ou xA) 3 1924 093 714 271 Cornell University Library m The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://archive.org/details/cu31924093714271 In compliance with current copyright law, Cornell University Library produced this replacement volume on paper that meets the ANSI Standard Z39.48-1992 to replace the irreparably deteriorated original. 2001 OJntttcU Mtttoerattg Slihratg Jtljara, Hem fork FROM THE BENNO LOEWY LIBRARY COLLECTED BY BENNO LOEWY 1854-1919 BEQUEATHED TO CORNELL UNIVERSITY CONVICT LIFE. CONVICT LIFE: OK, REVELATIONS CONCEENING CONVICTS AND CONVICT PRISONS. A TICKET-OF-LEAVE MAN. LONDON : WYMAN & SONS, 81, GREAT QUEEN STREET, LINCOLN'S-INN FIELDS, W. C. 1879. AU Eights Reserved. ■; WIHAW AND SONS, PBINTEBB, GEEAT QUEEN STEEBT, LINCOLN'S INN ELELDS, LONDON, W.O. PEEFACE. TT is hoped that these pages may be read with interest, not only as a truthful record of Convict Life, but also as a contribution towards Convict-Prison Eeform. The writer has at least one qualification entitling him to express an opinion on this important subject: he writes — alas ! — from personal experience. Many names which would have added confir- mation to the facts recited, have for obvious reasons been omitted. London, 3Qth September, 1879. CONTENTS. Chapter Page I. — Intboductory 1 II. — Ceimb and Ceiminals ... 8 III. — Convict Lahoub and Convict Asso- ciation 33 IV. — Peison Life — Convicts and their GUARDIANS ... - 71 V. — Convicts and theie Guardians {con- tinued) ----- 90 VI. — Convicts and theie Guardians : Prison Punishments, &c. - - 116 VII. — Refoematoey and Sanatory - - 160 VIII. — Eepoet of the Commission - - 199 IX. — Suggestions and Sdmmaey - - 238 Postscecpt 249 CONVICT LIFE. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTORY. TN the following pages I intend to expose -■- some of the evils connected with the English convict system, and in the interests of society to suggest some remedies. I must be very candid at the outset and confess that all the knowledge I possess on this subject has been gained by a sad and bitter experience. After living up to middle life in the character of a gentleman, and with the reputation of an honourable man, I was weak enough to allow a terrible domestic afflic- tion to drive me into dissipation, and the end of my madness was the committal of an act for which the law claimed me as its victim. An English judge, who has since gone to that bourn from which not even judges return, 15 Convict Life. thought it to be Ms duty, for the sake of example, to send a man of some respectability and education, and who had never before darkened the doors of a police-court, to herd with professional thieves in penal servitude for seven years. I will, not say that I did not deserve this sentence, for I look back upon my own mis- conduct with feelings of shame, horror, and disgust ; but I feel bound to say, in the interests of society and the taxpayer, that six months of solitary confinement, with assiduous labour, rough food, and a hard bed, would have been quite as efficacious, and would not have exposed me to the evil influences and vile asso- ciations which have surrounded me during the past six years, and which it has required no small amount of moral courage on my part to (withstand. Not very long ago I was released upon licence, or what is generally known as a "ticket of leave." I have stated these facts that my readers may be assured that I know something of the subject upon which I am writing. I know that I have degraded myself, Introductory. that I have sinned against society, and that however deep and sincere my repentance, the Pharisees of society will never forgive me. At the same time I feel that I shall relieve my own conscience, and make some atonement, if I can succeed in showing how impotent is the law, as it at present stands, to reform criminals and reduce their number. I may as well say at the outset that in the complaints I may make of the working of the present system, and the suggestions I may offer for its reform, I am actuated by no feelings of tenderness for that ruffian class, who, because they will drink and will not work, exist from childhood to old age, by committing outrages upon their fellow-creatures, and by filching from. them the proceeds of honest labour and enterprise. I regret to have to acknowledge that in this evening of the nineteenth Christian century such a class does exist in England, and that its name is Legion. I have been brought into close contact with hundreds of its members during my in- carceration. They are unanimous in asserting that " they have never robbed a man of a day's B 2 4 Gonvict Life. work by doing one themselves, and that they never will;" but the proceeds of that labour, or any other property which they can appropriate, either by sneaking trickery or brutal violence, they look upon as fair game; and, by some mysterious delusion which seems to obfuscate their mental and moral senses, I almost believe that they are sincere in regarding the law which punishes them as a persecutor and a tyrant. In speaking of themselves they invariably try to identify them- selves with the working classes, ignoring alto- gether the self-evident fact, that the security afforded by the law to property is more important and necessary to the working man than to the millionaire. I think it was Jeremy Bentham who said, that the law does not profess to give men property, but it gives them a security for the saferkeeping of their honestly-acquired possessions. With- out the law there would be no security for the acquirements, of the enterprising merchant, for the furniture of the poor man's cottage, or for the results of a week of honest toil. Bentham's own words just occur to me : " Without law there is Introductory. no security ; consequently no abundance, nor even certain subsistence. And the only equality which can exist in such a condition is the equality of misery." I think that miscreants who prefer thieving to work, and whose consciences are so elastic that they " make no bones " about systematically appropriating the results of the industry of honest men, should not be pampered. I think they should be made to feel, and to feel acutely, that " the way of the transgressor is hard." I have nothing in common with those who try to create any sympathy for thieves on account of the hideous dress they have to wear, or because their hair is cropped, or their beds hard, or their beef tough. I have lived among these thieves for six years, and for the future I shall close my ears to all such claptrap complaints. A man who lives for no other purpose and with no other object than to break the laws of his country has no right to expect "kid-glove treatment," and I do not think should be allowed to revel in the luxuries which may be obtained at " Blanchard's" or the " Star and Garter." Convict Life. In the outside world the great object of his life has been to live without work, and to obtain dishonestly the means of pampering his appetite. The professional thief has no higher aspiration than to gratify his animal nature, and if he could do this in prison, incarceration would be no punishment to him. The law acts wisely in de- priving thieves of alcohol and tobacco, and in giving them only so much as is necessary of coarse and wholesome food; but it ought to go further than this, and compel all prisoners to earn their subsistence, unless they are physically incapacitated for so doing. They should be taught the value and the importance of work, and be allowed by their own industry to pro- vide a fund with which to begin the world afresh when they are released. I am very well aware that there is a very large class of pro- fessional criminals upon which no system can hope to work any reform; and that brings me to the great and crying evil of the existing organization, — the indiscriminate association of prisoners. At present the English convict prisons are breeding-dens for the procreation Introdtictory. of professional thieves. A boy who has com- mitted a drunken assault is placed under the tuition of the hero of a hundred burglaries. " Hodge," who during his previous life has been — in a Carlylean sense — a religious man, and has existed upon the proceeds of "divine labour," goes to Portland, and is there initiated into the mysteries of an art which, upon his release, will enable him to live upon the labour of others. A London clerk (perhaps an underpaid one and with a large family) has forgotten for a moment that "honesty is the best policy." His associations up to the time of his "lapse" had been moral and virtuous. In a weak mo- v ment he takes a stray sovereign from the petty- cash drawer. He is sent to Dartmoor, and upon his release — thanks to the good fellow- ship of the men amongst whom the Govern- ment places him for punishment and reform — he is able to open a cash-box, and close it again, without the use of a key. I propose in the following jpages to expose these evils and to suggest some remedies for them. 8 Convict Life. CHAPTER IL CRIME AND CRIMINALS. TT may be interesting to take a rapid glance at ■*• the various classes of criminals with which the law has to deal. In the front rank there is a class, happily few in number, who become thieves from a sheer lack of conscience; men who do not act under the influence of liquor, and who are not prompted by the goadings of poverty, but who, seeing that they can with ease, or by the use of a little chicanery, possess themselves of the property of others, allow no feelings of, honour or justice to stand in their way. I have no doubt that envy is one of the most powerful incentives to crime with this class. Fortunate circumstance, or accident, has thrown them into the society of men whose means are greater than their own ; they immediately imbibe a desire to rival their associates in luxury and Grime and Criminals. 9 display, and, having no moral principles to re- strain them, do not hesitate to take a short but crooked cut to wealth. There have been many examples of this class in very recent times. Amongst the most notable are Kedpath, Paul, William Koupell, and the four Yankees who in 1873 made so formidable a raid upon the Bank of England. I must admit, that I can draw no moral distinction between these men and the midnight burglar. Catherine "Webster certainly adopted a more coarse and brutal method of obtaining what did not belong to her; but, if weighed against one of the dis- tinguished criminals I have named, the circum- stances and advantages of each being taken into account, I am inclined to think that the balance would be in the woman's favour. The man who deliberately and in cold blood, and with no ex- cuse of poverty or temporary distress to urge him, but merely for the sake of personal aggran- disement, and to gratify his pride and love of luxury and display, systematically plots to rob and defraud others, forfeits, I think, all claim to mercy on account of his social position, and may 10 Convict Life. be safely and justly consigned to the same de- scription of punishment as awaits the highway robber. Lower down in the social scale, but standing morally upon the same platform, is that great class which seems to increase every year in the same ratio as the population. Stealing is to a very great extent hereditary in England. There are thousands of thieves to-day whose fathers and mothers were as familiar with the interior of half the prisons of England as they are. Many of them were born in prison ; many more in the workhouse ; and nearly all of them, have, from their very cradle, lived in an atmosphere of vice. Whether the law has fulfilled its duty to society in allowing well-known and habitual criminals to have charge of their offspring, and to train them as lawbreakers, is a question I cannot now enter- tain ; but we all know that it does allow it, and makes no attempt to interfere, until it is called upon to punish. A clever professional thief whom I met at Portland two years ago, and who hailed from Birmingham, told me that he got his first lessons in filching from his mother. His Grime and Criminals. 11 father, he told me, was an " honest working man," and was porter in a grocery establishment. This father was always "square," never com- mitting himself, or falling into the hands of the police. His mother had made a pair of drawers which were double, and formed a sort of bag; into these drawers the father used to drop any stray tea or coffee with which he came in contact in the course of his duties, and which he thought Would not be needed by his employer. When, as often happened, the quantity brought home was too large for the requirements of the family, it was disposed of to a neighbouring publican in exchange for a beverage which inspired this honest working man with courage to obtain fresh supplies. -This thief asserted that there were publicans in a very poor neighbourhood to be trusted, and who were never so inquisitive as other people. The idea of morality entertained by this class may be judged of from the fact that this prisoner used to boast that his father was a very " square" man; what he meant, of course, was that he had never been caught. The mother, who was 12 Convict Life. his tutor, he admitted was crooked, and had been in prison more than once. When my informant was a child of five, he would be taken by this mother to a shoe-shop on a busy Saturday night. The woman would be difficult to fit, and whilst the shopman was employed in searching for the necessary size, the child, who sat upon the floor, was attaching to some hooks under his mother's dress two or three pairs of shoes. These acts of dexterity, which, of course, had been rehearsed at home, were rewarded by presents of candy and halfpence, and, in obedience to the in- flexible law of cause and effect, the son, as he grew into manhood, became an accomplished professional thief. My prison experiences have taught me that this is no solitary case, but merely an example of every-day life. Many of this thief-class come into the custody of the police as mere children ; but they either escape with some slight punishment, and return to their old haunts, or, if sent to a reformatory-school, they are thrown into close association with a few hundred other young thieves, who, like themselves, have been spawned upon the dunghills of our great Grime and Criminals. 13 cities; who have, like themselves, been left by the Law itself to grow up under the maternal wing of thieves ; and who have sucked vice into their nature from degraded mothers, whose breasts have at the same time inoculated their physical system with poisoned gin. With such an education as I have indicated, it is not very singular that the hereditary English thief should develop into a villain of the very deepest dye, which he certainly does. My sincere conviction, after six years of life amongst them, is, that as a class, and with very few exceptions, they are utterly and irreclaimably lost. They are so vile, and so filthy, that no re- formatory system under God's sun would have the slightest chance of inspiring their cursed natures with one pure thought or one honest aspiration. I had almost said, it would be a bright day for England if four or five thousand of the wretches now confined in convict prisons could be embarked in the Great Eastern, towed into mid-ocean, and sunk in its fathomless depths. I have no expecta- tion that the British Government will adopt this summary method of disposing of them, and I shall, 14 Convict Life. therefore, in another chapter suggest some more tangible scheme which will relieve society of this intolerable incubus. I hope also by-and-by to expose some of the tricks and dodges by which thieves defraud the public. In this place I must confine myself to a description of their moral characteristics. They are, in a word, dead to all sense of shame. They are cowardly brutes, and their animal instincts have crowded every human feeling out of their nature. They have all the same "leary" look, and an unmistakable .cunning stares at you out of every feature. They have all been educated in Government schools; for after emerging from the reformatory, they have graduated under the Eegis of those licensed-dens of infamy, the public-house and the gin-palace, from the profits of which England derives so large a portion of her . revenue. I am not a professed teetotaler, but compulsory association with the brutes that have been created and reared under the immediate influence of whisky- shops, has forced me to the conclusion that to keep an establishment where liquors are sold over a bar to be drunk on the premises is Grime and Criminals. 15 about the meanest thing a man can do in this •world to obtain a living. But to go back to the character of these professional thieves. They are entirely destitute of all manliness. They could no more stand up, self-supported, than the ivy could rear itself like the oak. They are equally destitute of natural and acquired strength. They approach most thoroughly to the idea of universal and consummate depravity. They think nothing of passing their lives in inflicting misery upon their fellow-creatures, and they do it not only with satisfaction, but with a hideous rapture. If they can commit robberies without violence, they only prefer to do so be- cause they avoid all risk of the " cat," which is the only thing they fear, and which I think, therefore, should be liberally administered ; but if the robbery cannot be effected quietly they do not scruple to use the knife or. the bludgeon, buoying themselves up with the hope that they will escape detection, which three times out of four they do. Their social habits are as filthy inside the prison, as no doubt they are in the rookeries which they call their homes. They have a strange disposi- 16 Convict Life. tion to filthiness and dirt in all senses of the words, and the hog is a sweeter animal by far. They have also a penchant for horrible vices, which I regret to say they get opportunities to commit, even in what are called " separate prisons." I am certain that if the sensuality, the poltroonery, the baseness, the effrontery, the mendacity, and the barbarity which distinguish the every-day life of these professional thieves were depicted in the character of a hero in a criminal romance it would be set down as a caricature. I am not exaggerating : I solemnly declare that whatsoever things are unjust, what- soever things are filthy, whatsoever] things are hateful and fiendish, if there be any vice and infamy deeper and more horrible than all other vice and infamy, it may be found ingrained in the character of the English professional thief. Compared with him Gulliver's " Yahoos " were cultivated gentlemen. Whenever these hopefuls are caught and drafted into a convict prison, they set their cunning to work to pass what they call an " easy lagging," and the truth is, that they get through their Crime and Crimvnals. 17 sentences with less than half the difficulty and less than half the punishment experienced by green hands such as I was. They become the tools of the turnkeys, themselves culled for the most part from the very dregs of the population. They— these adepts in crime— lend themselves as tools to the turnkeys in catching unawares the amateurs in any breakage of the prison rules ; in fact, caged and no longer able to prey upon society out-of-doors, they descend to a vocation compared with which even the life of a pickpocket or a pimp is honourable. I have not quite done with them ; I have to cap the climax. Add to this glorious assemblage of qualities, a high profession of contrition and piety whenever the prison chaplain approaches them; an anxious desire — of course to serve some cunning end — to partake as often as possible of the Sacrament of the " Lord's Supper," to be prominent mem- bers of the church choir ; to be loud in their responses, and to attract the notice of governors and chaplains by the obtrusive reverence of their behaviour in church, and I think you have . an effect which is overpowering. 18 Convict Life I am anxious that my readers should keep the character of this class in their mind when they come to read what I have to say by-and-by about the indiscriminate association of prisoners, be- cause it should be remembered that this is by far the most numerous of the different classes of prisoners which the law has to take care of; and having described their characters, I need hardly add that in every prison they are the ruling power, the reigning influence, the active spirit. Then the law has to deal with another class of criminals for whom I would ask neither con- sideration nor mercy, miscreants who seem dead to the commonest and most natural instincts of humanity, — men and women who are guilty of the most hideous and barbarous crimes, acts of violence and brutality which are truly appalling in their nature. Some of my readers will recol- lect the circumstance of the " Penge murder " not quite two years ago ; a case in which two men and two women conspired to starve to death a half-witted relative, and who actually made them- selves merry within the sound of her dying cries. Grime and Criminals. 19 One of these wretches, Patrick Staunton, was a fellow-prisoner of mine at Dartmoor, and I saw him not long ago snivelling and crying because he had to eat his bread without butter, and because he was made to perform a little — and a very little — light labour. I ask no consideration or mercy for monsters of this sort, the law cer- tainly does not deal too hardly with them. This Patrick Staunton is always running after the prison doctor, and begging for medicine and relief from work. The medicine I would have administered to reptiles of the Patrick Staunton class would be "three dozen" at the triangle when the sun dawns upon the first of every month. But now let me turn to classes for whom I would claim some consideration, and who ought not to be considered as habitual criminals or be dealt with as such. There is, first of all, the man of education and culture, who, perhaps in the presence of some great calamity, or from mis- fortunes in his business, or to ward off poverty from those nearest and dearest to him, in some rash moment, and after a life of sterling honesty o 2 20 Convict Life. and integrity, commits one act of dishonesty. I am reminded of cases now, where, if a little time had been given and a little consideration extended, men with honest hearts, who are now in penal servitude, might have refunded money which they were induced to take, and have been living in happiness and respectability with their families. I know one man now at Portland under a long sentence, who was the post-master of a northern town. He was one of the most guileless men I ever knew. I thoroughly believe that he would rather die than defraud a man of a penny. He had a brother who was dear to him, but not in so good a position as himself. The brother came from a distant town one morning, wanting a hundred pounds in a hurry to save his home from destruction and his furniture from the auctioneer's hammer. The post-master had investments which he could not immediately realize. He did not expect a visit from the Post- office Surveyor for ten days. He borrowed the Post-office money to save his brother. Without doubt, if things had taken their usual course, he would have replaced the money. Grime and Criminals. 21 Unfortunately for him the Surveyor — perhaps receiving a hint from the proverbial " good- natured friend " who wanted the post-mastership — turned up the next day, the money was not forthcoming, and the poor post-master got either ten or twelve years, I forget which. I know another prisoner at Portland under a long sentence ; I believe him to be one of the purest-minded and most honest-hearted men in the world. His character up to the time of the act for which he was convicted had been, perhaps, as spotless as that of the best of the human family. His brother is a partner in an old- established firm of high respectability in Picca- dilly. His son has, during his father's incar- ceration, passed through one examination after another in his chosen profession with distin- guished honour. I shall not easily forget the emotion of my poor prison friend, when reading the letters which conveyed to him the news of his dear son's success, and which told how good God had been to his loved wife and daughters in his absence. I cannot help believing that A ■ was a good father and a good man. He was in 22 Convict Life. a position of trust; one day in an evil moment for him, and in his anxiety to shield the family of an old friend from disaster, he took money which did not belong to him. He took it for an act of charity ; he took it knowing that he could repay it; but, in doing so, he no doubt acted dishonestly, and he had to pay the penalty. . I know of many similar cases, but I will not" detail them now. I do not wish to be misunder- stood. I make no apology for the acts of these men. They make none for themselves. They are convinced, as I am, that it is the duty of the law to punish in such cases. Unless it were to do so there would be no security for property of any sort. But there are degrees of guilt ; and I venture to suggest that this class of men are not abandoned and hardened and hopeless criminals, and should not be dealt with as such. I am quite sure that six months of imprisonment would be to such men a much more severe punishment than the seven years of penal servitude to an old thief. To a man of education and respectability, who has for once yielded to temptation — and surely to err is human — the very first result of his act is Grime and Criminals. 23 almost a sufficient punishment. He commits a moral suicide ; he entails upon himself ruin and disgrace, often the loss of friendship on the part even of his relatives; he is torn from all that makes life dear to him; to say nothing of the hell of remorse with which a man of any culture and refinement is haunted in the seclusion of his prison cell when he contemplates his own downfal. I repeat, that I make no apology for the acts of this class of prisoners; but they are not brutes, they are not monsters, they are far different to habitual, criminals, or professional thieves. They are erring men, in nearly every case deeply sensible of their guilt, and deeply penitent. This class of men never offends a second time ; and I do not think it necessary in the interests of law and order that they should be treated as, or herded with, professional thieves and red-handed mur- derers. It should be remembered too, that amongst those who are convicted for the first time, the law often has within its clutches men who are innocent. The case of Habron is too fresh in 24 Convict Life. the memory of the public to need remark here ; but his was not a solitary case. A few weeks ago, Mr. Cross, acting, in the interests of justice, found it desirable to release another man, who for four years had been separated from a newly-married and sorrowful young wife, and condemned to the society of the infamous at Portland. Thomas Scampton, a young manufacturer, whose family have for generations pursued their avocations with honour in the town of Leicester, was charged with making a bonfire of his own factory to secure in ready money the sum for which it was insured. The chief witness against him was his own partner, with whom he had been at variance. There was hard swearing, and there were in- terested motives on the side of the prosecution. The jury convicted, but afterwards petitioned for the prisoner's release. At last, finding that Mr. Cross and Baron Bramwell were deaf to all appeals, the family, conscious of their loved one's innocence, indicted the man who was principal witness against him for perjury. At Grime and Criminals. 25 this trial, although the prosecution failed to convict, so much evidence transpired to prove Scampton's innocence, that upon the repre- sentation of Lord Justice Thesiger, he was immediately released. I worked side by side with this man on the " trawleys " at Portland. I was a witness of the anguish which he suffered, more on his young wife's account than his own. It was his custom to work by my side when he could, and we together tried to escape the contagion of the moral pestilence by which we were surrounded. Scampton called upon me a day or two ago. He says that he can hardly yet realize his deliverance from the association of " the awful denizens " of Portland, and that often in the society of his devoted and pure young wife, the hideous oaths of the gaol- birds still ring in his ears and cause him to shudder at the remembrance of the pollution which was forced upon him. Another class for whom I would ask some consideration, are men who were born before the School Board was so active as it is now— very ignorant, knowing veritably no difference between 26 Convict Life. B and a bull's foot, and who are also very, very poor. Men naturally honest, and desiring to re- main so, who, during as severe a winter as that of 1878-79, find themselves utterly unable, no matter how much they may try, to obtain employment, have, in the extremity .of their need, carried off from some neighbouring farmer's barn a bushel of potatoes, or from some adjacent baker's shop a gallon of bread, with which to satisfy the cravings of a dozen helpless and innocent children. It may be doubted by some whether such cases are ever punished by penal servitude ; but the sentence is very commonly inflicted under these precise circumstances, and especially when the culprit happens to be tried by "the great unpaid" at Quarter Sessions. The man, per- haps acting under the delusion that God made rabbits for poor men when he made hares for the rich, has had a previous conviction for some poaching affray. Now I am not defend- ing poaching, and I agree that whatever the law may be, the duty of a good citizen is to obey it; but as the law of bygone times allowed the last generation to grow up in stolid Grime and Criminals. 27 ignorance, I think some little allowance should be made for this class, and that a former conviction for poaching should not be deemed a sufficient reason for sending a man to penal servitude for a solitary instance of dishonesty, committed to save his family from starvation. Thefts of all sorts must be punished, but again I say, the men who commit such petty thefts are not monsters, or murderers, or professional thieves, and should not be herded with them. I will take this opportunity to make public an order which has been given by his Eoyal High- ness the Prince of Wales to the servants and keepers on his estate in Norfolk. The Prince of Wales gets a good deal of abuse, undeserved abuse, from all sorts of people ; but what I have to tell about him speaks volumes for his goodness of heart, and if his example were followed by all the landowners in the country, a large number of crimes would be prevented. A prisoner now undergoing sentence for a poaching affray upon another estate in Norfolk, told me that he for- merly lived in the neighbourhood of Sandring- ham. I will use his own words. He said, " I 28 Convict Life. was never in trouble while I lived there, nor nobody else." I asked him, why? He said, because if a man needed a dinner, and wanted a rabbit, he had only to go to the house and ask for one. The Prince had given special orders that the men about were not to trespass and shoot for themselves, but that his keepers were always to supply a rabbit to any labourer on the estate, and that if none were in hand they were immediately to go out and shoot some. There is still another class of criminals who, I think, should not be herded with professional thieves, and whom a good reformatory system might transform into sober and honest citizens. I regret to say they include a very large class, — many men, many women, and, worse still, lots of boys and girls between the ages of four- teen and twenty, who commit crimes under the immediate influence of intoxicating drinks. Of course, I know what abject fools men and women are to get drunk, and that intoxication is a lame excuse for crime; but then the law allows so many inducements to be held out. to people to get Orime and Criminals. 29 drunk that I really think it should be considered responsible in some degree for the result. There are many hundreds of prisoners now in convict prisons whose crimes were committed while they were in a state of drunkenness, — often in the public-house itself, always soon after emerging from it. Drink is such a common evil amongst the working-classes of Britain that it is rightly called the National Sin ; and I think that the Government has so much encouraged the vice that it should not deal too hardly with its victims when they are honest men, but should anxiously educate them, when they become prisoners, into more excellent habits. There are numbers of lads now in our convict prisons who have committed criminal and other assaults when in a state of drunkenness who have never been guilty of dishonesty, but who are yet herded with pro- fessional thieves, and are not receiving any in- struction or advice which may guard them from evil in the future. The case of two youths, mere boys, just recurs to my memory. They are now at Portland under sentence of penal servitude for life. Their names 30 Convict Life. are Drink-water and Stonestreefc, and they were sentenced to be hanged, but had their sentence commuted. They got drunk on a Saturday night, after a week of honest industry. At the public- house, and when in a maudlin state, they encoun- tered a woman old enough to have been their mother ; they treated her, and she got drunk. At midnight the landlord, who had supplied all the liquor, turned them into the street; the woman's head struck the curb, but she got up and went away with the lads. At daybreak on the Sunday morning the lads were found in a drunken sleep; the woman, who lay between them, and who had evidently been pulled about, was dead. I have inquired about these boys since my release. The affair took place at Southall, in Middlesex. The boys were honest and indus- trious, and my experience of them at Portland leads me to say that they were unusually artless and free from vice. When they first came to Portland they never used foul language, or took part in disgusting conversations, but I cannot hope that they will have any good qualities long if they remain in their present position Grime and Criminals. 31 amongst the professional thieves; and twenty- years of such association will transform them into monsters. I suppose that liquor, and the publican, and these boys caused the death of that woman ; but I am quite satisfied that the boys know no more how she came to her death than I do. This is only one case of hundreds, nay, of thousands. I suppose that all the professional criminals of England were made so originally, either in their own persons or that of their progenitors, by drink, for if apparently by indolence or poverty, in nine cases out of ten the indolence and poverty were created by drink. I am quite certain that amongst wow-professional criminals nine-tenths of their offences are directly traceable to drink and public-houses. It would be well for the working- classes of England if Dante's inscription were suspended over every gin-palace in the land : — Through me ye enter the abodes of woe ; Through me to endless ruin ye are brought ; Through me amongst the souls accurst ye go : All hope abandon, ye who enter here. What is more to my purpose, though, is to 32 Convict Life. state my conviction that there is a large class of criminals who, though honest men, have broken the law while under the influence of drink ; that although these men are justly punished, the law has another duty besides that of punishing them, and that is to educate and reform them. The duty of the law is not only to punish crime, but to use all the means in its power to prevent it for the future. It will be my aim in the following chapters to show, that there is a criminal responsibility at- taching to the law for the manner in which it performs this duty ; that under existing arrange- ments the law lays its hand the most heavily upon those who are the least guilty, because what to them is severe punishment is to the habitual gaol-bird no punishment at all; that the law owes it to the taxpayers, to society generally, and to a still higher power, to use all possible means to educate the ignorant, to raise the fallen, and to bring back the erring to a sense of their duty, but that at present its efforts in this direction are futile, and almost useless. Convict Life. 33 CHAPTER in. CONVICT LABOUE AND CONVICT ASSOCIATION. TT will be seen that in addition to a small num- -'- ber of educated professional criminals, and a large number of ignorant ones, the law has to deal with a variety of offenders who may be termed novices in crime. There are the educated, who have committed one wrong act ; there is the large class who have committed all sorts of offences under the influence of liquor ; there are the few unfortunates whom poverty has forced into crime ; and there are numbers of mere children who ought never to have been sent into a convict prison at all. It may fairly be presumed that these classes are not intrinsically bad ; that they are open to good influences ; that a good reformatory system, judiciously worked, might transform them into industrious and sober and honest citizens. 34 Convict Life.. Now, what does the present convict system do with these first offenders who do not yet belong to the class of habitual criminals ? It sends them on to "public works," and thrusts them into close communion with the abandoned villains and professional thieves whose characteristics I described in the last chapter. It binds them as apprentices for five or seven years to learn the trade of law-breaking. They are, during the whole term of their imprisonment, under the influence, tuition, and example, of miscreants who, from the cradle to the grave, exist upon outrage and plunder; they are by these men initiated into all sorts of tricks and dodges by which they can evade the prison discipline, and elude the burden of work, during their imprison- ment, and at the end of it enrol themselves in the great and yearly-increasing army of profes- sional thieves. They enter prison mere novices in crime : by the fostering care of a paternal Government in these " high schools " of rascality, they may upon their discharge be safely pronounced adepts in all the arts of thieving, and thoroughly Convict Labour and Association. 35 qualified for a roguish career. An outsider will naturally ask how it is that opportunities are allowed for such free communication between prisoners, and I must reply by describing the system under which labour upon " public works " is carried on. The men are organized into gangs or parties of about twenty-five each, under the supervision of a warder (or "screw" as he is called by prisoners). Every morning, weather permitting, the gangs are marched in double file to the scene of their labours, where they " break off" and commence the day's work. If it be stone- dressing, two men always work at one stone ; if it is a "barrow-run," the "filler" and the wheeler are in close proximity ; if it be trench- ing or brick -making, the men are almost of necessity close together, and they talk quietly, but incessantly, until the moment that the whistle blows to "fall-in" again. So long as the men appear to be at work, no matter how little is done, and so long as they keep their eyes wide open in order to give "the office" to the warder as to the approach v 2 36 Convict Life. of a superior officer, they may talk as much as they please. There is a tacit understanding between all " second-timers " and old thieves, and the officers who have charge of them. If the officer is caught in any dereliction of duty he is liable to a fine ; these old thieves act as his spies, and take care that he is not caught. In return he allows the thieves to fetch what they call an easy lagging, to do as little work as they please, and to talk as much as they please — and such talk ! The language used by these old criminals is so abominable that I was going to say the Zulus or the Afghans would recoil from it with shame and horror; and the more revolting it is to decency the more it is enjoyed by the ignorant and degraded class of men who are selected by the authorities to superintend the labour, and assist in the reformation of convicts. In case of the approach of the governor or chief warder, and the possibility of their having heard what is going on, the officer in charge will make a report against a couple of men for talking or laughing Convict Labour and Association. 37 at work. The men selected to be reported are invariably green hands, and the most innocent in the gang. The reason for this is obvious : the old gaol-birds are content to act as spies for the warder, but, exercising the cunning which is one of the essentials of their vocation, they take pains to post themselves up in all his little weaknesses and derelictions of duty, and would not hesitate to betray him at some opportune moment, should he dare to report them. The small minority of warders who really do their duty, without fear or favour, have to be con- stantly on their guard, lest their heads should come in contact with bricks, or their bodies be found at the foot of a cliff. Almost every officer in charge of a party has what are called his "marks," men who are made his scapegoats when he requires a sacrifice to pro- pitiate his superiors and to sustain his own reputa- tion for efficiency and discipline. These " marks " are in all cases the men who least deserve prison punishment. I have known an officer to get up a fictitious character for vigilance, and even to 38 Convict Life. earn Ms promotion, by continually reporting two or three men of his party. The constitutions of these men were irretrievably ruined by the constant infliction of bread -and -water punish- ment, and yet I could swear that they were the least vicious and the most industrious in the gang. But as I have heard these warders say, " We must look after them that look after us." The old thieves and they are old friends ; they thoroughly understand each other, and work into each other's hands. The old thief fetches an " easy lagging," and recruits his health in an- ticipation of a new lease of criminal life ; and the warder maintains his reputation for vigi- lance. The men who suffer, and who go to the wall, are the unsophisticated and the novices. What wonder that with such associations, and under the influence of such a system, they lose all morality and manhood, and in sheer despair join the "regular army" of crime? In these conversations — and recollect, I am speaking from personal experience-— the usual topic is the art of thieving ; the causes of failure in daring Gonvict Labour and Association. 39 burglaries; the mistakes by which, after a suc- cessful crime, the thieves failed to escape detec- tion ; the latest and newest invention for picking locks or opening safes ; the most recent dodges for successful robberies at railway stations ; the most eligible districts for shoplifting, and the most profitable occasions for pocket - picking. Notes are memorised by which former mistakes may be avoided, and the science of law-breaking made perfect. The novices are also instructed in the secrets and mysteries of the craft, the varied machinery existing in thieves' quarters for procuring alibis, false evidence, and other dodges for the evasion of the law. They are regaled with exaggerated histories of successful schemes of plunder, and of the " glo- rious sprees" which have been enjoyed upon their fruits, and hundreds of the ignorant and the weak are by such tales induced to take their chance in the business as soon as they are liberated. I recollect one vagabond de- tailing his experiences at railway stations. For twenty-five years he had successfully carried on a system of baggage-stealing; some- 40 Convict Life. times in clerical garb, sometimes as a swell- 'mobsmanj and now and then disguised as an opulent agriculturist, he would manage to pos- sess himself of valuable portmanteaus. Bugby, Derby, and Crewe were his favourite stations, but he had made several successful hauls from Charing-cross, by covering Dover labels with Croydon ones. Arrived at the latter station, the baggage was of course put out of the train, claimed by him, and disposed of in London before the real owners had arrived in Dover to miss it. What surprised me most about this scoundrel was that his tongue did not betray him to the railway officials, for there could iave been nothing . about him except his clothes likely to deceive; a more veritable cad I never met. I forget how many hundreds of portmanteaus this man had possessed himself of, but for more than twenty years he lived luxuriously; the only intermissions being two short terms of imprisonment, and his present sentence of seven years' penal servitude. He is now at Dartmoor, fetching what he calls Convict Labour and Association. 41 a very " easy lagging." He is considered by the warders a very "wide man" — a "man of the world." He looks after their interests, and they look after his. He is in the leather-cutting shop, and his labour is mere amusement. He is such a " wide man " that he never gets a report, and will consequently obtain the whole of his remission — nineteen months — and be discharged early next year upon a ticket-of-leave. He has a pupil in the same shop whom he is instructing in the mysteries of his art, and who is to become his assistant and accomplice in the future. The instructions go on in the presence of the officer in charge, who seems to enjoy the fun. The approach of the governor or chief warder may be seen from the windows of the shop ; one prisoner is therefore always on the qui vive to give the alarm. The foul and disgusting conversation is incessant, but if " the authorities " enter all seems as quiet as the grave, and the warder looks as stern as a judge. There is an old burglar and highway robber in the same shop who is now doing his third or fourth " lagging." From his experiences I 42 Convict Life. might, had I been so inclined, have learned how to become a successful marauder. He has never done a day's work in "his life, and never intends to ; his great and constant regret is that he did not kill the poor old man upon whom, in the dead of night, and in a lonely house, he committed his last robbery ; had he thoroughly " settled him," he says, there would have been no evidence to convict him. This old rascal, sixty years old, but hale and hearty, will get his discharge next Christmas, and has got all his arrangements made for a burglary at the house of a gentleman near Cambridge, acting upon information received from a prisoner recently arrived at Dartmoor, who was convicted on some other charge before he could effect the robbery himself. I cannot tell how many crimes are arranged in prison, and afterwards successfully carried out, but their name is Legion. One scamp in the shoemaker's shop at Dart- moor, hearing that I was shortly to be discharged, and supposing me to be one of the "guild," requested me to carry a " crooked message " to Convict Labour and Association. 43 his brother, whose address he gave me, and who, he said, was a "respectable working man." This brother, it seeins, works at different houses as a mechanic, keeping himself straight, but informing his dishonest pals where there is a " good lay," and even taking impressions of keys which come into his possession in the course of his work, and by which ingress may be obtained at night to eligible premises. The tenor of the message I was requested to convey was where some keys could be found which the prisoner had made to effect an entrance to a house in Great Portland-street, and a desire that the keys and necessary information might be handed over to another " pal." More dangerous still are the conspiracies got up in prison between educated professional thieves. When at Portland I happened to be working near a celebrated convict, of diamond and chloroform renown. He, according to his own account, had lived luxuriously for years upon the proceeds of numberless ingenious schemes of dishonesty. His pal had been the 44< Convict Life. successful floater of bubble companies, bad once organized and paid for a grand testimonial and banquet to himself in the city of Dublin, the advertised reports of which in the Times and Telegraph induced lots of fools to invest in the bogus concern. These two worthies were busily occupied during the year I was near them in bringing ' to perfection a scheme which threatened ruin to foreign bankers, principally upon the American continent. Both the rogues are now at liberty — one, as I am informed, being in New York, the other in London ; and they are doubtless putting into operation the nice little game which they were allowed opportunities to concoct upon " public works." I shall have to refer to these men again, but I give these details here, to show how faulty the present convict system is in regard to the association of prisoners, and still more for the purpose of urging the importance of a " classification of prisoners," so that first offenders and novices in crime may not be placed under the tuition of old thieves, and Convict Labour and Association. 45 so be educated under the asgis of the law for a dishonest career. I have just spoken of a man in the shoemaker's shop at Dartmoor. Shoemaking, of course, is indoor labour. In all the convict prisons the tailoring and shoemaking are pursued in large association rooms. Only a few weeks ago a mur- derous outrage was committed upon an officer in the shoemaker's shop at Dartmoor, an outrage which would have been impossible except where prisoners are associated. The victim in this case, Luscombe, an assistant warder, is, if he be still alive, a shoemaker by trade, a native of Ashburton, Devonshire, and one of the few intelligent and respectable officers employed at Dartmoor. I saw him constantly while I was at that prison, and believe that, with- out fear or favour, and I am sure without any harshness, he tried to do his duty. But he was one of the very few who was not "hail-fellow-well-met" with the old thieves; he had no sympathy with the "professional," and I always felt sure that he would at some time be made a victim for his want of policy. 46 Convict Life. If a novice in crime was put into the shop, a man who really desired to learn the trade with the view of turning it to good account afterwards, that man always found a friend in Luscombe. But, of course, such men were industrious, for, as Luscombe often told them, " their object should be to see in how short a time they could make a good shoe." The few men in the shop who did this were called " Luscombe' s lambs," " Government men," and " policemen," and were treated with contempt and derision by the old thieves. Why this is so, is evident. The policy of the professional thief is to do as little work as possible, to live at the expense of the country, and to give nothing in return ; they never average more than three shoes a week — about a day's work for an industrious shoe- maker — so that the man who made three pairs a week, was their enemy, and the occasion of calling the attention of an honest officer to their laziness. I have very little doubt that when the truth comes out, it will be seen that Luscombe had reported one of these old thieves for laziness, Convict Labour and Association. 47 and that for so doing lie was made the victim of a conspiracy. More than nineteen officers out of twenty make themselves safe by letting all " pro- fessional " members of the " guild " do as they like ; and this they will do so long as the prisoners are associated in large numbers, and have oppor- tunities for conspiracy. It requires a man of great moral courage to do his duty under present regulations. Luscombe was one of these, but they are few and far between. A description of this shoemaker's shop at Dart- moor, will convey a tolerable idea of the evils of the association of prisoners in all "public work" prisons; and the amount of labour per- formed in them will rather startle the innocents who suppose that one of the objects of the Convict Department is to transform criminals into indus- trious citizens. In the early part of 1879 I myself saw sitting in this shop nearly two hundred men; more than one-half of them were re-convicted men; many had done two "laggings," some three, and a few four. Of the remaining half, about one-third had been in and out of prison all 48 Convict Life. their lives for petty offences, but had managed to escape penal servitude. Sixty or seventy remain to be accounted for; these were first- offenders, many of them mere boys, convicted for drunken assaults, or for some poaching affray; youths and young men who, had they been sen- tenced to a short term of severe imprisonment, with coarse food and plenty of work, supplemented by the means of education, would very likely have turned out useful and honest citizens. Here they are, however, under the tutelage of old thieves, nominally to learn "how to make a shoe, really and truly to be instructed in the most ingenious ways of niching a watch or a purse. The men are so crowded in this shop that they have to use very short threads for stitching their shoes, or their hands would come in contact with the next man's head ; every facility, therefore, is afforded for chat. It will no doubt appear strange to an outsider that so large a proportion of the criminal class should be shoemakers ; the fact is that they are not ; they have, however, in county prisons picked up a slight knowledge of cobbling, and Convict Labour and Association. 49 of tailoring too, so that, when lagged, and asked their trade, they register themselves as shoe- makers or tailors, knowing that in these trades they can "fetch" an "easy lagging," and have plenty of association with their pals. Not one in forty in this Dartmoor shop could make a shoe which would pass muster with the shoddiest manufacturer in Northampton; here, however, they are not only shoemakers but instructors too. There are fifty old thieves sitting in different parts of the shop, each of whom has one or two youths — novices in crime as well as in shoe- making — under his instruction. What the appren- tice learns during seven years of penal servitude may be easily guessed. I knew several who had been for three or four years under instruction who could just turn out — well, not a shoe, but what Carlyle would call an " amorphous botch," and they seemed to have no desire to improve so as to gain an honest livelihood in this branch of industry when discharged from prison, the reason being very obvious ; they had learned from their teachers, not a "more excellent," but a much B 50 Convict Life. more easy method of obtaining money. I shall show presently that the law does nothing for the regeneration of criminals, but I think I have shown that it is very busily occupied in creating them. Sitting in such close proximity conversa- tion is, of course, unlimited ; and as all the pro- fessional thieves with whom I came in contact are dead to all sense of shame, the peculiar grossness of their immorality and obscenity comes out in their talk, and does its evil work in forming the character and habits of the new beginners in crime. The bulk of the work performed in the shop consists of boots for the Metropolitan police force; the boots are supplied to the police at 9s. 3d. per pair, and as the material at contract price costs at least 8s. 3d., the prisoner who makes three boots in a week earns exactly Is. 6d., or about the cost of the bread he eats, with no margin for the meat. This will be hard to be- lieve, but as I was myself in the cutting-shop, where every piece of leather was shaped for the makers, I can speak very positively. In the middle of March last there were 190 shoemakers Convict Labour and Association. 51 at work, and there were something less than 200 pairs of shoes manufactured in the week, so that, making every allowance for the hands employed upon the prison repairs, the work done did not average three shoes to the man in the week. If each man worked in his own cell he could, after three months' practice, make a pair of shoes every day with great ease, and would have no opportunity to corrupt others, or, if he be a novice, become himself corrupted. There would be no opportunity then for outrages such as that committed upon Luscombe. Learners should, of course, be instructed by competent officers and not by prisoners. There are four warders employed nominally at Dartmoor for this pur- pose — Roberts, "Warren, Luscombe (the victim of the recent outrage), and a disagreeable fellow who rejoiced in the name of Pinch. The three first-named are doubtless competent men, but under the present regulations their duties are delegated to prisoners. If each man worked in his cell, two officers passing from one cell to another every few minutes might easily instruct all the learners, and with very ad- e 2 52 Convict Life. vantagedus results, not only to the prisoners but to the country. The tailors' shops at Dartmoor, Portland, and the rest of the convict stations, are open to the same objections as to the association of prisoners. There are nearly a hundred tailors (?) at Dartmoor; far more than a hundred at Portland ; from two to three hundred at Woking, and proportionate numbers in the other prisons. The only tailoring done is the clothing of the prison warders. The clothing of the prisoners is mere plain sewing, and, together with the repairs, might be easily performed by prisoners oyer sixty years of age, who are unfit for hard labour. The uniforms of the officers could be made by one-tenth part of the number now employed upon tailoring if the men worked in their cells,. without the opportunity for " chat ;" and I think that t his work might well be confined to youths who are first offenders, and who really desire to learn a trade with a view to future honesty. The present composition of the tailors' shops is this : Two-thirds able-bodied professional Gonviet Labour and Association. 53 thieves, who have registered themselves as tailors to avoid hard labour, and the other third made up of old men, learners, and schemers, whose plausibility has imposed upon the doctors to excuse them from manual labour. Now, I very respectfully suggest that a thousand able-bodied but lazy men, who, when at large, religiously avoid all industrial pursuits, might with propriety be employed in some other way than in patching shirts and hatching schemes for the plunder of the public in the future. I do not think that the great army of pro- fessional thieves will be reduced, so long as its soldiers can, when in prison, enjoy the society of their chums, eat the bread of idleness, and sleep for ten hours out of the twenty-four in a comfortable hammock. The men who do whatever hard work there is done on public works are, as I have said, novices and green hands, who have not been " wide " enough to register themselves as tailors or shoemakers. The outdoor labour upon public works is as unprofitable as the indoor, both at Portland and 54 Convict Life. Dartmoor. I have no doubt that the same re- mark applies to all the stations, but I will only speak of what is within my personal knowledge. The celebrated moor upon which Dartmoor prison stands consists of bog -land stretching in one direction some twelve or fourteen miles, and in the front of the prison for four or five miles. The Government have had at their command the labour of at least five hundred men, not counting those employed at indoor labour, for the last forty years — more than sufficient time, with only ordinary industry, to have brought the whole of Dartmoor into a state of cultivation, and to have added greatly to the productive land of the country. The moor only requires draining and trench- ing to make it "blossom like the rose," jet, with the exception of a few hundred acres in the immediate vicinity of the prison, it remains a barren and dreary morass. That it might be made profitable is placed beyond a doubt, because in a few acres immediately adjoining the prison asparagus, peas, rhubarb, and all the other luxuries of the garden, are Gonvict Labour and Association. 55 brought to great perfection for the tables of governor and chaplain. Having provided for the needs of the officials, the authorities have done nothing more to the small portion of bog they have reclaimed than to make it grow carrots so coarse and bad as to be scarcely fit for human food. There is also plenty of good granite-stone in the quarries at Dartmoor, but it is made no use of beyond what is needed for the repair or enlargement of the prison. The fact is, that here, and I believe on all public works, time is "frittered" away. Nothing is done completely or properly, and there is no actual responsibility resting upon any officer to get work done. The only thing in which the authorities are systematic is in wasting time. One hour is wasted regularly every day at Dart- moor in absurd military marchings and counter- marchings, and useless formalities, before the men go to work. Then, from want of proper business management, I have often seen three or four hundred men kept waiting for fifteen or twenty minutes, because at the last moment it was dis- covered that one gang was short of an officer, 56 Convict Life. or one officer was short of a musket, or that a sufficient number of picks and shovels, or barrows, had not been provided. When at last a start is made, and the convicts reach the scene of their labours, another quarter of an hour is wasted in waiting for the principal officer who has charge of the division. It is his duty to see that all the gangs have arrived at their respective stations before any can commence work : he then blows his whistle and they "fall to." To what? I will give an example. I recollect the circumstances very well, be- cause it was just before Good Friday, and during the useless labours of that afternoon, my thoughts travelled back to happy Christ- mas and Easter seasons of past years. I heard the vile oaths, and the disgusting and obscene language of my comrades, and I con- trasted the scene and its surroundings, with my once happy home, where I was cheered and smiled upon by a bright angel who made me, I suppose, too happy. I could not help fancying that her sister angels away up in the dark blue, got jealous of the Elysium which she made for Convict Labour and Association. 57 me on this planet, and that they pleaded with the Great Father to call her home that she might enhance their joys, and sing her sweet songs to them instead of to me. My loved one seemed to be beckoning to me through the clear ether on that winter afternoon, and my greatest sorrow at that moment, was not that all my happiness in this world had been shipwrecked, not even that I had disgraced myself, and condemned myself to the filthy companion- ship of thieves and murderers : no ! my real sorrow was that I had no power to answer her summons, and to join her for evermore in that sweet spirit-land "where the weary are at rest." I was recalled from my reverie by an order from the "screw" to "fall in." We were all marched, some twenty-four of us, to the other end of a large field, nearly half a mile off, to fetch a sledge with which to remove some stones from a bog-hole. Returning with the sledge we commenced the removal, and dragged the stones to one corner of the field. An hour thus slipped away, and the principal officer came his rounds. 58 Convict Life. The stones had not been placed where he wished, and we were ordered to transfer them to the gate at the entrance to the field. We did that, and then the afternoon was gone. We were resuming our jackets to return to the prison, when the farm bailiff came along upon his pony. He thought the stones would be in the way where we had last placed them, and directed that to-morrow we should remove them to the next field. The whole twenty-five men had not earned one ounce of the brown bread, nor one pint of the cocoa they were returning to make their supper on. They had certainly not contributed a fraction towards the wages of the officers who had charge of them; and they had learned nothing, except lessons in vice and infamy with which they had regaled each other in their journeys backwards and forwards over that. field. yes, I was forgetting one thing; they had received one further confirmation of a doctrine which was being preached to them over and over again, day after day, and which therefore they could never forget, but would carry out of prison Convict Labour and Association. 59 with them as a "lesson for life," the doctrine that time and labour are of no value. I do not suppose that the heads of the Convict Department really believe that this is a healthy gospel to preach to lazy thieves whom they desire to transform into honest and industrious men, but they nevertheless preach it incessantly, in every public-works'^ prison in the land. I recollect another afternoon not long afterwards, in the same gang, when* in consequence of the gross want of system and preparation for emer- gencies which prevails on all Government works, a poor wretch was, so far as the officials knew or cared, " Cut off, even, in the blossoms of his sin ; TJnhousel'd, disappointed, unanel'd; No reckoning made, but sent to his account With all his imperfections on his head." The gang were employed in clearing the earth from around some large stones that they might be loosened and removed. This man was in a trench which he had made around the stone ; his two companions, who were re-convicted men and up to everything, perhaps scented danger ; at all 60 Gonvict Life. events they had deserted their post, and this man, a novice in crime as well as at the work upon which he was employed, was alone. The stone suddenly gave way, and crushed him to death against the rear of the trench which he had made. The officer in charge had paid no atten- tion to what was going on, or, accustomed as he was to the work, he would have warned the man of his danger. When the accident took place, a quarter of an hour elapsed before ropes and jacks could be obtained to release the poor fellow. During this time his dying cries, which haunt me now, were, " Fetch the ropes ! " — " Get the jack ! " — " For God's sake, help me ! " The life was crushed out of him ; the spark had not fled when he was released, there was indeed a little flame, but it only fluttered. No doctor was sent for the moment the accident occurred, and nobody thought of sending to the prison, which was a mile and a half off, for a stretcher, until the stone had been removed. Three quarters of an hour more elapsed before it arrived; and during all that time, which seemed to me an age, the poor fellow's dying cries, and his ravings about the Convict Labour and Association. 61 dear ones at home, were piteous indeed. He arrived at the infirmary alive, but only in time to die ; and he died a victim to the imbecility and want of forethought which seem to characterize the whole department. Personally I should not have felt this incident so much, if this man had been one of the old professional criminals, who care for no living soul in the world but themselves, and are themselves only blotches upon the fair face of nature which one would be glad to see obliterated ; but this poor fellow had wife and children who were very dear to him. He had often expressed to me his deep regret for the offence which had brought him to prison, and his firm determination to steer a straight course in the future. There were extenuating circumstances in his case, too, which his friends were at this very time preparing to lay before the Secretary of State. They were spared their pains ; but I have good hopes that he was able to carry with him a very sincere repentance, which will plead eloquently for him before a Judge whose chief attribute is mercy. Dartmoor is, I believe, the only one of the 62 Convict Life. existing prisons at which there will be any out- door employ for convicts after 1883. The works at the other stations have all been completed. The Breakwater at Portland was finished a quarter of a century ago, and since then the work which has been done for the War Department has been, as I will show further on, of an utterly useless cha- racter. Upon the moors of Devon there is suffi- cient employment for the number of men stationed there for the next two hundred years if the work goes on as rapidly as it has done heretofore. Whether what is done, in the way it is done, is of much practical value is an open question; and I really think that the Government would find it pay to employ some reliable scientific man, and some thoroughly practical agriculturist, who could give an opinion about future operations. My view is only that of an ordinarily intelligent man; but I think that labour, time, and money are being uselessly squandered. I am quite sure that all that the land is at pre- sent made to produce could be purchased in the market for less money than it now costs, leaving the labour employed altogether out of the question, Convict Labour and Association. 68 and reckoning it as wasted, which it certainly is. I have lately conversed with some practical men who are well acquainted with Dartmoor and its capacities. They are unanimous in thinking that with thorough draining the whole moor might be converted into magnificent pasture lands of in- estimable value. I can testify that all the work now done towards draining the land is executed so carelessly and recklessly that it is very inef- fective. I have seen miles of drain-pipes laid and covered in, which could not be other than inoperative, unless — as is not often the case— the laws of nature were suspended or reversed. All that the officers in charge care for, is to get so many feet of piping laid down for the governor's inspection. Whether the drains ever do drain the land, is no affair of theirs. At Portland there is a little good stone-dressing done. During the year 1877 a great many stones were sent away to Borstal, near Chatham, and also to some works in progress at Sunningdale, but there is such a lack of earnestness and busi- ness management in the work that had the stones been charged for according to the time expended 64 Convict Life. upon them, and at the rate of wages paid to a free stone-dresser, the contractor would have been compelled to add twenty-five per cent. to his price in order to avoid loss. Labour is considered of no value upon "public works/' and when sales are made of stones dressed by- convicts, the amount they have cost the Govern- ment in food and clothing for the prisoners, and the wages of the men who watch them, is not taken into consideration at all ; if it were, the prices would be so high that no sales could be effected. It is no exaggeration to say that an industrious free stone-mason would do as much work in an hour as a convict at Portland performs in a day. There is no task ; a man may take a month over a stone 3 feet by 2 feet if he chooses, so long as he gives the officer in charge of him no trouble. There is one very large stone-dressing party who work close to the prison gates ; a year and a half ago it comprised nearly eighty men, many of them being desperate characters, or men with very long sentences, whom it was not thought prudent to send far away from the prison ; taking the party Convict Labour and Association. 65 altogether it was composed of men who should have been made to work hard, and they were employed upon work which with ordinary good management, combined with industry, should have been remunerative. What is the fact ? Why this, that putting the very lowest market price upon the time occupied in the preparation of the stones, each stone cost the Government considerably more .than double the price for which it was sold. A year's work by these eighty men would have been done by the same number of hands in an ordinary stone- mason's yard certainly within a month. Free men working as leisurely as convicts are allowed to work in the stoneyards at Portland, could not possibly earn their bread ; and with such habits engendered in prison, what right have the Government to suppose that when prisoners are discharged, they will be false to their prison training, and suddenly become possessed of habits of industry, which will enable them to be honest ? The work upon which the majority of the con- victs at Portland are employed is still less profit- F 66 Convict Life. able. It is not only the total loss of the labour of hundreds of men who are maintained at great expense by the Government, but it involves an immense outlay of the funds voted for the use of the War Department. For many years a corps of engineers and one or two batteries of artillery have been stationed at Portland barracks. I am quite in accord with the truth when I say that for the last twenty years, the labour of 500 convicts has been wasted upon the Bill of Portland ; wasted in providing practice for the engineer corps, and amusement for the artillery branch of the service. The real cost of convicts to the country is never known, because a charge for their labour is made by the Convict Department on the War Department, and is smuggled into the Army estimates. While I was at Portland, racquet-courts and bilhard-rooms were built by convicts for the con- venience and pleasure of army officers, and orna- mental grounds laid out for croquet and cricket. An ordinary contractor would have completed these works in one-fifth of the time that was occupied by the convicts, and with less than one- Convict- Labour and Association. 67 fifth the number of men. But this is the least portion of the corruption which exists. For twenty years the convicts have been building ornamental batteries, which surely can be of no earthly use as coast defences. With such care- lessness are they constructed, that I have seen the same work done over again in three successive years, and batteries that have resisted the weather for two seasons I have seen pulled down and re- erected at a different angle to suit the whim of some new-fledged engineer. I have seen a hundred men employed for weeks on barrow-runs, destroying a hill, and wheeling away the earth to fill up a valley a quarter of a mile away; the very next summer the engineer officer discovered that a mistake had been made, and that the earth must be carried back again ; and this sort of thing has been going on for the last twenty years. I was myself one of a party engaged for six months in excavating and wheeling away earth to a distance of about 300 yards. We then built some slopes and embankments, and built them so carelessly and badly, that a heavy shower V 2 68 Convict Life. at night often destroyed the work of the day. After a few more months the work was completed and looked a little "ship-shape." The captain of engineers came round with his theodolite to inspect, the works, and discovered that the angles were altogether wrong. When I left Portland in January, 1878, a hundred or two of convicts were employed in doing all the work over again. It is the opinion of many of the officers who have charge of the labour, that these mistakes of the engineer corps are intentional, and simply designed to provide labour for the convicts. I beg leave to suggest that they are very expensive means to adopt, and that it is rather too bad to call upon the taxpayers, not only to support convicts who earn no part of their subsistence, but to lavish large sums in providing occupation and amusement for them. It is not my business here to discuss the propriety of erecting ornamental batteries along the south coast, but I am satisfied that if during the recess some Members of Parliament would take the trouble to visit and inspect the coast defences upon the Bill of Portland, they Convict Labour and Association. 69 would come to the same conclusion at which I arrived, viz., that half a dozen of the guns used in modern naval warfare would in half a dozen hours blow the so-called coast defences into smithereens. The truth of mj statements about the way in which work is performed can be easily proved, if some Member will move in the House of Commons for a return of the works executed by convicts for the War Department at Portland during the period named ; the cost of the labour, and of the implements and material incidental to the labour ; together with the expenses of the engineers and artillerymen engaged in superin- tending it. When this return has been made, let some honest Commissioner go down and see what the War Department have got to show for their money. I am told that these strictures would apply equally well to Portsmouth and to Chatham, but I have only spoken of what I have seen with my own eyes, and what, if allowed the opportunity, I could prove before a Committee of the House of Commons. I am guilty of no exaggeration when I say that two-thirds of the 70 Convict Life. convicts are maintained at great expense to the country, and yield nothing in return, and that this result is the consequence of bad manage- ment and a corrupt system. Convict Life. 71 CHAPTER IV. PRISON LIFE CONVICTS AND THEIE GUAKDIANS. TT is my intention to make this chapter a desul- ■*- tory one. I want to convey to my readers some idea of the character of the average prison- warder, and I wish to relate a few remembrances of eminent criminals with whom I came in con- tact. I think the object I have in view — a reform of the present system — will be best served if I talk about the prisoners and officers in the same connection. Immediately after conviction, all convicts in England, Scotland, and Wales are sent to what are called " separate prisons," in which they are detained for nine months to undergo their "probation." Roman Catholics are confined in Millbank Prison for this purpose; associates of the Church of England and other Protestants go to Pentonville. In these separate prisons, and during the nine 72 Convict Life. months of probation, convicts are supposed to be governed under the silent system. I have no doubt that, even to-day, the directors of her Majesty's convict prisons — good, innocent, use- less men — imagine that their regulations are carried out. I had not been in the prison twenty-four hours ere I discovered that Sir Robert Walpole's doc- trine, if not absolutely true, would not find many exceptions amongst prison warders. Certainly every second man " had his price." At Pentonville the warder has sole charge of what is called a "landing," or floor, and this includes, I think, about forty prisoners. On this landing the warder is supreme ; he distributes the food and the work, and if things go smoothly he is not interfered with, or visited by the principal or chief warder more than once in a week. He knows at what hour the Governor or Deputy- Governor may be expected to " walk his rounds," and then, of course, everything is in apple-pie order. At the end of each landing there is a closet and store-room. Only one prisoner is sup- posed to be there at a time ; and if two prisoners Convicts and their Guardians. 73 are out of their cells at the same time for clean- ing purposes the officer is supposed to take espe- cial care that they hold no communication with .each other. This is the theory. What is the practice ? Well, that depends upon the amount of the fee you can give the warder. The British Government is not an economical one, but it is often economical in the wrong place. In the Convict Department it gives small salaries and imposes great responsibilities. It engages indi- gent and ignorant men without any high moral qualities, and the result is corruption and " malfeasance in office." When I was at Pentonville I had a dear friend, since, alas, for me ! gone to another world. He was to me faithful amongst the faithless. My folly did not alienate his great heart. Perhaps he knew, what I hope was true, that I was not all bad, and that, even after so disastrous a fall, penitence would come, and conscience would be roused, and I should " rise again " into a life of purity and honour. At all events, he stuck to me and visited me in prison when I was deserted by everybody else. 7