Yet Schenk contrived secretly that a letter full of complaints of the new director, whom he described as a bloodhound hungry for the life of a peaceful, inoffensive man, meaning himself, should reach the authorities at Munich. The director accused was not slow to explain the true facts; the lying denouncer met with his deserts and was soundly flogged. He was still untamed, however, and fought on stubbornly until his iron constitution began to give way. As his health declined and he felt that death was approaching, he became for a time singularly amenable. At last, in 1860, he was finally transferred to Plassenburg prison, which he entered for the first time. His old audacious and rebellious spirit reasserted itself, and he succeeded in breaking out of prison with several companions. They were all promptly recaptured by the peasants in the first village they reached, and laid by the heels like wild beasts escaped from their cages. When once more in durance, Schenk devoted himself to the writing of petitions for milder treatment, and he was granted a few small privileges, such as the lightening of his chains. In 1863 he was taken back to Kaiserslautern after an absence of thirty-four years. Although feeble and broken in health, he still enjoyed a great influence over the other prisoners, and, when he chose, could still incite them to mutiny and rebellion. In January, 1864, a violent outbreak occurred at Kaiserslautern in which he did not figure personally but which he had no doubt brought about.
It was at this period of his career that Herr Fleischmann became acquainted with him and writes: “Schenk’s every thought was now centred in obtaining a pardon. I often heard him exclaim, ‘I would gladly die, if I could but enjoy freedom for a single day.’” His passionate appeals were nearly bearing fruit when the inhabitants of Oberlustadt protested, and, still remembering his parting threats on leaving the town, hastily sent in a petition against the liberation of so dangerous a man. With his hopes thus dashed to the ground forever, a last spark of energy revived and he made a final attempt to escape from the hospital, which miscarried, and in the end his release was only compassed by death. For forty-seven years he had maintained a ceaseless conflict with law and authority.
Herr Fleischmann gives a graphic presentment of this remarkable criminal, whom he first met in the hospital toward the end of his life. “My interlocutor was an old man in the seventies. I shall never forget his appearance, for I never beheld a more hideous or repulsive countenance. He was of medium height, strongly built, and dragged one leg slightly, like all those who have worn chains and balls for years. His head was covered with thin gray hair always carefully brushed. One side of his face was completely distorted from the effects of a stroke of paralysis. Half the mouth and one wrinkled cheek hung down flabbily; one bloodshot eye stared dimly from its socket, but the other, on the contrary, was light gray and quite alive, with a look of extreme cunning. He was a man of great natural intelligence, unusually gifted, and he had improved himself by much reading; he expressed himself well, possessed a keen knowledge of human nature and often succeeded in deceiving the prison officials by his masterly power of dissimulation.”
We have to thank our reverend author for one or two more types of German prisoners. He speaks of one, Würger by name, who was of Jewish extraction, but a Christian according to the testimony of his baptismal certificate, although there was little to prove his real religion in the records of his life. As to the outer man, he was short of stature and very broad-shouldered; he had an enormous head with bushy, prominent eyebrows and teeth large and pointed like the fangs of a wild beast. His eyes were gray and cold but acute in their expression. The first time the chaplain visited him in his cell he was sitting on the edge of a big chest filled with papers and literally in hysterics. No other word could adequately describe the passionate outburst of rage and despair to which he was giving vent. When asked the cause of his distress, he asserted with renewed wails that he was a ruined man. The facts came out gradually. His wife had sent the huge chest to him, because not even the most astute man of business in her vicinity to whom she had applied could disentangle the mass of promissory notes and dubious deeds which it contained. She had also written that no one admitted indebtedness to him, and indeed, several of his debtors had already run off. She said he must put the papers in order himself and send the chest to some agent with instructions to act for him. The box was full of documents, and represented the ruin and wretchedness of the impecunious victims of his remorseless usury.
The chaplain had little sympathy with his whining regrets and strongly urged him to commit the contents of the box to the flames, but this advice WÜrger received with horror. It would bring his family to penury, he declared; he had done no one any harm but had rather been a public benefactor, honest and straightforward in all his dealings, and he had been ill-rewarded for his efforts to benefit his fellow creatures. The tears streamed from the eyes of this friend of humanity as he uttered this lying statement.
Two anecdotes told by the writer will give some idea of the character of this rapacious creature. His wife, who belonged to a good family, had once instituted divorce proceedings against him. Her lawyer insisted before the court that Würger was essentially a bad, vicious person, but that his client had been quite unaware of his evil tendencies before her marriage. Würger’s lawyer then took up the parable and exclaimed,—“What, the plaintiff pretends ignorance of what sort of man my client is! Why, it is notorious that in the whole of Pfalz there is no worse fellow than Würger. And you worshipful judges,” he added, “you certainly cannot assume that Würger’s wife was the only person who did not know anything about it.” The wife’s petition was dismissed and Würger, on hearing the result of the proceedings, rubbed his hands, smirked with glee and clapped his lawyer on the back, saying, “That was a lucky hit of yours, calling me the worst fellow in Pfalz; you deserve great credit for the conduct of my case.”
When Würger was in prison awaiting trial, a fraudulent tax-collector, whom an auditor had caught embezzling public money, occupied the same cell as the usurer. The collector was a man of fair character but afflicted with a consuming thirst and fit for nothing until he had swallowed many pints of beer. He brought into prison with him a certain sum in cash, a silver watch and chain and a gold ring. Here was Würger’s opportunity. He saw his companion’s funds gradually diminish by his terrible thirst, and when they were exhausted, proposed to buy his fellow-prisoner’s silver chain, and offered a ludicrously low price for it. Bargaining and haggling went on for some time but without result, although the usurer strove hard and backed up his offer by constantly calculating how many pints of beer the suggested price would buy. Every time Würger mentioned the word “beer” the other would sigh deeply until the temptation conquered him, and finally the chain passed into Würger’s hands. The price of the chain was consumed in drink and the silver watch was the next to go. The last struggle was for the gold wedding ring. The poor collector was quite determined not to part with it; he inwardly took a solemn oath to conquer himself and not to sacrifice this last precious treasure. Würger did not utter a word for some days nor seem to notice the tortures of his mate. Finally, however, he appeared softened by the moans and groans of his companion who grew more and more thirsty, and offered to help him, but only at the cost of the ring. The tax-collector fell on his knees and begged the tyrant to lend him the money only and let him but pawn the ring; but Würger drove him to distraction by ordering a pint of beer which he slowly consumed before the drunkard. Again and again he tempted and played upon the appetite of the unfortunate man until at last the collector, half mad, tore the ring from his finger and threw it at the feet of the usurer, who smilingly slipped it into his pocket.
In prison Würger’s behaviour was cringing and artful. At the exercises in chapel he would sit with his head bowed, evidently cogitating over his impending lawsuits and thinking of his gold. His fellow-prisoners treated him with contempt, and revelled in the knowledge that this rich fiend, who had cheated many a poor man out of his last farthing, was now one of themselves; and on Sunday especially they would cast up his misdeeds against him and hold him up to ridicule. Toward the end of his term he went to the chaplain and bought a Bible. This reckless extravagance seemed odd, but it became known that the chaplain bought his Bibles at a reduced rate, and the usurer had calculated that he could sell at a profit.
“A clergyman’s task,” says Herr Fleischmann, “is far more difficult in a prison for women than in one for men. In the latter he has to deal with coarseness, brutality and moral degradation, but in the former he meets with many despicable traits: unlimited cunning, spitefulness, love of revenge, deceit and artifice. The man often reveals himself as he is, while the woman, on the contrary, having lost caste, desires to conceal her abject condition and, with rare exceptions, assumes some part foreign to her real nature which she plays cleverly throughout. I was often obliged in spite of myself to compare the man’s gaol to a menagerie, the woman’s to a theatre or stage.
“I was twenty-six years of age when I started on my official career of activity in K. On making my first rounds through the cells on the female side, I found one woman sitting with her head on the table weeping bitterly. She gave no sign that she had noticed my entrance, but when I wished her ‘Good morning,’ she slowly lifted her head and transfixed me with an uncomprehending gaze from soft, tear-dimmed brown eyes. She was apparently about fifty years of age and retained traces of great beauty.