[CHAPTER IV]
THE PENITENTIARY REOCCUPIED
Improved Ventilation and Drainage—Revised dietary—Provision of Hard Labour—Mild rule of Governor Chapman—Constant warfare between Prisoners and Authorities—Feigned suicides—Repeated Offences—Turbulence developed into open mutiny—Cells barricaded—Furniture demolished—Officers assaulted—Resistance to Authority culminates in murderous affray—Act permitting corporal punishment passed.
No pains were spared to make the Penitentiary wholesome for re-occupation. A Parliamentary Committee—that great panacea for all public ills—had however already reported favourably upon the place. They had declared that no case of local unhealthiness could be made out against it; nor had they been able to find “anything in the spot on which the Penitentiary is situated, nor in the construction of the building itself, nor in the moral and physical treatment of the prisoners confined therein, to injure health or render them peculiarly liable to disease.”
Yet to guard against all danger of relapse, they advised that none of the old hands should return to the prison, and recommended also certain external and internal improvements. Better ventilation was needed; to obtain this they called in Sir Humphrey Davy, and gave him carte blanche to carry out any alterations. Complete fumigation was also necessary; and this was effected with chlorine, under the supervision of a Mr. Faraday from the Royal Institution. To render innocuous the dirty ditch of stagnant water—dignified with the name of moat—which surrounded the buildings just within the boundary wall, it was connected with the Thames and its tides. Additional stoves were placed in the several pentagons, and the dietary reorganized on a full and nutritive scale, in quality and quantity equal to that in force before the epidemic. Provision was also made to secure plenty of hard labour exercise for the prisoners daily, by increasing the number of crank mills and water machines in the yards. More schooling was also recommended, as a profitable method of employing hours otherwise lost, and breaking in on the monotony and dreariness of the long dark nights. The cells, the committee thought too, should be lighted with candles, and books supplied “of a kind to combine rational amusement, with moral and religious instruction.” Indeed there was no limit to the benevolence of these commissioners. Adverting to the testimony of the medical men they had examined, who were agreed that cheerfulness and innocent recreation were conducive to health, they submitted for consideration, whether some kind of games or sports might not be permitted in the prison during a portion of the day. Fives-courts and skittle-alleys were probably in their minds, with cricket in the garden, or football during the winter weather. As one reads all this, one is tempted to ask whether the objects of so much tender solicitude were really convicted felons sentenced to imprisonment for serious crimes.
The rule of Governor Chapman was essentially considerate and mild. There was no limit to his long-suffering and patience. Though by all the habits of his early life he must have learned to look at breaches of discipline with no lenient eye, we shall find that he never punished even the most insubordinate and contumacious of the ruffians committed to his charge till he had first exhausted every method of exhortation or reproof; and when he had punished he was ever ready to forgive, on a promise of future amendment, or even a mere hypocritical expression of contrition alone. It is now generally admitted that felons cooped up within four walls can be kept in bounds only under an iron hand. Captain Chapman acted otherwise, the committee which controlled him fully endorsing his views. For a long time to come the prison was like a bear garden; misconduct was rife in every shape and form, increasing daily in virulence, till at length the place might have been likened to Pandemonium let loose. Then more stringent measures were enforced, with satisfactory results, as we shall see; but for many years there was that continuous warfare between ruffianism and constituted authority which is inevitable when the latter savours of weakness or irresolution.
Feigned suicides were among the earliest methods of annoyance. It is not easy to explain exactly what end the prisoners had in view, but doubtless they hoped to enlist the sympathies of their kindhearted guardians, by exhibiting a recklessness of life. Those who preferred death to continued imprisonment must indeed be miserably unhappy, calling for increased tenderness and anxious attention. They must be talked to, petted, patted on the back, and taken into the infirmary, to be regaled with dainties, and suffered to lie there in idleness for weeks. So whenever any prisoner was thwarted or out of temper, often indeed without rhyme or reason, and whenever the fancy seized him, he tied himself up at once to his loom, or laid hands upon his throat with his dinner-knife, or a bit of broken glass. Of course their last idea was to succeed. They took the greatest pains to insure their own safety, and these were often ludicrously apparent; but now and then, though rarely, they failed of their object, and the wretched victim suffered by mistake. Happily the actually fatal cases were few and far between.
This fashion of attempting suicide was led by a certain William Major, who arrived from Newgate on the 8th October, 1824. A few days afterwards he confided to the surgeon this determination to make away with himself; “that, or murder some one here; for I’d sooner be hanged like a dog than stay in the Penitentiary.” Such terrible desperation called of course for immediate expostulation, and Captain Chapman proceeded at once to Major’s cell. The prisoner’s knife and scissors were first removed; then the governor spoke to him. Major replied sullenly; adding, “I’ve made up my mind: I’d do anything to get out of this place; kill myself or you. I’d sooner go to the gallows than stay here.” “I reasoned with him,” says Captain Chapman in his Journal, “for a length of time on the wickedness of such shocking expressions; telling him there was only one way of shortening his time, and that was by good conduct. I told him his threats were those of a silly lad, which I should however punish him for.” So Major was carried off to a dark cell, but not before the governor had said all he could think of, to reason him out of his evil frame of mind. He remained in the dark two days, and then, having expressed himself penitent and promising faithfully better behaviour, he was released. For three weeks nothing further occurred, and then, “Suddenly,” says the governor, “as I was passing through a neighbouring ward, a turnkey called to me, ‘Here, here, governor! bring a knife. Major has hanged himself.” He had made himself fast to the cross beam of his loom. The action of his heart had not, however, ceased, though the circulation was languid and his extremities cold. He was removed at once to the infirmary, and as soon as animation was restored, the governor returned to the prisoner’s cell, and then found that “the hammock lashing was made fast in two places to the cross beam from the loom to the wall; in one was a long loop, in which Major had placed his feet; in the other a noose, as far distant from the loop as the length of the beam would permit, in which he had put his head; a portion of the rope between noose and loop he had held in his hand.” It was quite clear, therefore, that he had no determined intention of committing suicide; besides which he had chosen his time just as the turnkey was about to visit him, and he had eaten his supper, “which,” says the governor, “was no indication of despair.” Major soon recovered, and pretended to be sincerely ashamed of his wicked behaviour.