WE WILL FERRY YOU OVER JORDAN THAT ROLLS BETWEEN.
Once convicted of a crime in England it is impossible, unless a man has money or friends, for him to obtain an honest livelihood unless he is the happy possessor of a trade. All the great corporations demand references that will cover a series of years of the applicant's life, and, above all, strict inquiry is made as to his last employer. This cuts the ground out from under the feet of the unfortunate, and feeling that England can no longer be a home to him he turns his eyes as a matter of course to America.
A fair percentage of the prisoners are men who perhaps under great temptation, or while under the influence of drink, have broken the laws, but yet are honorably minded and resolved in future to lead an honest life. Such are not undesirable citizens; but there is another class, that of the professional criminal; with these the prisons swarm, and, worse yet, the slums and saloons of the great cities are breeding thousands more that will take the places of those now on the stage.
The conditions of society in England are such that the procession of criminals is an unending one. The society that creates the criminal also has established a system of police repression that makes the life history of society's victim one of misery, until such time when the criminal, growing wise by experience, shakes the dust of English soil off from his feet and transfers himself, a moral ruin, to our country, here to become a curse and a burden.
This flow of moral sewage to our shores is constant and unceasing. Our Government has frequently protested against it, but with no success, for the officials in England indignantly deny that the State either encourages or assists the exodus of her criminal classes; but from my personal knowledge I know this to be false. The officials over there have found out an effectual way to rid themselves of their discharged prisoners as fast as their sentences expire, and cast them on our shores, and this is so ingenious a way that the wrong can never be brought home to them.
During my twenty years' residence in Chatham I suppose nearly half as many thousands asked me for information about America, and at least 95 per cent. assured me that when released they would "join the society" and depart at once for that happy hunting ground—that Promised Land which charms the imagination no less of the criminal than of the honest poor of the Old World. In every English prison the walls are decorated with placards, gorgeous in hue, of rival firms appealing to the readers for patronage. "Join us," they all say; and every prisoner knows the appeal "join us" means if you do we will ferry you over the Jordan that rolls between this desert land and the plains flowing with milk and honey on the other side. The "firms" I mention are those arch humbugs, the Prisoners' Aid Societies of England.
Elizabeth Fry, who made "aid to prisoners" fashionable and a society fad in England, has much to answer for. Prisoners' Aid Societies have sprung up in every quarter of England, and having a rich soil, and under the fostering care of the Government, have flourished with a rank and luxuriant growth. These societies draw their nourishment from English soil, but, unhappily for us, their tall branches hang over our wall and their ripened fruit falls on our ground.
From the time a prisoner becomes accustomed to his surroundings until the hour of his release the one thing ever uppermost in his thoughts, the one distracting subject and cause of anxious solicitude, is the question, "Which society shall I join?" It is a tolerably safe venture to predict that he will "join" "The Royal Prisoners' Aid Society of London," which society is happy in having Her Gracious Majesty and a long list of illustrious lords and ladies for "governors." What that may mean no one knows. Certainly no benefit from these people ever accrues to the discharged prisoners, but who can describe the glory that falls on the four or five reverend gentlemen, sons, nephews or brothers of deans or bishops, high-salaried secretaries of this particular society, who pose at the annual meeting in Exeter Hall, before a brilliant audience, and after have the felicity of seeing their report in the church and society journals and their names connected with such exalted people.
The way the Government over there accomplishes its purpose of getting rid of its criminal population at our expense and at the same time is able to answer the charges of our Government with disavowal is this:
The Home Secretary alone possesses the pardoning power for the United Kingdom, and directly controls every prison, his fiat being law in all things to every official as well as to every inmate. He has officially recognized and registered at the Home Office every prisoners' aid society in England, Scotland and Wales, and in order to boom them he gives to every discharged prisoner an extra gratuity of £3 provided he "joins" a prisoners' aid society on his discharge, the result being that all do so. England is a small and compact country, and the police have practically one head, and that head is the Home Secretary. Under the circumstances the system of police espionage is so perfect that whenever a discharged prisoner is reconvicted for another crime he cannot escape recognition, and in all such cases the Home Secretary notifies the particular aid society who received the prisoner on his discharge of the fact, very much to the vexation of the officials of the society, who are all anxious for a good record in reforming men that come officially under their auspices. They publish that all who are never reported as reconvicted are reformed, and all love to make a big showing for the money subscribed at the all-important annual meeting, the result being that all the men hustled out of the country by the society count as reformed men.
These societies are supported by subscriptions, which all go in salaries and office rents. The assistance given to the discharged prisoner is limited to the £3 extra gratuity given the society by the Government on the prisoner's behalf. The London societies have an agreement with the Netherlands Line and the Wilson Line of steamers to "take to sea" for £2 10s. all "workingmen" they send to them. I have talked to thousands of men who "joined the society," most of whom intended to go to America, and I have talked to scores who had "joined," but who, unluckily for themselves, not leaving England, were reconvicted and sent back to Chatham. Throughout twenty years I conversed with several thousand men who joined the society avowing they were going to America, and were never heard of again in England, and have also known some scores of men who passed through the hands of the society agents, yet were afterward reconvicted. Therefore I am in a position to speak with authority on the important question of England dumping her criminal population on our shores.
CHAPTER XLI.
"WELL MY MAN, WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO?" "I WANT TO GO TO AMERICA, SIR." "TUT! TUT! YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO GO TO SEA!" "YES, SIR; I WANT TO GO TO SEA."
The Royal Society and The Christian Aid Societies, presided over by a Rev. Mr. Whitely, enjoy a bad pre-eminence in this respect. The year before my release the latter stated at the annual meeting that six thousand discharged prisoners had passed through his society, and I venture to assert that five thousand of these found their way to this country through the assistance of this society. These two societies have been boomed to an incredible extent, and it would be a curious study if any report could be had as to how the large subscriptions were actually expended.
For the sake of making my narrative clear, I will here only speak of the first-named society.
LEAVING LIVERPOOL.—GEORGE BIDWELL'S FAREWELL TO JOHN BULL.
Two months before release the prisoner must inform the warder that he intends to join the Royal Society. He notifies the Home Office, which in turn notifies the society and forwards a warrant for £3. The prisoner upon discharge takes a certain train for London, and is met upon his arrival at the station by an agent of the society. This agent ranks as a servant, is usually an ex-prisoner and is always paid 21 shillings a week. He pilots his man at a certain hour before the Reverend Secretary, and here follows a verbatim report of the dialogue between the great man and the poor, timid and dreadfully embarrassed ex-prisoner:
Great Man—Well, my man, what do you intend to do?
Ex-Prisoner—I want to go to America.
Great Man—Tut! tut! my man; you mean you want to go to sea.
Ex-Prisoner (taking the hint)—Yes, sir; I want to go to sea.
Great Man—Very well, my man. Go with this agent, who will fix it with the ship captain so you can go to sea.
If a steamer of either line named is about to sail he is taken on board at once goes to the steerage, and just before sailing the agent hands him a ticket and the criminal is safely off for America. England is rid of a bad subject, and the Royal Society has one more "reformed" man to put in its report. In addition to the £3 gratuity the ex-prisoner has been paid £1, £2 or £3 in addition, provided his sentence had been at least five years. The society is not a cent out of pocket over him, and forlorn and friendless he lands here with from $2 to $15 in his pocket. He has got the cheap suit of clothes he wears, one handkerchief and one pair of stockings extra. It is almost certain he will speedily drift into crime, spending the remainder of his life in prison, and finally dying there or in the poorhouse.
There is just one way this evil can be stopped—I might say two ways. The first, and a method that would be effectual in stopping the influx of criminals from all countries, is to let Congress put a tax of $30 or $50 on the steamship companies for every passenger not an American citizen whom they bring to America. Not one discharged criminal in a thousand could meet the tax in addition to the fare. The only other way possible would be for our Government to request the English Government to furnish them with photographs, marks and measurements of all discharged criminals. Then have them copied and sent to the Immigration Commissioners of our ports. But that would involve a radical change in these boards and their methods. Efficiency there under our corrupt system is, I fear, hopeless.
I visited Ellis Island a few days ago and saw how they passed a shipload of immigrants in a few minutes, and as I looked I felt it was hopeless to expect any efficient measures to throw back the foul tide that is polluting our shores.
Seldom as men of the criminal class once safe in America ever return to England, yet they do now and then return. In the two or three cases that came under my observation it was very much to their loss and grief, for they only came back to undergo another term.
One day, in 1890, a man working in my party slipped a note into my hand that had been given him for me in chapel that morning. As in similar cases, I secreted the note, and when safe in my little room I read it. The writer said he had lately come down from London, and was most anxious to get into my party in order to have a chance to talk with me. He said he had been living in Chicago and could give me all the news. He ended the note by stating he was being murdered by hard work, and implored me to try and get him into my party, where it was not so hard. This I was most anxious to do, as in my party you could talk almost with impunity. To have a man near me fresh and only a year before in Chicago would be like a letter from home and also a newspaper. Therefore, I determined to get Foster in my party if possible. At this time I had been seventeen years a resident, and was, in fact, the oldest inhabitant, and had some little influence in a quiet way. About eleven years before I had been put in the party, and had a chance to learn bricklaying, and having become an expert in the art was given charge of the bricklaying. I was on the best of terms with our officer, so when, a day or two later, one of our men was so fortunate (in the Chatham view of it) as to meet with an accident and be admitted to that heaven, the infirmary, I told my officer to ask for Foster to replace him. He did so, and he, very much to his gratification, found himself by my side, with a trowel instead of a shovel in his hand. We worked side by side, Winter and Summer, storm and shine, for two years, and in spite of myself I began soon to like the man. His chief and only virtues were truthfulness and fair-mindedness toward his friends—rare and incongruous virtues for a professional burglar; nevertheless, he possessed them in a marked degree. This is a statement to make a cynic smile, and is one of those cases where the result is justifiable; yet, however the cynic may smile, there is plenty of all-around good faith in the world, and there is no nation, race or color, no clique, religion nor social strata, that has a monopoly of the article. Good faith and truth grow in unlikely places, as I have found in my career, for I have looked on life from both sides, and to look on it from the seamy side is instructive, indeed, for then the mask is off and the true character is revealed. I have been away down in the depths, and for years have toiled cheek by jowl, through sunshine and storm, in blinding snows and pelting rain, with my brother men under conditions too brutal and demoralizing to be understood if described—conditions where the very worst side of human character would naturally be thought to come to the front, and I came out of the fierce struggle in that pit of death with conclusions as to the human animal that are decidedly favorable, and I am inclined to the view that man was born almost an angel, and that, in spite of the fearful temptations of the world into which he has been thrust, much of the angelic pottery abides.