The most annoying of the many anxieties that weighed upon Governor Nihil at this time was the deportment of a certain Pickard Smith, who seemed more than a match for all the authority of the place. His case is interesting as an example of the length to which a prisoner can go, even in times when better influences were, it was hoped, at work with all.
On the day he arrived at the Penitentiary under the name of Smith, it was discovered that he had been there before as Pickard, when he was known for notorious misconduct, though towards the end of his sentence he had assumed an appearance of reformation. On his recommittal he was at first quiet and amenable to discipline, but he seemed to have conceived suddenly a desire to be sent abroad to the colonies. From henceforth his conduct was detestable. At length he destroyed everything in his cell: furniture, clothing, glass, books, including “Bishop Green’s Discourses,” and then he endeavoured to brain the officer who came to expostulate. “If I am to go to the dark, I may as well go for something,” he said; and after he was removed it was found that he had written the following lines on the back of his cell door:
“London is the place where I was bred and born,
Newgate has been too often my situation,
The Penitentiary has been too often my dwelling-place,
And New South Wales is my expectation.”
Not a very high poetical flight, to which the governor-chaplain remained insensible, and had the poet forthwith flogged.
The magistrate came as before from the nearest police office, for the express purpose of passing sentence. Seventy-five lashes out of three hundred ordered were inflicted, greatly to the benefit, it is recorded, of other unruly prisoners, all of whom were brought out to witness the punishment. “They appeared much subdued in spirit,” says Mr. Nihil, and for some days afterwards the prison exhibited quite an altered character. But upon the culprit himself the sentence had no effect whatever. He spent his time from that day forth in whistling, idleness, and impertinence, sometimes in his own cell, oftener in the dark. His insolence grew more and more insupportable; he told the governor to hold his jaw, and his warder to go about his business. One fine morning it was found that he had gone. His cell was empty, and he had disappeared.
“The mode of escape,” said the governor in his journal, “was most ingenious, daring, and masterly, though the prisoner is only eighteen years of age. There was a combination of sagacity, courage, and ready resource, indicating extraordinary powers, both mental and bodily.”
He had got, unknown to his officer, an iron pin used for turning the handle of the ventilator of the stove. The stove not being in use the handle was not missed. The prisoner was let out of his cell by himself, being kept apart from other prisoners in consequence of frequent insubordination and the mischievous tendency of his example. With this pin he had made a hole in the brick arch which formed the roof of his cell large enough to admit his body. The iron pin, stuck into one of the slits for ventilation in the wall, served as a hook, to which he had probably suspended a small ladder, ingeniously constructed of shreds of cotton and coarse thread (it was found in the roof); and with such assistance to his own activity and strength he had got through the ceiling and into the roof, along the interior of which he had proceeded some distance, till he was able at length to break a hole in the slates. But the battens to which the slates were fastened were too narrow to let him through, so he travelled on till he found others wider apart, and here, making a second hole, he contrived to get out on to the roof. The descent was his next difficulty, but he had provided for this by carrying with him a number of suitable articles to assist him in his purpose. It must be mentioned that he had chosen his time well: not only were the officers later coming in on Sunday mornings, but on Saturday evenings the prisoners receive their clean clothes (their dirty ones were not returned till next morning), so that Smith had in his cell two sets of clothes—two shirts, two pairs of long stockings, and two handkerchiefs. He had washed his feet also on Saturday night, and had been given a round towel to dry them. Having torn his blankets and rugs into strips, he had sewn them together by lengths, making each, like the round towel, a link in a chain to which his neckerchiefs and pocket-handkerchiefs, similarly prepared, added further lengths. With all of these, and attired in his clean shirt, he had ascended as already described to the roof, where he must have found his chain too short, for he had added his shirt to the apparatus. This rope he fastened to one of the rafters of the roof, and then slung himself down to where he judged the attic window was to be found, and he judged accurately. The sill of the window formed the first stage, and to its bars he fastened part of his chain, thus economizing its length, instead of having one long rope from the roof downwards. Descending in like manner to the second window, he repeated the process, and again to the third (or first floor), after which he reached the ground in safety. His next difficulty was to scale the boundary wall. Much work happened to be going on in the rebuilding of parts destroyed by fire, and a quantity of masons’ and carpenters’ materials were lying about. First he contrived to remove a long and prodigiously heavy ladder (which two men ordinarily could not carry), from against the scaffolding, and this he dragged to the iron fence of the burial ground, against which he rested it, but he could not rear it the whole height of the boundary wall. Next he got two planks, and lashing them firmly together with a rope he picked up, he thus made an inclined plane long enough to allow of his walking up it to the top of the wall. Weighting one end with a heavy stone, he easily got the planking on to the wall and thus got over.
As soon as the escape was discovered immediate search was made in all adjoining lurking-places. Officers acquainted with Pickard’s haunts were despatched to a far-off part of the town, information was lodged at Bow Street, and a reward of £50 offered by authority of the Secretary of State. He was eventually recaptured through the connivance of his relatives. Soon anonymous letters reached the governor, offering to give the fugitive up for the reward. A confidential officer was despatched to a concerted place of meeting, and by the assistance of the police, and his own friends, Pickard Smith was secured and brought back to the Penitentiary. Mr. Nihil was much exercised in spirit at his return. It appeared that he belonged to a family which had all been transported. He came to the Penitentiary himself as a boy, grew up in it to manhood, and five months after his release was again convicted and returned under a new name. Mr. Nihil says: “Had it been known that the benevolent system of the Penitentiary had been previously tried in vain upon him, he would not probably have been sent here a second time. It is plain that he was not a fit subject for it, and his previous experience within our walls, and probable acquaintance with their exterior localities, acquired during the interval of his freedom, rendered him a dangerous inmate. After his flogging continued misconduct rendered it necessary to keep him apart from other prisoners—a circumstance which facilitated those operations by which he lately accomplished his escape. It is now highly dangerous to keep him in the same ward with other prisoners, our means of preventing intercourse being extremely inadequate. On the other hand, conversant as he is with the localities of the prison, aware of the aid to be derived from the materials strewed about in consequence of the extensive repairs after the late fire, and flushed with his former success, it becomes no less objectionable to place him apart where he may be less liable to any interruption in any attempt he may make. A man of his capabilities ought not to be kept in a prison with so low a boundary wall as ours. I do not fear his escape, watched as he now will be, but I fear his attempts.”
Nevertheless, though repeated efforts were made to get this prisoner removed to the hulks or to some other prison, the Secretary of State would not give his consent. He said it would be considered discreditable to the Penitentiary if prisoners were transferred on account of its inability to secure them. “Why not chain him heavily?” asks the Secretary of State. “Why not?” replies Mr. Nihil. “Because if he is prosecuted and receives an additional sentence of three years, we cannot keep him all his time in chains. The peculiarity of our system,” goes on the governor, “hardly appears to be considered as an objection to his continuance here.” The principle of the Penitentiary was that it was not merely a place of safe custody and punishment, but a place of reformation; and, therefore, if it failed of this latter object in any instance, a power was reserved of sending away the prisoner as incorrigible, for fear of his interfering with the progress of the system among other prisoners. Next day he was told he would have to remain three years extra in the Penitentiary, whereupon he promised, of his own accord, to abstain from making any further attempts at escape, provided he were allowed to go among the other prisoners. He was so much more tractable and so much improved in temper that his request was granted, and he was brought once more under ordinary discipline.