“Your Obedient Humble Servants,
“Friends to the Oppressed.”
This letter indicates the prisoners’ attitude. On another occasion a few of them go to the governor’s office to remonstrate with him on one of his punishments. We might as well imagine—to compare great things with small—a deputation from the criminal classes waiting on a judge to complain of his sentence on a thief. As soon as the protesters are ushered in, one says that Davis, the culprit, is very sorry for what he has done; another says that he was unwell at the time, and all unite in hoping the governor will let him off. Fortunately the governor is not so weak as they fancied. He says: “On my remarking to them—which I did with much indignation—their highly improper conduct in presuming to remonstrate with me in the execution of my duty, Boak (one of the three) remarked, that by their rules they were to apply to the governor or visitor if they had any complaint. To which I answered, ‘Most certainly,’ but that my confining Timothy Davis could not possibly be any grievance to them; and repeated that their presuming to dictate to me was of such a reprehensible and insubordinate nature that I should confine them in the dark cells.” But as they were penitent, and promised for the future to mind their own business, they were released the same day.
Meanwhile, the rioting and destruction proceeded without intermission. A frequent device now was for prisoners to barricade their cell doors, so as to work the more uninterruptedly. For this purpose the cell-blocks or some of the fragments from the demolished furniture served; and, as a brilliant idea, one or two prisoners invented the practice of filling their keyholes with sand and brick rubbish, or hampering the locks with their knives. But in March the riot exceeded anything in previous experience. It was prefaced by the usual exhibitions of defiance and insubordinate conduct, and the uproar as before broke out in the middle of the night. A dozen or more of the prisoners dressed themselves, barricaded their doors, and then set to work. By and by the whole ward was in a tumult. The dark cells were already full, and there was no other place of punishment. The shouting and yelling could not therefore be checked, and continuing far into the day excited other prisoners at exercise, so that they were on the point of laying violent hands upon their warders. One scoundrel took off his cap and tried to cheer on his fellows to acts of violence; and some followed the warder into a corner, swearing they would have his life. The condition of the whole prison was now so alarming that the governor, with permission of the visitor, sought extraneous help. Application was made to the Queen’s Square police office for a force of constables to assist in maintaining order and insuring the safe custody of the prisoners. As soon as these reinforcements arrived they were marched to the airing-yard of Pentagon five—the scene of the recent riots.
Here a large body of prisoners were at exercise. The governor and the visitor in turn addressed them, pointing out “the shame and disrepute they were bringing on themselves and the institution by their mutinous conduct.” Several in reply were most insolent in speech and manner, declaring they did not deserve to be treated with suspicion. One addressed a warder close at hand with loud abuse, another the taskmaster, swearing he was starved to death, and both had to be removed. These constables remained on duty during the night, and for several weeks to come continued to give their assistance. On the return of the prisoners to their wards, the governor spent four hours, from seven to eleven o’clock, going patiently from cell to cell, impressing on each man the necessity for orderly and subordinate conduct. “My time and efforts,” he says next day, “were, I regret to say, quite thrown away, for the noise and shouting continued during the night, though not quite to the same extent.” Nothing very serious, however, happened till three o’clock the following day, when Hickman, a prisoner in the infirmary, began to break his windows, and with loud huzzahs endeavoured to incite the others in the yards to “acts of violence and insubordination.” He was answered by many voices, and the tumult soon became general. Meanwhile, the governor and the visitor had repaired to Hickman’s cell as soon as the smashing of glass was heard, but the man had cunningly made fast his door, and could not be interfered with. It appeared that he had complained of want of exercise, and had accompanied this complaint with so much contrition for previous violent conduct, that the surgeon had allowed his cell door to be unlocked, so that he might walk when he liked in the passage. Directly the officers had gone to dinner he got out, and, using his knife, which had imprudently been left in his possession, hampered the locks at both ends of the passage. His next act was to slice into ribbons the whole of his bedding and that of several cells adjoining his own, which were unoccupied and proved not to be locked. This business satisfactorily arranged, he began to shout and to smash all the windows within his reach. Before he could be secured he had demolished eighty-two panes of glass and several sashes complete. He was found brandishing his broom, and offering to fight the lot of his captors, one of whom promptly knocked him down, when he was quickly handcuffed and carried back to his cell. But the noise he made that night, with others, was so great that the governor declared he never closed his eyes during the night. Night after night the misconduct of the prisoners continued, and grew worse and worse. Wards hitherto well behaved became infected. In C Ward, Pentagon six, “they commenced at 4 a.m. shouting and bellowing like the rest.” The visitor on going to “the dark” was again most grossly insulted and abused. Another evening the noise and shouting that broke out was so loud that many officers going off duty heard the disturbance at the other end of Vauxhall Bridge, and returned to the prison.
All through the months of April and May the violence of the malcontents continued unabated. They had found out their strength, no doubt, and laughed at all attempts to coerce them. Neither dark cells nor irons exercised the least effect, and the only remaining punishment—the lash, the committee were not as yet empowered to enforce. It must be confessed that one reads with regret that a parcel of unruly scoundrels should thus be allowed to make a mockery of the punishment to which they were sentenced by the law, and that they should be suffered unchecked to set all order and discipline at defiance. And all this deliberate insolence and open insubordination could have but one end, and culminated at length in a murderous affray, in which a couple of prisoners fell upon the machine-keeper and nearly killed him. The plot had been well laid, and brewing for some time. About seven o’clock one morning, while working quietly at the crank, prisoner Salmon rushed at Mr. Mullard, the machine-keeper, and knocked him off the platform by a tremendous blow, which caught him just behind the ear, and cut his head open. Crouch, another prisoner, struck Mr. Mullard at the same moment. When on the ground he was kicked by Salmon in the mouth. No one but the wardsman, another prisoner, came to poor Mullard’s assistance; but this man acted with great spirit, and it was mainly owing to his prompt interference that the machine-keeper escaped with his life.
At the moment the attack was made all the other officers were at a distance. One warder said he saw Mr. Mullard fall, but thought it was accidental, and that the prisoner Salmon had stooped over to pick him up. However, when the other prisoners crowded round, shouting, “Give it him! Give it him! Lay on,” this warder, perceiving their evil intentions, took to his heels—to get assistance, for he afterwards indignantly disclaimed all idea of quitting the yard through personal apprehension. At the tower he found the taskmaster coming out cutlass in hand; Rogan, the warder, got one also, and both hurried back to the yard. Smith, the wardsman, was fighting with Crouch, and Mr. Mullard, who had got again to his feet, with Salmon; the other prisoners looking on, being, as they afterwards asserted, afraid to stir, “particularly after seeing the warder, Rogan, run away.” Crouch now came at the taskmaster “with fury in his looks;” upon which the latter drew his cutlass and warned him to stand off, and then both Crouch and Salmon were secured. There was no doubt the greater part of the prisoners were concerned in this mutiny, for although Mullard called aloud for assistance, not a soul but Smith, the wardsman, stirred a finger to help him. These miscreants were subsequently tried at the Old Bailey, and sentenced to increased imprisonment.
Not long after this the new Act, authorizing the committee to flog for aggravated misconduct, was passed, and then a clearance was made of the worst subjects by sending them from the Penitentiary to the hulks. This was really yielding to the prisoners. But it gained a certain lull of peace within the walls—no slight boon after the disturbances, and it was hoped that the new powers of punishment would check any further outbreak amongst those who remained.