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THE UNIVERSITY 
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 LIBRARY 
 
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THE PRISON LIFE 
 
 MICHAEL DAVITT, 
 
 * • W 
 
 BELATED BY HIMSELF; « V 
 
 TOGETHER WITH 
 
 * 
 
 HIS EVIDENCE 
 
 v 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 HOUSE OF LORDS COMMISSION 
 
 ON 
 
 CONVICT PRISON LIFE. 
 
 DUBLIN: 
 
 J. J. LALOR, 3, NORTH EARL STREET, 
 
 1 8 82 . 
 
’i<VT^ L 
 
 O' - 59^v 
 
 ’ * 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 Tiik increasing interest in the fate of Michael Davitt, 
 the heroic and illustrious “ Prisoner of Portland ”—an 
 interest which has now begun to spread amongst Eng¬ 
 lishmen—renders it desirable that something more 
 should be known about his prison experiences than is 
 to be learned from the vague references that are made 
 to that subject in the newspapers ; and, therefore, it is 
 that the following pages are offered to the public. They 
 contain Mr. Davitt’s own account of his treatment in 
 the various British convict prisons in which he was 
 confined during the seven years and a half from 1870 to 
 1878, together with his evidence before the House of 
 Lords’ Commission in the latter year on British penal 
 discipline. The story, told, as it is, in a style at once 
 manly, earnest, eloquent, aijd indicative in the highest 
 degree of the absolute truthfulness of the writer, is, 
 especially when taken in connection with the extracts 
 added from his utterances during the land agitation 
 in condemnation of outrages, calculated to appeal with 
 irresistible force to every one in whom the instincts of 
 humanity are not entirely dead, and may, it is to be 
 hoped, assist in undoing the cruel wrong of reconsigning 
 to the horrors of a penal dungeon one who has already 
 suffered so much for unselfish efforts in his country’s 
 service. 
 
% 
 
 THE PRISON LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 MICHAEL DAVITT, 
 
 RELATED BY HIMSELF; 
 
 When arrested here in London on the 14th May, 1870, 
 I was taken to the Paddington Police Station, and 
 underwent the customary questioning, searching, and 
 other preliminaries to a “ lodgings in a lock-up.” 
 
 From Saturday night until Monday morning I was 
 confined in an almost darkened cell, in which was a 
 water-closet with its inseparable ofFensiveness. 
 
 I was allowed neither bed nor bedding and had con¬ 
 sequently no sleep during the time I remained in the 
 station, from Saturday till Monday. I was allowed but 
 a little light only when eating my meals. . 
 
 On my arrival in Clerkenwell House of Detention, 
 after the examination before the Marylebone Police 
 Court magistrate, 1 was immediately stripped naked 
 and compelled to undergo the indignity of being 
 searched, in a manner almost too disgusting to de¬ 
 scribe. 
 
 Each article of dress was minutely examined by ohe 
 warder, while another was employed in watching lest 1 
 should resent the insult to which 1 was subjected in 
 being made to stand naked in presence of the two 
 warders, one of whom was coolly satisfying himself that 
 I had nothing concealed upon my person. 
 
 After each of the five or six examinations I underwent 
 
 A 
 
2 
 
 # 
 
 before the magistrates, previous to being committed for 
 trial, I had to submit to the same searching, in the state 
 of nudity J. have described, on arriving in the House of 
 Detention. 
 
 The first time the governor visited me in my cell he 
 inquired what I was arrested for, and on my answering 
 that I was taken on suspicion of being a Fenian, he 
 replied, “ I dorf t care what you are, you must clean 
 those traps (pointing to water-closet taps and other 
 utensils in the cell) while you remain here,’’ and during 
 my confinement there I was compelled to do so, as also 
 to clean my cell floor and windows. I was only allowed 
 one hour each day for exercise, and of couse not 
 permitted to speak to anyone. 
 
 There were none but religious books allowed me 
 during my stay in that prison. 
 
 The bedding was the worst and scantiest I have seen 
 during my whole imprisonment, being nothing but a 
 dirty blanket and rug, and a bare, unmattressed 
 hammock. 
 
 Having paid for my own keep while awaiting trial, I 
 cannot speak as to the quantity or quality of the food 
 supplied to prisoners in Clerkenwell. 
 
 From my recollections of the place, I can assert that 
 undue severity was exercised there on men arrested upon 
 suspicion, and that the police authorities had, in my 
 opinion, too much control over the management of the 
 prison, and exercised that power in a manner calculated 
 to injure the chances of a prisoner obtaining a fair and 
 impartial trial. 
 
 When the informer, Corrydon, was brought to identify 
 me, I was taken from the cell in which I was located and 
 marched along the ward in sight of the informer 
 and detectives who acccompanied him, and placed 
 in a cell for identification. The informer was then 
 supposed to look through the inspection hole of each cell 
 in the ward to find me, and after being permitted to see 
 me taken out of one cell and put into another, it was 
 not a very brilliant achievement, even for John Joseph 
 Corrydon to find me in the cell he saw me enter. In 
 
3 
 
 addition to this, I may be pardoned for detailing another 
 incident which occurred, and which I believe contributed 
 not a little to my conviction. * ( 
 
 A few days previous to being committed for trial I 
 drew up instructions for my solicitor as to the mode of 
 my defence, and this I had done in exact accordance 
 with the rules suspended in -my cell, which rules also 
 specified that such instructions could be handed by 
 prisoners to their legal advisers without previous inspec¬ 
 tion by the governor or other prison officials, ^ 
 
 When my solicitor’s clerk visited me for the phVpose 
 of reciving those instructions I handed him the envelope 
 containing them in the presence of the warder who 
 was present at the interview, and who had brought me 
 from my cell to the vistors’ or solicitors’ room. 
 
 Two days afterwards I was again visited by my 
 solicitor’s clerk, and astounded to hear that the governor 
 had demanded mv letter after the previous visit, as the 
 officer had reported that he saw me draw a plan of the 
 prison upon a piece of paper and give the same to the 
 clerk! 
 
 When I saw the governor on the following morning I 
 demanded an explanation of this strange proceeding, 
 and had to remain satisfied with being told that it was 
 the officer’s fault, and that if I had no objection to his 
 (the governor’s) reading my letter it would be given to 
 my solicitor. I replied that I had not the least objection, 
 owing to what the officer had reported, but that I pro¬ 
 tested against the whole proceeding as unfair, and 
 directly opposed to the rules hung up in my cell. 
 
 Now mark what transpired within those two days. A 
 sensational paragraph had appeared in one of the London 
 dailies announcing that another plot had been dis¬ 
 covered to bloAV up the House of Detention, and that 
 on this occasion it would be attempted from within the 
 prison ! 
 
 It is unnecessary to say what effect this would have 
 upon the public mind, and how small the chance w'ould 
 be of my obtaining an unprejudiced jury and an impar¬ 
 tial trial in London after this. Two great points had,by 
 
f 
 
 4 
 
 this heartless canard, been made against me ; the plan 
 of my defence had been discovered, and the public feel¬ 
 ing directed adversely towards me owing to the report 
 that I had intented to effect another explosion. 
 
 I regret being compelled, in the interests of truth, to 
 relate anything that may reflect upon the want of 
 Christian charity exhibited by ministers of religion in 
 prisons; but as I purpose “ nothing to exaggerate nor 
 aught set down in malice,” neither do I intend to with¬ 
 hold anything that may assist in exposing the harsh and 
 vindictive manner in which Irish political prisoners are 
 treated under cover of a falsely-termed ‘‘humane” system 
 of imprisonment. 
 
 A few days after my arrival in Clerkenwell I was 
 surprised to see my cell door cautiously opened, and 
 observed the head alone of the prison chaplain inserted, 
 and hear him ask me in well-feigned accents of fear, 
 “ You won’t kill me if I come in, will you ?” I replied 
 that I was not capable of killing anyone, but my 
 friendly (?) visitor assured me he would not trust him¬ 
 self in my compaily, observing, “ The papers say you 
 are one of those desperate Fenians, and I fear you might 
 murder me.” 
 
 If this reverend gentleman had not “ visted the 
 imprisoned” in the spirit of the injunction of his Master, 
 he had at least fulfilled his duty to a system that con¬ 
 siders charity in a prison as a crime, and which looks 
 upon a kind expression with disfavour. 
 
 John Wilson, the Birmingham gunsmith, who was 
 arrested with me, was also a fellow-prisoner of mine in 
 Clerkenwell, and treated in a similar manner to myself 
 in regard to cleaning cells, exercise, &c. We would not 
 be allowed to come near each other. 
 
 It would of course be somewhat out of place to in¬ 
 troduce here an account of how poor Wilson and myself 
 were convicted, but I may be permitted to say again 
 what 1 conscientiously declared to Lord Chief Justice 
 Cockburn when I was about to be sentenced, that 
 Wilson was innocent of the crime of inisprisionof treason 
 
' 5 
 
 for which he was found guilty, and that his sentence 
 was a gross miscarriage of j ustice. 
 
 However, this English artisan has undergone five years 
 and a half of penal servitude, and was sentenced to and 
 underwent part of this while John Bright was a 
 Cabinet Minister and Mr. Gladstone Premier of 
 England. 
 
 NEWGATE. 
 
 I was removed from Clerkenwell to Newgate op the 
 14th of June and, after one month’s experience of the 
 former place, the change could not be otherwise than 
 agreeable. 
 
 Newgate is the only prison I have been in where the 
 fact of my offence being an Irish political one did not 
 cause my punishment to be the more severe on that 
 account. 
 
 The governor, chaplain, and subordinate officials 
 appeared to me desirous of performing their duties 
 without being in any way actuated with a wish—but 
 too prevalent in the other prisons I have been in—to 
 make the burden of misfortune press heavier on the 
 unfortunate people committed to their charge. 
 
 In food, bedding, cleanliness, and in every other 
 respect, Newgate was much preferable to my former 
 place of confinement. I was allowed an hour and a 
 half’s exercise each day, as were also all the other 
 prisoners confined there. Cells had to be cleaned, 
 utensils polished, and searching undergone, as in 
 Clerkenwell ; but the performance of those tasks, and 
 the ordeal of being stripped and searched, was consider¬ 
 ably less humilating in Newgate. There was no service 
 for Catholic prisoners in 1870. * 
 
 My trial commenced on the 5th of July, and at six 
 , o’clock in the evening of the 18th, I was sentenced to 
 fifteen years’ penal servitude, and poor Wilson to seven. 
 Immediately after sentence I was deprived of my clothes 
 and put in convict uniform, my hair and beard being 
 
4 
 
 6 
 
 cut close at the same time, I remained in Newgate 
 but eleven days after receiving my sentence, and in that 
 short period I was being initiated into the reality of 
 penal servitude. 
 
 My work, however, was not very heavy, nor other¬ 
 wise disagreeable; but the classification with thieves had 
 already commenced, and the prospect of spending 
 perhaps fifteen years in such company made .Newgate 
 then appear—what in comparison with other prisons 
 it is not—a veritable Inferno. 
 
 On the 29th of July I was removed to Millbank, and 
 saw Wilson for the last time on that day. If my 
 prayers could have spared him the' sufferings he has 
 since undergone, I would have left Newgate with a 
 much lighter heart. Chains were fastened round my 
 ankles in such a manner that I could only stride some 
 twelve or fifteen inches when walking, and, to ensure 
 my offering no resistance, I was compelled to hold the 
 end of the chain with which my feet were bound. Thus 
 dressed and manacled,, and guarded by a couple of 
 warders, I was driven from Newgate along the Thames 
 Embankment to Millbank penitentiary. Not quite 
 three months had yet elapsed since I had walked that 
 promenade free and unfettered, without any foreboding 
 of what fate had in store for me ; and now I was only 
 allowed, by the necessity of my removal from one 
 prison to another, to look upon that scene for a few 
 moments, and imprint upon my memory the liberty it 
 portrayed and the life from which I was to be debarred 
 for years. To leave the broad and cheerful light of 
 day and be immured in a solitary cell—to exchange the 
 social amenities of life, home, country, and friends lor 
 an existence undreamt of by those who know not what 
 a world of suffering is comprised in the meaning of the 
 words “ solitary confinement”—is a feeling impossible 
 to be expressed in words. John Mitchel has attempted 
 to record his own sensations when, after sentence for 
 treason-felony, he found himself in “ solitary” for the 
 first time :— 
 
 “ It came at last; my door was shut, and for the 
 
7 
 
 first time I was quite alone. And now T do confess that 
 I flung myself upon my bed and broke into a raging 
 passion of tears—tears bitter and salt-; but not of base 
 lamentation for my own fate. The thoughts aiM feel¬ 
 ings that have so shaken me for this once language was 
 never made to describe.” «* 
 
 This is the testimony of one whose proud soul had 
 never acknowleged its susceptibility to the common 
 weakness of humanity, but solitary confinement wrung 
 tears from Mitchel! The vagrant sunbeam that finds 
 its way to the lonely occupant of a prison cell but 
 speaks of the liberty which others enjoy, of the happiness 
 that falls to the lot of those whom misfortune has not 
 dragged from the pleasures of life. The cries, the 
 noise, the uproar of London which penetrate the 
 silent corridors and re-echo in the cheerless 'eells of 
 Millbank, are but so many mocking voices that come to 
 laugh at the misery their walls enclose, and arouse the 
 recollection of happier days to probe the wounds of 
 present sorrow. And if, despite all this, a prisoner 
 should try to raise himself above those depressing 
 influences, and cheat despair of its prey, he will then 
 experience how far man can go in his inhumanity to 
 man by finding himself denied the only consolation 
 left him in his utter loneliness—the solace of solacing 
 himself. He will find men who will watch for a smile 
 or some other sign of a happy obliviousness, and then, 
 by some of the many arts practised for the purpose, end 
 the momentary forgetfulness of imprisonment by an 
 exercise of the almost uncontrolled power they wield 
 over their unfortunate charges. 
 
 MILLBANK. 
 
 Ox my arriving in Millbank I was immediately 
 stripped naked, and had again to submit to a most 
 revolting search of my body. This surpassed in its 
 utter disregard to every feeling of common decency 
 
8 
 
 anything I had yet undergone. I was made stoop while 
 in a state of nudity and place myself in all the postures 
 the searching warder desired to put me in. After this 
 disgusting and almost maddening ordeal was gone 
 through, I was then conducted to the cell in which I 
 was to be located. 
 
 To relate every incident of my ten months’ incarcera¬ 
 tion in Millbank penitentiary would only he a tedious 
 repetition of each day’s experience, so uniform is the 
 system of punishment in that prison. 
 
 A description of the cells, together with an account 
 of the daily routine and work that had to be done, will 
 suffice to form some idea of what punishment has to be 
 borne in what is termed “probation class.” The cells 
 are some nine or ten feet long, by about eight wide. 
 Stone floor, bare whitewashed wall, with neither table 
 nor stool, and of course with no fire to warm by its 
 cheerful glow the oppressing chilliness of such a place. 
 My bedstead was made of three planks laid parallel to 
 each other at the end of the cell, and raised from the 
 stone floor but three inches at the foot and six at the 
 head of this truly lowly couch. The only seat allowed 
 me was a bucket which contained the water supplied 
 me for washing purposes—this bucket having a cover 
 so as to answer the double purpose of waterholder and 
 stool. The height of this sole article of furniture allowed 
 me was fourteen inches exactly, including the lid, and on 
 this “ repentance stool” I was compelled to sit at work, 
 ten hours at least each day for ten months. 
 
 The punishment this entails upon a tall man can be 
 easily conceived. The recumbent posture and bent 
 chest necessary while picking oakum, with nothing to 
 lean one’s back against to obtain a momentary relief, is 
 distressing in the extreme. The effect upon tne, in 
 addition to inducing a weakness in my chest, was 
 singular, but not surprising. 
 
 On entering Millbank my height was exactly six feet 
 as measured by the prison standard for that purpose, 
 but on my departure for Dartmoor ten months after, I 
 had illustrated the saying that some people can grow 
 
\ 
 
 % 
 
 9 
 
 downwards, as I then measured but five feet ten and a 
 half inches. 
 
 The bedding supplied was miserably insufficient 
 during the Winter months ; and owing to this, and the 
 sitting posture during the dgy, with feet resting upon 
 cold flags, wi|(h 'no .fire, and With a prohibition against 
 walking in the cell, many prisoners have lost the use of 
 their limbs from the effects of a Millbank Winter. But 
 one hour’s exercise in the prison yard ■yvas allowed each 
 day, and’that was forfeited if the weather proved un¬ 
 favourable. Owing to my health beginning to break 
 down, I was permitted an extra half hour’s exercise after 
 I had been eight months in the prison. This was 
 granted by the doctor’s orders. 
 
 I had to rise at six each morning, fold up my bed 
 very neatly, and afterwards wash and scrub my cell 
 floor quite clean with brush and stone used for that 
 purpose, This washing and scrubbing was, I need 
 scarcely remark, very distressing upon me, owing to 
 my physical infirmity, but I was compelled to do it 
 nevertheless once each day during the whole term of 
 my imprisonment. After cells were cleaned in the 
 manner I have described, work was then commenced, 
 ■and continued until a quarter to nine at night, allowing 
 of course for meals, exercise, and prayers in chapel each 
 morning. 
 
 The work I was put to in this prison was coir and 
 oakum picking. I was not tasked, but I had to sit 
 working all day and pick a reasonable share of my coir 
 or oakum, as the case might be. When I inquired on 
 being first ordered to this sort of work, how I could 
 possibly do it with but a limited number of fingers at 
 my disposal, I was told by the warder that he had known 
 several '• blokes” with but one hand who had managed 
 to pick oakum very well with their teeth. As I declined 
 to use my teeth to tear old ropes to pieces, I had to do 
 the work as best I could. 
 
 In going to and from the chapel, and during 
 exercise, all prisoners were compelled to walk in 
 single file, and talking was, of course, strictly pro¬ 
 hibited. 
 
10 
 
 During the whole of my stay in Millbank my conver¬ 
 sation Avith prisoners—at the risk of being punished, of 
 course—as also with Avarders and chaplains, Avould not 
 occupy me twenty minutes to repeat, could I collect all 
 the scattered words spoken by me in the Avhole of that 
 ten months. ' * 
 
 I recollect many weeks going by Avithout my exchang¬ 
 ing a Avord with a single human being. 
 
 The lood alloAved me for daily rations Avas as folloAvs: 
 Breakfast, eight ounces of bread, and three-quarters, of 
 a pint of cocoa ; dinner, four ounces of meat (including 
 bone), four days a week, Avith six ounces ofbread and a 
 pound of potatoes; one day in the week I was allowed 
 a pint of shins of beef soup in lieu of meat, and on 
 another one pound of suet pudding, ditto. Dinner on 
 Sunday Avas .twelve ounces of bread, four ounces of 
 cheese, and a pint of Abater and for supper each night 
 I received six ounces of bread and a pint of “ skilly,’' 
 containing, or rather supposed to contain, two ounces 
 of oatmeal. 
 
 This Avas the ordinary prison alloAvance. 
 
 After subsisting for three months on this diet, I 
 applied to the doctor for a little more food or the ground 
 that I Avas losing Aveight owing to the insufficiency of 
 the quantity alloAved, but my application was of no 
 avail. 
 
 The books supplied me while in Millbank Avere 
 almost exclusively religious, and but one library book 
 Avas allowed to each prisoner in a fortnight, 
 
 I asked to have mine changed once a Aveek, but Avas 
 promptly told I could not be favoured beyond other 
 prisoners. The class of books supplied to the Catholic 
 prisoners Avas such as would be suitable to children, or 
 people ignorant of the truths of the Catholic faith. 
 
 I had often no book to read but one that might 
 answer the requirements of a child, such as the history 
 of “Naughty Fanny,’’or “Grandmother Betty,” and 
 like productions, which, though doubtless good in their 
 way, Avere not Avhat could lessen the dreary monoton} r 
 of such an existence. 
 
11 
 
 A circumstance in connection with the situation of Mill- 
 bank may (taken with what I have already said on that 
 prison) give some faint idea of what confinement there 
 really means. Westminster Tower clock is not far 
 distant from the penitentiary, so that its every stroke is 
 as distinctly'heard in each cell as if it were sit uated in 
 one of the prison yards. At each quarter of an hour day 
 and night, it chimes a bar of the “'Old Hundreth,’’ and 
 those solemn tones strike on the ears of the lonely 
 listeners like the voice of some monster singing the funeral 
 dirge of Time. 
 
 Oft in the silent watches of the night has it reminded 
 me of the number of strokes I was doomed to listen to, 
 and of how slowly those minutes were creeping along ! 
 That weird chant of Westminster clock will ever haunt 
 my memory, and recall that period of my imprisonment 
 when I first had to implore Divine Providence to preserve 
 my reason and save toe frcTirn the madness which seemed 
 inevitable through mental and corporal tortures com¬ 
 bined. ‘ 
 
 That human reason should give way under such 
 adverse influences, is not, I think, to be wondered at; 
 and many a still living wreck of manhood can refer to 
 the silent system of Mill bank and its pernicious sur¬ 
 roundings as the cause of his debilitated mind. 
 
 It was here that Edward Duffy died, and where 
 Richard Burke and Martin Hanly Carey were for a 
 time oblivious of their sufferings from temporary in¬ 
 sanity, and where Daniel Reddin was paralysed. It 
 was here where Thomas Ahearn first showed symptoms 
 of madness, and was put in dark cells and strait-jacket 
 for a “ test ” as to the reality of these - symptoms. Ten 
 years have passed their long and silent courses since 
 then, but that same Thomas Ahearn is still a prisoner, 
 and his mind is still tottering on the brink of insanity. 
 I have anxiously watched him drifting towards this fate 
 for the past six years, unable to render him any assist¬ 
 ance, and I can predict that if he is not soon liberated he 
 will exchange Dartmoor for Broadmoor Lunatic Prison, 
 like so many other victims of penal servitude. 
 
12 
 
 As I shall have to speak pretty frequently in the course 
 of these remarks of the conduct of warders towards pri¬ 
 soners over and above the duty they have to perform in 
 theirpunishment, I will conclude my account of Mill- 
 bank with a specimen of the “practical jokes” they 
 amuse themselves with at the expense of their charges 
 whenever a fitting opportunity offers itself for indulging 
 in this amusement. 
 
 It might appear incredible that any man, no matter 
 what his calling might be, could take delight in aggra¬ 
 vating misery by playing upon a fellow creature who is 
 almost crushed with a load of punishment each hour in 
 the day ; but such men do exist, and I have had good 
 reason to know it. On the 25th May, 1871,1 was atmy 
 usual employment in my cell when the warder—a man 
 named Austin, if I recollect aright—opened my door, and 
 told me (after many cautions against my telling anyone as 
 to who w T as my informant) that he had just heard of my 
 pardon having reached the prison from the Home Office, 
 and that I was to be discharged on the following day. 
 He told me this with such well-feigned looks of pleasure 
 at having good tidings to communicate that I never 
 doubted the truth of it for a moment. 
 
 Moreover, it was the Queen’s birth-day, and had not 
 some of the political prisoners been amnestied a few 
 months previously ? What more likely than my own 
 discharge now ? 
 
 I remember trying to express my thanks to the “ kind ” 
 fellow who had lifted me from the depths of my suffer¬ 
 ings by this good news, as he was leaving my cell, and 
 then falling on my knees in heartfelt prayer to God for 
 this deliverance from long years of suffering but too 
 likely to end in a felon’s grave, and for my speedy re¬ 
 storation to my family. Five o’clock in the evening 
 ca^ne at last, my cell door wus flung open, and I was 
 ordered to lead towards the entrance quarter of the pri¬ 
 son, now thoroughly convinced that a few moments 
 more would see me outside—a free man. 
 
 I walked the gloomy corridors, I need scarcely remark, 
 with a light heart, conjuring up all the felicities in store 
 
13 
 
 for me in the lap of liberty, when, on turning an angle 
 of a ward, I was brought up face to face with a couple 
 of warders dressed and armed for a journey. 
 
 The truth flashed upon me in a moment. I was to be 
 “ discharged ’’ from Millbank sure enough, but only to 
 exchange it for a far worse place—Dartmoor ! 
 
 A few moments sufficed to put me in a convict’s work¬ 
 ing smock, fasten a handcuff on my wrist, and hear the 
 principal warder admonish me that I would be placed 
 under stricter surveillance where I was going, and that 
 if I disobeyed orders there I would be punished more 
 severely than a common prisoner. 
 
 I endeavoured to hide the effects of this shock, and 
 cheat my “ good friends ” of the pleasure they had an¬ 
 ticipated at my expense, but I fear only partially suc¬ 
 ceeded. 
 
 Thus ended my experience at Millbank, as I was im¬ 
 mediately conducted to the Paddington Railway Station 
 and conveyed to my next abode in charge of the armed 
 warders. Twelve months and twelve days had elapsed 
 since I had been arrested at that very station, and in 
 that short period I had undergone an amount of mental 
 suffering and anxiety which I thought at that time I 
 would never live to record. 
 
 DARTMOOR. 
 
 If the whole United Kingdom was searched through 
 for the purpose of discovering a place whereon to erect 
 a prison, with the view of utilising the rigours of a severe 
 climate, damp fogs, more than average rainfall, and a 
 lengthened Winter season, with all that was desolate and 
 uninviting in the aspect of nature, to assist in the punish¬ 
 ment of prisoners, no more suitable place than Dart¬ 
 moor could be found if a procrustean spirit guided the 
 search. Buried in the midst of barren and boulder 
 strewn Devonshire moors, it is peculiarly adapted for 
 an abode of misery. It was here where the French and 
 
14 
 
 American prisoners of war were incarcerated during the 
 wars with the first Napoleon and rebel America, and 
 many a gallant foe of England’s there sank beneath the 
 hardships of the climate and the treatment he re¬ 
 ceived. 
 
 The chivalrous Lord Dundonald denounced the Go¬ 
 vernment of the day, in the strongest terms, for confining 
 brave and honourable enemies in such a place ; “ en¬ 
 veloped,” as he declared from observation, “ in almost 
 perpetual fog.” 
 
 Well, Governments Avere no more indifferent in those 
 days to the inhuman treatment of their fallen foes than 
 in more modern, and I shall say more humane (?) times ; 
 but now, as then, there are a few generous-hearted 
 Englishmen to be found courageous enough to say they 
 do not glory in this, the shame of England ; and that, 
 whether cannons are charged Avith foes in India, enemies 
 tied to trees and fired at for practice in Jamaica, or the 
 youth of Ireland done to death by penal servitude in 
 England’s prisons, it is a disgrace to any country boast¬ 
 ing of its civilization, and repugnant to the generous 
 instincts of humanity. 
 
 It would be impossible for me in the limited time at 
 my disposal to detail every circumstance connected Avith 
 my six years and six months’ confinement in Dart¬ 
 moor ; I can, therefore, only dwell upon the most pro¬ 
 minent incidents connected Avith my treatment during 
 that period, by a simple statement of facts as to Avhat 
 that treatment was. 
 
 For the first week after my arrival from Millbank, I 
 was located in the penal cells, and had to make applica¬ 
 tion for removal from same into some other part of the 
 prison. The penal cells, or rather some of them, are 
 much preferable to the ordinary or iron cells, being 
 somewhat larger and much better ventilated ; but, 
 oAving to their being constructed and set apart for 
 incorrigible prisoners—men Avho are taught obedience 
 by means of starvation, and consequently maddened by 
 hunger and cold—it is almost impossible to obtain any 
 sleep in such a place. I will have more to say anent 
 
15 
 
 these cells by-and-by, as I was confined in them from 
 August,’76, until November,’77. The iron or ordinary 
 cell I was next located in, and remained an inmate of 
 for close on five years, I will now describe. So much 
 attention having been . directed to these veritable iron 
 cages by the exposure of poor McCarthy’s treatment, 
 and his confinement in such cells, I purpose giving an 
 accurate description of them, and removing any doubts, 
 if such exist, as to the account already given of their 
 size, construction, and ventilation. 
 
 The dimensions of one of them will answer for that 
 of the whole, as they are uniform in almost every 
 respect. Length, seven feet exactly ; width, four feet; 
 and height, seven feet one or two inches. The sides 
 (or frames) of all are of corrugated iron, and the floor 
 is a slate one. These cells are ranged in tiers or Avards 
 in the centre of a hall, the tiers being one above ano¬ 
 ther to the height of four wards, the floors of the three 
 upper tiers of cells forming the ceilings or tops of those 
 immediately beneath them. Each ward or tier contains 
 in length forty two cells, giving a total of 168 for one 
 hall. The sole provision made for ventilating these 
 cells is an opening]of two and a half or three inches left 
 at the bottom of each door. There is no opening into 
 the external air from any of those cells in Dartmoor, 
 and the air admitted into the hall has to traverse the 
 width of the same to enter the hole under the cell 
 doors. In the cells on the first three tiers or wards 
 there are about a dozen small perforations in the corner 
 of each for the escape of vitiated air ; but in those on 
 the top or fourth ward—or, speaking more confidently, 
 in those on that ward in which I was located a portion 
 of my time—there were no such perforations—no pos¬ 
 sible way of escape for foul air except where most of it 
 entered as “ pure ”—under the cell door ! In the heat 
 of summer it was almost impossible to breathe in these 
 top cells, so close and foul would the air become from 
 the improper ventilation of the cells below, allowing the 
 breathed air in each cell to mix with that in the hall, 
 and thus ascend to the top. 
 
16 
 
 In addition to this, it a prisoner has a call of nature 
 between eight at night and five in the morning, he is 
 compelled to use a utensil in his cell, and leave it there 
 all night, as prisoners are not allowed out of their cells 
 tor any purpose during those hours. The division be¬ 
 tween each cell is but the thickness of the iron frame 
 of the same, and consequently when an occurrence of 
 that kind happens, which, owing to the nature of the 
 food, it does very frequently, the fact is made known 
 by a nassal telegram, almost over the whole ward, an¬ 
 nouncing an addition to the already over-tainted atmos¬ 
 phere. I have often been next cell to a man suffering 
 from mephitis or stinking breath, and had to endure the 
 frightful torture of inhaling his poisonous respirations. 
 I on one occasion begged the governor of Dartmoor to 
 remove me from such a situation, for the additional 
 reasons to those I have given that I had not sufficient 
 light to read in the cell I was in, but I begged in vain. 
 I was, however, soon after removed to a lower tier, 
 after foul eruptions began to break out upon my body 
 through the impure air I had been breathing. It has 
 been denied by Chatham prison officials that Charles 
 McCarthy ever slept with his bed across the inside of his 
 cell door in order to catch sufficient air to breathe. 
 From my own experience I can fully believe the neces¬ 
 sity of his doing so, as it was quite common in Dartmoor 
 for prisoners to sleep with their heads towards the door 
 for a similar reason ; and I have often in the Summer 
 season done this myself, and had repeatedly to go on my 
 knees and put my mouth to the bottom of the door for a 
 little air. 
 
 The light admitted to those ordinary iron cells is 
 scarcely sufficient to read by in the day time, and should 
 a fog prevail it would be impossible to read in half of 
 them. The cells are fitted with a couple of plates of 
 thick intransparent glass, about eighteen inches long by 
 six inches wide each, and the light is transmitted through 
 this “ window ’’ from the hall, and not from the externe 
 of the prison. 
 
 I have often laid the length of my body on the cell 
 
17 
 
 floor, and placed my bookunderthe door to catch sufficient 
 light to read it. For the 168 cells in the hall I am 
 speaking of there are but two water-closets, and the soil 
 from that number of men is kept in tubs, that are used 
 instead of ordinary closets, and in which it cannot 
 be washed away as in the latter. It is preserved in those 
 tubs for manuring purposes, and they are emptied every 
 other morning only. From Saturday at noon until 
 Monday morning the accumulated filth from the whole 
 hall is kept in those tubs, and the stench arising from this 
 on a Sunday evening is abominable. From May, 1876, 
 until the following August, I was located in cell No. 122, 
 Ward No. 3—a hall immediately opposite one of those 
 tub closets, but twelve feet distant from where I had to 
 eat my meals and sleep if I could. I repeatedly asked 
 the officer in charge of the hall to remove me a few cells 
 higher up the ward ; but the cell had been selected for 
 me, as I had to be strictly watched, and therefore I was 
 not removed. The food in Dartmoor prison I found to 
 be the very worst in quality and the filthiest in cooking 
 of any of the other places I had been in. The quantity 
 of daily rations was the same as in Millbank, with the 
 difference of four ounces of bread more each day and one 
 of meat less in the week. The quality, as I have already 
 remarked, is inferior to any other prison, but from about 
 November till May it is simply execrable, the potatoes 
 being often unfit to eat, and rotten cow carrots oc¬ 
 casionally substituted for other food. To find black 
 beetles in soup, “ skilly,” bread, and tea, was quite a 
 common occurrence ; and some idea can be formed of 
 how hunger will reconcile a man to look without dis. 
 gust upon the most filthy objects in nature, when I state 
 as a fact that I have often discovered beetles in my food, 
 and have eaten it after throwing them aside, without ex¬ 
 periencing much revulsion of feeling at the sight of such 
 loathsome animals in my victuals. Still, I have often 
 come in from work weak with fatigue and hunger, and 
 found it impossible to eat the putrid meat or stinking 
 soup supplied me for dinner, and had to return to labour 
 .again after “ dining ” on six ounces of bad bread. 
 
 B 
 
18 
 
 It was quite a common occurrence in Dartmoor for 
 men to be reported and punished for eating candles, 
 boot oil, and other repulsive articles; and not withstand- 
 ing that a highly offensive smell is purposely given to 
 prison candles to prevent their being eaten instead of 
 burned, men are driven by a system of half starvation 
 into an animal-like voracity, and anything that a dog 
 would eat is nowise repugnant to their taste. I have 
 seen men eat old poultices found buried in heaps of rub¬ 
 bish I was assisting in carting away, and have seen bits 
 of candles pulled out of the prison cesspool and eaten, 
 after the human soil was wiped off them ! 
 
 The labour I was first put to was stone-breaking, that 
 being considered suitable work for non-able-bodied 
 prisoners. I was put to this employment in a large 
 shed, along with some eighty or ninety more prisoners, 
 but my hand becoming blistered by the action of the 
 hammer after I had broken stones for a week, I -was 
 unable to continue at that work, and was consequently 
 put to what is termed “ cart labour.’’ 
 
 This sort of work is very general in Dartmoor, and I 
 may as well give some description of it. 
 
 Eight men constitute a “ cart party,’’ and have an 
 officer over them, armed with a staff if working within 
 the prison walls, and with a rifle, and accompanied by 
 an armed guard, if employed outside. Each man in 
 the cart party is supplied with a collar, which is put 
 over the head and passes from the right or left shoulder 
 under the opposite arm, and is then hooked to the chain 
 by means of which the cart is drawn about. 
 
 The cart party to which I was attached was employed 
 in carting stones, coals, manure, and rubbish of all de¬ 
 scriptions. In drawing the cart along each prisoner has 
 to bend forward and pull with all his strength or the 
 warder who is driving will threaten to “ run him in” or 
 report him for idleness. It was our work to supply all 
 parts of the prison, workshops, officers’ mess-room, cook 
 house, See., with coals, and 1 was often drawing these 
 about in rain and sleet, with no fire to warm or dry 
 myself after a wetting. I was only a few months at 
 
i9 
 
 this sort of work, as 1 met with a slight accident by a 
 collar hurting the remnant of my right arm, and was, 
 in consequence of this, excused from cart labour by the 
 doctor’s order. 
 
 I was again set to breaking granite, and remained at 
 that job during the winter of 70-71. 
 
 I may remark that in June, when L was first put 
 stone-breaking, I was employed in a shed, but during 
 the winter I was compelled to work outside in the cold 
 and damp foggy weather. I was left at this work until 
 spring, and was then removed to a task from the effects 
 of which I believe I will never completely recover. 
 My health on entering prison was excellent, never hav¬ 
 ing had any sickness at any previous period of my life. 
 The close confinement and insufficient food in Millbank 
 had told of course on my constitution, though not to 
 any very alarming extent; but the task I was now put 
 to laid the germs of the heart and lung disease I have 
 since been suffering from. This task was putrid bone¬ 
 breaking. 
 
 On the brink of the prison cesspool, in which all the 
 soil of the whole establishment is accumulated for 
 manure, stands a small building some twenty feet long 
 by about ten broad, known as the “ bone shed.’’ 
 
 The floor of this shed is sunk some three feet lower 
 than the ground outside, and is on a level with the pool 
 which laves the wall of the building. All the bones 
 accruing from the meat supply of the prison were 
 pounded into dust in this shed, and during the summer 
 of’72 (excepting five weeks spent in Portsmouth prison) 
 this was my employment. These bones have often lain 
 putrefying for weeks in the broiling heat of the sum¬ 
 mer sun ere they were brought in to be broken. The 
 stench arising from their decomposition, together with 
 the noxious exhalations from the action of the sun’s 
 rays on the cesspool outside, no words could adequately 
 express—it was a veritable charnel house. It will be 
 noted that I was at work outside the previous winter, 
 and when the bright days and summer season came on 
 I was put in a low shed to break putrefying bones ! The 
 
20 
 
 number of prisoners at this work varied from thirty to 
 six, and I may remark that the majority of these were 
 what are termed “ doctor’s men,” or prisoners unable to 
 perform the ordinary prison labour. When all the 
 bones would be pounded, we would then be employed 
 in and around the cesspool, mixing and carting manure, 
 and at various other similar occupations. 
 
 I made application to both the governor and doctor 
 for removal from this bone-breaking to some more con¬ 
 genial task, but I would not be transferred to any other 
 labour. After completing a term of my imprisonment 
 which entitled me to a pint of tea in lieu of “ skilly ” 
 for breakfast, I was then removed to a hard labour party, 
 as, owing to my being an invalid, or “ doctor’s man,” I 
 could not claim the privilege of this slight change in 
 diet without becoming attached to some hard labour 
 party—invalids, or “ light labour men,” not being al¬ 
 lowed tea at any stage of their imprisonment. 
 
 I very willingly consented to a heavier task in order 
 to be removed from the abominable bone-shed, in which 
 I had worked and sickened during the summer. 
 
 My employment after this was various, drawing carts, 
 bogies laden with stone, slates, &c., delving and shifting 
 sand, at which work I was in the habit of using a pick 
 and shovel (though not, I must fairly admit, compelled 
 to do so), as the extreme cold made it necessary in order 
 to keep myself from being congealed. 
 
 I was next employed in winding up stones at an iron 
 crank, during the building of an additional wing to the 
 prison, and this was, beyond doubt, the heaviest work 
 to which they could have put me. A crank party con¬ 
 sisted of four men, and my being one of the four com¬ 
 pelled me to perform as much work as either of the 
 others, as the task would fall heavier upon them other¬ 
 wise. This employment was occasionally diversified with 
 “ spells’’ at mortar-making, water-carrying for same, 
 sand-shifting, cement-making, and various other jobs, 
 among which carrying slates to the roof of the new pri¬ 
 son was one—not, of course, up a ladder, but by a steep 
 incline. 
 
21 
 
 I may remark in passing that three prisoners lost 
 their lives while this building was going on, and in my 
 opinion those accidents were attributable to the ignor¬ 
 ance of scaffolding arrangements shown by the warders 
 appointed to superintend them. Inquests were held, 
 of course, inside the prison, but I never learned that any 
 intelligent prisoner was called upon to give evidence, 
 nor what verdicts were given by what the prisoners in 
 Dartmoor call “ the standing jury.” I may add also 
 that my friend, Mr. Chambers, fell from a scaffolding 
 at the same building, and on the principle that “ a man 
 who falls deserves to be kicked for falling,” he was taken 
 to the punishment cells instead of to the infirmary, and 
 turned out to work again the following day. 
 
 When my services as a mason’s labourer were no 
 longer required, I was once more put to the old job of 
 stone-breaking, and remained thereat from about the 
 latter part of 73 until August 1876. 
 
 During the long winters of those years I was thus 
 employed in part of the prison yard known to be the 
 coldest place within the walls, where the north-east wind 
 —so prevalent during Dartmoor winters—blew in my 
 face without my having the slightest shelter from its 
 cutting blast, or any means of keeping my freezing 
 blood in circulation except by the plying of my stone¬ 
 breaking hammer. When snow had fallen during the 
 night I would have to clear it away from the heap of 
 stones in the morning and smash away as usual. So 
 excessively cold and long are the Dartmoor winters that 
 during the past few years the prisoners have had to be 
 supplied with small bags made of the same material as 
 their clothing by which to shield their hands from frost¬ 
 bite and chilblains. Without some such provision to 
 protect them from the effects of the severe cold, little or 
 no outside work could be done by the prisoners. 
 
 1 made application to the governor for some inside 
 labour in winter time, but all requests ofmine for change 
 of task were invariably refused, and I had to await un¬ 
 foreseen circumstances to effect what would not other- 
 be granted me. An event of this nature saved me from 
 
 V 
 
22 
 
 a fourth winter’s campaign amidst granite and snow ; 
 but as a “ compensation ” for this relief it entailed very 
 much heavier work, and caused me to be placed under 
 special surveillance and located in penal cells for the re¬ 
 mainder of my imprisonment. 
 
 This event was what has been called “ the unconsti¬ 
 tutional amnesty’-’ of Western Australia. 
 
 After this I was not considered safe, as I could have 
 been seen at my stone-breaking in the prison yard by any 
 mischievous people who might hold anti-ticket-of-leave 
 notions on my account. I was therefore removed to 
 the prison wash-house—a place securely situated in the 
 very centre of the prison, and free from all apprehen¬ 
 sions of a “surprise.” A wash-house is a place where 
 it might be thought I could not earn my skilly ; but, 
 without boasting of having distinguished myself in the 
 capacity of a “washerwoman,” or built a reputation in 
 the art of bleaching, I can say, without fear of contra¬ 
 diction from the prison officials, that my work there was 
 the heaviest of any prisoner employed in the wash¬ 
 house. Another prisoner and myself were told off to 
 the wringing-machine, in which linen, &c., for a thousand 
 men, and washings for officers’ mess and rooms, &c., had 
 to be wrung each week, with flannels and sheets for 
 same number once a fortnight and month respectively 
 in addition. My assistant on this machine was changed 
 every week, as men—able-bodied men—had been re¬ 
 ported for refusing to remain constantly at such heavy 
 labour; but as 1 was physically unable to wash the 
 linen I was compelled to turn the machine as my prin¬ 
 cipal occupation. The machine being made with a 
 couple of handles I had to turn as much as my assistant, 
 and very often more, if he proved an idle one. I was 
 considerably reduced in weight while at this employ¬ 
 ment (which lasted until my release on the J 9th of 
 December last) from the amount of sweating it entailed, 
 especially during the Summer months, and the heavy 
 nature of the work. 
 
 My weight a week after my liberation was but nine 
 stone four pounds, including my clothes, or some eight 
 
23 
 
 stone ten pounds without—not, I think, the proper 
 weight for a. man six feet high, and at the age of thirty- 
 one. In addition to turning the wringer, I had to sort 
 my share of the dirty linen each Monday morning, and, 
 singularly enough, the infirmary portion was part of my 
 share, and I had consequently to handle the articles 
 worn by prisoners suffering from all manner of skin 
 diseases and other disgusting afflictions. 
 
 This will finish the necessarily brief account of my 
 various employments in Dartmoor, and with a de¬ 
 scription of the daily searchings I was subject to will 
 conclude my narrative of ordinary treatment while a 
 prisoner. I will then briefly relate my exceptional 
 punishment as a political prisoner, and adduce proofs 
 that this treatment was more severe than that of ordinary 
 malefactors, unmerited by my conduct as a prisoner, 
 and therefore contrary to the prison rules I was com¬ 
 pelled to observe to the very letter. Each prisoner is 
 searched four times each day—Sunday excepted—by 
 the officers under whom they are employed, and liable, 
 in addition to this, to be stripped naked, and subjected 
 to a minute and disgusting examination : or, as it is more 
 properly termed in prison slang, “ turned over,’' when¬ 
 ever an officer wishes to do so. I was searched four 
 times each day in common with other prisoners, and 
 had in winter and summer alike to open my jacket and 
 vest, take off my cap, hold out my hand at arm’s length, 
 and stand in this manner in the open air, and allow a 
 warder to run his hands from my neck downwards over 
 my body to satisfy himself I had nothing concealed upon 
 my person. 
 
 I was also at regulated intervals taken with other 
 prisoners into a part of the prison where we had all to 
 strip in presence of each other and be minutely searched, 
 but not compelled to strip beyond the shirt. This often 
 occurred in the depth of winter, and I Had to stand in 
 this plight while an officer was carefully examining 
 every article of my dress, after having rubbed his hands 
 over my body and made me open my mouth to assure 
 himself I had nothing contraband upon me. I was 
 
24 
 
 never exempt from any of these searchings during the 
 whole of my imprisonment. 
 
 The charge has often been made against the Govern¬ 
 ment that the Irish political prisoners were treated with 
 greater severity and subjected to more indignities than 
 ordinary malefactors, and both Ministers and Govern¬ 
 ment organs have as often denied the truth of these 
 allegations. I will allow facts to substantiate the charge 
 so far as my own treatment is concerned, and leave the 
 public to draw the inference in the case of those still in 
 prison. 
 
 From my arrival in Millbank in 1870 until my dis¬ 
 charge from Dartmoor in December last I was classed 
 and associated with the ordinary prisoners, placed on 
 the same footing in regard to diet and work, and had 
 in every particular to perform the daily task of penal 
 servitude as laid down by the prison rules. 
 
 A strict compliance with the requirements of these 
 rules entitles a convict to certain privileges at stated in¬ 
 tervals during his imprisonment, as regulated by the 
 Penal Servitude Act, which came into force in July, 
 1864; and such privileges are accordingly allowed to 
 prisoners who strictly observe the conditions imposed 
 upon them. There was no provision made in that Act 
 for the treatment of prisoners convicted for treason 
 felony or other offences arising out of insurrectionary 
 movements, and consequently there is no clause in the 
 prison rules specifying the punishment to be awarded 
 to political prisoners or the granting or curtailing of 
 privileges in such cases. A political prisoner, there¬ 
 fore, who is compelled to observe these rules in every 
 particular like other prisoners, and to undergo the same 
 penal discipline, is as clearly entitled to all the privi¬ 
 leges allowed by those rules as men who are convicted 
 for non-political offences, such as murder, theft, forgery, 
 bigamy, &c. 
 
 Such, however, has not been the case in regard to 
 myself, and I adduce proofs to confirm this statement. 
 One of the most coveted rewards of good conduct in 
 prison is the privilege of receiving visits from friends, at 
 
25 
 
 intervals of three, four, and six months, according to 
 class and time served. A prisoner who has not forfeited 
 his claim to such a privilege by any breach of discipline 
 is as justly entitled to it as to his daily rations of food. 
 Well, during my seven years and seven months* im¬ 
 prisonment I have been, by the admission of prison offi¬ 
 cials, a “ good conduct” prisoner, and had, consequently, 
 a right to a visit whenever I demanded one in accordance 
 with the rules ; but, from the day after my sentence 
 until the day of my discharge, I was not allowed to see 
 a friend or receive a visit from anyone. 
 
 My first application for a visit was made in Millbank 
 when due by the rules to receive one, and the answer 
 given by the governor to my application was that I 
 would not be permitted to write to, receive letters from, 
 or see the friend whom I requested a visit from. As 
 he was the nearest friend I had in England, and one 
 who had assisted me to defend myself when tried, I 
 could see no grounds whatever for the objection to his 
 coming to see me ; but when I sought an explanation 
 of this refusal from Visiting-Director Gambier, I was 
 told by him that he would give me no reasons whatever, 
 nor was he supposed to do so. 
 
 I would not be allowed the visit. 
 
 I made another effort while in Millbank to see some 
 friend, and, thinking that no possible objection could 
 be raised against my seeing a lady, I tendered the name 
 of one whom I was anxious to see, as she was a corres¬ 
 pondent of my family and a most intimate friend of my 
 own. 
 
 This application was also refused by an order pur¬ 
 porting to come from the then Home Secretary, Mr. 
 Bruce (now Lord Aberdare), to the effect that a visit 
 from the lady I had named would not be granted. I 
 was now convinced that I would not be allowed an 
 interview with any of my friends under any conditions, 
 and made no further application for the next few years. 
 I complied with the prison rules in the meantime, not¬ 
 withstanding my deprivation of the privileges such 
 compliance entitled me to. Several of my friends had 
 
2G 
 
 also made efforts to obtain leave to see me, but to no 
 purpose. I renewed my application again in August or 
 September, 1874, and was again refused, and no explan¬ 
 ation of such refusal given. On the 24th of November 
 last I once more endeavoured to see a friend, but the 
 order for the visit was not forwarded, and I left prison 
 on the 19th of December last without being permitted 
 to see a friendly face during the whole term of my 
 imprisonment. 
 
 I may remark that one of my objects in seeking an 
 interview with some of my friends was to have attention 
 drawn to the case of John Wilson, who had been sen¬ 
 tenced with me. Perhaps this was one reason why no 
 visit would be granted. Another proof of exceptional 
 treatment :— 
 
 Ordinary convicts, when located according to class, 
 were allowed to select a companion from the same ward 
 to exercise with on Sunday. Mr. Chambers and 
 myself were never allowed this privilege. We could 
 select u companions’’ from among thieves and murderers 
 but would not be permitted to even speak to each other 
 at any time—Sundays or other occasions. We made 
 repeated applications to governors and directors to have 
 this small boon allowed us, as it was granted to others, 
 but to no avail. No explanation would be given us 
 why we were thus deprived of what others enjoyed. 
 
 Another instance of unjust treatment is one which 
 I have already touched upon in the particulars of my 
 various employment. Applications for transfer from 
 party to party are of every-day occurrence in prison, 
 and are invariably granted by the governor, as prisoners 
 are entitled to change of labour when their employments 
 may be either too heavy or injurious to their health, or 
 when they can show themselves more capable of per¬ 
 forming one class of work than another. Every appli¬ 
 cation made by me for more suitable employment was 
 refused, and I was invariably put either to labour that 
 would throw as much work upon me as if I were able- 
 bodied, or to some task, such as bone-breaking in a low 
 shed by the prison cesspool in summer, or stone-break- 
 
ing in the open air during the rigours of winter, which 
 would insure punishment the most injurious to my 
 health being inflicted upon me. No other conclusion 
 than this was possible from the singularly harsh manner 
 in which I was treated while complying with the rules 
 in every particular. 
 
 I have before remarked that in the labour of washing 
 and scrubbing my cell, polishing utensils, &c., there 
 was no allowance made for my being deprived of an 
 arm ; but I must admit that other prisoners similarly 
 afllicted were treated in that respect in alike manner. 
 
 This cell work, in addition to my ordinary labour, 
 would tell more upon me than upon an able-bodied 
 prisoner ; and, as it also subtracted considerably from 
 the short time at the disposal of prisoners for repose 
 from labour, reading, &c., it would necessarily take 
 more time from me, owing to the difficulties I had to 
 contend with. In order to squeeze the floor-cloth with 
 which I washed my cell twice a day, I would have to sit 
 on my stool, place my feet upon the rim of my bucket, 
 then put the cloth round the bucket-handle, and twist 
 it until the water was wrung out of it. As a general 
 rule I had only a few minutes to spare for reading, so 
 much of my time being necessary to the keeping of my 
 cell as clean as others. 
 
 In June, 1872, I was sent to Portsmouth prison, 
 along with twenty-nine other prisoners from Dartmoor. 
 
 In cases of transfer from prison to prison convicts are 
 handcuffed by one hand only to a chain that runs the 
 whole length of the number of prisoners, and passes 
 through a ring in each man’s handcuff. By this means 
 each convict has one hand at liberty to eat his food, at¬ 
 tend to calls of nature, &c., if he is fortunate enough to 
 be possessed of two ; and if not it is customary to sub¬ 
 stitute a body belt for a handcuff, in order to give him 
 the use of one hand also. 
 
 No such consideration was shown to me. I was pur¬ 
 posely placed between two of the filthiest of the twenty- 
 nine convicts, and had my wrist handcuffed back to 
 back with one of them. I appealed against this ere I 
 
28 
 
 left Dartmoor, and requested a belt in lieu of a hand¬ 
 cuff, or at least to be put at the end of the chain, but 
 neither would be granted. 
 
 One of the two between whom I was chained was 
 afflicted with mephitis, or stinking breath, and the other, 
 I think, with scrofula. During the journey to Ports¬ 
 mouth this latter one, to whose hand mine was linked, 
 had an attack of diarrhoea, and I had to submit to the 
 horrors of such a situation, as my hand would not be 
 unlocked from his. 
 
 All this, however, may have been through the petty 
 malice of the chief turnkey in Dartmoor, and may not 
 have been ordered by the then governor of that prison. 
 
 In Portsmouth prison I was placed on reduced diet 
 because I was incapable of performing heavy labour, 
 such as barrow-wheeling and the like. Yet at the task 
 I was put to—“ skintling ” bricks—I did as much work 
 as those who had two hands to labour with. I ex¬ 
 plained this to the medical officer, as a plea in favour of 
 being allowed the ordinary prison rations, but I was 
 told that the Secretary of State had ordered that ordi¬ 
 nary diet should not be given to men employed at light 
 labour, and that an exception could not be made in 
 favour of me. 
 
 I am bound to remark, however, that the quality of 
 the food in Portsmouth was far superior to that of 
 Dartmoor, and that I suffered very little from the re¬ 
 duction in diet during my five weeks’ stay in the former 
 prison. 
 
 While there I was once reported for falling out of the 
 ranks to see the doctor, through an attack of quinsy. 
 I was not punished with bread and water, but I had to 
 work for a couple of days without any food whatever, 
 being unable to swallow anything, and receiving neither 
 treatment nor remedy for my indisposition. 
 
 I was ordered back to Dartmoor again on the 16th 
 of July, 1872, and on this return journey I was accom¬ 
 panied by a madman, or, as he would be termed in 
 prison slang, a “balmy bloke” I was handcuffed to 
 him of course, and while waiting for a train at Exeter 
 
29 
 
 he managed to divest himself of most of his clothing, 
 because he would not be allowed to' ask people for 
 tobacco. 
 
 My journey back was not much pleasanter than the 
 one coming away, I have made this digression from my 
 exceptionally harsh treatment in Dartmoor, in order to 
 show that in whatever prison I might be incarcerated 
 the fact of my being a political prisoner exposed me to, 
 rather than saved me from, the most inconsiderate treat¬ 
 ment at the hands of the prison officials. 
 
 But to return to proofs of my exceptional punishment 
 in Dartmoor. 
 
 On one occasion (I believe it was in the latter part of 
 1871) I was ordered by a warder to assist another pri¬ 
 soner in carrying a tub that answered the purpose of a 
 closet for eighty or ninety men, and on my refusing to 
 do so I was taken to the punishment cells, and kept 
 there—though not on bread and water—for three days, 
 until the doctor had inspected the tub and found that it 
 was too heavy for me to carry. 
 
 It was on that occasion I was told by the governor 
 that I was just like another prisoner, and that he could 
 not “ make fish of one and flesh of another.’’ 
 
 During the whole of Easter week, 1876, I was con¬ 
 fined to punishment cells, and underwent four days’ 
 bread and water, with deprivation of privileges of writ¬ 
 ing and class for two months, for simply refusing to 
 substitute “ sir ” for “ here,” when answering my name 
 to the assistant-warder in charge of the party to which 
 I belonged. He had no other object in insisting upon 
 this than to satisfy his vanity, unless prompted to in¬ 
 volve me in punishment by some of his superiors in this 
 manner. I had always been respectful in my language 
 towards this fellow, though his ruffianly conduct, 
 ignorance, and dirty habits, were by-words among both 
 officers and prisoners alike ; and on the occasion of his 
 reporting me my conduct had not changed towards him 
 in the least from what it had previously been. 
 
 The prison rules require prisoners to be respectful at 
 all times, but do not lay down specific terms to be used 
 in addressing warders. 
 
30 
 
 Hence, my punishment was nothing more than a gra¬ 
 tuitous piece of petty tyranny. 
 
 It is a rule in prison that a convict’s punishment, 
 over and above the ordinary penal discipline, is deter¬ 
 mined by his conduct as a prisoner, and not by the 
 nature of his offence. This rule is, generally speaking, 
 followed by the governor, if not by his subordinate 
 officers, in dealing with convicts. Both governors and 
 subordinates have reversed this rule in my case, I think, 
 as I have already shown. Several instances more can 
 be given. In addition to the same punishment I under¬ 
 went with the other prisoners, I was subject to closer 
 watching and numberless other annoyances, neither 
 authorised by the rules nor merited by my conduct. 
 During the first winter I spent in Dartmoor, I used to 
 find my cell rummaged and bed-clothes strewn about 
 the damp floor several times a week, and generally upon 
 wet days. I have often come into my seven foot-by- 
 four cell, dripping wet, after drawing a cart about like 
 a beast of burden in the Winter’s rain or snow, and, 
 with saturated clothes on my back, had to gather up 
 my bed and bedding, and put to rights what had been 
 disarranged for no other motive than to give me work 
 to do during my dinner hour, and thus deprive me of 
 whatever little pleasure I might otherwise enjoy. 
 
 Prisoners are not located in “ chokey ” or penal cells, 
 and subjected to the refined extra punishment of wit¬ 
 nessing the effect of starvation penalties on poor unrea¬ 
 soning wretches, unless they have committed some 
 breach of discipline meriting their being confined in 
 those cells, and even when sentenced to a term of loca¬ 
 tion there, they are removed at the expiration of that 
 term to their former classification. 
 
 From August 16th, 1876, until the 9th of November, 
 1877, Mr. Chambers and myself were located in the 
 penal cells, without our having committed any breach 
 of discipline whatever, or having been charged with any 
 intention of doing so. We were placed under what is 
 termed special surveillance, and once every hour dur¬ 
 ing the night an iron trap-door would be opened to 
 
31 
 
 inspect us, and banged to again with no more regard 
 to our being awoke by this noise than if we were Avild 
 beasts that had to be watched. 
 
 In addition to this, there was the howling of the 
 “ balmy blokes,” or madmen, the shouting and crying 
 of the poor fellows in dark cells upon bread and water, 
 and the singing of those who chose to satisfy their hun¬ 
 ger Avith a snatch of some favourite song. All this was 
 Hot very favourable to repose after a hard day’s work. 
 Once every twelve days I Avas shifted from one cell to 
 another in this “ chokey,” and had, in consequence of 
 this, to clean the dirty cells Avhich other prisoners Avould 
 leave behind. 
 
 I was also held responsible for anything that should 
 be found in a cell into which I might be removed. All 
 this Avas in direct contradiction to the letter and spirit 
 of the rules I was made to observe in every particular; 
 yet, when I over and over again complained of this 
 treatment to the present governor, Captain Harris, and 
 demanded an explanation of it, the answer I received 
 was that he did not consider me as suffering any parti¬ 
 cular hardship, and that he Avould not give me the 
 explanation I required. A man’s punishment is inten¬ 
 sified in proportion to the amount of injustice done him 
 in aAvarding the sentence he is undergoing ; and I think 
 the situation of a man in prison, Avho has for six years 
 borne the full Aveight of penal servitude, and has an 
 additional unmerited punishment heaped upon him, 
 Avhere he can neither avoid it, defend himself, nor obtain 
 redress, is one calculated to rouse the Avorst passions of 
 his nature, and drive him to desperation or madness. 
 To show conclusively that there was no cause for this 
 extra punishment to which I was subjected, beyond the 
 desire to add to my sufferings, I was removed from 
 those cells in November last by order of Director Fagan, 
 to Avhom I had complained of Iioav I was treated. Had 
 my conduct as a prisoner deserved this treatment, or 
 had there been any real necessity for my being placed 
 under special surveillance, he assuredly would not have 
 relieved me from either one or the other. 
 
32 
 
 Some idea can be formed of how jealously Mr. 
 Chambers and I were watched and kept apart, by the 
 fact that during the time we were located in the penal 
 cells there were no more than two cells between us, 
 and yet we found it impossible to exchange a word 
 with each other. We would not be allowed even to go 
 to chapel together, until this restriction was removed 
 by Director Fagan in November last. 
 
 I have so far confined myself in this, I fear, uninterest¬ 
 ing narrative of prison life, to, first, an account of my 
 treatment in various convict establishments, from which 
 some idea of penal discipline may be formed ; and 
 second, to detailing the additional punishment by de¬ 
 privation of privileges and otherwise to which I was 
 subjected, unquestionably on account of my being a 
 Fenian prisoner, as my observance of the rules was 
 uniformly strict, and therefore not meriting punishment. 
 
 I have not dwelt upon the “ sentimental ’’ part of my 
 treatment scarcely at all—the humiliating punishment 
 —the degradation of being placed on a footing, or 
 rather below, the vilest offscutn of crime and infamy. 
 Crime of the most revolting nature is but the subject 
 of boast among some of those unfortunate people. In a 
 word, the greater the degree of moral obloquy attached 
 to a crime, the greater is the estimation in which the 
 perpetrator of it is held among his associates. 
 
 No such thing as the law of moral obligation is 
 dreamt of in their philosophy. I recollect once being 
 appealed to for sympathy by a man or rather demon— 
 who complained against English justice in awarding 
 him penal servitude for life. I asked him what he had 
 done to receive it, and he unconcernedly replied that he 
 had outraged a young girl and then murdered her, adding 
 “ But she was a deformed thing, and to give a man 
 ‘ life ’ for that is a d-d shame.” 
 
 I think it was Lord Byron who once expressed a wish 
 to know how one felt after committing murder. I have 
 heard murderers repeat how they have felt. I have 
 listened to tales of murder and outrage without ever 
 hearing the slightest expression of remorse from the 
 
33 
 
 narrators, and I have had to listen to myself being 
 spoken to as “ chum,’’ “ pal/’ “ old boy,” “ friend,” and 
 all the terms of companionship in the parlance of crime. 
 
 I remember once being asked by a young thief what 
 burglary I had committed to receive so heavy a sen¬ 
 tence, and on my replying that I had not the honour of 
 belonging to the “ order,” he contemptuously retorted, 
 
 “ Oh, indeed ! I suppose you have chucked it up now, 
 but don’t try to make me believe you ever got fifteen 
 stretch (years) without stealing something.” 
 
 Yet there is another feeling arising from such asso¬ 
 ciation as this, besides the one I have alluded to, and 
 that, is one of pain and sorrow at seeing a class of men 
 exist in a Christian country and age, so steeped in crime 
 and immorality—so invincibly ignorant of the higher 
 sentiments and feelings of man, as to look upon the most 
 atrocious offences as only meriting applause, and creat- * 
 ing envy among the class to which they belong. 
 
 It stirs the indignation of the humane hearts of the 
 present day to see a dog or any other animal ill-treated, 
 as if it were capable of judging between right and wrong, 
 and had selected to act perversely to some one’s be¬ 
 hests. 
 
 Men whose early years have been vitiated in an 
 atmosphere of crime, whose recollections of childhood 
 are those of neglect, hunger, and theft, and whose after 
 lives have run in an orbit of iniquity, at once fixed and 
 repelled by the operation of that very influence which 
 should have rescued them from thence—the influence 
 of Society—such men can be scarcely any more respon¬ 
 sible, from a moral point of view, for the actions they 
 commit than the unreasoning animal which follows the 
 impulse of its passions. 
 
 We are told that it is natural in man to steal, and 
 that a child exemplifies the truth of this by trying to 
 get possession of whatever excites its desires. If a state 
 of society existed in which such a child would not be 
 taught the law of moral obligation, would it be a matter 
 of surprise to see it carry into manhood the uncorrected 
 impulse of its nature, and become an Ishmael of the 
 social commonwealth ? 
 
 c 
 
34 
 
 The society, law, government, or any other name you 
 please to call that power, which assumes responsibility 
 in a State that generates this class of men, is account¬ 
 able before God for the degradation of those whom 
 His providence had moulded in His own form, and 
 answerable to His justice for the inhumanity of their 
 punishment. * 
 
 A few days ago I stood before the statue of the 
 philanthropist Howard, in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and ex¬ 
 perienced the pleasure arising from a knowledge of the 
 misery alleviated, of the sufferings healed, and conso¬ 
 lation afforded, by the exertions of.a single man. I 
 bowed in reverence to the relics of one who had carried 
 a sympathetic heart into the dungeons of Europe, and 
 cheered by his presence those gloomy homes of woe and 
 despair. I wondered if his spirit were now looking 
 down upon the unchristian system which his country 
 had invented for the “ reformation ” of the unfortunate, 
 and lamenting that she, of all other lands, had profited 
 least by his teaching, and her criminal classes by his 
 exertions. What would he say of his country’s prisons, 
 where it is a punishable offence to share a morsel of 
 bread with a starving wretch in order to assuage the 
 hunger that often seeks to satisfy itself upon the most 
 repulsive things ? Would he not lament that England 
 had not invented some other means of punishment than 
 semi-starvation and the “ cat ’’—a more humane system 
 than one which generates the most fatal diseases, induces 
 insanity and paralysis, and arouses all that is bad and 
 vindictive in human nature to fix the habits of crime, 
 which have made those unfortunate people outcasts of 
 society? On Good Fiiday last I heard a paralysed 
 man appeal for a drink of water to a deputy-governor 
 of a prison, and the reply to that appeal was, “ You 
 have water inside your cell door, and if you want it you 
 can get up for it.” The man had. been carried out of 
 the infirmary, and put in a punishment cell nearly 
 opposite to mine—his offence was paralysis. He was 
 dragged on the floor to and from the governor’s office to 
 be reported and punished for—being paralytic! One 
 
85 
 
 more instance of how prisoners are “reformed” in 
 Dartmoor. In September last a party of convicts were 
 employed at haymaking outside the prison walls, in 
 charge of armed warders and guards. 
 
 One of the prisoners (a young lad named Murphy, 
 eighteen or twenty years of age), on being threatened by 
 a warder that he would be reported for not performing 
 enough of work, ran at the officer with a wooden, rake 
 and struck him (or attempted to do so) in the legs with 
 it. He was immediately felled to the earth by the staffs 
 of the warders that rushed upon him. 
 
 On witnessing this cowardly conduct, five or six men 
 in the party cried, “ Shame, for two or three officers to 
 knock down a boy in that manner.” The boy Murphy, 
 together with five men who had simply spoken as above, 
 were tried by directors, and sentenced to three dozen 
 lashes by the cat each, with twenty-eight days’ bread 
 and water, and ninety days' penal class in punishment 
 cells, and to wear cross irons night and day for six 
 months. 
 
 A volume could be filled with instances of this kind 
 where ipen are provoked to desperation by “ morality ” 
 teachers from the English army and navy, and then 
 punished by the “cat” and starvation, in order to instil 
 into them “ sound moral principles,” &c. In Chatham 
 prison alone no less than fifty men have voluntarily de¬ 
 prived themselves of arms, legs, fingers, and, in many 
 instances, life itself, in order to escape the terrible disci¬ 
 pline which destroyed McCarthy’s health and insured his 
 premature death. 
 
 This concludes a brief sketch of what penal servitude 
 really is ; and how myself and all those who have been 
 and those who are still, in prison for Fenianism have 
 been made to feel, not only all the unmitigated horrors 
 of penal discipline, but all that vindictive malice and 
 prejudice could do to aggravate our punishment and de¬ 
 prive us of every remedy against madness, and the hope 
 of ever leaving prison otherwise than debilitated in 
 mind and body for the remaining portion of our lives. 
 
 Among the eight political prisoners still incarcerated, 
 
36 
 
 there is not one, I believe, who does not complain of 
 either heart disease, consumption, or other affliction 
 equally indicative of a ruined constitution; and that 
 this is attributable to their long and inhuman punish¬ 
 ment, no candid mind can tor a moment doubt after the 
 verdict given on the inquest of Charles M‘Carthy. 
 
 Edward O’Connor, now in Spike Island prison, has 
 completed thirteen years of penal servitude, such as I 
 have attempted to describe. He has been flogged twice 
 or three times lor striking or attempting to strike 
 warders who have, in all probability, provoked him to do 
 this to give them an opportunity of involving him in 
 trouble and extra punishment. 
 
 Not many months ago he underwent twenty-eight 
 days’bread and water while afflicted with an abcess in 
 his hip, for some breach of discipline ; and though this 
 has been half denied by Sir M. H. Beach, it is neverthe¬ 
 less true, Edward O’Kelly’s truthful statement of the 
 fact to his sister being now confirmed by a recently- 
 discharged prisoner from Spike Island. “ Is the majesty 
 of the law” vindicated in O’Connor’s case, or is his sen¬ 
 tence to be practically death by fifteen year’s imprison¬ 
 ment and torture ? Answer, ye English philanthropists ! 
 John Dillon has had over eleven years’ experience of 
 “ Spike” also, and still lives suffering and silent. Robert 
 Kelly has recently been seen by his wife and little daugh¬ 
 ter, and the change in his appearance since last visited 
 is prophetic of a speedy end to his existence, if not 
 liberated. He is afflicted with heart palpitation, and has 
 to work notwithstanding, without any remedy to alle¬ 
 viate his suffering, or even sufficient nutritive food to 
 sustain him, as he has informed his wife, Edward O’Kelly 
 is also succumbing to the treatment which killed 
 McCarthy. Location in penal cells, loss of sleep, depri¬ 
 vation of exercise, special surveillance, &c., have induced 
 heart disease and insured a lingering death. 
 
 The fortunate professional burglar, “ O’Brady,” who 
 gave evidence against O’Kelly, was released “ on medical 
 grounds’’ while undergoing his second sentence. Would 
 K be in any way contrary to justice, Divine or human, 
 
37 
 
 to deal with the political offender in the same manner as 
 the thief has been dealt with ? 
 
 O’Meara Condon has completed over ten years of his 
 life sentence, and must inevitably have contracted a 
 shattered constitution from the sufferings which a decade 
 of penal discipline must necessarily entail. 
 
 Patrick Meledy has served the same term of years 
 with his companion in Portland, and complained when 
 last visited that his health was fast giving way. He has 
 received a large amount of extra punishment, and has 
 recently been denied the pleasure of seeing his brother 
 through some trivial offence committed against the prison 
 rules. 
 
 James Clancy was sentenced in 1868, and though en¬ 
 tering prison with an unimpaired constitution, he is 
 now, I am told by friends who have visited him, declin¬ 
 ing perceptibly. 
 
 Thomas Ahearn has finished ten years also, and is 
 now a complete wreck in mind and body. He was 
 treated while in Millbank as insane, and he is known to 
 the prison authorities to have been more or less so ever 
 since. Not a single letter has he written from Dart¬ 
 moor during the past nine years which did not contain 
 conclusive evidence of his mental disease. He has often 
 assured me when we have obtained a chance of exchang¬ 
 ing a word or two, that the judge who sentenced him 
 only gave him nine months, and that the public au¬ 
 thorities have changed that term to one of life. Nothing 
 can convince him but that this is true. He has often 
 sent me messages by other prisoners that he was to be 
 liberated on a certain day, and he would feel confident 
 that he should realise what his disordered mind had 
 prompted him to believe. He was once or twfice re¬ 
 ported for refusing to comply with the customary “ crop’’ 
 or weekly cutting-close of hair and beard, alleging that 
 his time whs up, and he was going home. He is now 
 afflicted with heart disease, and if not soon removed 
 from Dartmoor his time in this world is very short. 
 
 My object in bringing these facts before the public is 
 twofold. I am desirous, in the first place, to allow facts 
 
 
38 
 
 to corroborate the repeatedly denied assertion that my¬ 
 self and prison companions were treated with excep¬ 
 tional harshness, and subjected to heavier punishment 
 than ordinary convicts ; and, secondly, to demand an 
 inquiry into the complaints of similar ill-treatment made 
 by the eight remaining political prisoners by the com¬ 
 mission now supposed to be investigating the working 
 ot the Penal Servitude Act, in English and Irish convict 
 establishments. It is not irrelevant to the object for 
 which this commission was understood to be appointed, 
 to have James Clancy, of Portsmouth prison ; Thomas 
 Ahearn, of Dartmoor ; O’Meara Condon and Patrick 
 Meledy, of Portland ; and Edward O’Connor, John 
 Dillon, Robert Kelly, and Edward O’Kelly, of Spike 
 Island prison, examined by the said commission, and their 
 treatment under this Penal Servitude Act reported upon 
 by the same. 
 
 I have been informed, while in prison, that when in¬ 
 quiries have heretofore been made by commission or 
 otherwise, that select convicts have been brought for¬ 
 ward by the prison authorities to be interrogated as to 
 discipline, diet, and whatever other matters may have 
 been the subject of such inquiries upon which the testi¬ 
 mony of prisoners would be required. 
 
 As the treatment of the political prisoners I have 
 named has been, and is still, a public question, their 
 examination before the commission is but just to them¬ 
 selves and to the prison authorities, and also due to the 
 public in order to have from it an impartial judgment 
 upon the question. I would also respectfully submit 
 the following suggestions to the commission as to elicit¬ 
 ing facts and information touching the working of the 
 Penal Servitude Act and the management of convict es¬ 
 tablishments in England and Ireland :— 
 
 1st—That a competent medical authority be appoin¬ 
 ted by the commission or Secretary of State to inves¬ 
 tigate cases of hopeless heart disease and paralysis in¬ 
 duced by imprisonment ; and to examine prisoners’ 
 medical sheets and medical officers’ journals to discover 
 such cases and report upon same. And also to inspect 
 
39 
 
 the ventilation and sanitary arrangements in each 
 prison, and to report upon the fitness of the small iron 
 cells as sleeping compartments in respect to the quantity 
 of air thev are capable of containing. 
 
 2nd—That the justice of depriving permanent inva¬ 
 lids of a portion of the ordinary prison rations, and a part 
 of their remission of sentence by a reduced number of 
 marks per day, on account of being physically unable 
 . to perform heavy labour, be inquired into. 
 
 3rd—That the number of suicides and deaths by ac¬ 
 cident in Chatham, Dartmoor, Portsmouth, Portland, 
 and other prisons, since the Penal Servitude Act came 
 in force, be ascertained ; and that the penal records of 
 all such prisoners be seen by the commission, as also par¬ 
 ticulars of the inquests held. 
 
 4th—That the numbers of maimings by accident, 
 voluntary mutilations of arms, legs, &c., in Chatham, 
 Portsmouth, Portland, Dartmoor, and other prisons, 
 since the present Act came into force, be ascertained 
 the causes inquired into, penal records of such prisoners 
 seen, and the extra punishments undergone previous to 
 such accidents and mutilations, to be noted. Also the 
 character of the task or labour at which such prisoners 
 were employed when maimed, &c., to be inquired into ; 
 and men still in prison who have been maimed or who 
 have mul dated themselves, to be interrogated as to 
 causes or motives of their accidents or mutilations. Also 
 to ascertain what compensation by money or remission 
 of sentence has been given to prisoners who have met 
 with accidents during their imprisonment. 
 
 5th—That governors’ journals and prisoners’ conduct 
 bopks be inspected in each prison, and prisoners termed 
 “ incorrigible’’ or “ insubordinate” be examined by the 
 commission, their punishments inquired into, and the 
 causes of their insubordination. Also that punishment 
 cells be visited in each prison, and men found in same to 
 be examined as to diet and discipline of such prison ; 
 men found in hospital to be questioned on same points ; 
 and the commission to select, from among prisoners 
 who have been in such prisons longest, those it may 
 
40 
 
 desire to interrogate on discipline, work, diet, conduct 
 of warders, &c. 
 
 6th—The classification of convicts deserves the special 
 attention of the commission. Men who have under¬ 
 gone two or three sentences—rprofessional thieves 
 —are placed on the same footing and.in the same scale 
 of remission as those convicted for the first time for any 
 offence whatsoever. Boys sentenced to penal servitude 
 for the first time are associated with old and hardened 
 criminals if the time done of their respective sentences 
 correspond, and they are in the same “ party” and 
 “ class.” As a general rule the prisoners selected by 
 warders as “ standing orderlies” or “ ward assistants”— 
 those employed in “ special billets,” or “ post of respon¬ 
 sibility”—men in the cook and bakehouses—and 
 infirmary orderlies and assistants—are re-convicted con¬ 
 victs, men whose qualifications for such places, arise 
 from their ‘‘knowing their way about.” These are the 
 class which prison officials would have examined on 
 inquiries. 
 
 And— 
 
 7th—That the commission should inquire into the 
 fitness of pensioners from the army and navy for 
 performing the duties of warders and assistant-warders, 
 by examining into the moral and mental training of 
 such numbers of them as the Commission may deem 
 necessary for that purpose in each prison. 
 
 Believing that every effort will be made by the prison 
 authorities to screen the present system from censure or 
 exposure, and endeavour to have themselves whitewashed 
 by an exparte investigation into the management of 
 convict establishments, I earnestly press these few 
 suggestions upon the attention of the commission of 
 inquiry in the interests of truth and justice. 
 
 Michael Dayitt, 
 Ex-Treason-Felony Convict, 
 
 W. 822. 
 
 London, March 1878. 
 
EVIDENCE 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. MICHAEL DAYITT, 
 
 BEFORE THE 
 
 Commissioners appointed is onpire into the Working of tlie 
 Penal ServiMe Acts. 
 
 20 th ctuinee, i878. 
 
 PRESENT : 
 
 THE RIGHT HON. THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY 
 
 in the Chair. 
 
 Sir Henry T. Holland, Bart., ALP., K.C.M.G. 
 John Gilbert Talbot, Esq. M.P. 
 
 Samuel Whitbread, Esq, 
 
 Dr, Greenhow. 
 
 Edmond R. Wodehouse, Esq., Secretary . 
 
 You were convicted upon a charge of treason-felony on 
 the 11th of July, 1870, and were sentenced to fifteen 
 years’ penal servitude ?—Yes. 
 
 And you ivere released on the 19th of December last ? 
 —Yes. 
 
 You were specially released under license ?—Yes. 
 You were released before the ordinary time?—Yes. 
 The first convict prison in which you were confined 
 was Millbank ?—Yes. 
 
 Were you searched upon your reception at Millbank ? 
 Immediately on my reception I was taken into the 
 searching room and was stripped naked. The searching 
 
2 
 
 officer, after telling me to stand like this (the witness 
 extending ids arm ), and to open my mouth, ordered me 
 to turn round and stoop. I did so. He then ordered 
 me to stand wider, or to open my legs more than I did. 
 I begged to be excused from doing it, but he told me 
 that that was the rule, and that I should comply. He 
 then came and felt under my arm, and rubbed his hands 
 through my hair ; beyond that he did not touch my 
 person. 
 
 Who was present ?—Only the searching warder, the 
 principal warder ; I cannot recollect his name; he is 
 the officer delegated for that purpose. 
 
 Have you any complaint to make as to the cell in 
 which you were confined in Millbank, or of its arrange- 
 ments ?—My principal complaint in reference to the 
 cells at Millbank is that I was compelled to sit on a 
 bucket twelve inches high ; there was no stool whatever 
 allowed in the cell, and no table. This bucket answered 
 the double purpose of holding the water for washing 
 purposes and sitting upon in the performance of my 
 task. I was compelled to sit on this bucket for ten hours 
 every day. 
 
 Not ten hours at one sitting ?—1 was compelled to 
 sit on the bucket performing my task, and I was not 
 allowed to walk about the cell nor to lean my back 
 against the wall, but I had to sit in the centre of the 
 cell. Of course there was an hour for exercise, and 
 twenty minutes for service in the morning, but the 
 working hours were twelve, and I was compelled to sit 
 for ten hours every day on this bucket. 
 
 If you attempted to lean against the wall, were you 
 told that you must not do so ?—Certainly ; T should 
 be reprimanded and be told to shift my bucket to the 
 centre of the cell. 
 
 Did you ever sit against the wall ?—I did, and was 
 told that my proper place was in the centre of the cell ? 
 
 Was an officer constantly in your cell ?—Not con¬ 
 stantly in my ceil; there was an officer attending to the 
 ward, and looking through the inspection holes to see 
 whether prisoners were attending to their tasks or not. 
 
3 
 
 Do you mean that if you had stood up for a moment 
 to relieve the sitting position it would have been ob¬ 
 jected to ?—It would, if the officer had seen me, but of 
 course a man may stand up when the officer is not 
 looking. 
 
 Upon what work were you employed ?—Picking coir 
 and oakum. 
 
 If you had thought fit to stand up to pick your 
 oakum, would it have been -objected to ?—I cannot 
 answer that question, because I never stood up to do it, 
 and therefore I do not know whether it would be right 
 or wrong ; but I should think that if I could pick my 
 oakum standing up there might be no objection, if it 
 was done on the plea of easing my back. 
 
 In point of fact, the work on which you were em¬ 
 ployed could not be carried on standing up ?—Not by 
 me, because I had to put the oakum between my knees 
 and try to pick it, having only one hand. 
 
 Did you find that sitting so long in this posture, em¬ 
 ployed in picking oakum, had any prejudicial effect on 
 your health ?—I found that it was prejudiciaJfto my 
 health in the stooping posture, and sitting on a seat 
 which was so low ; it was very distressing on the che<||'‘ 
 When I was measured on my arriva^in Millbank I 
 measured 6 feet, and that measurement was entered. 
 On my departure from Millbank to Dartmoor I was 
 again measured, and I heard the officer say 5 feet lOf 
 or 5 feet 10^, I do not recollect which ; I think that it 
 was 5 feet 1 Of. 
 
 I will call your attention to the fact that in your 
 medical history your height is given as 5 feet lOf at 
 Millbank, 5 feet 10^ at Dartmoor, and 5 feet 10-| at 
 Portsmouth ?—Yes ; 6 feet was always my height. 
 
 You do not mean to say that it was entered as 6 feet, 
 because at Millbank the entry in the penal record is 5 
 feet 1 Of ?—I measured 6 feet when I entered Millbank ; 
 I remember being put under the stand, and there was 
 the same measurement in Clerkenwell and in Newgate ; 
 still it is just possible that a mistake has been made. 1 
 measure close on six feet now. 
 
 ✓ 
 
4 
 
 Without your shoes, of course ?—Without my shoes ; 
 I am 5 feet Ilf. 
 
 Have you any further statement to make with refer¬ 
 ence to the arrangement of the cells at Millbank ?— 
 There is one shaft in each ward at Millbank’ along which 
 heated air is sent; cells removed twenty yards from this 
 shaft are not in the least heated by it; therefore the cold 
 in those cells in winter is very intense. 
 
 I observe that, in the written statement which you 
 submitted to the Commission, you say that many 
 prisoners have lost the use of their limbs from the effect 
 of the Millbank winters ; do you know any instance of 
 that ? I have met many men in prison who complained 
 of having contracted chilblains and frost-bites in Mill- 
 bank ; and one instance, I believe, has been made pub¬ 
 lic where a man, I believe, was paralyzed through the 
 severity of the winter ; and there is another instance 
 of a man who was convicted of fenianism, Daniel Reddin, 
 he also complained that cold had something to do with 
 his paralysis. 
 
 At Millbank %—At Millbank. 
 
 Chilblains might, as we know, be contracted anywhere, 
 but did you ever know a case of a man who was frost¬ 
 bitten \—I have been told by several prisoners that they 
 have been frost-bitten in Millbank. I never was frost¬ 
 bitten, but I suffered from the severe cold in my feet. 
 Perhaps I may have confounded frost-bites and chil¬ 
 blains. I know that several men have contracted chil¬ 
 blains, and what they were pleased to tell me were 
 frost-bites, in Millbank, and I have seen the marks on 
 their hands. 
 
 You were allowed one hour’s exercise in the day ?— 
 Yes. For the last two months which I spent in Millbank 
 I was allowed by the doctor another half-hour’s exercise, 
 as I complained that my health was deteriorating through 
 the close confinement of 10 hours every day. I was 
 always compelled to wash the cell floors ; the stone floor 
 in Millbank has to be first washed and then scrubbed ; 
 a large stone and brush and cloth are supplied to each 
 prisoner for that purpose. 
 
Did you find that in any way distressing ?—I 
 found it very distressing. For instance, to squeeze the 
 water out of a cloth with one hand is very difficult. I 
 had to put half the cloth on the side of the bucket, and 
 press it, and so squeeze the water out, and then to turn 
 it round and repeat the operation. It would take me 
 three times as long to wash my cell as it would take 
 other prisoners. 
 
 Was no assistance ever given to you % —Never. 
 
 Did you ask for assistance ?—No ; I was told that I had 
 to do it. 
 
 How much oakum a day were you required to pick % 
 — I was not compelled to pick any given quantity ; that 
 was on account of my physical infirmity, but I was sup¬ 
 posed to sit for the usual working hours, and pick as 
 much as I could. 
 
 Did you ever complain to the officers of the difficulty 
 which you had in picking the oakum %—I did. At first 
 I was told that I should have to pick a certain quantity, 
 and I remarked that it would be impossible for me to 
 pick even half as much as a man who had two hands ; 
 then the officer remarked that he knew several prisoners 
 who were physically disabled as I was who managed to 
 pick a fair quantity with their teeth. But my refusal 
 to do so did not entail any punishment ; I was not. 
 punished. 
 
 When you were at exercise were you in single file, or 
 had you any communication with the other prisoners 
 at Millbank %—In single file, and not allowed to speak 
 at all. 
 
 In point of fact, during your imprisonment at Millbank, 
 had you much communication with the officers or pri¬ 
 soners in the way of conversation %—Simply that in 
 going to prayers in the morning, going along the corri¬ 
 dors, there would be an opportunity of exchanging a 
 word with a prisoner ; but officers are posted along the 
 corridors at a distance of about ten yards, and any pri¬ 
 soner who is found speaking is liable to be punished on 
 bread and water. 
 
 You area Homan Catholic ?—I am. 
 
G 
 
 Were you often visited by the Roman Catholic 
 priest ?—I think about four times while I was in Mill- 
 bank. The Roman Catholic priest in Millbank, and in 
 Dartmoor, seemed to avoid me on account of my being 
 a Fenian prisoner ; that is my impression. 
 
 There is a means of applying, if you wish to speak to 
 the priest, is there not, by putting your brush outside 
 the cell door • did you ever send for the priest ?—Yes, I 
 sent for the priest, I think, about four or five times 
 during my imprisonment. 
 
 When you sent for him did he always come ?— 
 Always. 
 
 Had you ever occasion to make any complaint to the 
 governor at Millbank %—Yes ; I complained to the 
 governor that I had not sufficient food, and he referred 
 me to the doctor. 
 
 What was the result of the application ?—The appli¬ 
 cation was refused ; the doctor (I think that it was 
 assistant-doctor Wilson) told me thathe could not grant 
 the application. I also complained to the governor of 
 the amount of exercise, and he referred me to the doctor, 
 and the doctor granted me an extra half-hour’s exercise 
 in the last two months that I was in Millbank. 
 
 Did you find the food insufficient ?—I did. I was 
 losing weight, and it was on that ground that I made 
 the application. 
 
 Besides your opinion that the food was insufficient, 
 had you any reason to complain of its quality, looking 
 upon it as prison fare ?—I found the quality at first 
 much better than I afterwards found it in Dartmoor ; 
 but the quality of the food in Millbank and at Dartmoor 
 is not always the same, especially of the bread; for a few 
 months it may be very fair bread, and then a new con¬ 
 tract maybe of very bad flour. In the prison the dif¬ 
 ference in the quality of bread from time to time is a 
 subject of general complaint. 
 
 1 observe, from the official entries, that you weighed 
 14,7lbs on arrival at Millbank, and that on discharge you 
 weighed 150^1bs. You gained 3<|lbs in weight; it is 
 not much ; but it proves that you did not lose weight ? 
 
7 
 
 That is very singular. I remember making an application 
 to the doctor (I think that it was after I had been for 
 five months in Millbank) to have my meat cut instead 
 of sending it in uncut and giving me a piece of tin in the 
 form of a knife to cut it with. 
 
 May you not at one time have lost weight, but gained 
 it again before you were discharged ? That must be the 
 explanation ; because when I made an application for 
 additional food, I was weighed by the doctor, and I told 
 the doctor that I was losing weight, and if that was not 
 the case 1 think that he would have told me that I was 
 not losing weight, 
 
 Might it not be the fact that the natural vexation 
 which any man would experience at imprisonment would 
 have an effect upon your health ? It might ; because 
 the first six or ten months of imprisonment are the 
 hardest to bear. With reference to Millbank, an order, 
 I think, was given by the governor, Mr. Morrish, who 
 is now one of the directors, that I was not to be employed 
 outside my cell. Prisoners in all convict establishments 
 have to do certain work outside the cell, and in Mill- 
 bank this is a privilege, whereas in public works prisons 
 it is not a privilege ; but in Millbank it is a privilege to 
 be removed from the close confinement in the cells. I 
 was strictly forbidden to be employed outside the cell. 
 
 That, I suppose, was from the fear of your making 
 some attempt at escape? I think so, but I am not certain. 
 There are boards in each ward containing a list of the 
 prisoners in that ward, and opposite each prisoner’s 
 name remarks are made by the governor’s orders, and 
 opposite my name I noticed the remark that, prisoner 
 Davitt was not to be employed outside the cell. With 
 regard to the bread, I found the bread for the first six 
 months in Millbank very fair for a prison, but for the 
 last three or four months it was very bad indeed. The 
 cheese was very bad in Millbank at that time. It was 
 the worst that I have seen in any convict establishment 
 in which I have been. 
 
 Did you find the bedding insufficient ?—In summer 
 it was sufficient, but not in winter. The arrangement 
 
8 
 
 for the beds in Millbank is somewhat, similar to the 
 arrangement in the punishment cells in public works 
 prisons—there is a sort of platform, raised about four 
 or six inches from a stone floor, and the draft coming 
 in under the door in winter makes it very cold. 
 
 You were allowed two blankets?—Two blankets, a 
 sheet, and a rug. Some of the blankets were 10 or 12 
 years old. I do not recollect the blankets ever being 
 washed while I was in Millbank. In reference to the 
 clothing there is another complaint which I wish to 
 make, namely, that when men were shifted about from 
 cell to cell, a prisoner in Millbank at that time was not 
 permitted to take his bedclothes with him, he had to go 
 and sleep in bedclothes in which another prisoner had 
 lain ; and I have often found the bedclothes soiled with 
 human soil. 
 
 Including a sheet ?—Sheets and blankets too I think 
 that there is now a rule that prisoners on being removed 
 take their sheets with them. 
 
 Were you allowed books in your cell ? I was allowed 
 four small religious books, two school books—one of 
 which was an arithmetic book and the other a geography, 
 mere school books suitable for a man who had received no 
 education ; and I was allowed one library book, which 
 was changed once a fortnight. The Catholic prisoners 
 in Millbank would not be allowed the same books as the 
 Protestant prisoners ; and it is a notorious fact that 
 the books supplied to the Catholics in the convict estab¬ 
 lishments are very poor in comparison ; so much so that 
 numbers of men who have been Catholics during one 
 term of imprisonment become Protestants in the next 
 term, and they say that it is on account of the superior 
 books. 
 
 May there not be some difficulty in finding a sufficient 
 supply of books to which the Catholic priest, might not 
 make objection ?—The Catholic priests object to such 
 books as the “ Leisure Hour,’' and the “ Sunday at 
 Home” and “ Good Words,” and serials of that sort, 
 which are very interesting reading in the prison ; the 
 Protestant prisoners are allowed those privileges. 
 
9 
 
 I mean that there being much fewer such Catholic serials 
 in English than Protestant serials, there might be a 
 difficulty in finding a sufficent supply of interesting 
 books ?—I think that the objections against those serials 
 by the Catholic priests is on account of their being anti- 
 Catholic. There is, no doubt, a restriction. I com¬ 
 plained twice to the priest in Millbank ; and it Avas in 
 order to.make a complaint with referenceto the books that 
 I sent for him on one occasion, and I pointed out to 
 him that the books were mere childish books, of course 
 useful Avith regard to giving religious instruction, but 
 as library books certainly not such as should be issued 
 to prisoners. 
 
 You Avould desire to see the library books changed 
 more frequently than once a fortnight? Yes; I made 
 an application to the priest. 1 first had the opinion of 
 the officer in charge of the ward, to whom I should 
 complain Avith reference to the library book being only 
 issued once a fortnight, and he referred me to the priest. 
 I saAv him, and he told me that he could not grant me 
 the privilege of a more frequent change, as if he did so 
 he must grant it to everybody else. 1 Avas not excep¬ 
 tionally treated in that respect. When I make a remark 
 like that, I wish it to be understood that Avith reference 
 to the books I Avas no Avorse treated than other prisoners 
 were. 
 
 Hoav often did you have a bath ? In Millbank we 
 were supposed to Avash our feet once a Aveek, and to 
 have a full bath once a fortnight. One bath often 
 served half a dozen men, to my knoAvledge. 
 
 The same Avater Avas used? The same Avater. In 
 ward 4, pentagon 5, AA’here I Ayas located, I. think that 
 there Avas a total of 30 men ; the baths in pentagon 5, 
 I think, numbered about six ; and it Avas very seldom 
 that the Avater Avould be renewed more than twice for 
 the 30 men. 
 
 Did the 30 men all Avash on the same day ? Y"es, 
 AAdien at exercise ; that Avas the time alloAved for bath- 
 ing ; so that the time which Avas taken up for bathing 
 Avould be deducted from the exercise. 
 
10 
 
 Were you often searched at Millbank whilst you were 
 there, or was your cell searched ? Yes, I was often 
 searched. Two officers are sent round to each ward, 
 and they enter each man’s cell, and he is compelled to 
 strip naked in the presence of those two officers. 
 
 Did this occur frequently ?—On an average about 
 once a month. 
 
 Was the examination the same as on your reception ? 
 Yes, with this exception, that I was not compelled to 
 stoop as I was on my reception at Millbank. In 
 addition to this, the officer in charge of the ward would 
 frequently come into my cell and examine the bars and 
 the walls, and would often see that I had nothing con¬ 
 traband in my pocket. 
 
 Were you ever stripped in the presence of any other 
 prisoner ? Not in Millbank. On bathing day six or 
 eight prisoners would strip together naked at Millbank. 
 
 What was the conduct of the warders at Millbank ; 
 did you find it to be annoying and vexatious, or on the 
 whole do you think were you fairly treated by them ? 
 They never used any violence to me, as they very often 
 did to other prisoners ; but they watched me more 
 closely than they watched any other prisoner, and I be¬ 
 lieve that they had orders to do so. 
 
 Did you ever see any warder commit violence towards 
 any other prisoner? Often. If a prisoner is suspected 
 of having tobacco or anything which is not allowed by 
 the rules, the officers, if they think that he has tobacco 
 in his mouth, will rush at him and seize him by the 
 throat, one before and one behind, or, as they say in 
 prison slang, will “choke’’ him to prevent his swallowing 
 the tobacco. I have seen that scores of times. 
 
 Did you ever see officers strike prisoners with their 
 staves? Not at Millbank. I never saw a warder fell a 
 prisoner in Millbank, but I have often seen officers fell 
 prisoners elsewhere ; that was when a prisoner would 
 attempt to strike a warder or use threatening language. 
 At Millbank I have simply seen warders “ choke’’ 
 prisoners as the term is. 
 
 When the choking which you have described was 
 
11 
 
 done, it was supposed that a man had tobacco in his 
 mouth which he would swallow if he had any opportu¬ 
 nity of swallowing it, and the officers immediately 
 stopped him from doing so? Yes. 
 
 Generally, with regard to the imprisonment at Mill- 
 bank, did you form any opinion apart from your own 
 individual treatment? I formed this opinion, that very 
 little effort was made to reform these men in Millbank. 
 The treatment appeared to me too harsh. 
 
 Is there anything further which you wish 
 to add as to Millbank? Simply with reference to 
 visits. I was due for a visit in Millbank, and I 
 made an application to the governor, and he told me 
 a couple of days afterwards that I could not see the 
 party whom I applied to see. He would not give me 
 any reason for his objecting to my seeing this party ; 
 that party was my most intimate friend, and he had 
 been a witness for me on my trial. The governor 
 referred me to the visiting director, who, I think, was 
 director Gambier, and he would give me no explanation, 
 but merely said that I should not be allowed to see 
 that friend. I first applied to see Mr. Haran ; I after¬ 
 wards applied to see Mrs. Forrester, and an order from 
 the Secretary of State was read to me that I should not 
 be allowed to see Mrs. Forrester ; but no reason was 
 given to me for their refusing to let me see either of 
 those two persons. 
 
 The next prison to which you went was Dartmoor ? 
 Yes. 
 
 In what part of the prison were you placed at Dart¬ 
 moor ? I was first located in the separate cells ; that is 
 the punishment part of the prison, what in slang is 
 called “ the choky,” where incorrigible prisoners were 
 confined. I was not so placed on account of my mis¬ 
 conduct, because I had not been reported while in 
 Millbank. 
 
 Those cells are not in themselves, from a prison point 
 of view, uncomfortable cells, are they ? They are not. 
 They have this advantage over the iron cells, that they 
 are larger and better ventilated; but with reference to a 
 
12 
 
 seat and a table, and the noise in the punishment cells, 
 the noise precludes the possibility of sleeping at night, 
 and in consequence of this they are worse cells to be 
 located in. 
 
 When you speak of the noise, do you mean the noise 
 of refractory prisoners shouting and screaming ? Yes. 
 
 Otherwise the ventilation and the air space of the 
 cells are decidedly superior as compared with the cor- * 
 rugated iron cells ?—Decidedly so. While I was in 
 Dartmoor I made repeated applications to the governor 
 to be removed from those cells, and I stated my objec¬ 
 tions to him, the principal one being the noise, which 
 prevented my sleeping at night. 
 
 You are probably aware that the reason why you 
 were placed there was for your safe custody ? I believe 
 so, but I was never told so ; I simply asked why I was 
 so placed, and why I was treated differently from the 
 other prisoners. 
 
 You also may be aware that it was from special 
 order, and not from any caprice of the governor? I 
 suppose that it may have been from special order, but 
 I was not given to understand that. There might be 
 something outside which might influence the parties in 
 so treating me. 
 
 No reason was assigned to you? No reason was as¬ 
 signed to me. In addition to being located in those 
 cells 1 was removed every 10 or 12 days from one cell 
 to another, and that was con trary to the usual prac¬ 
 tice. 
 
 Were you afterwards removed to the corrugated iron 
 cell ? I was located in the punishment cells for one 
 week after my reception from Millbank. Then I com¬ 
 plained of being placed in those cells, and I was 
 removed on that complaint to the ordinary iron cells, 
 and 1 remained there for, I think, five years, except 
 when under report, in which case I would be sent back 
 to the punishment cells. 
 
 Those iron cells were used only for sleeping purposes? 
 Only for sleeping purposes. 
 
 Had you any reason to complain of them? I had. I 
 
V- 
 
 13 
 
 complained to the governor on several occasions that 
 the ventilation was defective, and that there was not 
 sufficient light, and I requested to be removed to cells 
 better ventilated and with more light. One complaint 
 in reference to that was, I think, in May 1874, when I 
 was removed from the landing set apart for first class 
 prisoners to a top landing, to make room for Protestant 
 prisoners coming into that prison from No. 3 prison in 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 You mentioned just now that you were removed to 
 the punishment cells on a report. During the time 
 that you were at Dartmoor what punishments did you 
 receive ? I received one day’s bread and water on, I 
 think, the 1st of January, 1872. The next punish¬ 
 ment on bread and water was in Easter week, 1876. 
 
 You went to Portsmouth for a short time? Yes, in 
 1872. I remained in Portsmouth for five weeks. 1 
 was reported in Portsmouth for giving away bread to a 
 prisoner, and I was deprived of a number of marks, and 
 of the privilege of writing for a month. 
 
 On two other occasions you received two days bread 
 and water? Yes. 
 
 What was the offence for which you received the bread 
 and water on the first occasion? The officer charged me 
 with having a pencil and paper in my cell ; he opened 
 my cell door, seized me, and brought me out into the 
 hall, and another officer came and caught hold of my 
 hand, and I was taken into a back room and searched, 
 but no pencil or paper was found upon me; the officer 
 told the governor that I had swallowed both ; of course 
 I did neither, I did nothing of the sort. 
 
 On the second occasion you were punished with a 
 day’s bread and water, and the loss of 24 marks, for 
 refusing to have your hair cut, and for insolence. That 
 was in 1872, on my return from Portsmouth, I may 
 say that the cause of that was, that I sent out a com¬ 
 munication with a discharged prisoner as to how I was 
 treated going to Portsmouth, and with reference to 
 certain matters which occurred in Dartmoor ; I think 
 that that was the cause ; no cause was given why mv 
 
 2 
 
14 
 
 beard was to be cut off. I asked the reason for it, and 
 I was told that no reason would be given. 
 
 Is not the beard usually clipped short? All the men 
 convicted of treason-felony were allowed to grow their 
 beards and hair after the Devon Commission, I think, 
 had investigated their treatment. In reference to the 
 hair cutting, when I refused to consent to having it cut 
 without the reason being assigned for it, I was taken 
 by six warders and forcibly held in a chair until my 
 beard was cut. 
 
 You were punished for resisting? Yes. 
 
 You were punished on another occasion with two 
 days bread and water for not answering properly to 
 your name on parade? Yes. While under the charge 
 of that officer I had generally answered to my name 
 “ Here,” as the majority of the prisoners at Dartmoor 
 were accustomed to answer, and no objection whatever 
 had been taken to my answering in that manner. On 
 this occasion, without any provocation on my part, 
 the officer demanded of me that I should “Sir” him, 
 saying that he was entitled to “ Sir,” and that he would 
 let me know that I had to “ Sir ” him. I simply replied 
 'that 1 had answered to my name as I had been accus¬ 
 tomed to do, and that if there was anything wrong he 
 could report it to the governor. 
 
 And that was the consequence? That was the conse¬ 
 quence. Another punishment which was inflicted upon 
 me, not by bread and water, was being detained in the 
 punishment cells for three days for refusing to carry a 
 portable closet. 
 
 Was that in Dartmoor?—In Dartmoor. I think it 
 was in 1872, when Major Hickey was governor of Dart¬ 
 moor. 
 
 That, as I understand, was a direct refusal to comply 
 with some order; Whether the order was a just one or 
 not is another question, but there was a direct refusal to 
 comply with the order ?—Yes. 
 
 Were you placed upon penal diet on that occasion ? 
 No ; I was simply confined to the cells until the medical 
 officer would investigate the case, and after investigating 
 
15 
 
 it he found that what I was asked to do was more than 
 1 could perform with one hand ; therefore I was not 
 punished on bread and water, but was confined in the 
 punishment cell. 
 
 Not in a dark cell ? No. 
 
 How long upon that occasion were you confined in 
 the punishment cell ? I think for three or four days. 
 You must draw a distinction between the penal class 
 cells and the punishment cells. 
 
 Referring again to the iron cells, you complain very 
 much of the want of ventilation in those cells ? I com¬ 
 plain of the want of ventilation and the want of light. 
 When I was transferred in, 1 think, May, 1874, to make 
 room for prisoners coming into No. 2 prison from No. 
 3 prison, I was placed in a ward which was not set 
 apart for first-class prisoners, but for men in the proba¬ 
 tion class, and it is the worst ward in the prison ; it is 
 the top ward ; the heated air ascends in the summer, 
 and it is very difficult to breathe. 
 
 The ventilation is by an opening under the door ? 
 By an opening under the door only. 
 
 Is there no communication with the outer air ? There 
 was such a communication in Portsmouth, but not in 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 Were any other prisoners removed at the same time 
 to make way for these new prisoners ? All the Catholic 
 prisoners. 
 
 And these were prisoners for all sorts of offences ? Yes. 
 
 Then you were not singular in being removed ? Not 
 in that respect; but I complain of being removed as a 
 first class man to make room for another first class 
 man, and being put into an inferior ward. 
 
 The want of this ventilation at the top of the cell is 
 in the 4th ward ? Yes. In reference to the want of 
 ventilation over the door, it is the same in the other 
 ward as in the top ward. 
 
 But in the other wards there is a ventilation in the 
 upper part of the cell as well as under the door, is there 
 not ? There is a better escape in the other cells for the 
 foul air, but not in the top cells ; the air is tainted in 
 
16 
 
 those top cells in Dartmoor ; the means is not sufficient 
 to take away the whole of the foul air. 
 
 Were any of the other prisoners who were removed on 
 that occasion first class prisoners as well as you ? Yes. 
 
 Did you find that the air in these wards and iron cells 
 became foul towards morning? Very much so, in 
 summer especially. I may remark that on one occasion 
 in Dartmoor I was specially located in 122 cell, .No. 3 
 ward, opposite the watercloset; and the watercloset on 
 that landing consisted of three tubs, in which, the human 
 soil was preserved for manure. This closet, with those 
 three tubs, which answered for 84 men, was at a distance 
 of about ten feet from my cell, and those tubs were not 
 emptied from Saturday night until Monday morning. I 
 complained of this, and asked to be removed, but it was 
 not done. 
 
 Was no soil employed to prevent a smell arising? 
 Yes ; black soil was brought in for the purpose of being 
 thrown over the excrement. 
 
 And was it thrown over it ? Every prisoner is sup¬ 
 posed to throw some over when he uses the closet. 
 
 Was it thrown over, as far as you know ? I cannot 
 say that it was actually done, but every prisoner was 
 supposed to do it; but I do not think that throwing the 
 soil over would keep down the offensive smell. 
 
 These cells were some of them very dark, were they 
 not ? Very dark. 
 
 Did you find a difficulty in reading in them ? I found 
 it impossible to read in some of the cells on the top 
 landing. I have often laid down at my full length on 
 the floor to put the book under the door in order to 
 get sufficient light to read it, 
 
 It was considered by prisoners a privilege to be in 
 that portion of the cells which was less dark ? It was ; 
 repeated applications were made to the governor to be 
 put in such cells. In reference to the closets to which 
 I have alluded, in addition to their being used by each 
 prisoner separately, I may state that on a morning when 
 the nightslops were collected by the orderlies, they were 
 all thrown into a sink in this closet, and it would be 
 
17 
 
 impossible to keep down the offensive smell from that 
 sink. This closet was opposite the cell where I was 
 located, some ten feet distant from my cell. 
 
 You found that the effluvium was very foul ? It was 
 very offensive, and especially on the Sunday, as the con 
 tents were not emptied from Saturday night until Mon- 
 da}'' morning. 
 
 Did you suffer in health from this effluvium ? I suf¬ 
 fered in health from the bad ventilation of the cells on 
 the fourth landing, and I made an application to the go¬ 
 vernor, Major Noott, to be removed from this landing, 
 but he would not remove me. 
 
 Is it not the case that afterwards you were removed to 
 a lower cell ? On application to the doctor, after the 
 governor refused, 1 was removed to No. ] landing, as 
 spots had broken out on my chest. 
 
 A portion of the prison has, I believe, been rebuilt; 
 a new wing, with stone cells of a superior kind, has 
 been constructed at Dartmoor ; was any of it constructed 
 whilst you were there ? The whole of it was constructed 
 whilst I was there, and I assisted in the building of it ; 
 I was employed in various portions of that work, and I 
 was located in that wing, I think, for two months before 
 my discharge. 
 
 The accommodation in those cells is far superior to 
 that in the iron cells ? Yes ; and the ventilation is 
 everything that is desirable, and the light is far superior. 
 In reference to that particular wing, I may remark that 
 it is very damp in winter, and on the average I should 
 say that fifty prisoners complain in a w r eek about the 
 damp cells in winter. The stone of which it is built is 
 very porous. 
 
 That probably would be the case at first in any build¬ 
 ing, and especially so in that damp climate ? Yes. They 
 are very superior cells in the summer time. 
 
 Did you find any difference in the food at Dartmoor 
 as compared with Millbank ? I found a marked differ¬ 
 ence. I found that the food w r as far inferior to that either 
 at Millbank or at Portsmouth. I may remark w ith re¬ 
 ference to Portsmouth that the general belief amongst 
 
IS 
 
 prisoners is, that the food there is what it ought to be. 
 The food in Dartmoor I found to be the worst in quality, 
 and the filthiest as compared with the food at any prison 
 that I have been in; that refers to the bread and the meat, 
 but especially to the potatoes. The quantity of potatoes 
 allowed to each prisoner in AJillbank was one pound 
 per diem, and the quality of the potatoes was very fair 
 for a prison ; but in Dartmoor I found the potatoes far 
 inferior. I may say that for six months I did not, on the 
 average, eat a pound of potatoes in a month, as they 
 were so unfit for food. 
 
 Were any other vegetables substituted ?—For about 
 four months 12 ounces of carrots were substituted for 
 12 ounces of potatoes, and for about one month a 
 pound of cabbage was substituted for the potatoes. The 
 12 ounces of carrots which were supplied in lieu of 12 
 ounces of potatoes for about four months in the year I 
 found it impossible to eat; they were steamed, and at 
 that time they were not even washed, and it would 
 require a man to be ravenous to eat them. I found it 
 impossible ever to eat the 12 ounces which were given, 
 on account of their being dirty and of bad quality; they 
 were such carrots as farmers in the north of England 
 give to their cattle. In reference to the quantity of 
 food, it is a subject of general complaint amongst pri¬ 
 soners in Dartmoor that they do not get the proper 
 weight. Every prisoner is allowed to have his food 
 weighed, but this gives a certain amount of trouble to 
 the officers, who have to accompany the prisoner to the 
 cookhouse, and the officers of course do not like having 
 this duty put upon them by troublesome prisoners, as 
 they call them, and it is often the cause of prisoners 
 being reported because they give trouble to the officers. 
 
 W T hat would you suggest as the remedy for that, the 
 prisoner having now an opportunity of having his food 
 weighed, if you find that that does not answer?—I would 
 suggest the non-employment of prisoners in the cook¬ 
 house. I find that men employed in the cookhouse, 
 having sufficient to eat, are about the worst enemies 
 that the prisoners have ; they eat the food themselves 
 
19 
 
 which should be supplied to the prisoners. A certain 
 quantity of food is sent in to the cookhouse for the total 
 number of prisoners, and those men who are employed 
 in the cookhouse eat it whenever they can get an oppor¬ 
 tunity. The result is that they are men who generally 
 gain a large amount in weight while they are employed 
 there, and I would suggest that only officers, or men 
 connected with the establishment, should be employed 
 in the serving out and the weighing of the food. 
 
 You say that you would have the officers employed 
 in weighing the food ?—In weighing and serving out 
 the food in the cookhouse, and T would have no prisoner 
 so employed at all. 
 
 In point of fact, do not the officers of the prison 
 superintend the weighing?—They are supposed to 
 superintend it, but the fact is that the work is left in 
 the hands of prisoners. 
 
 Then you would suggest that the cooking department 
 should be served by people from outside, subject to the 
 supervision of the officers of the prison ? Yes. Another 
 complaint is, that in the prison cookhouse the officers 
 who are employed in the prison who are not married 
 have their food cooked in the prison, and that so much 
 time is devoted to this that the food of the prisoners is 
 not properly attended to ; and the general impression, I 
 think, which the public have in visiting those cook¬ 
 houses is that the food which they see there being- 
 cooked and prepared is for the prisoners, whereas it is 
 very likely for the officers who are messing inside the 
 prison. I have often in ’Dartmoor received a pint of 
 shins of beef soup which I could not eat, as it appeared 
 to have been made from putrid meat; that is very 
 frequent in Dartmoor. I never found that soup in Mill- 
 bank but what I could eat it, but in Dartmoor I have 
 found that I could not touch it. 
 
 Did you yourself make complaints of the character of 
 the food ? I never made any special complaints with 
 reference to the food, as it was a general rule for 20 or 
 30 prisoners to be complaining every week to the 
 governor, and no attention seemed to be paid to those 
 complaints. 
 
20 
 
 Did you ever make a complaint yourself which was 
 not attended to ? I never made a complaint in reference 
 to the food. I made a complaint in reference to beino- 
 located in bad cells, and that complaint was not at¬ 
 tended to. 
 
 Who was the governor? Major Noott was the 
 governor at the time that I complained of the want of 
 ventilation and light in No. 4 landing. 
 
 But in the case where you say that you could not eat 
 the soup, because it appeared to have been made of 
 putrid meat, you did not complain of it ? No, except 
 in general terms, when I was asked by the director 
 whether I had any complaints to make. I complained 
 in last November, I think to director Fagan of my 
 general treatment; but, as a general rule, men who make 
 complaints bring down the antipathy of the officers upon 
 them, and it is a means of getting into trouble. 
 
 You have spoken of the food in Dartmoor having been 
 bad. Was it bad in any other respects besides that the 
 soup was putrid and the potatoes were bad ? And the 
 bread was far inferior to what it was in Millbank or in 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 Did you yourself find anything foul in the food 
 besides the bad smell which you have spoken of? I often 
 found beetles in the bread, and in the pound of suet 
 pudding which was sent out every week, and in the 
 skilley or water gruel, and in the tea. 
 
 How often did you find beetles there ? On several 
 occasions. 
 
 On how many occasions ?* I should think that I found 
 beetles 20 or 30 times in my bread while I was at Dart¬ 
 moor. 
 
 How long were you there 1 Six years and six months. 
 
 Thirty times is the outside ? Yes. 
 
 Did the other prisoners complain of finding the same 
 articles ? It was a common occurrence; in fact the cook¬ 
 house and the bakehouse there swarmed with them, 
 and the difficulty was how to get rid of them. I have 
 heard some of the officers at Dartmoor remark that they 
 threw boiling water over the floor at night time, but 
 
21 
 
 that does not destroy them. In reference to the pre¬ 
 paration of the food, I may say that in Dartmoor it is 
 dirtier than in any other prison. Each man gets his 
 food in a separate tin, and there are, I think, three 
 prisoners told off in the cookhouse at Dartmoor to wash 
 1,000 tins every day, and I think that it is impossible 
 for three men to wash 1,000 tins in two or three hours. 
 I always found the tins in Dartmoor to be very dirty, 
 and often filthy, as if they had not been at all washed 
 from the previous day, and those dirty tins would give 
 a taint to the food which was contained in them, Avhen 
 perhaps, it was not t he fault of the food. 
 
 Did you ever see prisoners eat candles or anything 
 else of that description ? Yes, I often saw prisoners eat 
 the remnants of candles, and I was often asked by 
 prisoners to give them the remnant of my candle to eat. 
 It was a common occurrence in Dartmoor for men to be 
 punished for eating candles. 
 
 What reason did they allege for eating those candles ? 
 Hunger, not having sufficient food, I generally found 
 them to be men of large stature, men who had not suf¬ 
 ficient food to sustain them. I noticed a man on one 
 occasion eat a poultice which he found in some rubbish 
 which was being carted away. 
 
 Is it your opinion that the diet, supposing it to be 
 sound ot its kind, is insufficient'? It is insufficient for 
 a man of large stature, a man say six feet high, and 13 
 or 14 stone in weight, and working at hard labour in 
 Dartmoor ; I should think that it is impossible for him 
 to retain his weight or his’ health on the amount of food 
 served out to him. 
 
 Taking the prisoners at Dartmoor generally, from 
 what you could see, were you of opinion that they 
 suffered in health and lost their strength from want of 
 sufficient food ? I am of opinion that those men in 
 Dartmoor who were employed at hard work, drawing 
 carts and quarrying stone, suffered in their health from 
 the want of food ; but it is the rule in Dartmoor and 
 in other prisons, that men complaining of losing weight 
 are admitted to the Infirmary, and have extra diet given 
 
22 
 
 them until they recover their flesh ; that is especially 
 the case in Portsmouth. I think that men employed 
 in Portsmouth at labour called “pugging up,’’ that is 
 wheeling clay to the brick manufactory, are weighed 
 once a month, or once every two months, and if they 
 are found to have lost weight they are sent to the 
 infirmary. As regards Portsmouth, I must say that I 
 have no complaints whatever to make with respect to the 
 food ; the food in quality was what it was expected to 
 be, and it was in quantity, I think, fair to the prisoners. 
 At Dartmoor there are a large number of men employed 
 in light labour, namely, in the tailors’ shop, and the 
 shoemakers’ shop, and there I think the food would be 
 sufficient even for a man of large stature ; but for men 
 working on bricks and quarrying stone, I am of opinion 
 that the food is not sufficient, and I think that the work ¬ 
 ing on hard labour at Dartmoor must be injurious to 
 the men’s health. 
 
 On what labour were you employed at Dartmoor ? 
 First, in breaking stones for a week or a fortnight until 
 my hand became blistered from using the hammer. I 
 was then put into a cart-party drawing coals, stones, 
 rubbish, &c. Eight men constituted the cart-partv, and 
 my particular cart-party supplied the prison with coals, 
 and drew rubbish about, and stone, and carted manure ; 
 and that particular coal cart-partv, as it was then 
 called, was employed, in fact, -wet and dry. 
 
 Returning to the subject of the food, did you see 
 more than one person eat a poultice ? Only one ; I only 
 mention that in my statement. 
 
 These are your own words, “ I have seen men eat 
 “ poultices found buried in heaps of rubbish ’’ ? I have 
 seen one man, named Harrison, eat a poultice, but I 
 have seen several men eat remnants of candles. 
 
 Have you seen men eat candles which were found in 
 any unusual situation ? Yes ; I have seen a man named 
 Ahearn, who was convicted in Canada and sentenced to 
 five years for desertion, find remnants of candles in the 
 cesspool which we were clearing out at the time, and 
 rub them on his breeches and eat them. That 
 
23 
 
 man subsequently died, I think in Portsmouth 
 prison. 
 
 Was he the only man that you have seen eat this 
 sort of rubbish ? He was the only man that I have seen 
 eat remnants of candles taken out of the cesspool, but I 
 saw numbers of men eat remnants of candles. 
 
 Was anythin" else found in the food except black- 
 beetles ? Blackbeetles and sometimes horsehair, and 
 pieces of old broom with which the bakehouse and cook¬ 
 house were swept out, were found in the bread and in 
 the soup, and bits of stone occasionally. I have often 
 found pieces of coal in the shins of beef soup. 
 
 Will you proceed with your statement as to the work 
 on which you were employed ? After being for about 
 a month, I think, in this coal cart-party, in pulling a 
 cart, one dsiy the collar which I wore across my breast 
 caught the remnant of my right arm and almost forced 
 the bone through the skin. I went and saw the doctor 
 on the following morning ; he was then, I think, assistant 
 doctor King, who was afterwards removed to Ports¬ 
 mouth. On examining the stump of my arm he excused 
 me from the cart labour ; I was then put back to break¬ 
 ing stones ; I remained at stone breaking for a number 
 of months, and then was employed about the new prison, 
 which was being built at the time. My particular em¬ 
 ployment there was assisting in mortar making, carrying 
 tubs of water to the men who were employed in making 
 mortar, and then using a large rake to stir the mortar 
 up. I was next employed in winding up stones with a 
 large iron crank ; four men would be told off for this 
 labour, and I was one of the four, and I should be ex¬ 
 pected to turn as much as a man who had two hands, or 
 I should be putting on other men and making their task 
 harder. 
 
 Were you afterwards employed in breaking bones ? 
 Yes ; afterwards I was employed in breaking putrid 
 bones, and pounding them to make manure of, in a small 
 shed which was built near the prison cesspool. I was 
 employed at that occupation during the whole of the 
 summer of 1872, with the exception of the five weeks in 
 which I was in Portsmouth. 
 
24 
 
 Bat other men were employed with you ? Yes ; the 
 number would average 20 or 30, and was often down 
 to 6. 
 
 Have you any special complaint to make, not as 
 regards yourself, but of the manner in which the work 
 ■was conducted ? I complained, and asked the gover¬ 
 nor, who was then Major Hickey, to remove me to some 
 other employment. I complained that it was unhealthy, 
 that the smell was offensive, and that it was injuring 
 my health ; he told me that he could not remove me 
 without the doctor’s order, and the doctor refused to 
 remove me. 
 
 Then do you complain of the doctor refusing to re¬ 
 move you ? I complain of the doctor leaving me in 
 that employment while he admitted me to be an invalid. 
 I may remark that we were all invalids who were em¬ 
 ployed at that labour, and that my being employed at 
 that labour in summer time in this low shed, and being 
 employed in the winter outside in breaking stones, was 
 very significant, and that it should not be the employ¬ 
 ment of men who were looked upon as invalids, or even 
 of able-bodied prisoners. 
 
 Do you think that this stone-breaking was unfit for 
 a one-armed man ? It was unfit for any man in the 
 winter at Dartmoor, as the cold there was intense ; but 
 it was not very laborious for me, excepting that I was 
 constantly using the hammer from morning to night; 
 it is not considered hard labour in Dartmoor. 
 
 As a punishment for convicts generally, would you 
 see any objection to it ? It is not fatiguing ; my objec¬ 
 tion to it was being employed in winter in the open air. 
 
 Who was the doctor of whom you complain as having 
 decided against you ? Dr. Powez was the medical 
 officer to whom I complained of the bone shed. 
 
 Free men would be employed in the open air-.nn the 
 winter at such work as you have mentioned, would they 
 not ? I expect so, but men employed outside would 
 have warmer clothing and better food than I should 
 have, and they would not be compelled to work every 
 day ; they would not be compelled to break stones on a 
 
cold day when rain and sleet would alternate, and they 
 would have shelter. I do not wish it to be understood 
 that I was compelled to work no matter w’hat the wea¬ 
 ther was. If the rain came down in torrents of course 
 I should be taken into ashed. 
 
 On a very rainy day the men would not go out to 
 w T ork ? No. If the rain was falling when the men 
 came back from prayers they would be employed in the 
 prison in picking oakum or coir ; but if they are sent 
 out in the morning before the rain commences, and if 
 the rain sets in at 9 or 10 o’clock, they are placed under 
 some shelter to see whether the rain will cease ; if it 
 cease, although they may have got a wetting, they go 
 out again, and it is repeated. 
 
 Do you think that they are subjected to more hard- 
 ships in that respect than ordinary agricultural labourers 
 would be subjected to? I should think that they are, 
 because an agricultural labourer can seek shelter im¬ 
 mediately, whereas no prisoner can leave his work until 
 he is ordered to do so. Any officer having his men 
 under shelter without there being sufficient cause for it, 
 if he is found by his superior officer with his men unem¬ 
 ployed is fined, and the officers are very reluctant to 
 give the order for the men to fall in to go under shelter 
 until there is proof that there is good reason for it. 
 
 May I ask you what was your ordinary occupation 
 before you were in prison ? My occupation immediately 
 previous to my arrest was that of a commercial traveller 
 in firearms, that was for twelve months previous to my 
 arrest, and previously to that I was employed in a 
 printing office in Haslingden, near Manchester. I was 
 assistant letter carrier there for some years. 
 
 You were employed in all weathers? I was em¬ 
 ployed in all weathers, and 1 %vas also employed in a 
 printing office attached to the post-office. 
 
 During the severe weather at Dartmoor there was 
 some protection given to the men, was there not ? Yes, 
 there are large sheets of the material of which the cells 
 are built, namely, corrugated iron, and they are simply 
 raised up out of the bogs, and the men go behind them 
 
26 
 
 for shelter when the rain comes on ; but I had to break 
 stones in winter when snow was falling, and was on the 
 ground. I had to remove the snow in the morning 
 from the stones in order to find the stones to break, 
 and I had to stand in the snow. 
 
 Is there not some protection given at Dartmoor to 
 the hands by a bag or a glove when prisoners work in 
 the open air? Yes; that has been the case since 1872. 
 A small bag made of the same material as the prisoners’ 
 jacket is supplied. The men were laid up with chilblains 
 and were incapable of work, and then an order was 
 issued, I think, that they should be supplied with those 
 bags or gloves. 
 
 The winter at Dartmoor, I presume, is severe from 
 its being so high ? Yes ; it is the severest climate in 
 which I have been in the United Kingdom, and the 
 winters there are very long, lasting from November 
 until May. I have seen snow on the ground there in 
 June. 
 
 And there is a great deal of wet ? Yes. 
 
 How long were you a letter-carrier ? I was assistant 
 letter-carrier from 1861 until 1867 at Haslingden. 
 
 Were you out every day? Not every day. If the 
 general postman was away on other duties, I took his 
 place; but I carried the mail-bags to the railway station, 
 I think, twice a day during those years. I may have 
 occasionally^ missed a day. 
 
 How far had you to carry those bags ? About three- 
 quarters of a mile to the railway station. 
 
 Twice a day ? Twice a day. 
 
 You did not stop if it was bad weather ? No. The 
 postal circuit in Haslingden was very extensive; I often 
 had, perhaps, to travel three miles to deliver a letter 
 up on the hill-side. 
 
 "When you arrived at Dartmoor were you searched ? 
 No, I was not stripped as I was in Millbank. 
 
 That must have been special in your case, must it 
 not ? I take it for granted that it Avas special, although 
 I do not know that it was so ; the fact is that I was not 
 searched on iny arrival at Dartmoor. 
 
Prisoners at Dartmoor are searched on arrival ? They 
 are; but on my departure to Portsmouth prison in June 
 1872 I was searched, and was stripped naked in the 
 presence of 29 prisoners who were going with me ; we 
 were all stripped naked in what is called the reception 
 room, and our clothes were searched ; and on my arrival 
 back again in Dartmoor from Portsmouth on the 16th of 
 July I was searched; only one prisoner came back with 
 me, and we were both searched together. That is a 
 customary rule. 
 
 During the time that you were in Dartmoor were you 
 frequently searched ? Frequently. 
 
 And stripped ? There are three kinds of searching. 
 The first kind is the ordinary rubbing down ; the jacket 
 and vest have to be opened and the cap taken off, and 
 the officer rubs the prisoner down from the neck to the 
 ankles ; he is supposed to avoid the private parts, but 
 it is customary for officers who go beyond their duty to 
 insult men by touching them in that particular place. 
 I may remark that it is not a general rule, but it has 
 been done to me, and it is generally done by officers 
 who bear very bad characters, who are looking for op¬ 
 portunities to report men, and who often create oppor¬ 
 tunities by touching them in that manner ; I must say 
 that this does not apply to the generality of officers. 
 The prisoners can often conceal bread in their trousers. 
 
 I suppose that as a general rule you have no fault to 
 find with that searching ? I think that it is a rule that 
 ought not to be applied to a man who is not capable of 
 murdering a warder; a man who is in prison for an 
 offence which involves no moral obloquy ought to be 
 exempt from it. I think that it ought to be dispensed 
 with in the case of a man who is imprisoned for a poli¬ 
 tical offence. 
 
 But with regard to prisoners generally, those who are 
 guilty of ordinary offences, do you think that those 
 searchings could be dispensed with ? I think so. I think 
 that some other method could be adopted, less offensive 
 to a man’s honour and feelings, than this searching four 
 times every day. 
 
What plan could be adopted ? I am not prepared to 
 suggest a plan which would be better than that; but I 
 think that those who have the control of prison establish¬ 
 ments could invent some other plan. 
 
 You have spoken of a man having the intention of 
 murdering a warder ; but without having any such in¬ 
 tention he may be desirous, especially if he is a clever 
 fellow,of concealing some tool for the purpose of escape. 
 How is that tool to be discovered except by searching ? 
 I admit that some system of searching is necessary in 
 order to keep up prison discipline. 
 
 Y ou also admit that, except in the case of warders 
 who go beyond their duty, and bad and ill-conditioned 
 warders, the searching is decently conducted? Yes. It 
 is a fact that men conceal things in that particular 
 private place, and an officer may suspect that something 
 is concealed there, and may touch a prisoner in that 
 manner simply to discover it, and it may not be his in¬ 
 tention to insult the prisoner ; but in my case, as nothing 
 contraband was ever found upon me, I think that when 
 I have been so touched it was intentional, to provoke 
 me to a breach of discipline. 
 
 Were you often touched in that manner ? I do not 
 say very often, but I have repeatedly been insulted by 
 one or two officers ; one of them was the man who 
 reported me for refusing to “sir” him; he was a man who 
 had a particular antipathy against me for some reason or 
 other. 
 
 Were these searches made by that man after you refused 
 to “ sir’ him, or before ? Both before and after. He 
 was most particular in searching, and I think that he 
 often went beyond his duty in that respect. 
 
 Was he equally particular with other prisoners ? I 
 think that he was in reference to the searching. 
 
 What is the next kind of search ? The next kind of 
 search is the ordinary turning over on the searching 
 of parties. The convicts are divided into parties; 
 the parties may number 80, or may be only five or six, 
 and at regular intervals those parties are taken into 
 the punishment cells (a place is set apart for searching 
 
29 
 
 as well as for punishing prisoners), and each man is 
 stripped to his shirt, his clothes are carefully looked over 
 by a warder, and then he has to open the button of his 
 shirt, and his wristbands, and to hold out his hands, and 
 to open his mouth, and the officer rubs down the body 
 outside the shirt, back and front, and the prisoner 
 must stand in that condition until the officer looks over 
 his clothes, and then he dresses himself. 
 
 How long does that search occupy ? About five or 
 seven minutes, sometimes more, according to the officer’s 
 dexterity in searching the man. 
 
 Do you mean five or seven minutes to each man ? 
 There is one officer to each man. If there are more men 
 than officers, the men for whom there are not officers 
 available have to stand in the presence of another officer 
 while the other men are being searched, and then when 
 an officer has completed searching one man he takes 
 another. 
 
 Have the convicts to stand naked, excepting their 
 shirt, whilst the officer is examining the other prisoners ? 
 The prisoner first divests himself of his clothes before 
 the officer examines any of the clothes, then the officer 
 rubs his hand down his body, and then he makes him 
 open his mouth ; he then examines the drawers, and 
 the man then puts on the drawers, and he then examines 
 the stockings, and they are put on, and so with every 
 article of dress. 
 
 You have said that when the officer is not ready to 
 search a man, he has to stand until the officer comes ; 
 does he stand divested of all his clothing except his 
 shirt for some time before the officer comes ? No. If 
 there are a number of prisoners more than there are 
 officers to search them, those prisoners are ranked along 
 in single file until the others are searched. 
 
 Keeping their clothes on ? Yes. 
 
 What are the stripping searches ? The stripping 
 searches are special. If an officer suspects a prisoner 
 of having anything concealed on him, such as a piece of 
 paper, or a pencil, or tobacco, or a nail, he can go to 
 the principal warder and have that man stripped naked* 
 
 3 
 
 \ 
 
30 
 
 No man can be stripped naked without the order of 
 the principal warder ? No. That is one case where a 
 man is stripped naked ; another case is that at night 
 after the men are in their cells, after the day’s employ¬ 
 ment, if a warder suspects that a man has anything 
 contraband in his cell, he can bring the prisoner out on 
 the landing and strip him there naked, and have his cell 
 turned over and searched in the meantime. 
 
 Without reference to the principal warder ? The 
 principal warder is in the prison, and the principal war¬ 
 der gives the order to the warder on the landing to 
 search whatever prisoners he thinks necessary. Then 
 when a man is reported, no matter whether he has 
 committed himself or not, if he is reported even on a 
 groundless charge, he has to be stripped naked on 
 reaching the punishment cells ; he is stripped naked in 
 the hall outside, and then goes into the cell, and his 
 clothes are searched and thrown in afterwards. Those 
 are the different kinds of searchings. 
 
 Is a prisoner stripped in the presence of any other 
 prisoner in any of those cases % In the last case, if two 
 prisoners are reported at the same time, the searching- 
 may be going on in the same hall, so that both prisoners 
 will see themselves searched. In the preceding case it 
 is in the cell. 
 
 Does the warder touch your person when you are 
 naked in any way ? I have never been so touched when 
 naked, but I have heard prisoners say that they have 
 been touched, of course you can take it for what it is 
 worth. 
 
 Then your remark in your paper about being touched 
 in an indecent manner by a warder whilst being searched 
 applies only to the rubbing down ? Yes; I have never 
 been touched when stripped naked ; I have simply been 
 asked to stand wide and hold out my hand wide, and 
 open my mouth. 
 
 Have you ever been made to stoop while being 
 searched? Never in Dartmoor, only in Clerkenwell, 
 and on my reception in Millbank. 
 
 Had you a bath regularly at Dartmoor ? I had a 
 
31 
 
 whole bath once a fortnight, and a bath once a week for 
 feet washing ; but while I was employed in the wash¬ 
 house, for I think about eighteen months, I was allowed 
 the privilege of an entire bath every week, as the work 
 was very laborious, and the men sweated very much. 
 
 Was the water of these baths changed, or had more 
 than one prisoner to use the same water ? The water 
 is supposed to be changed when prisoners bathe all 
 over, but prisoners are not often fortunate enough to 
 get a clean bath tor bathing all over. For instance, 
 three wards may have to bathe in one night, the first 
 ward that goes down will get clean water, then it de¬ 
 pends upon the prisoner who has charge of the bath 
 whether the next batch will get clean water or not; it 
 is an amount of labour for him to turn off the dirty 
 water from 30 or 40 baths, and he very seldom does so ; 
 but the order is that when a prisoner bathes all over he 
 is to bathe in clean water. 
 
 Is not a warder present at the bathing ? Three or 
 four warders are present. 
 
 Is it not their business to see the * water turned off ? 
 No ; but it is their duty to see that the prisoners pass 
 nothing and do not misbehave themselves. Complaints 
 are made to the warder by the prisoners that they find 
 the water dirty, and he complains to the principal 
 warder. 
 
 Have you known, as a fact, of the water after one 
 prisoner has bathed being left for another bath ? Yes. 
 
 Do you actually know of your own knowledge that 
 the water is used a second time for a second batch of 
 prisoners ? I do, and I have often refused to bathe on 
 that account. The baths at Dartmoor are worse con¬ 
 structed than in any other prison. In washing your 
 feet it is an understood thing that the water is not to 
 be changed. In two or three wards the men may wash 
 their feet in one water, and that is according to order. 
 
 With regard to the warders generally at Dartmoor, 
 did you think that their treatment of the prisoners was 
 generally fair, or the contrary ? While Major Hickey 
 was governor there, I think that the warders exceeded 
 
32 
 
 their duty, as Major Hickey appeared to be negligent 
 of his duties, and I think that he was afterwards re¬ 
 moved from Dartmoor on that account. 
 
 You found an improvement afterwards in the conduct 
 of the warders ? I found an improvement as far as the 
 prisoners generally were concerned under Major Noott, 
 the governor who succeeded Major Hickey ; but I found, 
 as regards myself, that the change was much worse, as 
 Major Noott appeared to have some particular antipathy 
 against me, in punishing me for simply refusing to 
 “ sir ’’ an assistant warder, and I found that he always 
 refused my applications. 
 
 Did you see any warder strike a prisoner in Dart¬ 
 moor ? I have often seen warders strike prisoners in 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 Was that on the occasion of an attempt on the part 
 of a prisoner to assault a warder ? It Avould be gene¬ 
 rally through the prisoner using threatening language 
 to the warder, or threatening to strike him, and the 
 warder would strike the prisoner with his staff. 
 
 Did you see any prisoner severely injured in that 
 way ? I saw a prisoner knocked down in that way 
 without any provocation whatever; it was a man named 
 Ruotta, an Italian, who had been sentenced to five 
 years ; he made an attempt on the life of the governor 
 of Woking prison by striking him with a nail one 
 morning on coming out of chapel; he was tried again 
 and got 20 years’ imprisonment. He was doing his 
 probation in Millbank at the same time that I was, and 
 I noticed that he was constantly under punishment ; 1 
 think that a single week did not pass by while I was in 
 Millbank that he was not under punishment. He after¬ 
 wards died in Dartmoor. On proceeding to Dartmoor 
 I found that he was there also, and I saw him in the 
 punishment cells on the first day that I arrived there. 
 He was shortly afterwards found with a large nail in 
 his possession, concealed in his sleeve, and he got, I 
 think, 28 days bread and water for it. I lost sight of 
 him lor about 18 months, and when I saw him again 
 he had lost his right arm. I was told that it was 
 
33 
 
 through leaning against the damp walls of the punish¬ 
 ment cells under the infirmary at Dartmoor; that morti¬ 
 fication set in, and that the arm had to be amputated. 
 I was told this by prisoners. On finding that he had 
 lost an arm I inquired of the prisoners how it was, and 
 they gave me this account. I saw him with only one 
 arm going across the parade one morning ; he was then 
 attached to the tailors’ party, and he appeared so weak 
 that he could not keep step, and was lagging behind. I 
 saw the officer strike him with his staff, not on 
 the whole arm, but on the shoulder where the arm had 
 been amputated, and he fell on the parade ; I saw this. 
 I saw principal warder Coffey go across to the officer 
 and appear to reprimand him for striking the prisoner ; 
 the prisoner was taken to the punishment cells, and I 
 did not see him for about three or four months after¬ 
 wards. 
 
 After he had been knocked down, as you say, was he 
 taken to the punishment cells ? He was taken to the 
 punishment cells, but whether he was sent from there to 
 the infirmary or not I do not know. I know that he 
 was taken in the direction of the punishment cells, which 
 were at right angles to the infirmary. 
 
 What sort of blow was it ; was it a severe blow which 
 would have knocked an ordinary man down ? I saw 
 the officer strike the man on the shoulder, and I saw 
 the man fall ; but he was in a very weak state of health, 
 and it would require very little to knock him down. 
 
 Were you near enough to ascertain the reason of his 
 being struck down ? The reason appeared to me to be 
 that he was not keeping up with the party. 
 
 Was there any altercation ? I was not near enough 
 to see it. I was then attached to No. 31 party, which 
 fell in at the bottom part of the parade, and this man, 
 when he was knocked down, was about 50 yards distant 
 from where I stood ; it was not perhaps fifty yards, but 
 1 will say 50 at the outside. He died about four months 
 after I saw him. 
 
 Did you observe any difference between the conduct 
 of the warders who had been in the naval or military 
 
34 
 
 service and the conduct of those who had been civilians? 
 I noticed that warders drafted from the army or the 
 navy were more severe; they liked to show their 
 authority more than warders drafted from the artizan 
 class ; and I found officers from the artizan class gene¬ 
 rally more intelligent, and appearing to me to perform 
 their duty better (that is, with regard to the reformation 
 of prisoners) than officers drafted from the army or the 
 navy. 
 
 Would those warders of whom you are speaking be 
 for the most part trades warders ? Trades warders ; but 
 there were very few in Dartmoor. The principal number 
 of the warders in Dartmoor appeared to be from the 
 army and the navy. 
 
 You have mentioned several times that statements 
 have been made to you by prisoners ; was there much 
 communication between prisoners at Dartmoor ? On the 
 Sunday prisoners are allowed to exercise together. A 
 prisoner who is promoted to the first class has three 
 periods of exercise on Sunday ; he can walk with what¬ 
 ever prisoner the officer chooses that he should walk 
 with on Sunday ; and this is generally the mode of com¬ 
 munication. In working, it is almost impossible for one 
 officer over a party to prevent talking, although the 
 penalty for talking is bread and water; but the principal 
 means of communication is by the exercise on Sunday. 
 
 Apart from that opportunity do you think there is 
 much communication between prisoners ? There is ; 
 they get hold of pieces of pencil and communi¬ 
 cate one with another, despite the vigilance of the 
 officers. 
 
 Did you hear much foul and disgusting language 
 amongst prisoners ? Yes, often ; in fact the general run 
 of prisoners appeared to be men who delighted in that 
 sort of conversation, and I have often heard it in chapel 
 during service ; men pretended to be following the 
 prayers, but they were holding conversation with a pri¬ 
 soner either on one side of them or in front of them, 
 taking advantage of the prayers, which were said loudly, 
 to carry on this conversation, passing remarks on the 
 
35 
 
 ceremony, and using foul and filthy language ; in fact; 
 that appears to be the general discourse amongst the 
 majority of men whom you meet in convict establish¬ 
 ments ; that and accounts of their exploits, the celebrated 
 burglaries in which they have taken a part, and boasting 
 of this to men who have not had the honour of being 
 convicted three or four times. An offender of that sort 
 is looked up to in prison by the general run of convicts. 
 
 Looking at it from an outside point of view, you would 
 think it desirable that such conversation should be re¬ 
 pressed ? I certainly should. 
 
 Should you then desire to see all the Sunday associa¬ 
 tion, while the prisoners are walking, stopped ? I should 
 not desire to see it stopped entirely, because that would 
 punish men who would not deserve to be so punished ; 
 but I would suggest that men should be classed accord¬ 
 ing to their crimes ; that habitual criminals should be 
 kept entirely separate from men convicted for the first 
 time, and that old gaol birds should on no account be 
 allowed to associate with young boys. Even in chapel 
 I have noticed what I should be almost ashamed to men¬ 
 tion, attempts made even in chapel. 
 
 You mentioned just now that prisoners are able to 
 communicate with each other by having pencils ; how 
 do prisoners get pencils ? In every prison there is a 
 joinery department, and in Dartmoor 40 or 50 men are 
 allowed the use of pencils ; although those pencils are 
 counted by the warder who is in charge of the party, 
 they manage to steal some of them, and it is a matter 
 of barter, a man stealing a pencil will sell it to a man 
 who wants it for a loaf of bread. 
 
 They do not get those pencils from the warders % No ; 
 there may be instances where a warder would give a 
 prisoner a pencil, but it would be at the risk of being 
 dismissed, and probably imprisoned. 
 
 Do you think that the warders are in the habit of 
 introducing things into the prison for prisoners % There 
 have been a few cases in Dartmoor where warders have 
 been detected in trafficking with prisoners, and they 
 have been dismissed, but it is not general. 
 
Did you observe tobacco in the possession of prisoners? 
 Tobacco is often found. 
 
 How does it get in ? The general supposition is that 
 it is brought in through the instrumentality of some 
 warder, or from men who work outside the prison walls. 
 In going outside the prison, these men working in cart- 
 parties, and so on, often have cigars and prices of tobacco 
 thrown down to them by passers by, purposely for the 
 men to pick them up. Then men are employed outside 
 in repairing houses and so on, and they very often pick 
 up tobacco from the people whom they meet, although 
 they are in charge of a warder. 
 
 When they are walking in association, are the pri¬ 
 soners able by a little shifting of place to get next to 
 «ome man with whom they want to walk ? There was 
 a good deal of that, but for the last 12 months in Dart¬ 
 moor it was strictly forbidden ; the officers w r ere ordered 
 to report any man who had changed his place ; under 
 the present orders in Dartmoor a man must fall in 
 exactly where his officer places him. 
 
 After he has once been placed, is it not the case that 
 occasionally the prisoners change places ? Yes; a 
 prisoner may go to a man who is before him when the 
 officer’s face is turned, but he does it at the risk of being 
 reported. In 1871, 1872, and 1873, the prisoners in 
 Dartmoor were invariably allowed to select men to 
 walk with on Sunday — that was by order of Major 
 Hickey—but that privilege was never allowed to me ; 
 when I asked to walk with a particular man in prison I 
 was not allowed to do so, but that privilege has now 
 been entirely discontinued. 
 
 In this association you would separate criminals of 
 old standing from others, and wptfld place them toge¬ 
 ther, and not allow them to communicate with prisoners 
 who had been convicted only once, or perhaps twice ? 
 Unquestionably I would. I think that that is the great 
 evil of the present system—namely, allowing old crimi¬ 
 nals to be associated with young prisoners. 
 
 ' To a certain extent that, of course, would throw the 
 old criminals together, and might require pyrhaps a little 
 
more supervision on the part of the warders ? Yes ; 
 but it would require all the less supervision in reference 
 to the prisoners from whom they would be separated. I 
 believe that numbers of men are corrupted, and are 
 made habitual criminals, by association with those men; 
 and it is generally habitual criminals who carry on the 
 trafficking in ppson, and involve men who are new to 
 prison life in difficulty by their taking part in it. 
 
 Did the priest frequently visit you at Dartmoor ? I 
 think that he visited me about four or five times during 
 the six and a half years that I spent in Dartmoor ; but 
 I may remark that if I wished to see him I had the 
 same privilege of seeing him as other prisoners had. He 
 is supposed to go round at stated intervals to see every 
 prisoner; at least he had the practice of going rouncf 
 in former years to visit prisoners periodically. 
 
 Was there confession after chapel ?—He sees a cer¬ 
 tain number of men for confession every week. 
 
 Does he see them in their cells ? In their cells. 
 
 You made a statement that Mr. Francis, the chaplain, 
 was removed from Dartmoor for protesting agqinst the 
 ill-treatment of some prisoners ? I was told that that 
 was the reason why he was removed. He was a Pro¬ 
 testant gentleman, and generally saw both Protestant 
 and Catholic prisoners, and he interfered if they were 
 unduly punished or got too severe a sentence passed 
 upon them. I was also told that he often reprimanded 
 officers for using abusive language to prisoners, and 
 threatening to report them for non-performance of their 
 task ; and I was told that complaining to the Board of 
 Directors of how a prisoner had been treated in the 
 punishment cells at Dartmoor he was removed ; I do 
 not know whether that is true or not; that I know only 
 upon the statement of prisoners, and it must be taken 
 for what it is worth. I think that the gentleman is now 
 in Glasgow, but I am not surer 
 
 In your statement you mention that the medical men 
 who are appointed to be the prison surgeons are insuf¬ 
 ficiently educated ? That is the general belief amongst 
 
38 
 
 prisoners, and from my own experience I certainly should 
 think so. 
 
 You think that they are not competent men ? I think 
 not. 
 
 Can you give any illustration which would show that 
 they are not competent ? I can. There is one instance 
 of a prisoner named Madden, whom I often observed to 
 fall out to see the doctor in the morning when going 
 out to work. Those men who fall out to see the doctor 
 are called “ casual sick,’’ and after seeing the doctor in 
 the infirmary, they are sent down to light labour to 
 work until the dinner-hour. I noticed that this man 
 fell out several times to see the doctor, and he was 
 never admitted to the infirmary to my knowledge. One 
 morning I observed him drop dead on the parade, and 
 I believe that it was from heart disease, or from burst¬ 
 ing a blood-vessel or something of that sort. 1 think 
 that when he was examined by the doctors, if they had 
 had sufficient knowledge to have detected his disease, 
 they would have admitted him, to the infirmary. 
 
 Is that the only case ? No. Another prisoner named 
 Mason, who was employed in the stone cart-party, often 
 applied to the medical officer to have some information 
 as to what his internal disease w r as ; he complained of 
 something inside which he could not exactly define, 
 and no relief was given to him. I noticed that one 
 Sunday he left the Catholic chapel very pale, and he 
 died on the following Wednesday from ossification of 
 the lungs. I think that if the doctor had been skilful 
 enough he could have detected that man’s disease. With 
 reference to the want of knowledge of the doctors, there 
 is another case, the case of a man named Fraser, who 
 had been an army chaplain ; he got a five-years’ sen¬ 
 tence for forgery, I believe ; he was evidently a gentle¬ 
 man by education, I noticed him at exercise one Sunday, 
 I think about nine months ago, and he appeared to be 
 healthy and having nothing particular the matter with 
 him. He went to the infirmary the following morn- 
 ing and complained about a stricture from which he was 
 suffering. He was operated upon, and the operation 
 
>. 
 
 39 
 
 was so unskilful that he died under it; and the general 
 belief among the prisoners was that he died owing to 
 the unskilful manner in which he was treated. 
 
 In a case like that, and in the other case of ossification 
 of the lungs, you of course are speaking of the general 
 belief of the prisoners ? Yes, and from my own ob¬ 
 servation ; observing prisoners falling out repeatedly and 
 seeing the doctor, and not getting any relief, and those 
 prisoners afterwards dying, I conclude that the death 
 was accelerated by the cause which I have mentioned. 
 
 What was the name of the medical officer who per¬ 
 formed the operation of which you have spoken ? Dr. 
 Anderson, the assistant officer, assisted by the medical 
 officer, Dr. Power, I think. Dr. Power is the medical 
 officer of Dartmoor prison, and has been so since I first 
 went there, so that he would examine all prisoners com¬ 
 plaining ; but the principal amount of the work is left 
 to the assistant medical officer, and the assistant medical 
 officer was changed three or four times while I was in 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 Dr. Anderson was the medical officer who attended 
 Mr. Fraser? He was the assistant medical officer at 
 that time, so that I presume that he would attend him. 
 
 Is it the custom for the senior medical officer to see 
 the casual sick ? It is not generally so ; he occasionally 
 does inspect them, but the principal work of inspecting 
 and examining convicts devolves on the assistant medical 
 officer. 
 
 And you cannot tell who the officer was who saw 
 these three prisoners who died ? I cannot. It might be 
 either one or both of the medical officers. 
 
 Did you often hear prisoners who applied to the 
 medical officer as to some ailment from which they 
 suffered, complain that the medical officer did not 
 examine them ? I have heard general complaints from 
 all the prisoners about the want of attention of the 
 doctors. 
 
 Especially upon that point ? Especially upon that 
 point. 
 
 Was it a common complaint of prisoners that they 
 
40 
 
 were not examined, meaning that their body was not 
 examined, or their heart or lungs tested ? I have heard 
 men complain that they were not sufficiently examined. 
 Every man has the right of being examined by the 
 doctor if he demands an examination ; but the general 
 complaint which I heard was that the doctors had no 
 knowledge of internal diseases and did not know what 
 remedy to apply. 
 
 Do you happen to know whether the prisoner who 
 dropped down dead was examined by auscultation, by 
 placing an instrument to the chest ? I do not know. I 
 noticed his falling out repeatedly, and when he came 
 down from the infirmary he was put to work at breaking 
 stones, and I noticed, him dying. I was not surprised 
 at his dropping down dead. 
 
 At what time does the assistant-surgeon attend to see 
 the casual sick ? The casual sick fall out in the morning 
 from their respective parties. They are marched up to 
 the infirmary, and each man is stripped naked. 
 Formerly he would be admitted inside the infirmary 
 before he would be stripped. When I left Dartmoor he 
 had to strip outside in the porch, the entrance to the 
 infirmary. 
 
 Is that a covered place ? It is covered, but there is a 
 door opening from the yard in. It is a stone porch. 
 
 Do the prisoners strip in a place which has neither 
 windows nor doors, but has merely a cover ? There are 
 windows. It is entered into from the yard to the porch, 
 and inside this door I understand that the prisoners have 
 to strip. 
 
 Do you know that of your own knowledge ? No ; I 
 have not been stripped outside myself, but I have been 
 inside. Prisoners are stripped in this porch now, and 
 have then to wait in a hall in the infirmary for two 
 hours until the medical officer or his assistant comes 
 round to hear complaints. 
 
 They do not wait stripped the w r hole time ? No ; they 
 are stripped merely to be searched by the warders; they 
 are stripped naked. 
 
41 
 
 And they are allowed to dress again immediately. 
 Yes. 
 
 And then they wait until the medical officer comes 
 round ? Yes. 
 
 Did I understand you to say that they waited for two 
 hours ? The parties march out to work at seven in the 
 morning, and the men who want to see the doctor fall 
 out. They go to the infirmary, and the doctor conies 
 round between ten and half-past ten. 
 
 How long is he occupied in seeing the casual sick ? 
 It will depend upon the number of men that he has to 
 strip and examine. 
 
 He does not strip them all, does he ? He strips those 
 whom he wants to examine, if' he thinks that they are 
 suffering acutely, and if they are unfit to perform their 
 ordinary labour. I have been several times examined 
 by the doctor. 
 
 How did he examine you ? By the stethoscope, when 
 I complained of palpitation of the heart. 
 
 When men go up as casual sick in this manner, how 
 is the medicine given to them ? The doctor orders them 
 medicine at once, and if a prisoner does not receive 
 medicine he is liable to be reported for falling out with¬ 
 out sufficient reason. 
 
 Does he take the medicine immediately ; does he take 
 it there and then ? Yes. 
 
 At about what hour of the day ? At about half-past 
 10 or between that and 11 o’clock. The examination of 
 the casual sick generally takes place between 10 and 11; 
 half-past 10 is about the average time. If men are so 
 bad that they cannot work, they are admitted into the 
 infirmary by the doctor. 
 
 Does the doctor visit the sick in the cells at all? The 
 casual sick put down their names in the morning to see 
 the doctor at dinner time; he comes in at the dinner 
 hour into each hall in the prison, and sees the men who 
 have put down their names in the morning, and gives 
 them what medicine he thinks they need. 
 
 Does he give it to them there and then % Yes. 
 
 Do they take it whilst he is there ? Yes. 
 
£ V- t 
 
 (yU^<£^^l*C7t IJ 
 
 That is in the dinner hour ? Yes ; a man who pots 
 down his name in the morning to see the doctor has to 
 sacrifice almost three-fourths of his dinner hour. 
 
 Does he take the medicine while he-eats his dinner ? 
 That depends upon himself ; he may eat his dinner first, 
 but I believe that the general rule is for the men to 
 leave their dinner in the cell until they have taken their 
 medicine. 
 
 You fell out ill at Portsmouth on one occasion ? 
 Yes. 
 
 What was the matter with you ? I was suffering from 
 quinsy or bronchitis. I had been suffering from bron¬ 
 chitis previously to ray imprisonment I had an attack 
 I think of quinsy, and I fell out to see Assistant-doctor 
 King, who had examined my shoulder in Dartmoor at 
 the time when I had met with the accident in the cart 
 party. 
 
 What did he do to you ? He examined my throat 
 and told me to put out my tongue, he said that there 
 was a little inflammation, but nothing serious, and he 
 ordered me to be reported for falling out without suffi¬ 
 cient reason. 
 
 Were you punished for it ? I was brought before the 
 governor and was admonished ; I was not punished, as 
 the officer in charge of the ward testified that I had been 
 unable to eat food for two days. 
 
 Why did you not eat food ; could not you swallow 
 it ? If my throat was inflamed I could not swallow it. 
 
 Had you any other illnesses whilst you were in con¬ 
 finement ? Not whilst I was in Portsmouth ; but dur¬ 
 ing my imprisonment I contracted what I am told is 
 heart disease; the first symptoms of it I experienced 
 in 1873. 
 
 Where were you then ? In Dartmoor. It was in the 
 latter part of 1872 and the beginning of 1873. 
 
 And you complained of that to the doctor, who ex¬ 
 amined you with the stethoscope ? Yes ; I also com¬ 
 plained to Dr. Anderson of suffering from bronchitis ; 
 and these complaints were made when I asked to be re¬ 
 moved from stone-breaking in winter. I was examined 
 
by Dr. Anderson, and told that he could see no trace of 
 bronchitis. 
 
 When you had the attack of quinsy you were still 
 required to work ? Yes. 
 
 Were you able to eat your food? No, I could not 
 touch food for two days, and the officer on the landing 
 testified to it. I went on working. I was on what is 
 called “ light labour ” at Portsmouth : that is, piling up 
 wet bricks to dry. 
 
 How long were you at Portsmouth ? I left Dartmoor 
 on the 11th of June, 1872, and was sent back to Dart¬ 
 moor on the 16th of July. I was five weeks at Ports¬ 
 mouth. In going to Portsmouth first, I was one of a 
 'batch of 30 prisoners, and I made an appeal to the chief 
 warder, who superintended the handcuffing and the 
 chaining of the men, to substitute a body belt instead of 
 a handcuff, as prisoners who are transferred from one 
 prison to another have one hand free ; one of their 
 hands is handcuffed to the prisoner who is next to them. 
 I applied to the chief warder not to handcuff me, as it 
 would render me altogether helpless, and I asked him if 
 he would kindly substitute an iron belt to go round the 
 body, but he refused to do it. I then asked him to put 
 me at the extreme end of the gang of 29 ; he refused to 
 do so, and I was handcuffed between two of the dirtiest 
 men of the 29 ; one of them was the man whom I have 
 already mentioned as eating the candle from the cess¬ 
 pool, and who subsequently died ; he was suffering from 
 offensive breath. The man on the other side was equally 
 dirty. I was put between the two, and handcuffed to 
 the man who had the offensive breath. I believe that it 
 was done by the chief warder in Dartmoor to annoy me. 
 The man to whom I was handcuffed had an attack of 
 looseness in his bowels while we were in the train, and 
 he had to unbutton his clothes ; my hand was hand¬ 
 cuffed to his while he was easing himself, and the officer 
 would not unhandcuff my hand while I was in that 
 position. I was complaining of this after my return to 
 Dartmoor, and that, I believe, caused the prison authori¬ 
 
 ties to cut my beard and whiskers. 
 
44 
 
 Do you know the name of the officer who was in 
 charge of you at that time ? Principal-warder Keech 
 while we were going to Portsmouth was in charge of the 
 batch. 
 
 Was he the person to Avhom you applied for permis¬ 
 sion to be released from the other prisoner ? No ; it was 
 Warder Croker ; he was an assistant with Principal- 
 warder Keech. A principal warder is sent with every 
 batch of prisoners. 
 
 You say that you think it was done to annoy you. 
 Is it not possible that, rightly or wrongly, there was an 
 apprehension lest you should escape or lest any attempt 
 should be made to get you free ? I cannot answer that 
 question, I do not think that there was. I think that 
 if.there was any such apprehension I should not have been 
 sent to Portsmouth, as Portsmouth was an open prison. 
 With reference to the refusal of the officer to unhand¬ 
 cuff me, I believe that strict orders are given that no 
 prisoner is to be unhandcuffed after leaving one prison 
 until he reaches the other. 
 
 Have you any particular complaint to make of your 
 treatment at Portsmouth ? None, beyond the report for 
 falling out to see the doctor. In reference to the food, 
 I found the food at Portsmouth to be better than in any 
 other prison, and I did not hear any prisoner in Ports¬ 
 mouth complain of either the quality or the quantity of 
 the food. On my return to Dartmoor I was in company 
 with a notorious character, who had the name of being 
 a madman, or, as is expressed in prison slang, a “ balmy 
 bloke.’’ I was handcuffed to this man in the same man¬ 
 ner, and while we were waiting at Exeter for the train 
 on to Plymouth this man succeeded in divesting himself 
 of a part of his clothing in the lock-up at Exeter. He 
 is a notorious gaol-bird, and is, in fact, literally a mad¬ 
 man ; I was handcuffed to him on the return journey to 
 Dartmoor. 
 
 You were not punished at Portsmouth for seeing the 
 assistant-surgeon unnecessarily ? No ; I was admonished 
 by the governor. There was a rule in Dartmoor that a 
 man who felt that he could not work could fall out in 
 
the morning to see the doctor ; but this rule does not 
 apply in Portsmouth, as Portsmouth is an able-bodied 
 station, and Dartmoor is looked upon as an invalid sta¬ 
 tion ; and so the governor in Portsmouth explained to 
 me that the rule which would permit me to fall out in 
 Dartmoor did not apply in Portsmouth, and that if that 
 rule was applied there he would have so many men fall¬ 
 ing out in the morning that he • could not carry on the 
 work in the prison. 
 
 That is to say, a man may fall out, but it is at the peril 
 of being reported if the doctor does not think that his^ 
 complaint is sufficient ? Exactly so. 
 
 What was the state of the clothing which was sup¬ 
 plied to the convicts at Dartmoor ; was it sufficiently 
 good ? It was sufficient in summer, but in a place like 
 Dartmoor it was not sufficient to keep out the cold in 
 winter ; but since 1872 a jersey has been added to the 
 ordinary clothing in winter. I do not know whether 
 f- this applies in other prisons as well, but I think it 
 does. 
 
 Were there any coroner’s inquests at Dartmoor while 
 you were there ? N umbers; and the general belief 
 among prisoners is that it is one jury which is always 
 summoned, and this jury is composed of men who are 
 dependent upon the prison. 
 
 You mean persons who supply the prison with pro¬ 
 visions and other articles ? Discharged warders and 
 others, who supply vegetables, or are employed about 
 the prison. 
 
 Were there many accidents whilst you were at Dart¬ 
 moor ? Four men lost their lives during the erection 
 of the new prison, three of them on the prison building 
 itself, and the other man in quarrying stone for the pri¬ 
 son. At the time that the three men lost their lives on 
 the prison building, the whole number of men employed 
 on this building were under the charge of a prison 
 warder named Gardiner, who had the superintendence 
 of the scaffolding and other matters in connexion with 
 the building of the prison, and my belief is that it was 
 from the want of knowledge of scaffolding which was 
 
 4 
 
46 
 
 exhibited by this Gardiner that three of those men lost 
 their lives. 
 
 In that case there was an inquest ? An inquest was 
 held. 
 
 Can you tell us whether at that inquest, or at others, 
 prisoners were examined before the jury and coroner ? 
 That I cannot say positively, but I presume that some 
 prisoners would be examined. I was employed at the 
 prison in winding up stones on the iron crank at the 
 time when one of these accidents occurred ; a man 
 named Brooks being employed raking the inside wall of 
 a cell, and standing on a single plank laid across some 
 tressels, the plank capsized, and the man fell to the bot¬ 
 tom of the prison and was killed. I noticed that imme¬ 
 diately after this a better scaffold was put up, and that 
 if the jury came to inspect the scaffold, as I presume 
 they did on the following day, they would not find the 
 same scaffold which existed when the man fell. 
 
 I wish to call your attention to a letter which was • 
 read in the House of Commons, in which you say, 
 
 “ When a man dies here, either by induced disease or 
 “from excessive punishment on starvation diet, a jury 
 “ is composed of persons who are almost all connected 
 “ in some way or other with the prison, and come to the 
 “ very convenient decision that 1 death resulted from 
 “ natural causes.’ It is always the same jury, men living 
 “ outside the prison walls,” Then you add, “ In the 
 “foregoing statement I have exaggerated nothing.” 
 That is different from the evidence you have just now 
 given, inasmuch as in this letter you state as a fact, “ It 
 “ is always the same jury, men living outside the prison 
 “ walls,” whereas you now state that that is the belief of 
 the prisoners? I could have no positive knowledge,as a 
 prisoner, of those facts, but I simply stated what I was 
 told and what was the general belief of the prisoners. 
 
 May we take it that in other letters which you have 
 written and which have been read in the House of 
 Commons, you are in many cases speaking of things 
 which you have been told, although they are stated in 
 those letters as facts apparently within your own know- 
 
47 
 
 ledge ? I believe them to be facts and state them under 
 that belief, from the information which I have received 
 from prisoners who were more conversant with the disci¬ 
 plined the infirmary, and were working outside the prison 
 walls, than I was, as I was never allowed outside the 
 prison walls nor allowed to be employed in the infir¬ 
 mary. 
 
 You are under the impression that you were treated 
 with exceptional harshness during your imprisonment ? 
 I am. 
 
 Upon what do you ground that impression ? I ground 
 it upon the fact that I was more strictly watched while 
 I was in Dartmoor and in Millbank than any other pri¬ 
 soner ; that while conforming to the prison rules to the 
 very letter, I was deprived of theprivilegesto which such 
 conformity to the rules entitles all the prisoners. I was 
 allowed no visit during my imprisonment, notwithstand¬ 
 ing having made four or five repeated applications to be 
 allowed a visit when due. 
 
 Those were applications for visits from particular per¬ 
 sons, of course, named by you ? Yes ; particular friends 
 named by me as desirous of my seeing them, and re¬ 
 peated applications have also been made by friends of 
 mine outside to see me while I have been in prison, and 
 those applications have been severally refused. 
 
 By “ friends” do you mean relations ? No, but 
 friends. I had no relatives in England, my family were 
 resident in America, and they had been so for some time 
 previous to my imprisonment. 
 
 You are aware that with regard to all convicts the 
 authorities exercise a discretion as to whether or not 
 they should be allowed to see particular persons ? I am 
 aware that the rules specify that, but I am also aware 
 that this rule is seldom or never enforced, and I have 
 known prisoners to receive visits from friends not rela¬ 
 tives. 
 
 Certainly, but what I asked you was whether you 
 were aware that the rule in prisons which is laid down 
 with regard to visits, is that whilst the prisoners are al¬ 
 lowed to receive visits at certain stated periods, the au- 
 
48 
 
 thorities exercise a discretion as to the particular persons 
 whom the prisoners are allowed to see ? I think that 
 the rule states that communication with friends who are 
 not found to be respectable will not be allowed ; and 
 the general impression which I have had upon that rule 
 is that disreputable characters will not be allowed to see 
 prisoners. 
 
 But supposing that the person confined was impri¬ 
 soned on account of a conspiracy, and supposing 
 that he applied to see fellow-conspirators, might it not 
 be that the Government would consider themselves 
 justified in exercising a discretion to refuse them per¬ 
 mission to see him ? In that case if a prisoner is so 
 foolish as to expose the liberty of his friends by asking 
 to see a fellow conspirator, the authorities are perfectly 
 authorised in refusing it. 
 
 I only ask you whether that may not be the explana¬ 
 tion of the course which, was pursued towards you ? In 
 that case prisoners are told, when they make an appli¬ 
 cation to see a friend, why they are not allowed to see 
 that friend, and I think that the authorities ought to 
 have followed the same rule in my case. 
 
 You were allowed to communicate with, although you 
 were not allowed to see, persons other than your rela¬ 
 tives ? Yes. 
 
 Did you receive any communication by letter from 
 any relatives or friends during your imprisonment ? I 
 received three letters from friends who were not relatives 
 during my imprisonment ; but I principally correspon¬ 
 ded with my mother, who was in America, and there was 
 no obstacle to my corresponding with her except when 
 I was reported and had to pay the penalty of being de¬ 
 prived of correspondence. I wrote three letters to friends 
 who were non-relatives, and I think that if I was per¬ 
 mitted to write letters to them I ought also to have been 
 allowed to see them. I think that there would have 
 been a more reasonable objection to writing to a fellow- 
 conspirator than to seeing him, because then the authori¬ 
 ties would have a double advantage, first, of seizing the 
 fellow-conspirator, and, secondly, the advantage of hear- 
 
49 
 
 ing anything which transpired contrary to the law of 
 the country. 
 
 Was there any further treatment in your case which 
 you consider exceptional, over and above what you have 
 already mentioned, namely, your being placed in the 
 penal cells at Dartmoor ? Yes ; there is another proof 
 of my exceptional treatment, and it is this ; prisoners 
 who do not like certain employments, or who believe 
 that certain employments are injurious to their health, 
 can make application to the governor or the doctor, to 
 be put to more suitable employment, and as a general 
 rule those applications are granted. I made repeated ap¬ 
 plications to the governor at Dartmoor to be transferred 
 from one party to another, and was never transferred 
 except on one occasion, when I was removed to the 
 second class, and it was necessary for me to perform hard 
 labour before I would be allowed the privilege of tea 
 instead of gruel. 
 
 Do you think that these refusals had a connection 
 with the offence for which you were convicted ? I think 
 so. I was successful on that occasion in being trans¬ 
 ferred because I could not be allowed tea while on light 
 labour, and so I went to hard labour. That was the 
 only occasion when I did get my application. I applied 
 to be removed from the bone-breaking, and it was re¬ 
 fused. I applied twice to GovernorNootttobe removed 
 from the stone-breaking, and was refused. 
 
 I see that on June the 20th, 1874, you applied for 
 change of labour ; the note made on this record is, 
 “ Some work will be selected for you” %—Butthatwork 
 was never selected ; that recommendation was by Major 
 Noott. I was breaking stones, and was never trans¬ 
 ferred. The next transfer, I think, was being removed 
 into the prison wash-house and put to the hardest 
 labour that I ever had at Dartmoor ; that was not on an 
 application, but was for greater security, I believe. 
 
 You also applied to be exercised with prisoner 
 Chambers, who had been imprisoned for the same 
 offence as your own ? Yes. 
 
 That application was refused ? Yes, That application 
 
50 
 
 was made when prisoners were allowed a companion to 
 walk with on Sunday. 
 
 When you were placed in the penal cells for, as I 
 believe, security, you complained 1 ? I complained to 
 Governor Harris, I think, three or four times. 
 
 And eventually you were removed ? I was removed 
 by order of Director Fagan ; I think that it was last 
 November ; he visited me in my cell, and asked me to 
 make what complaints I had to make. 
 
 How long were you in the penal cells altogether ? I 
 was removed into the penal cells for location on the 16th 
 of August, 1876, and I remained there until November, 
 1877. 
 
 Previously to that you had been in the corrugated iron 
 cells ? Yes, except when reported. In addition to the 
 shouting and noise at night, there was a regular inspec¬ 
 tion, a special inspection, of myself and Mr. Chambers 
 once every hour through the trap door. 
 
 Through the trap door with a lantern ? Exactly ; I 
 complained also of that to Captain Harris, that it woke 
 me up every hour. There is another matter which has 
 been mentioned incidentally ; I think that an order has 
 been read out that my cell was not tobe searched too often 
 in Dartmoor in 1872. I made a complaint to the then 
 governor, that my cell was searched almost every wet day 
 needlessly. I was then employed in the cart party drawing 
 coal and stones, which has to be done in all weathers, and 
 on coming in on a wet day I found my bed-clothes lying 
 about and on the floor ; it would take me an hour at 
 least to put them to rights, and that was my dinner 
 hour 
 
 With respect to the inquests which took place upon 
 prisoners who met with accidental death in the prison 
 while you were at Dartmoor, was the evidence of any 
 prisoner tendered ? I think so, but I am not cer¬ 
 tain. 
 
 Was it taken ? I think so ; I think that one or two 
 prisoners were examined, but I am not sure, as of course 
 I have no positive knowledge. 
 
 In any case which you have seen of violence to a pri- 
 
51 
 
 sorter on the part of an officer, are you aware whether 
 the testimony of other prisoners who have witnessed it, 
 has been taken ? No reliance whatever is to be placed 
 on the statement of a prisoner ; his. statement against 
 an officer would not be accepted at all. 
 
 Have you known any case in which a prisoner, or se¬ 
 veral prisoners in a gang, have seen unjust and cruel 
 treatment on the part of an officer towards a prisoner, 
 and have tendered themselves as witnesses of it to the 
 director ?—I have been told of prisoners who have seen 
 such acts reporting the circumstance to the governor, 
 but I never found out that their reporting it brought 
 any consequence to the officer. That is the one de¬ 
 grading point in a cbnvict’s life ; he is told that no cre¬ 
 dence whatever is placed on any statement which he 
 makes ; and a statement of a prisoner against an officer 
 would simply be listened to by the governor, but no 
 action whatever would be taken upon it. There was 
 one instance, I think, of unmerited punishment (I do 
 not know whether I have mentioned it in my statement, 
 but I have mentioned it in the pamphlet), where a boy 
 of the name of Murphy was knocked down in Dartmoor ; 
 he was felled by the butt end of an officer’s rifle. The 
 warders outside the walls carry staves and rifles. He 
 attempted to strike principal warder Wesley with a 
 rake ; that principal warder has the name of being the 
 strictest officer in Dartmoor ; he told this boy, who was 
 of an excitable temperament, that he would be reported 
 for not attending to his work, and he attempted to strike 
 him, and was felled with the butt end of the rifle. Five 
 men in the party cried “ shame’’ on seeing the boy so 
 knocked down,and they were tried on the following even- 
 ingby directors Moorish andFagan, if I recollect rightly, 
 and they each received three dozen lashes and 28 days 
 bread and water, and had to wear cross-irons for six 
 months. I think that if that boy Murphy had 
 not been doing sufficient work it would have been better 
 for the officer to have reported the fact to the governor, 
 without provoking him and telling him that he would 
 report him, and that he would lose his dinner. In that 
 
52 
 
 case there would have been no necessity to punish the 
 five men. 
 
 How did you acquire a knowledge of these facts ? On 
 Sunday at exercise from prisoners who worked in the 
 same party ; and I was at that time located in the penal 
 cell, and saw Murphy on the evening when he came in 
 with a gash in his forehead, where he had beenknocked 
 down no doubt by the rifle. Those men were located 
 in the punishment cells, and I saw their sentences over 
 their doors. 
 
 With regard to the offence which the boy had com¬ 
 mitted, and the assault of the warder, you were merely 
 informed by hearsay ?—By the prisoners. 
 
 You merely repeat what you were told ? Yes. 
 
 In your pamphlet I observe a statement that you 
 heard a paralysed man appeal for a drink of water to 
 the deputy governor of the prison, and that the reply to 
 that appeal was, “ You have water inside your cell door $ 
 if you want it you can get up for it.” Where did this 
 occur ? In Dartmoor, to a prisoner of the name of 
 Bidwell, a man who committed forgery on the bank of 
 England in conjunction with three or four other men, 
 and he was sentenced to imprisonment for life ; he was 
 located in the punishment cell opposite my location in 
 the penal cells at Dartmoor. On Good Friday 1877, 
 when I was standing at my door to go out to service in 
 the morning, the deputy governor, Captain Hume, was 
 making the rounds of the punishment cells, and he 
 came to Bidwell’s cell, which was immediately opposite 
 mine on the bottom landing, and I heard the prisoner 
 ask for a drink of water, and the officer told Captain 
 Hume that the water was inside the cell door. The 
 prisoner’s bed was behind. I overheard Captain Hume 
 say that there was water inside the cell door if he wished 
 to drink it. Captain Hume was transferred to Portland 
 Prison before I left Dartmoor. 
 
 Did you hear that the doctor was of opinion that 
 the prisoner Bidwell was feigning paralysis ? I have 
 heard so, and as a proof that he held that opinion, this 
 man Bidwell has been in the habit of being taken down 
 
53 
 
 to the punishment cells once a year, and being left there 
 for a fortnight or three weeks under punishment, to test 
 whether he is really paralysed or not; and the result is 
 that he has to be carried up to the infirmary again ; and 
 he has not walked, or done anything to prove that he 
 is feigning beyond a general suspicion, since he has 
 been in prison ; but there is a suspicion on the part of 
 the doctor that he is feigning, or he would not be 
 punished in that manner. I have seen that man twice 
 in the punishment cell, and I have heard them drag him 
 along the floor from the governor’s office. 
 
 That was some time ago, I apprehend \—What is stated 
 in the pamphlet relates to Good Friday, 1877. 
 
 Is there any further statement which you would wish 
 to add to your evidence ? I do not see that there is 
 anything further. I have submitted all that I have to 
 say in the statement which I sent to the Commission in 
 April last. 
 
 The witness then withdrew. 
 
 
EXTRACTS 
 
 FROM THE SPEECHES OF 
 
 MICHAEL DAVITT, 
 
 In which he strongly condemns the Committing 
 of Outrages. 
 
 Surely, then, any Act which can imperil, not only the 
 success, but the very existence of such a movement, 
 should be condemned as an attack upon the cause of five 
 millions of the Irish people. No individual should place 
 his personal wrongs or grievances above those of his 
 people and country at large, and seek a revengeful mode 
 of redress, which may tend to prolong the wrongs of his 
 class without effectively remedying those which he feels 
 himself. Landlord-shooting, to say the least, is unneces¬ 
 sary, except as a means for prolonging the system which 
 alone is responsible for the acts of its twin victims— 
 tenants driven to despair and revenge, and landlord or 
 agent shot or disabled.—Speech at the Aveekly meeting 
 of the Land League, Tuesday, 23rd November, 1880. 
 
 Mr. Davitt wished to mention one or two matters. 
 Several letters had been received complaining that men 
 were subject to persecution because they are not mem¬ 
 bers of the Land League. Now, he wished to say, speak¬ 
 ing on behalf of the executive, that they did not want 
 anyone inside the League who did not join the move- 
 
55 
 
 ment, convinced that it was a just movement, and 
 one for the benefit of the country. The executive had 
 no sympathy whatever with any effort to coerce any 
 person in Ireland into joining a branch of the Land 
 League. He wished that to be clearly known.—League 
 Meeting, 29th December, 1880. 
 
 Mr. Davitt would desire to repeat again, through the 
 columns of the press, what he and Mr. Brennan declared 
 last night to ten thousand people outside the League 
 Rooms, in Sackville Street. That was, that while they 
 abused coercion, they should not be guilty of coercion 
 themselves. The Land League did not desire to in¬ 
 timidate anyone who honestly disagreed with them. He 
 hoped that the two jurors alluded to would not be sub¬ 
 jected to any injury for having done their conscientious 
 duty.—Meeting of the Land League, Tuesday, 25th 
 January, 1881. 
 
 In conclusion, I would say, if you only rally round 
 those singled out for punishment, and see that their 
 families or their business do not suffer, you will give 
 courage to those who are representing you inside the 
 prison walls to-day, and you will (acting on the advice 
 given by Mr. Parnell and the other leaders of the Land 
 League movement, to abstain from acts that would not 
 be considered within the law) vindicate the character of 
 the Irish people from aspersions—the foul and lying 
 aspersions—cast on them. Continue to abstain from all 
 acts of violence as in the past, and the shameless slan¬ 
 derers of our national character and our grand old 
 country, will be brought before the bar of public opinion 
 and convicted of the foul and detestable lies they have 
 heaped upon us in their press. We have the honour of 
 our country at stake, and we should be able to say to 
 the new Ireland beyond the Atlantic that we know our 
 cause is a just one, and that we are struggling for a great 
 moral principle, and that we will allow nothing on the 
 
56 
 
 part of our passions or the impediments of our enemies 
 to stand in the way of our success.—Speech at Tralee, 
 Sunday, 9th January, 1881. 
 
 Despite the efforts that are being made to drive you 
 from a stern, passive attitude into loose and violent 
 action, adhere to the programme of the League, and 
 repel every incentive to outrage, and every inducement 
 to give your enemies the opportunity of wiping out this 
 movement in the blood of Irishmen. . . . Glorious, 
 indeed, will be our victory, and high in the estimation 
 of mankind will our grand old fatherland stand, if we 
 can so curb our passions and control our acts in this 
 struggle for free land as to march to success through 
 provocation and danger, without resorting to the wild 
 justice of revenge, or being guilty of anything which 
 would sully the character of a brave and Christian 
 people.—Speech at Kilbrin, on Sunday, 14th January, 
 1881. 
 
 I have only, in conclusion, to ask you to follow the 
 admirable advice given by our reverend chairman—not 
 to allow yourselves to be forced into the commission of 
 any crime or any offence which would bring a stain 
 upon the national character, or give an argument or a 
 weapon to your enemy to be used against you. Let 
 .Europe, let America see by your dignified, determined 
 conduct that the charges which are now paraded before 
 the House of Commons have existed mainly in the 
 imagination of that very imaginative force, the Irish 
 Constabulary, and find a place only in the policy of Mr. 
 Outrage Forster. Do this, and above all stand united, 
 shoulder to shoulder, in the future, as you have been in 
 the past. Don’t be frightened from your land meetings, 
 don’t be intimidated by landlords who now fancy that 
 they are going to get back from the Government the 
 absolute power they wielded in the past. Don’t be 
 tempted into breaking that cardinal rule of the Irish 
 
57 
 
 Land League not to take a farm out of which another 
 has been evicted for the non-payment of an unjust rent 
 —not to purchase any goods stolen by Irish landlordism 
 from impoverished tenant-farmers. If you do this, if 
 you act on this advice, you will find in a very short 
 time that the English Government will give over manu¬ 
 facturing both outrages and coercion bills, and instead 
 of being on the point of suppressing the Irish Members 
 in Parliament they will have to acknowledge the justice 
 of their claim on behalf of the Irish people—the justice 
 of the claim of the Irish people to have restored to Ire¬ 
 land the soil which God intended for its people, and 
 every blessing which he intended to be their privilege. 
 —Speech of Mr. Davitt at Borris on Sunday, 30th Jan., 
 1881. 
 
 That magnificent gathering was the answer which the 
 manhood of Mayo returned to the slanders heaped on that 
 county. He had the honour of attending most of the 
 meetings held in Mayo since the inauguration of that 
 movement ; and he hurled back with scorn and con¬ 
 tempt the charge that he had used words which had, 
 directly or indirectly, encouraged the commission of acts 
 of violence. He had always insisted that the man who 
 would commit offence in connection with that move¬ 
 ment would injure the cause he thought of advocating. 
 --Speech at Ballinrobe on Oct. 5th, 1879. 
 
 He said he understood the temper of the American 
 people pretty well, and he believed that the late acts of 
 agrarian violence in Ireland had done the Land League 
 cause much harm in the United States, While he knew 
 that the Land League was not, and could not be, held 
 responsible in any way for those outrages, he would 
 urge upon its members to use every effort to prevent a 
 recurrence of them, if they wished to retain American 
 sympathy.—Speech at Mallow, 22nd Nov., 1880. 
 
58 
 
 Extract from a circular memorandum of instructions 
 issued by the League in December 1880, to organisers and 
 officers of branches, and written by Mr. Davitt :—“ In 
 speaking of injuries inflicted upon dumb animals we 
 cannot for a single instant believe either the numerous 
 reports of these monstrous outrages which the landlord 
 & '.ns are publishing, or that a single man within the 
 ranks of our organisation would be guilty of participat¬ 
 ing in the few cases which, we are sorry to say, have 
 been authenticated. No injustice in the power of Irish 
 landlordism to perpetrate upon our people could justify 
 in the least degree the unfeeling brutality which inflicts 
 injuries or suffering upon harmless and defenceless ani¬ 
 mals, in revenge for the wrongs committed by their 
 owners.” In about six weeks after the issue of these 
 instructions—namely, on the 3rd February, 1881—Mr. 
 Davitt was re-arrested and sent back to penal servit 
 
 ' - ~ 
 
 Mr. Davitt and the Coercion Bill. 
 
 A silly rumour, originating in the London Standard, 
 that Mr. Davitt would leave Ireland as soon as the 
 Coercion Bill was passed, having been copied into the 
 Freeman , that gentleman wrote as follows to the latter 
 •journal: 
 
 “ The Irish National Land League, 
 
 44 Offices : 39, Upper Sackville Street, Dublin. 
 
 44 January 29th. 
 
 44 Dear Sir, —Permit me to say, in reply to the rumour which was 
 copied into this day’s Freeman from the London Standard , that there is 
 no truth in the statement that I propose leaving Ireland when the 4 Pro¬ 
 tection of Life and Property Bill’ is passed. Until I am conscious of 
 having committed some act which would discredit me with the people of 
 Ireland, or show me guilty of a crime against the public weal, I intend to 
 remain in the country, and accept the consequences of my words and acts 
 in the Land League movement.—Yours truly, 
 
 44 Michael Davitt. 
 
8 
 
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 NEW AND ENLARGED ISSUE. 
 
 This Medal and Badge is admitted by all who have seen it to 
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 AN APOLOGY 
 
 pcrnmcnt 
 
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 ifS 
 
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 -— 1 compressed within a compact spr^c u»nim 6 A ag W ., 
 
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