The third charge was that a prisoner who had assaulted and wounded a warder with a pair of scissors, had not only been flogged, but the governor had specially sentenced him to be deprived henceforward of all instruction, religious or moral.
The fourth charge referred to a prisoner, Bourne, whom it was alleged the doctor had neglected, refusing to see him, although he was actually in a dying state. At length the officer of his ward sent specially to the doctor, who came and had Bourne removed to the infirmary, where he died two days afterward. “It was the governors plain duty to have prevented such a catastrophe,” said Baker.
Fifth: a prisoner, Harris Nash, died of dysentery after three months of the ordinary discipline. “The body was what may be termed a perfect skeleton.”
Sixth: another prisoner, a boy, Richmond, from Edinburgh, died after four months, having been confined in a dungeon on one pound of bread and two pints of water per diem, for an unlimited number of days. At night he lay upon the boards and had only a rug and blanket to cover him.
Seventh: several prisoners who had been present at the infliction of corporal punishment had immediately after hanged themselves, shocked by the sight they had seen.
Eighth: many instances were quoted of the governor’s harshness and partiality: fines inflicted unequally, old officers punished through his misrepresentation, others deprived of their situations as inefficient, though for years they had been considered efficient; while several had resigned sooner than submit to such tyranny.
Ninth: Edward Baker further asserted that the reply furnished to the House to his first petition was garbled and untrue. It had been prepared secretly in the prison; it was altogether false; facts had been suppressed or distorted; and that besides, the “cats” used were not those sanctioned by law.
Tenth: that the governor had exceeded his powers of punishment, and that in some cases prisoners had undergone as many as eighteen days’ bread and water in one month.
Finally, to quote the words of the petition, Baker urged that—“During the last three years the cruel conduct of the governor is known to have induced twenty prisoners to attempt suicide, and that four have actually succeeded in destroying themselves, and that others are constantly threatening self-destruction; forming a melancholy contrast with the system pursued during the twenty-three preceding years at the Millbank Penitentiary, that system being free from any such stain during that period:
“That the severity of punishments for alleged offences has led to the removal of many prisoners in a dying state to the invalid hulk at Woolwich, where every seventh man has since died, although when they came into the prison they were in good health. This cruel removal takes place to prevent the necessity for coroner’s inquests within the walls, and exposure of the discipline of the prison.”