“Lord save us, it’s the major!” was the affrighted reply. They knew my voice and obeyed, creeping up the stairs one by one, till all, a dozen nearly, stood ranged in a row before me, and I desired the matron to take their names down, then to lock up each woman in her own cell. Next moment they were off, running for their lives in an entirely opposite direction. With a suddenness that was startling they broke away and made for the staircase, and up it to the top story of the prison building, above the highest ward, and into the close gallery just under the roof, whence they could reach the skylights and clamber out on to the slates. We knew they had reached the upper air, for their shouts were heard all over the prison, and they could be seen from the yards below, from the neighbouring streets indeed, dancing and performing wild antics on the roof above. We were all greatly puzzled how to deal with them. Persuasion was futile and it would be both difficult and dangerous to climb along the sloping roof, seize each woman in turn, and drag her down. After much debate I decided to leave them where they were—a “night out” would cool their blood, and they could neither do nor come to great harm in the alley under the roof, to which they would no doubt return of their own accord.
Meanwhile I sent to a friendly magistrate hard by, begging him to meet me at the prison next day early, for I wished to have recourse to his powers of punishment, having none myself. I made other preparations to deal with my mutineers, and, passing on to an adjacent town, saw the Governor of the prison there, requisitioned from him all his “figure-of-eight” handcuffs, and carried them back with me next morning in a bag. The situation remained unchanged; the women were still under the roof, but no longer had access to the slates, for by means of a ladder the skylights had been reached and secured from the outside. Then the male officers went upstairs and, after a sharp scuffle, extracted the women from the alley under the roof, and brought them one by one to their cells. No sooner were they incarcerated than the magistrate and I visited them, and he ordered each woman to be handcuffed, as the law permits when fears are entertained that she will do herself or another mischief. There was never another outbreak among the female prisoners there.[6]
But to return to Mr. Nihil. It appears that during his reign the condition of the female pentagon was always unsatisfactory. We find in his journal constant reference to the want of discipline among the female prisoners. Thus: “The behaviour of the female pentagon is frightfully disorderly, calling for vigorous and exemplary punishment. Women contract the most intimate friendship with each other, or the most deadly hatred.” The bickering, bad feeling, and disputes were increasing. After inquiring into one case, the governor observes, “Before the afternoon was over the combatants had the whole pentagon in an uproar. One smashed her windows to bits, and so did the other. They had to be taken to the dark; but Walters produced a knife, and would have wounded the matron.” Again, “I had to reprove strongly the taskmistress and warders for the laxity of discipline prevalent therein.” Later on, when the rules of greater seclusion came into force, he again remarks, “On the female side there is great laxity, no discipline, no attempt to enforce non-intercourse. Instead of a rule by which each individual would be thrown on her own reflections, and secluded altogether, the female pentagon is in fact a criminal nunnery, where the sisterhood are linked together by a chain of sympathies and by familiar and frequent communications.... Although, to the ladies who visit them, the females repeat Scripture and speak piously, the communications which many of them carry on with each other are congenial with their former vicious habits, their minds being thus kept in a state at once the most depraved and hypocritical.”
These ladies to whom the governor refers were members of the celebrated “Ladies’ Association,” headed by Mrs. Fry, whose long ministrations among female convicts at Newgate have gained them a world-wide reputation. Having undoubtedly done excellent work where crying evils called for reform, they were eager for fresh fields of labour. Accordingly they came and tried their best. It would be hardly fair to deny them all credit, or to assert that, because the women continued ill-conditioned throughout, the counsels and admonitions of these ladies had altogether failed of effect. It is obvious, however, from Mr. Nihil’s remarks, that their services tended to produce hypocrisy rather than real repentance. The fact was there was a marked distinction between the work they had done at Newgate and that to which they put their hands in the Penitentiary. In this latter place the women were really sedulously cared for; they had an abundance of good food, clean cells, comfortable beds; they bathed regularly; they had employment, books, and the unceasing ministrations of a zealous chaplain.
Newgate, on the other hand, when first visited by Mrs. Fry, was a perfect sink of abomination, rivalling quite the worst pictures painted by Howard. There could hardly have been a more terrible place than the women’s side. All that Mrs. Fry and her companions accomplished is now a matter of history.
But the condition of Millbank under Mr. Nihil was not that of Newgate and other prisons in 1816. It could not be said the Penitentiary prisoners were neglected. No fault could be found with their treatment generally, or the measures taken to provide for their spiritual needs. Long before the arrival of the “Ladies’ Association” the religious instruction of the female prisoners may be said to have reached a point of saturation: the preaching and praying, if I may say so, had been already a little overdone. Hence it was that their advent deepened only the outward hypocrisy and lip service, and was productive of little good.
The most serious annoyance entailed upon the governor of Millbank was the charge of female transports awaiting transportation. None of these were worse than a certain Julia Newman, who was a Penitentiary prisoner, and whose case I shall describe at some length, taking it as a type of the whole.
But there were many others among the female convicts who were also very desperate characters indeed; such as the woman from Liverpool, concerning whom the governor of the gaol wrote to say that she was so desperate that he thought it would be necessary to send her tied up in a sack. Mary McCarthy, was another, who was brought in handcuffs from Newgate, with a note to the effect that she required the greatest attention. She had several times attempted to strangle herself, and had therefore been handcuffed day and night and constantly watched. “She is a most artful, designing woman, and will succeed, if not well looked after, in her attempts to destroy herself.”
Mr. Nihil found McCarthy submissive and tractable, but after the above caution he thought it advisable to continue the handcuffing, intending to withdraw the restraint as soon as she abandoned her intention to commit suicide. At the end of two days she managed to rid herself of her handcuffs, having very small wrists; but as she evinced no signs of violence or intractability they were not replaced, the governor thinking, from his experience with Newman, that effectual and complete restraint was impossible if the prisoner was determined. McCarthy was, however, constantly watched, and for ten days she remained quite quiet. On the 21st of October, a fortnight after her admission, she begged her warder, Mrs. West, to come into her cell and teach her to stitch. Mrs. West did so readily, and all was calm and peaceable for a while. Suddenly, without giving Mrs. West a moment’s warning, McCarthy stabbed her from behind, inflicting one severe wound on the forehead and the other under the ear. She appears to have used the utmost violence. Mrs. West got up, streaming with blood, and made for the cell door, which she bolted behind her, thus securing the prisoner inside. Assistance was called at once, but on going back to the cell McCarthy was found on the floor insensible, with a big bruise on her forehead. She continued in this kind of trance for twenty-four hours. It was a marvel to every one how she had got the weapon, for in consequence of her known suicidal tendencies she had been furnished with neither knife or scissors. However, on returning from exercise, as it was afterwards ascertained, she had seen a knife lying on the floor in the passage, and stooping, as if to pull up her shoe, had managed to secrete the knife in her sleeve. So unprovoked and murderous an attack, coupled with the previous attempts at suicide, indicated a maniacal ferocity. The succeeding trance corroborated the suspicions; and although the prisoner had exhibited great art in concealing her weapon, such cunning was not inconsistent with mania. She had also attempted to effect her escape by making a large hole in the ceiling of her cell. Therefore, a well known physician, Dr. Monro, was now sent for, and at once, on hearing the whole story, certified the prisoner to be insane. She was now in the infirmary, her feet and arms bound to the bed by several ligatures. The surgeon removed those on her arms, on which the governor thought it prudent to put her into handcuffs. In the night she was caught in the act of getting her feet loose, and was evidently bent on some further mischief. Thus baffled, she remained sullen for some time, then sent for the governor and made a clean breast of it, having been moved thereto by a passage in one of the Psalms, which another prisoner who watched her had been reading aloud. The expression she noticed was about “going away like lost sheep.” She told the governor that while she was in the trance she knew some gentlemen had come to see her, and that one of them was a mad doctor. “I don’t think doctors know much about madness,” she added, “or they’d a’ understood me better.” Mr. Nihil was now pretty sure that McCarthy was no lunatic, but Dr. Monro and Dr. Wade adhered to their former opinion, so she was removed to Bethlehem.
Another woman, Ann Williams, who was received from Bath, proved a very desperate character. The governor of Bath gaol, who brought her up to London, declared he had never had so much trouble with any prisoner before. She also was determined to make away with herself, and the first time left alone she had jumped out of a window an immense height from the ground. This country gaoler, on seeing the cell to which she was destined in the Penitentiary, protested that it would be highly dangerous to allow her to have pewter pint, or spoon, or cell stool. The moment her hands were loosened she would be sure to thrust the spoon down her throat, or attack some one with the stool. Even the sheets should be removed, for she was capable of tearing them into slips to make herself a halter. Directly she arrived at Millbank she tried to dash her brains out by striking her head violently against the wall—emulating in this respect another prisoner for whom, some years later, a special head-dress was provided, a sort of Turkish cap padded at the top, merely to save her skull. Williams’ language was dreadful, and she refused all food. The governor now suspected her strongly of artifice, and the doctor recommended that she should be punished with bread and water diet. That night she grew extremely turbulent. She was then tied down to her bedstead, and a sort of gag, brought from Bath for McCarthy, used, which was effective in curbing her rage. This gag was a wide piece of strong leather, having perforated holes to admit of breathing, but which completely silenced her horrible and violent expressions. After starving herself for four days she had still strength enough left to get out of her handcuffs, and would have done much mischief had not the other prisoners who were watching her held her down by the hair. After greasing her wrists it was found possible to replace the handcuffs. This was another case in which it was thought advisable to give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt, and she was also removed to Bedlam.