the prison about with them, and cannot get
free of its influence. And in all conscience a few years in prison
brand a man quite enough without adding to it stubbly beards, upright
hair, and peculiar clothing! How is it that a man’s facial expression
changes during a long detention? How is it that his voice becomes
hard and unnatural? How is it that his eyes become shifty, cunning,
and wild? It is no fault of the prison officials; they cannot help
these things; from the governor downwards they are not to blame. It
is not because of hard work. From conversation with, and knowledge
of, such men, I gather that some of them at any rate would be thankful
for more work. It is the system that does it, the long-continued,
soul-and-mind-destroying monotony, the long, silent nights in which
for hours men lie awake thinking, thinking, thinking, driven in upon
themselves and to be their own selves’ only companion. No interchange
of ideas is possible, no sound of human voices comes to call forth
their own, and their own vocal organs rust. Nor does returning day
bring change, nothing but the same duties, performed in the same way,
at the same hour, and the same food, in the same quantities, served
in the same demoralizing way. They become strangers to the usages
of civilized society, and devour their food even as the beasts, but
not with the wild beast’s relish. To the use of knife and fork they
become strangers; to a knowledge of their own lineaments they become
strangers; to high thoughts, amiable words, courtesy, love of truth,
and all that makes a man they become strangers, for these virtues
cannot dwell with senseless monotony. But if these things die of
atrophy, other but less desirable qualities are developed. A low
cunning takes their place; the wits are sharpened to deceive or to gain
small ends; hypocrisy is developed, and men come out of prison hating
it, loathing it, but less fitted to perform the duties of life than
when they entered it.
Punishment, I say, there must be. Prisoners we shall continue to have;
but surely it would be merciful and just, and therefore it would be
wise, to give these men some legitimate hope of a little relief from
their manhood-slaying monotony. And here I would suggest a radical
reform, _i.e._, abolish the ticket-of-leave system; let the judge’s
sentence of so long a time be a final one, unless for good reasons
the Home Secretary intervenes. Judges are not now vindictive, and
probably shorter terms will be the rule. Let the prisoner know that
there will be no shortening of his sentence, but let him also know
that good behaviour, industry, and courtesy will bring him a reward,
and that after a fixed time he will be placed in a higher class. Let
him know that better food, better and more abundant literature (not
too ‘goody’), some social recreation and some relaxation from dead
monotony, will be his reward. Let him know that more interesting work
awaits him. Let him know that he shall have a chance of seeing the
likeness of his own face, of hearing his own voice, of being fed as
a human being, and, my life for it, you shall inspire many a man to
hope. Hope takes to herself many virtues, for with hope all things
are possible for good, but without that saving grace all things are
possible for evil.
Let there be a gradual amelioration and a gradual relaxation of the
monotonous conditions in the lives of long-time prisoners, and when
they are released they will not present a spectacle like the man
of whom I have been telling. For his eyes betrayed him, his high
cheek-bones and hollow cheeks betrayed him, his hair on head and face
betrayed him, his prison-made clothes betrayed him, but most of all his
voice betrayed him. How he talked! There was no stopping; he ran on and
on, and though I wanted to tell him much, I had to sit and listen to
his queer voice as the words came tumbling over each other. I had never
seen him or heard him before in this condition, and did not know what
to make of him; but I sat and looked and listened wondering. At length
I stopped him and told him he had better have a little breathing-time.
‘Oh, for God’s sake, let me talk! I have had no one to talk to all
these years; let me hear my own voice!’ On and on he went till a meal
was served, and then my wife sat down with us. Gracious! it was worse
than the talking. A knife and fork lay beside his plate, but he took
the meat with his fingers. I called his attention to the knife and
fork. He looked ashamed, and said: ‘Excuse me; I had forgotten. I
haven’t seen any for three years.’ But he cut a poor figure with them.
I kept him with me a few days, and let him practise his voice, got
him shaved and decently clad. I obtained good lodgings for him with
excellent people close by, and they very soon learned to love and
respect him. Again tools and materials for his work were provided, and
I fitted up a room of my own for a workshop. His former patrons did not
forget him, and work became plentiful, for many had been saving it up
for him. He worked as if a fury were upon him. Every morning at eight,
punctual as the clock, he rang my bell; every morning he left his
lodgings with the kiss of little children on his lips; every evening
he was welcomed home by them. Day by day I watched him. I saw his eyes
become restful, his face became the face of a man, and ‘his flesh the
flesh of a child.’ I heard his voice become human, I saw his face
develop the power of smiling, and even heard organs that had long been
silent and unused give forth a hearty laugh. He had to report himself
regularly to the police, who treated him in a gentlemanly way, and
never divulged his secret.
I am indeed exceedingly glad to have this opportunity of bearing
witness to the considerate manner in which released prisoners
are treated by the police. I have never met with any instance of
persecution. A good deal has been said about them hunting up and
betraying ticket-of-leave holders and discharged prisoners generally;
my experience has been exactly to the contrary. I have known numberless
instances of kind actions, and even of thoughtful care, displayed by
detectives and others. Again and again have such officers brought
old offenders to me, asking my help on their behalf. The police have
a difficult task to perform; it is their duty to be suspicious, but
I know that many of them are really glad to see an old offender go
straight and proper.
He was a most ingenious man, and invented a new and pretty system of
ornamenting the edges of books. He was justly proud of this, and took
great delight in it. I saw him pursuing his experiments time after
time, with all the ardour of an inventor. We were just taking steps to
patent it, when he was again carried captive by his old enemy. With
some pounds of his own honest earnings in his pocket, with a watch
and chain and plenty of good tailor-made clothes, with a thriving
business that promised him independence, with a smile on his face and a
‘Good-afternoon, Mr. Holmes,’ he left my house and went to the suburbs,
and broke into a mean little house, where it was impossible for him to
secure portable goods to anything like the value of the money then in
his own pocket. He was caught in the act, received a sentence of five
years, and had his ticket-of-leave revoked. So again he writes to me
from a convict prison, and pitiful his letters are. ‘I don’t know why I
did it, but I was compelled to do it.’ He begs me to write to him, and
implores me not to cast him off, but to let him live on with one hope
and with the knowledge that he has one friend in the world. I do write
to him, but what can I say to cheer him? Were he at liberty, what could
I do to help him? My poor wits are powerless and my resources useless
before his inscrutable madness or his demoniacal possession. But I
shall never see him again at liberty--nay, nay, for in less than nine
years he will have eaten his own heart. I sit writing with the books
he bound all around me. I take one in my hand, and I see proofs not
only of skill but of honest workmanship, and of a conscientious man.
And then, far away from the work he has left behind, I can fancy him,
a man of many talents and infinite resource, at the daily round, the
maddening round, of his monotonous task. I see him in the silence and
long-continued solitude of his cell; I watch the disappearance of the
man and the revival of the animal. But never again shall I see his deft
fingers at work; never again shall I hear his brisk step at my door;
for heart-disease has already hold of him, and small wonder. A year or
two of maddening thought, incessant reflection and choking confinement,
and he will have passed into the presence-chamber of the great Judge.
Many a castle in the air I built for him. I thought I had surrounded
him with every safeguard, and my heart is still sad for him; but I
regret not my efforts on his behalf, neither do I count my labours
lost, nor my time wasted, for I learned to know him, I learned to
appreciate the awful power of his strange mania. Otherwise his life was
gentle, and but for this curse he was a man. ‘I ask you to believe me
when I say that I was sincere in my promises to you. I told you that
I considered myself in honour bound to do right, and to justify the
confidence you have shown in me. I am no hypocrite, but why cannot I
be as your sons? Why there should be a power within me impelling me to
do these things I don’t know; but I do know at times that I am utterly
unable to resist it. Do you think there is any truth in fatalism? Is it
my destiny? Is it any use my struggling against it?’ These words form a
portion of the last letter received from him, and he puts me questions
that I cannot answer. I did not save him, but I tried my best.
Perhaps my methods were wrong, but to me they seem right; for I
hold that if a man cannot be saved by faith and hope, by friendship
and respect, there is no social salvation for him. There is a large
class of criminals of this kind, not all possessed of the same
mania, but impelled by the same power. Day by day men of brain and
energy are released from our prisons. They have skill, but not
muscle; intelligence, but not brute force. What will save them?
Not wood-chopping ten hours a day in a ‘labour home’; not envelope
addressing at half a crown per thousand! not paper-sorting under
unpleasant conditions; not pick and shovel in competition with the
navvy; not even clerical work, where, because of their past, they
do two men’s work for a boy’s pay. These will not, cannot, redeem
long-time men. If the consecration of loving hearts fails, if the
dedication to their service of home, intelligence, family life, and a
man’s own self fails, if that divine inspiration that comes from human
goodness fails, it is absurd to suppose that monotonous, ill-requited
drudgery will succeed. Some kind people can, I believe, find a sort of
gratification in making a profit or in getting cheap labour from men
and women who are down. Thank God this cannot be laid to my charge,
no, nor to my wife’s; for if the old ‘unfortunate,’ the hero of a
hundred convictions, has lived with us and worked for us, we have paid
her adequately. If the criminal who has spent a quarter of a century in
prison has worked for us, we have paid him, and his labour has been as
well requited as if his character was perfect and his past unsullied.
Why should Christian people seek to get some advantage from unfortunate
men and women who have fallen deeply into vice or sin? The return path
to rectitude and citizenship is always a hard road to travel, and
rightly so; but to make that road harder by imposing such heavy tolls
upon the travellers is like unto casting out the devil by Beelzebub.
I know a man at the present moment--a married man and a first-rate
scholar, about thirty-five years of age--not long from prison who,
because of his past and his helplessness, is earning ten shillings a
week in a position to which he has been ‘recommended.’
A large number of good people are tarred with this brush, for I have
received scores of letters at different times from persons who required
either servants or assistants of some sort, and who were willing to
take, with a view to their reformation, some girl or woman who had
gone wrong, or some man who was down, the condition being that I
should recommend them. ‘What are the duties? What is the payment? What
references can you give?’ I have always inquired of them. I invariably
found that the duties were numerous and heavy, and the pay about half
the current rate. The question of references was often taken as a
gratuitous insult on my part; but I had good reasons for the question,
and I could not think of sending any broken sinner who had some desire
of amendment to any place or situation where that hope would soon be
extinguished, or where their labour would altogether be inadequately
rewarded. I have sent back to their homes, in various parts of England,
women, healthy, strong, and useful, who have been sent up to London to
be ‘rescued,’ and after being ‘rescued’ have been sent out to drudgery
at half a crown or three shillings per week, with certain deductions.
Needless to say, they found their way into our police courts.
I do not want men and women bribed to be good, for goodness so obtained
would be shoddy stuff. I do not want criminals and offenders to have an
easier time or, indeed, as easy a path in life as the honest, sober,
and industrious; nay, with all my soul, I protest against the lives of
decent people being made harder and their difficulties increased by
ill-considered efforts in rescue work. It avails little to set up Peter
and knock Paul down, yet this must inevitably be the result if fallen
men and women are to do vast quantities of useful work for little or no
remuneration; but I do want fallen men and women to have some chance of
reform, and I do pray that the return path to rectitude and decency may
not be made too thorny.
How to right one wrong without creating another is then the problem,
and it is almost insoluble--almost, but, I venture to think, not quite.
We must, however, begin at the beginning. Our prisons should be the
starting-place, and these must no longer be ‘vengeance houses.’ The law
must be satisfied, I know; but surely the law ought to be satisfied
with the protection of society and the punishment of the criminal,
without also claiming as its due the demoralization of the prisoner.
I say advisedly, after taking counsel with and making friends of many
who have been only too familiar with prison, that the present methods
conduce to that state of mind and body which renders discharged
prisoners almost certain to commit crime. Crime, generally, is the
result of some peculiar condition of the mind or, it may be, of the
body of the perpetrator. I cannot differentiate, but men whose business
it is to know should be able to do so. Certain actions follow, and we
say that crime has been committed, and that the criminal is morally
diseased; so we proceed to take vengeance upon him. It would be
considered insanity if physical or mental disease were so treated.
Prisons, then, should not only be the means of protecting society
against the depredations of the criminals, but should also be hospitals
or asylums for the study and cure of moral disease. Neither can I
imagine a study and science more absorbing, for the wonders of the
moral nature are greater even than the wonders of physiology. Have our
prison officials studied in this direction? If not, what qualifies them
for the positions they hold? Very respectfully, but very seriously, I
would ask whether the army is the best training for the governor of a
prison? Are our prison doctors selected because of their researches in
the domains of moral, mental, and physical disease? Have our prison
chaplains taken a degree in the university of human nature? Are the
warders possessed of some useful technical knowledge, as well as of a
knowledge of men? In mechanical trades a training has to be undergone
before good workmanship is arrived at. In the professions long and
severe courses of study are gone through, and examinations are held
to test the fitness of the aspirants for certificates of knowledge
or skill; but to deal with human nature of the darkest and worst
descriptions, it appears as though anyone will do. No special fitness
is required, no training is looked for, and no knowledge of humanity is
for; in any other department of life the thing would asked be absurd.
If specialists are required anywhere, they are required in our prison
officialdom. Not cranks or doctrinaires, not men who have made up
their minds that they know all there is to be known about criminals
and human nature, not fussy and ‘goody-goody’ people, and certainly
not official martinets, should be in control of our prisons. Order and
discipline there must, of course, be, but there is a discipline that
kills as well as one that makes alive. There is small use in trying
to discipline men by killing their better parts and destroying their
useful faculties. Great-hearted, wise-headed men, men of tact but men
of sympathy, men who have above all things a knowledge of human nature,
should have control of our prisoners. The medical profession must play
a more important part, and the chaplains must be embodiments of a
living Christ, and full of a Divine pity even for the very worst. ‘The
greater sinner a man is, the greater the need of his reform; the lower
a man has fallen, the greater his need to rise; the more hopeless a man
seems, the greater his claim for pity.’ So writes a criminal to me,
and on these grounds he implores me to help him when his sentence has
expired. I think Christ would have said the same. ‘I, whose vast pity
almost makes me die,’ Tennyson makes King Arthur say; and such a vast
pity should permeate the heart--nay, the very bones and marrow of every
prison chaplain. ‘Power itself hath not half the might of gentleness’
has been well said; and of all qualities of the human heart and mind,
the power of sympathy is the mightiest, for it disarms resistance
and overcomes evil with good. Once let our prisoners know that the
officials are animated with a desire for their welfare, and all things
will be possible; but they must feel it.
The best qualified officials will, however, be comparatively helpless
without a proper system; true, they can make the best of a bad system,
but with a good system their work would be powerful for good. They too,
themselves, would profit, for it would interest them, and call into
activity their better qualities, many of which must lie dormant under
the present condition of affairs. We want a system that will help to
humanize the prisoner, not to brutalize him. It will, I know, pass
the wit of man to devise any plan by which the whole of our prisoners
can be ‘cured’; it is impossible to invent any system that will be
suitable for every prisoner, for they are varied as nature itself. But
it is practicable, and it would be wise, to have a system that, while
punishing the prisoner, shall not by its punishments defeat the object
it has in view. The ‘terrors of the law’ have little effect upon
brutalized men, for they feel themselves at war with society, and, by
the treatment meted out to them in prison, society has declared itself
at war with them. Consequently they come out of prison more hardened
than when they entered it, and a repetition of crime is most likely to
result.
Briefly, then, I would suggest: Short sentences; abolition of
ticket-of-leave; interesting work and more of it; less time alone, and
more with the schoolmaster; gradual improvements in conditions as a
reward for industry and good behaviour; some relaxation at intervals,
such as lectures with magic lanterns, concerts, etc. The Home Secretary
now allows lay officers of religious organizations to conduct missions
in various prisons. I would go much further, for I would have lecturers
who can speak well and interestingly upon various subjects invited
to speak to the prisoners. I would have good singers and first-class
musicians invited occasionally to give the prisoners a concert. I would
have also the prisons supplied plentifully with books, and constant
additions made to the library. I would have a looking-glass in every
cell, that prisoners might at any time take knowledge of themselves. I
would have every warder master of a trade, or able to teach something
useful, for work that interests must be the great factor in the
reformation of intelligent prisoners.
I may be asked, ‘What kind of work would you suggest?’ I reply at
once, ‘Any kind of interesting work for which a market can be found.’
‘But you become a competitor in the labour market.’ This cry, I know,
would be raised, but it is a very stupid cry. See how the present
system works. Numbers of men and women are detained in prison for long
periods. During their detention they work at stale, uninteresting
tasks, upon which there is no profit; consequently the community
has to keep them. When released, numbers of them enter the ‘Arks,’
‘Elevators,’ or ‘Bridges’ of the Salvation Army, or the labour homes
of the Church Army, and proceed to work for nothing, becoming indeed
and truth very serious competitors in the labour market, as the
wood-cutters and mat-makers will tell you.
I cannot conceive how it can be wrong for a man to earn his own living
while in prison. Neither can I conceive the wisdom of allowing to great
trading organizations rights and privileges which we would withhold
from the State. But I can see the absurdity of keeping a man in prison
for years, during those years giving him unremunerative work, and
handing him over when released to some society, to continue working for
nothing. The cheapness of his labour when at liberty is the danger,
not the work he may do in prison. The absurdity is seen to be the
greater when we remember that a large proportion of the male prisoners
are married, and ought when released to set to work to keep, or, at
any rate, try to keep, their families. During their detention society
has in many instances been maintaining or assisting those families,
and it certainly seems hard that society should have to continue
doing so when the husbands are at liberty, but are working for large
trading organizations. The place for the married man when discharged
from prison is his home; there his battle for social salvation will
best be fought, and there it will have to be fought if fought at all.
A half-year’s, or even a whole year’s sojourn in a shelter or labour
home will not help him, for he has to come out and face the world, and
by some means make a beginning. The recommendation of the shelter,
or labour home, is by no means superior to the recommendation of
prison--in fact, they are of equal value.
I look with something approaching dismay at the multiplication of
these institutions throughout the length and breadth of our land. To
the loafing vagrant class--a very large class, I know, but a class not
worthy of much consideration--they are a boon. These men tramp from
one to another, and a week or two in each suits them admirably, till
the warm weather and light nights arrive, and then they are off. This
portion of the ‘submerged’ will always be submerged till some power
takes hold of them and compels them to work out their own salvation.
But there is such a procession of them that the labour homes, etc.,
get continual recruits, and the managers are enabled to contract
for a great deal of work. In all our large towns there are numbers
of self-respecting men--men who have committed no crime save the
unpardonable sin of growing old. Time was when such men could get odd
clerical work, envelope and circular addressing, and a variety of light
but irregular employment, at which, by economy and the help of their
wives, they made some sort of a living. But these men are now driven to
the wall, for their poorly-paid and irregular employment is taken from
them.[1] ‘_Too old to live!_’ is the cry, and the labour home has no
pity for such men; indeed, these places are as pitiless as commercial
life itself, for no one over forty need apply.
Now, it needs no saying that the healthy single man under forty is
of all men the best able to help himself; his wants should be small,
and if he cannot supply them, then there is something wrong with
him. No one can help such men till they know what that something is.
The shelter, labour home, or elevator are of no possible use to the
intelligent, industrious, and enterprising criminal. Yet these are the
dangerous men; but, after all, they are the men of whom there is hope;
for where there is industry and enterprise there is backbone, and men
with backbone can be saved--many of them, if not all; but they must not
have the prison brand or the brand of any organization upon them.
Four years ago such a man came and claimed my help. I had seen him
in the cells when he was committed for trial. I knew he would get a
sentence of some years. He said: ‘Will you help me when I come out?’ I
told him that if I was alive when his sentence expired he had better
come and see me. I heard nothing of him while he served his three
years, but one morning he was waiting for me and reminded me of our
conversation. He evidently had some faith in me, so I returned the
compliment and gave him a decent rig-out. I had no work to give him,
but I supplied him with lodgings for a fortnight. He ultimately got
work for himself, and passed from my knowledge till three weeks ago,
when he called on me, exceedingly well dressed and evidently thriving.
He had left his situation and was going to a superior one; he showed me
a testimonial that his employer had given him, stating that for three
years he had been a good and faithful servant.
A more remarkable case was that of a man who had undergone several
terms for making counterfeit coin. He wrote to me from prison reminding
me that I had spoken with him in the cells, telling me when his time
would expire and asking for an appointment. I did not remember him,
and had not much faith in his intentions, so I did not reply to him.
But he came to see me, and I was rather impressed in his favour, so I
took him up. I found he was a clever tinsmith, without wife or friends.
I could not get him work, so I bought him tools and metal and hired a
small place for him to work in. He went straight, and got on fairly,
for he has now a little shop front in which he displays his wares. This
happened four years ago, and I believe him to be living honestly. He
has paid me for the tools, and though he lives miles away he sometimes
looks me up.
I might tell of others, but I refrain. I tell of these because I know,
in spite of my brilliant failures, that many criminals can be saved;
and I would not have it inferred, because I tell in this chapter of
the failures, that success has not smiled upon me. It has; but it
required effort and the application of common-sense to bring it about.
There is no royal road to save them; for it is individually, not in
the mass, that such can be redeemed, and any plan for rescuing them
which does not give scope for individuality and does not allow for the
temperament, characteristics, and abilities of these men is sure to
be a failure in the long-run. The attempt to deter men from crime by
squeezing all of them into the same mould while they are in prison is
a dismal and disastrous failure; it deters them not. The attempt to
redeem them when at liberty by pressing them into another mould in any
institution is equally certain to result in failure. Destroy a man’s
individuality and you destroy the man.
With a wise prison system and properly qualified prison officials,
societies for the aid of discharged prisoners would be unnecessary, for
their occupation would be gone. Each prison ought to contain its own
Prisoners’ Aid Society, and what is to hinder the governor, chaplain,
and doctor being at the head of it? But we want, first, a system that
will be sufficiently elastic, and, secondly, officials who will seek
to understand it before much good can be done in this direction. Given
a system that seeks to humanize, that prepares prisoners for their
liberty by a gradual improvement in their conditions, approximating
more and more closely to a state of freedom as the day of release draws
nigh, a system that shall not convert the eyes of men into the eyes
of hunted animals, and that shall not make his heart a sealed book,
a system that shall deliver men from senseless drudgery and damning
monotony--then, and not till then, will prisoners, officials, and aid
societies have a fair chance, for this must be the keynote of any
reform.
Listen: ‘I know how many nails there are in the floor within reach
of my eye, and the number of the seams also; I am familiar with the
stained spots, the splintered furrows, the scratches, and the uneven
surface of the planks. The floor is a well-known map to me--the map of
monotony--and I con its queer geography all day and at night in dreary
dreams. I know the splotches on the whitened wall as well as I know
the warts and moles on the hopeless faces opposite me. My mind is a
mill that grinds nothing. Give me work--work for heart and mind--or my
heart will lose its last spark of hope, and my brain its last remnant
of reason.’ Can these words be beaten for lucidity and pathos? I think
not. They are the reputed words of a prisoner, and have appeared in one
of our London papers.
To-day in the cells at the police court sits a young man with the
‘hunted eyes’; he has been brought from one of Her Majesty’s prisons
by two warders, where he was serving a term of imprisonment. He had
been charged at this court, and committed for trial and sentenced, but
now he is brought back and charged with a more serious offence. He is
only twenty-eight, intelligent, and a clever workman. His young wife,
soon to be a mother, is unaware of this second and more serious charge.
I know him, and know that he has served seven years in a convict
prison, where he made the acquaintance of my burgling bookbinder. So
I ask him how he spends his time in prison, and what work has been
given him during that portion of the present sentence he has served.
‘Oakum-picking in my cell for the first month, and I sit and curse
myself and everybody all the day long. I wonder I am not mad; perhaps I
am,’ was the reply I got from him, and I wonder too.
I ask for no maudlin sympathy for these men; I do not want them
‘coddled’ or patronized. I do not ask for the abolition of severe
punishment in their case, but I do ask that their punishment shall be
grounded on common-sense principles, and that humanity and science
shall play some part in their treatment. I have visited but few
prisons; from personal observation I know little of their inner
working, but of men who have been released from prison I have a large
experience, and for them I have some right to speak. I have made
personal friends of them; I have worked and hoped, planned and schemed,
for them. I have studied them, and I have suffered for them, and I know
that the convict whose letter to the press I have quoted voices the cry
of all intelligent criminals, and that they join with him in the plea,
‘Give us work--work for hand and mind; work--intelligent work--or our
hearts will lose all hope. Work--interesting work--or our brains will
lose the last remnant of reason.’
With a humanized prison system many of these men might be lifted
up, but alas! when they come into the hands of any society or
individual who purposes helping them, not only has their crime and its
consequences to be considered, but the work of the prison has to be
undone before success can be achieved. To undo this in some cases is,
I believe, an impossible task; the stain has become part and parcel of
themselves, and though they may have good instincts, intentions, and
desires, they cannot carry them out, for the dead hand of the prison is
upon them, and to crime they go with automatic certainty. But I have
given instances of criminals that possess a mania for one particular
kind of crime only, and who rarely, if ever, commit any other. Such
are by no means few in number, but how to deal with them is beyond my
comprehension, for though it is possible to trace their crime to its
cause, it is impossible for me to say how that cause can be removed.
One thing, however, I do feel sure about, and it is this, that the
present method of dealing with them while in prison intensifies the
proclivity. Medical and scientific men ought to succeed where I fail;
they can go deeper down into the wonders of the human body and mind. I
can but pity such criminals, and in my blind way try to help here and
there one of them. But to the Faculty I point out the undoubted fact
that otherwise decent and estimable men and women have a mania for a
particular sort of crime, and that at intervals an almost irresistible
impulse towards its commission comes upon them.
Probably this is not a new discovery; others beside myself must have
noticed it. They may have noticed it, but very few can have had the
same opportunities as myself of seeing the reality and force of this
mania, and possibly no one has ever racked their brains or searched
their mind as I have in the vain endeavour to find some method of
saving these people from themselves, and of helping them in the
strenuous but fruitless battle that many of them fight. To the Faculty
I point it out, and to the Faculty I look for help. Shall I look in
vain? Are we to be for ever impotent before diseases of the mind? I
hope not, and I believe it will not always be so. The wondrous and
varied organisms of the human body are now made visible to us, its
diseases are traced and located, treated and often cured. But the
abyss of the human mind is still unexplored, its diseases are still
unclassified, and its peculiarities but little noticed.
Science and human sympathy in combination may do much for such
criminals, but compassionate men, though full of religious zeal, can
of themselves do nothing. I wish to be plainly understood; I do not
undervalue the power of religious influence. God forbid! I do not
depreciate the power of religious conviction. But the Almighty works by
human means, and it is His will that men be saved by men. If these men
are to be saved from their crimes, some means of dealing with the cause
of those crimes must be found. Is this too much to hope for? Twelve
years ago I was noting this peculiar kind of insanity, for such it
appears to me. One man I then knew was undoubtedly a deeply religious
man, yet he was constantly in trouble for a peculiar kind of trumpery
theft. His remorse was intense, and at every failure his agony and
repentance was sincere. One day he called on me, and he seemed very
happy and confident. ‘Thank God!’ he said, ‘it’s all right now. I have
got full salvation, and I am simply trusting.’ He had joined another
religious body, and was in constant attendance at prayer-meetings; but
a month later he was in the cells again for a repetition of his old
offence. He was no hypocrite, for it was not a matter of sin, but of
disease in his case, and he is typical of many.