“You must walk with your partner.”
“What is that you say? I’ll partner you,” exclaimed Sheppard most insolently; an answer that is conclusive evidence as to the sort of discipline maintained in the prison.
The officer made no further remark, but walked away to unlock a gate. Sheppard followed him quickly, and without the least notice, struck him a tremendous blow behind the ear, striking him again and again till other officers came to the victim’s assistance. Many of the prisoners cried “Leave off!” but none offered to interfere. As soon as the prisoner had been secured, he was carried before the governor. The assault was brutal and unprovoked, and seemed to call for immediate example. Under the recent Act, it had become lawful to inflict corporal punishment in serious cases, and now for the first time this power was made available. The prisoner Sheppard was sent to the Queen’s Square police office, and arraigned before the sitting magistrate, who sentenced him forthwith to “one hundred and fifty lashes on the bare back.” The whole of the prisoners of the D ward, to which Sheppard belonged, were therefore assembled in the yard, and the culprit tied up to iron railings in the circle. “Having addressed the prisoner,” says the governor, “on this disgraceful circumstance, I had one hundred lashes applied by Warder Aulph, an old farrier of the cavalry, and therefore well accustomed to inflict corporal punishment, who volunteered his services. The surgeon attended, and he being of opinion that Sheppard had received enough, I remitted the remainder of his sentence, on an understanding to that effect with Mr. Gregory (the sitting magistrate). The lashes were not very severely inflicted, but were sufficient for example. Sheppard, when taken down, owned the justice of his sentence, and, addressing his fellow-prisoners, said he hoped it would be a warning to them. He was then taken to the infirmary.” A strong force of extra warders was present to overawe the spectators; but all the prisoners behaved well, except one who yelled “Murder” several times, which was answered from the windows above, whence came also cries of “Shame.” Another, who had been guilty some months before of a similar offence, witnessed the operation. It affected him to tears. “He was much frightened, and promised to behave better for the future.”
It is impossible to read this account of the infliction of what seemed a highly necessary chastisement without noticing the peculiar sensitiveness of the prison authorities on the subject. In these days there are crowds of thin-skinned philanthropists, ever ready to loudly rail against the use of the lash, even upon garroters and the cowards who beat their wives. But in the time of which I am writing—in 1830 that is to say, when soldiers, for purely military offences, were flogged within an inch of their lives, and the “cat” alone kept the slave population of penal colonies in subjection—it is almost amusing to observe what a coil was raised about a single instance of corporal punishment. Were proof required of the exceeding mildness of the rule under which Millbank was governed, we should have it here.
Between this and the next assault there was a long interval. But after a little more than twelve months had elapsed, the ferocity of these candidates for reformation again made itself apparent. This time it was a concerted affair between two prisoners who fancied themselves aggrieved by the stern severity of their officer, Mr. Young. These men, Morris and King, had been reported for talking to each other from cell to cell. Next day both were let out to throw away the water in which they had washed. They met at the trough, and recommenced conversation which had been interrupted the day before.
“At your old tricks, eh?” cried Mr. Young. “I shall have to report you again.”
“You lie, you rascal,” shouted Morris, suddenly drawing a sleeveboard which he had concealed behind his back. Holding this by the small end with both hands, he aimed several tremendous blows at Mr. Young’s head, which the latter managed to ward off partly, with his arms. But now King, armed with a pewter basin in one hand and a tailor’s iron in the other, attacked him from behind. Soon Mr. Young’s keys were knocked away from him, and he himself brought to the ground. However, he managed to regain his legs, and then made off, closely pursued by his assailants, who, flourishing their weapons and smashing everything fragile in their progress, drove him at length into a corner, got him down, beat him unmercifully, and left him for dead, King throwing the basin behind him as a parting shot.
Mr. Young’s cries of “Murder!” had been continuous. They were re-echoed by the shouts of the many prisoners who, standing at their open cell doors, were spectators of the scene. One man, Nolan, climbing up to his window, gave the alarm to the tower below. Assistance soon arrived—the taskmaster followed by two others, who met first Morris and King as they were returning to their cells. “What has happened?” they asked. “I haven’t an idea,” Morris replied coolly. King, too, is equally in the dark. The officers pass on and come to other cells, in which the prisoners are seen grinning as if in high glee, and when questioned they only laugh the more. But at length Nolan is reached. “Oh, sir,” says Nolan at once, through the bars of his gate, “they’ve murdered the officer, Mr. Young, sir. There lie his keys, and his body is a little further on.” At this moment, however, Mr. Young is seen dragging himself slowly towards them, evidently seriously injured and hardly able to walk. He just manages to explain what has happened, and as the governor has by this time also arrived, the offenders are secured and carried off to the refractory cells.
Here was another case in which a prompt exhibition of the “cat” would probably have been attended with the best results. But for some reason or other this course was not adopted; the prisoners Morris and King were remanded for trial at the next Clerkenwell Assizes, where, many months afterwards, they were sentenced to an additional year’s imprisonment. So far as I can discover, in these times the power to inflict corporal punishment in the Penitentiary was very sparingly employed. No other case beyond that which I have just described appears recorded in the journals till some four years afterwards, in 1834, when a prisoner having attacked his officer with a shoe frame, the sitting magistrate ordered him to be flogged with as little delay as possible. For this purpose the services of the public executioner were obtained from Newgate, and one hundred out of the three hundred lashes ordered were laid on “not very severely.” A large gathering of the worst behaved prisoners witnessed the punishment; but all were very quiet. “Not a word was spoken, though many were in tears.” “I fervently hope,” says Captain Chapman, “that this painful discharge of my duty may be productive of that to which all punishment tends—the prevention of crime.”