Corporal punishment, however, was only needed to correct offences which it is evident a stricter discipline from the first would have prevented.
In the course of years the Government discovered how little was to be hoped from moral suasion. Time and experience brought wisdom in their train, and ultimately the old order changed, giving place to new.
The original scheme of a penitentiary was abandoned, the whole system was re-modelled, changes were made which we have not room to describe, and the prison was devoted to a different purpose and a different class of criminals—i.e., those on their road to the transport ships; and later on, when transportation was finally given up, as the first gaol of the convict under sentence of penal servitude, on his road to Portland or other establishments of the kind.
Captain Griffiths in his second volume interweaves with his narrative of Millbank some interesting chapters descriptive of the system adopted in transportation to the colonies and the mode of life of the convicts there.
A singular similarity exists between the errors of the one system and the other. In the earlier days of both the Government was too hopeful. They expected too much from the unpromising material they had to work upon.
A reaction from the horrible condition revealed by the labours of Howard carried them too far in the other direction, and it was the reaction from this which led ultimately to a complete reversal of the old scheme of secondary punishment, the abandonment of transportation, and the establishment of the systems we have at present.
Peace got on pretty well at Millbank; the warders were kind to him, and he behaved himself in the best possible manner, and his attempt to escape from Wakefield appeared to have been forgotten: anyway, it was never alluded to. It was some relief to the monotony of his prison life, when he was set to work with other prisoners to clean the windows of the establishment.
It fell to his share to work at the infirmary, and while engaged on the windows in that part of the prison, he felt very much depressed, for the sight presented to him was indeed a most piteous one.
To see fellow-creatures stretched on a bed of sickness is a sorry sight at the best of times, but when the bed is in a prison cell, with an iron gate at its entrance, securely locked, and the thought comes over you that the chances are that you may be in a similar position, it is enough to depress a man.
Peace was greatly affected as he, as noiselessly as possible, polished the infirmary windows.