Part 10 (2/2)

During my first week's residence in Holloway Gaol, owing to the bad weather, I exercised in the corridor with the other inmates of the A wing. There is little more room between the cell doors and the railing overlooking the well than suffices for the pa.s.sage of a single person.

The prisoners therefore walked in Indian file, and as they were practically beyond supervision except when they came abreast of one of the three or four officers in charge, a great deal of conversation went on, and I wondered why the chief warder below did not hear the loud hum of so many voices. I afterwards discovered the reason. When you stand under the procession you can hear nothing but the trampling of dozens of feet, which reverberates through the wing, and drowns every other sound.

At first I marched as stiff as a poker, drawing myself together, as it were, into the smallest compa.s.s, to avoid the contamination of the company, most of whom were poor, repulsive specimens of humanity, survivals in our civilised age of the lower types of barbarous or savage times. Most of them were young and had a reckless bearing, but a few were middle-aged, and some were obviously old hands who ”knew the ropes,” were reconciled to their fate, and resolved on making the best of the situation. Tramp, tramp, tramp! My very life seemed reduced to this monotonous shuffle. I half fancied myself in a new kind of h.e.l.l, ranked in an everlasting procession of aimless feet, mechanically following a convict's coat in front of me, and as mechanically followed by the wearer of a similar coat behind. But as I pa.s.sed the great window at the end of the wing the blessed light of the silvery winter sun sometimes streamed through the dense gla.s.s upon my face, rays of the eternal splendor coming so many millions of miles from the great fire-fount, how indifferent, as Perdita saw, to the artificial distinctions of men! I felt refreshed, but the feeling wore off as I returned to the gloomy corridor, skirting cells on the right, and on the left a low rail that offered the suicide a tempting leap into the arms of Death. All this time I was living an intense inward life, but I suppose there was a far-away look in my eyes, for now and then a prisoner would say ”Cheer up, sir.” I smiled at this consolatory effort, for although I was disgusted, I was not despondent. Occasionally an attempt was made to drag me into conversation, but I parried all advances with as little offence as possible. One dirty short man, grievously afflicted with scurvy, or something worse, several times manoeuvred to get behind me, and at last he succeeded. ”How long ye doin', mate?” No answer. ”I say, mate, how long ye doin'?” No answer. ”A d.a.m.ned long time, _I_ know, or they wouldn' give ye a ---- new suit like that, ye stuck-up ------.”

What oaths I heard in that wretched gaol! No abomination of human speech is unknown to me. One particularly vile expletive was fas.h.i.+onable during my imprisonment; it seasoned every phrase, and preceded every adjective.

Its constant iteration was sickening, until long experience made me callous. How thankful I should be to Judge North for trying to purify me in that mud-bath of rascality. I can never forget the debt of grat.i.tude--and I never will!

Among the prisoners I noticed one of robust physique and martial bearing. Seldom had I seen so fine a figure. Within six months I saw that man reduced almost to a skeleton by solitary confinement, wearily trailing one limb after the other, and looking out despairingly from cavernous, moribund eyes. Well did Lord Fitzgerald (I think) in a recent speech in the House of Lords describe this torture as the worst ever devised by the brain of man. His lords.h.i.+p added that the Governor of a great prison told him that he never knew a man undergo twelve months of such punishment without severe suffering, or two years of it without being terribly shaken, or three years without being physically and mentally wrecked. In the penal servitude establishments the discipline has to be relaxed, or the prisoners would die or go mad before their terms expired. They work out of their cells in the daytime, and on certain occasions (Sundays, I believe) they are allowed to walk in couples and exercise their faculty of speech.

The poor fellow I refer to, fearing that he would die, and having learnt that I was a public man, managed to tell me something of his case. He had been a warder in Coldbath Fields Prison, where he officiated as master-tailor. In an evil moment he ”cabbaged” some cloth, was detected, tried, condemned, and sentenced to twenty months' imprisonment. He had been in the army for over twenty years without a scratch of the pen against his name, and his officers had given him excellent characters; but the judge would hear of nothing in mitigation of sentence, although he knew it deprived the man of a pension of thirty-six pounds a year, which he had earned by long service in India, where the enemy's blades had drunk deeply of his blood. His wife and children had gone to a work-house in Leicesters.h.i.+re, and as they had no money for travelling, he had never received a visit. He pined away in his miserable cell until he became a pitiable spectacle which excited the compa.s.sion of the whole prison. The doctor ordered him out of his cell, but the authorities would not allow it. He told me how much he had lost round the chest and calf, but I have forgotten the precise figures. One fact, however, I recollect distinctly; he had lost _eight inches round the thigh_, and his flesh was like a child's. Eventually the doctor peremptorily ordered him into the hospital, and the Prison Commissioners and Visiting Magistrates were reluctantly obliged to let him save the man's life.

Dreary indeed was the life in my prison cell, sitting on the three-legged stool picking fibre, or walking up and down the twelve-foot floor. I used frequently to stand under the window for long intervals, resting my hand on the sloping sill. It was impossible to see through the heavy-fluted panes, but outside was light, liberty and life.

Sometimes, especially on Sat.u.r.days, when I had been accustomed to run down to the North, the Midlands or the West, to fulfil a lecturing engagement, the m.u.f.fled shriek of a distant railway whistle went through me like the clash of steel.

My library, during the first three months, consisted of a Bible, a Prayer Book and a Hymn Book. Although I was really there for knowing too much about the ”blessed book” already, I read it right through in the first month, and again in the second, besides reading it discursively afterwards. And still, I am a sincerely impenitent Freethinker! You may knock a man down with the Bible, and make an impression on his skull; but when he picks himself up again, you find you have made no impression on his mind, except that his opinion of _you_ is altered. I remember the chaplain calling to see me one day as I was just concluding my inspection of what Heine calls the menagerie of the Apocalypse. He could not help seeing the Bible, for when it lay open there was very little table visible. ”Ah,” he said, ”I see you have been reading the holy Scripture.” ”Yes,” I replied, ”I've read it through this month, and I believe I'm the only man in the place who has done it--including the chaplain.”

By and by the schoolmaster hunted me out a French Bible, the only one in the prison. It was an old one, and contained some scratches by a Gallic prisoner, who had been twice immured for smuggling (_pour contrabandier_), and who pathetically called on G.o.d to help him. _Cette vie est vie amere_, he had written. Yes, my poor French friend, it was bitter indeed! As for the hymn book, it contained two or three good pieces, like Newman's ”Lead, Kindly Light,” but for the rest it was the scraggiest collection I ever met with--evangelical and wooden, with an occasional dash of weak music and washy sentiment.

The monotony of my existence was not even broken by visits to chapel.

After the first day's attendance at ”divine wors.h.i.+p” for some reason I was not let out at the hour of devotion. After a few days, however, one of the princ.i.p.al officers said to me ”Wouldn't you like to go to chapel, Mr. Foote. There's nothing irksome in it, and you'll find it breaks the monotony.” ”With pleasure,” I replied, ”but I have not till now received an invitation.” ”What!” he exclaimed. Then, calling up a young Irish officer in my wing, he asked ”How is this? Why hasn't Mr. Foote been invited to chapel?” ”Well, sir,” answered the culprit, scratching his head and looking sheepish, ”I knew Mr. Foote was a Freethinker, and I didn't want to insult his opinions.” Good! I thought. Why was not this worthy fellow on the jury, or better still, on the bench? I told him I was very much obliged for his intended kindness, but at the same time I preferred going to chapel, as I wished to see all I could for my money.

After that I went to the house of prayer like any church-going belle (this is what Cowper must have meant, for how could a _bell_ go to church?) every Sunday, and every other day during the week. Had the chapel been of larger dimensions I should have gone daily, but it was too small to hold all the prisoners, who were therefore divided into two congregations, each approaching the, holy altar on alternate days. What I saw and heard in the sacred edifice will be related in a separate chapter.

At the end of my second month I was ent.i.tled to a school-book and a slate and pencil. These articles were promptly brought to me by the obliging school-master. Two copies of Colenso's Arithmetic had been procured; one was given to me, and the other, as I afterwards learned, to Mr. Ramsey. The fly-leaf was cut out, I noticed; the object being to prevent us from obtaining a bit of paper to write on. This, I may add, is the general rule in the prison library, every book being thus mutilated. It is a silly precaution, for if a prisoner can succeed in carrying on a correspondence with his friends outside, he is obviously not dependent on the library for materials, and he would be the veriest fool to excite suspicion by amputating the leaves of a book.

Knowing that I should have no better school-book during my long imprisonment, I determined to make Colenso last as long as possible. I steadily went through it from beginning to end. Working the addition and subtraction sums was certainly tedious, but I wanted to keep the interesting problems, as you reserve the daintier portions of a repast, till the end. Curiously enough, it was the sober and serious Colenso who gave me my one restless night in Holloway Gaol. I puzzled over one pretty problem, and the bed-bell rang before I could solve it. Directly my gas was turned out the method of solution flashed on my mind, and I was so vexed at being unable to work it out immediately that it was hours before I could fall asleep. During that time my brain made desperate but futile efforts to reach the answer by mental arithmetic, and when I woke in the morning I felt thoroughly f.a.gged.

Having had no writing materials for two months the slate and pencil looked very inviting. I composed a few pieces of verse, including a sonnet on Giordano Bruno and some epigrams on Parson Plaford, Judge North, Sir Hardinge Giffard, and other distasteful personages. But as every piece written on the slate had to be rubbed out to make room for the next, I soon sickened of composition. It was murdering one bantling to make place for another.

Sometimes the dulness of my incarceration was relieved by overhearing whispered conversations outside my cell door. Until we became well known, there was considerable speculation among the prisoners as to who we were, and what we were there for. One day a couple of fellows, engaged in cleaning the corridor, worked themselves near together, one standing on either side of my door. ”Who's the bloke in yer?” I heard queried. ”Dunno,” said the other, ”I b'lieve he's a Fenian.” Another time I heard the answer, ”Oh, he's one of Bradlaugh's pals; and Bradlaugh's coming up next week”--a next week which happily never arrived.

Mr. Ramsey tells me that similar speculations went on outside his door.

Like mine, his card specified ”misdr.” (misdemeanor) as the offence, the officials perhaps not liking to write blasphemy. Like me also, he was put down as a Fenian. ”Why there,” said a prisoner, who had just enounced this opinion, ”look at his card; see--murder!” The ”misdr.”

was not written too plainly, and ”murder” was his interpretation of the hieroglyph.

Let me here interpolate another good story in connexion with Mr. Ramsey.

He was confidently asked by an old hand what he was in for. ”Blasphemy,”

said Mr. Ramsey. ”Blasphemy! What the h.e.l.l's that?” said the fellow.

Here was a confirmed criminal who had never heard of this crime before; it was not in the catalogue known to his fraternity; and on learning that all which could be got from it was nine months' imprisonment if you were found out, and nothing if you were not, he concluded that he would never patronize that line of business.

From the description already given of my cell, the reader has seen that my domestic accommodations were exceedingly limited. All my ablutions were performed with the aid of a tin bowl, holding about a quart. This sufficed for hands and face, but how was I to get a wash all over? I broached this question one day to warder Smith, who informed me that the bathing appliances of the establishment were scanty, and that the prisoners were only ”tubbed” once a fortnight. I explained to him that I was not used to such uncleanliness; but of course he could not help me.

Then I laid the matter before the Deputy-Governor, who told an officer to take me to the bath-room at the base of the debtor's wing, where I enjoyed a good scrub. On returning to the criminal part of the prison I had my hair cut, a prisoner officiating as barber. Despite the rule of silence, I gave him verbal instructions how to proceed, otherwise he would have given me the regular prison crop. During the rest of my term I always had my hair trimmed in my own fas.h.i.+on. The prison crop, I may observe, is rather a custom than a rule; the regulations require only such hair-cutting and shaving as is necessary for health and cleanliness, but the criminal population affect short hair, and the difficulty is not to bring them under, but to keep them out of, the barber's hands.

Prison barbers are generally amateurs. Of course the officers are above such work, and unless a member of the tonsorial profession happens to be in residence, the scissors are wielded by the first man who fancies himself a natural adept at the business. The last barber I saw in Holloway Gaol was a coachman, whose only qualification for the work was that he had clipped horses' legs. He wore a blue ap.r.o.n round a corpulent waist, and looked remarkably like a pork-butcher. He walked round the victim like an artist engaged on a bust, and his habit was to work steadily away at one spot until the skin showed like a piece of white plaster, after which he labored at another spot, and so on, until the task was finished. Seeing on my head an uncommon ma.s.s of hair, he made many desperate solicitations to be allowed an opportunity of displaying his skill, but I steadily resisted the appeal, although it evidently cut him to the quick.

The bathing-house for the criminal prisoners has eight compartments. In the ordinary course, I should have formed one of a detachment of that number, but an exception was made in my case, and I was always taken to bathe alone. Behind the bath-room were the dark cells. I was allowed to inspect these miserable, black holes. They were damp and fetid, and when the door was closed you were in Egyptian darkness. I cannot conceive that such horrid punishment is necessary or justifiable. The prison authorities have every inmate absolutely in their power, and if they are obliged to resort to the black-hole, it must be from want of foresight or the general imbecility of the system.

The flogging was always done outside the black-hole, in the bath-room at the foot of the D wing. I have often heard screaming wretches dragged along the corridor, and their cries of agony as their backs were lacerated by the cat. Singularly, the dinner hour was always selected for this performance, which must have been a great stimulus to the appet.i.tes of new comers. One man who was lashed told me it was weeks before his flesh healed. I do not believe that the cat and the dark hole are necessary to prison discipline. They brutalise and degrade both prisoners and officials.

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