Six Years in the Prisons of England Part 10

These were the princ.i.p.al orders issued, and attempted to be carried out. I say attempted, for some of them were regularly evaded or broken by the prisoners, and winked at by the officers. These were the orders that were expected to be instrumental in converting thieves into honest men! Whatever opinion might be formed of their probable efficacy out of doors, or of the sanity of the man who sat in his office and scrawled them out, the thieves themselves mocked and ridiculed them, and called the small-minded military man set over them a "Barmey"[20] humbug. "What does it matter," they would say to each other, "how we walk? What does it matter whether our neck-ties be once or twice round? Why don't they teach us to get an honest living and show us a good example? What good will all this humbugging do us? We don't want to come into such places if they will only let us live when we are out. Why don't they find us work and try to keep us out of prison?" "Ah! that would spoil their own trade," someone would reply. Such criticisms pa.s.sed between the prisoners on these new orders, with an accompaniment of oaths which I cannot repeat.

[20] Insane.

The punishment for prison offences now became more severe under the new governor, and the following may be taken as fair examples of the manner in which this cla.s.s of offenders were dealt with. A convict just about due for his liberation had half-an-inch of tobacco given him by another prisoner. The officer happened to notice the gift, went to the prisoner, found the contraband article upon him, and took him before the governor. That gentleman sentenced him to ten days in the refractory cells, and recommended him to the prison director for the loss of his gratuity and three months' remission. The unfortunate prisoner was by-and-bye called up and informed that in addition to the governor's sentence he was condemned to lose all his gratuity money, which amounted to about 3_l._, and three months of his remission.

Two sentences for one offence were getting very common, but this prisoner happened to be one of those who cared very little about liberty, and received the information very coolly. As soon as he was out of the cells he had his "snout" again as usual, but he was "chaffed" a good deal by his "pals" for neglecting to swallow the quid when he saw the officer coming to him. One of the hospital nurses (a convict) got punished, though not quite so severely, for appropriating to his own use a mutton chop that he was ordered to carry to the pigs.

At that time the authorities kept swine, who got all the food the patients could not eat, but now it is sold. The prisoner thought, I presume, that the chop would do a hungry man more good than it would an over-fed pig. Another prisoner was sentenced twice for having an onion on his person. One of his fellow-prisoners who was working among these luxuries gave him one, and as the officer in charge had a grudge against him, he was taken before the governor, who gave him ten days'

punishment, to which the director afterwards considerately added three months! Such offences as these were of daily occurrence, but the punishments for them when detected were very unequal.

It is not often a convict is flogged, but it does happen occasionally.

I remember a young rollicking Irishman being flogged for attempting to strike an officer, who, as often happens, was far more to blame than the prisoner, who in this case was goaded and tempted to strike. The majority of the officers--who are civil and sensible men, considering their position in society--would have acted very differently.

Another case, where the prisoner not only attempted but did actually strike his warder rather severely, met with a more lenient punishment.

In this case the prisoner was decidedly to blame, and his punishment, in technical language, was "six months in chokey with the black dress and slangs."

These cases were usually disposed of by the director at his monthly sitting. That gentleman--who was fond of having nothing to do--generally spent about twenty-four hours in prison per annum, spread over eleven visits of an average duration of two hours each. Latterly it was rather difficult for a prisoner to get to see him, and quite impossible if he had a complaint to make against any of the officials, which they thought he could establish. I have often thought that this gentleman's duties could be performed more satisfactorily for a less salary than one thousand pounds per annum!

Before leaving the hospital, I will now relate a few of the conversations I had with some of the patients.

"How long have you been unwell?"

"About fifteen months."

"What is the matter with you?"

"Oh! my health has been ruined by the treatment I received in the Scotch prison before trial."

"How long were you detained waiting trial?"

"Six months."

"Have you been to the public works?"

"Yes, I was at Chatham; but my strength and const.i.tution gave way, and for a working man I am now ruined for life."

"Did you enjoy your health before you got into prison?"

"I was never a day unwell, and was as stout and as fit for work as any man in the country."

"What will you do when you get out of prison?"

"G.o.d knows! I suppose I shall have to go to the workhouse. I am very willing to work, but if I don't mend I shall never be able to handle a tool again."

Another case--

"How long have you been ailing?"

"Ten months."

"What is the matter with you?"

"Oh! I am dying fast. I was seven months in a Scotch jail before trial, and that is what is killing me."

This prisoner died a few days after he uttered these words. His last hours were spent in humming over a Scotch ballad he had learnt when a child.

Another case--

"Well, what's your sentence?"

"Five years."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-five."

"What did you do outside?"

"I was born in a workhouse, and lived in it for thirteen years, and I have now been nine years in prison; so that I have not had much liberty to do anything at all."

"What do you intend doing when you get out this time?"

"I think I shall go hawking bits of things through the country."

"I am afraid you will find it difficult to make a living at hawking?"

"Well I have the prison to come to, where I'll always get my grub."

This prisoner had a delicate const.i.tution, and in his case "hard labour" was a meaningless sentence, and imprisonment was no punishment to him whatever. To have made it more severe would have been all the same to him, as the hospital would then have been his perpetual abode.

Some prisoners were in hospital nearly the whole of their sentence. One prisoner lay in bed with paralysis upwards of four years, and had to be lifted out to have his bed arranged several times a day: if he had been paid to commit a crime he could not have done it.

Another prisoner was in hospital all the years I was in prison, and had been so for several years previous to my arrival. I only remember his being in bed a few days on one occasion. I was much interested in another patient, who ultimately died in prison, and whose history was rather a singular one. I shall narrate it as he gave it to me:--

"I am what is called a herbalist, or herb doctor. I was brought up in a workhouse, my parents having died when I was quite a child. I had a great many brothers and sisters, all of whom died young. I had a very delicate const.i.tution, and was thought at one time to be dying of the same disease as carried off my mother and sisters. The doctors gave me up as being beyond their skill. Well, I had begun to study medical botany by this time, and I at last discovered herbs that cured me. I now thought of curing others, and began first with some children belonging to poor people. I succeeded in almost every case, and as I charged nothing at all for the medicines, I was called out by all the poor people in the neighbourhood.

"At last my practice began to interfere with my employment as a weaver, and my master told me that he was willing to keep me and advance my wages, but I was on no account to have anything more to do in curing the sick. Well, I went round my circle of friends to ask their advice, and they unanimously agreed to support me among them rather than be deprived of my a.s.sistance. I accordingly gave up my place and opened a herb shop. I studied the properties of herbs constantly. I had no taste for any other employment. I tried the effects of all of them on myself first of all, and sometimes on my wife, before I decided on using them, and I daresay I may have done too much in this way in order to be able to a.s.sure my patients that I had first taken a dose myself. I have read all the books on the subject, in addition to my own practical experience; and I will not yield the palm to anyone for having a knowledge of herbs--I mean as to their medical properties. Well, I continued in my first shop for about nine years, got married, and had a comfortable home. About this time a clergyman of my acquaintance happened to be removing to another county, a considerable distance from the town where I lived, and as I had cured his wife after all the regular doctors had given the case up as hopeless, he offered me 52_l._ per annum if I would go to the same place as he was removing to and open a shop there, and I agreed. I was unfortunate the first year in not getting many patients, and began to regret that I had left my old abode. But by-and-bye the news of my cures spread abroad in the neighbourhood, and I soon had as many patients as I could attend to. I never advertised a line, and yet I had patients as far away as Scotland. Ultimately my patients extended to the middle cla.s.ses, and that was what brought me here. So long as I confined my labours to the poor, the regular doctors did not interfere with me, but when I began to take away their paying patients by the half-dozen, they tried all they could to damage my character, and get me out of the district."

"What is your sentence?"

"Seven years, and I'll tell you how I got it. I sold a mixture composed of four different herbs, which is the most effectual medicine for certain diseases peculiar to females; in fact, it is invaluable to young unmarried women subject to the complaint I refer to, but, unfortunately for me, it has also the effect of procuring abortion.

Well, one day a young woman came to me and wished to purchase some of this medicine. I had cured an unmarried female of her acquaintance, but before giving her the medicine I cautioned her not to take it if she was _enciente_, as it would procure abortion. The female who now applied to me wished it for that very purpose; her husband was a sailor, she had been faithless in his absence, and she now wished to keep him in ignorance of her sin. All this, however, I learned only when too late. I refused to sell the woman the medicine, as I could see she was married. On being refused, she went to an old woman whose daughter had taken the medicine, and offered her 3_l._ if she would get her some of it. Of course, I was not aware of this when the old woman came to me and asked me for some more of the medicine for her daughter, as she said. I sold her the medicine, which she gave to the sailor's wife. It had the desired effect, and she was well and going about in a couple of days. Her husband now returned, and the old woman demanded the 3_l._, which the sailor's wife refused to pay. Determined not to be beaten, she went to the husband and told him all about it. He called in doctors to report on the case, which they did, adding that instruments had been used, which was altogether false. The medicine was easily traced to me. Where I was wrong was, in not having a written statement from everyone to whom I sold the herbs, in order to have protected myself against any such charge as was now brought against me.

The doctors, no doubt, believed that instruments had been used, because they do not know the particular herbs at all, and no one in England knows them but myself and I do not intend to let many know either--it's dangerous knowledge; but, as G.o.d is my judge, I never used it wilfully except for the relief of a disease that carries thousands of our countrywomen to the grave in the very prime of youth. I have been called to cases over and over again, after all the doctors had given them up, and I have often restored the pale hectic young woman, in an advanced stage of consumption, to health and vigour, by the simple use of herbs--the best of G.o.d's gifts to man!"

"What diseases were you most successful with?"

"There is one disease I could never cure, and that's ossification of the heart, but in the great majority of other diseases I succeeded wonderfully. Sometimes, of course, I would be called to a consumptive patient within a few days or hours of his death, when life was so low as to render it impossible for the medicine to be taken."

"What do you think of the cold-water system and h.o.m.oeopathy?"

"The cold water may do for some diseases and for some patients only, but it is nonsense to think to cure all diseases in one way. I am not a quack. In America there are colleges for teaching my system of curing disease, regular teachers of medical botany. As for h.o.m.oeopathy, I think very little of it. I have known it succeed in cholera cases sometimes, however, as well as the allopathy. When patients have very little the matter with them, h.o.m.oeopathy, or any other 'pathy' they have confidence in, does all very well, and it fills the purses of the pract.i.tioners, but when real rooted disease has to be encountered, the herbs that G.o.d has given for the use of man are the only trustworthy means by which to effect a cure. To give you an idea how many are 'gulled,' I may say robbed, by regular doctors, I will give you the particulars of two cases which happened within my own personal knowledge. Two men were seized with the same fever, and to all appearance the patients were about equal in health, strength, and age.