So eager were the authorities to restrict the means of intercourse, that they were not above taking the advice of a prisoner on the subject. His suggestions were such as a prisoner is qualified to give, being the fruits of experience, and an intimate acquaintance with the various devices that are practised. If talking was to be prevented, he said, several new arrangements must be made; thus the officer, when prisoners were at exercise, instead of standing motionless should walk on an inner circle, in an opposite direction to the prisoners, so as to see their faces. The prisoners always talked whenever the officer’s back was turned. Nor should they be allowed to eat while in the yard: under the pretence of chewing they really were engaged in conversation. Again, to put an end to clandestine letters, all the blank pages of library books should be numbered and frequently examined, so that none might be abstracted and used as writing paper. Nor should any whiting be issued to clean the pewters: the prisoners only used it to lay a thick white coat upon any damped paper, thus making a surface to write upon. By scraping off the whiting the same paper could be used over and over again. To make a pencil they scraped their pewter pints, then with the heat from the tailors’ iron, with which many were supplied, they ran these scrapings into a mould. Lastly, all searching of cells and prisoners should be more frequent and complete; care should be taken in the latter case to examine the cuff and collar of the jacket, the waistband and the lower part of the legs of the trousers, and the cap. The bedding in the cells, all cracks in floor or shopboard, and the battens or little pieces below the tables should be thoroughly overhauled. With such precautions as these much might be effected; nevertheless, said the informer, misconduct must always continue, for prisoners often incurred reports solely to gain the character of heroes.
And so with the new year many further changes were introduced. All the governor’s recommendations were adopted, and not a few of the suggestions last quoted, in spite of the source from which they came. Within a week or two—rather soon, perhaps—the governor considers that the new discipline works extremely well. Reports diminish, and the control of officers is more complete. Ill-tempered prisoners evinced great annoyance at the change; but by meeting this spirit by firmness and good temper it has, he thinks, been repressed. Three months later he notices a distinct improvement in behaviour, traceable beyond question to the new rules. Prisoners formerly constantly reported are now quite quiet, and in a very good state of mind—tractable, submissive, and grateful. “Several had learned to read; and many evinced a softened and subdued tone of feelings, and thanked God they had been brought to the Penitentiary. Some expressed a grateful sense of the value of the late regulations. One youth told me that previously they might almost as well have been in the same room with a crowd.... In Thomas Langdale, a desperate housebreaker and a very depraved man, the most hopeful change has taken place. He has written a most artless and interesting letter to his wife.... Some prisoners have acquired a great mastery over their violent tempers, and look quite cheerful and happy.... A few only still manifest great discontent.”
All that year the principle has ample trial. In April, 1840, the governor asserts that in his opinion the state of the prison is highly satisfactory. The prisoners, as testified by their letters (which were meant for him to see), were as happy as the day was long. They had good food, good clothing, and spoke with gratitude of the provision made for their religious instruction. Moreover, now the reins are as tight as they can be drawn. “Separation has within the last two years been much more carried out than formerly, and the effect has been very materially to reduce offences and punishments, and to promote reformation,” says Mr. Nihil. His great difficulty now is that he cannot ventilate the cell without opening the door to communication. In fact he might seem to wish to seal up his prisoners hermetically; but he says, “I do not mean to advocate long separation from all social communication. I should prefer a system of regulated intercourse upon a plan of classification and superintendence and mutual education, guarded by occasional separation. What I object to is nominal separation accompanied with secret fraudulent vicious communication. Health is certainly a great consideration, but are morals less? Ought health to be sought by the rash demolition of an important moral fence? If health is alone to be looked to it would be very easy to suggest very simple means for keeping the prisoners in general good health; but then the objects of imprisonment would be altogether frustrated. Considering these objects indispensable, and that one of them is the moral reformation of the prisoners, I conceive it would be much better to leave them to the remedy of opening their cell windows for fresh air.”
Mr. Nihil’s notions were certainly clearly developed. He was for no half measures. But in his extreme eagerness to push his theory as far as it could go, he actually courted disaster. He was apparently blinded by a misconception of phrases. So long as he steered clear of what was called solitary confinement he thought he was safe. But he forgot that the more separation was insisted upon, the more nearly solitude was approached. In point of fact there was absolutely no distinction between the separate confinement practised at Millbank, and that solitary confinement which had already been universally condemned, and which by law was not to be inflicted except for very limited periods of time. Naturally the same fatal consequences, the inevitable results that follow such imprisonment protracted beyond the extreme limit, began to be plainly visible. Cases of insanity, or weakened intellect came to light, first in solitary instances, then more and more frequently. The committee were compelled to run counter to Mr. Nihil, and relax the rigorous separation from which he hoped to effect so much. I find in their report for 1841 that they consider it necessary to make great alterations in the discipline of the institution.
“In consequence of a distressing increase in the number of insane prisoners, the committee, under sanction of the medical superintendent, came to the resolution that it would be unsafe to continue a system of strict separation for the long periods to which the ordinary sentences of the prisoners in the Penitentiary extend. They therefore propose that the system should be relaxed with regard to all classes of prisoners except two; viz., military prisoners whose sentences were extremely short, and persons convicted of unnatural offences; and that to all other prisoners the prohibition of intercourse should be limited to the first three months after their admission, and that upon the expiration of that period they should be placed upon a system of modified intercourse.” But they surrendered their views evidently with the utmost reluctance, and remarked further in this report that “they are inclined to believe that no scheme of discipline in which intercourse between prisoners, however modified, forms an essential part, is ever likely to be made instrumental either to the prevention of crime or to the personal reformation of convicts to the same degree as a system of separation. Whether the latter system can be rendered compatible with the maintenance of the mental sanity of the prisoners is a subject of much controversy, and can only be determined by actual experiment, accompanied by such advantages as are proposed in the Model Prison.”[9]
But it now becomes plainly evident that the waters are beginning to close over the Penitentiary. There are people outside its walls who are clearly not its friends, if not openly inimical. Thus dissatisfaction finds voice in the House of Commons, where, on the 15th March, 1841, Mr. Alderman Copeland asks for certain information which the prison authorities must have found it awkward to supply. This return called for was to show the numbers sent to the Penitentiary during the past five years; the number removed during that period for insanity, the number for bad health, and who had died; and it was to be stated how often the several members of the committee attended during the year.
From different causes, one difficulty added to another, the Penitentiary was drawing nearer and nearer to its doom. At length its death-blow fell, accelerated doubtless by the sweeping alterations contemplated in the whole system of secondary punishments. These changes, by which also the whole constitution of the Penitentiary was altered, will be detailed at length in another volume, and the closing chapter shall be devoted to the last days of old Millbank.
It was on the 5th May, 1843, that Sir James Graham, then Home Secretary, introduced a Bill for the better regulation of the Penitentiary. The House must be fully aware, he said, of the Report[10] in which it was stated that as a penitentiary “Millbank Prison had been an entire failure.” Its functions, therefore, in that respect were now to cease. The next thing to be considered was what use might be made of it, for it was a large building and had many conveniences for a prison. Just at this moment, however, the Government had determined to carry out a certain new classification of all convicts sentenced to transportation. In other words, felons were to suffer this punishment in different degrees, according to their condition and character. But to ascertain in which category offenders should be placed a time of probation and proof was needed, and this period should be passed at some general depot, where for nine or ten months the character of each convict might be tested. Millbank was admirably suited for the purpose. From here, after the necessary interval, the juveniles were to be sent on to the new prison at Parkhurst, the best and most promising convicts to Pentonville, the rest to the hulks, but one and all only in transitu to the antipodes.
Nothing now remained but for the Penitentiary Committee to go through the ceremony of the happy despatch; for by the new arrangements the control of the prison was to be vested in a body of government inspectors, and of a governor acting under them. Under the new system, the committee states, “there will be a rapid succession of transports continually passing through the prison; and the shortness of their confinement, though very desirable on the score of health, will necessarily militate against any great mental or moral improvement.” Nothing is intimated as to the nature of the discipline to which the transports are to be subjected during their detention here. The committee, however, “are satisfied that a vigorous system will be found necessary for the maintenance of order among criminals of so depraved and desperate a character as the male transports are evidently expected to be. In short, it is obvious that an entirely new state of things is at hand, one never contemplated by any members of the committee when they originally consented to act; one moreover which will require, in their opinion, an active and unremitting superintendence such as their other avocations render them incapable of undertaking.” Therefore one and all of them were glad to resign their functions into other hands. But they “cannot conclude without remarking that the new system contemplated would never be properly administered by a clerical governor, even if he considered it consistent with his sacred functions to undertake such a charge.”
I find in the minutes of the committee on the 9th June, 1843, all members were requested to attend at their next meeting, which was probably to be their last.