Medical Attendance
But what if one is ill in the night? The lonely prisoner in her cell may summon aid by ringing the bell. The moment it is set in motion it causes a black iron slab to project from the outer wall of her cell in the gallery. On the slab is the prisoner’s number, and the ward officer, hearing the bell, at once looks for the cell from which the call has been sent. Presently she finds it, then fetches the principal matron, and together they enter the hard, unhomelike place. If the prisoner is ill they call the doctor of the prison, and medicines and aid will be given. But sympathy is no part of their official duty, and be the warder never so tender in her own domestic circle, tenderness must not be shown toward a prisoner. The patient may be removed from her cell to the infirmary, where they will care for her medically, perhaps as well as they would in a hospital; she may even receive a few flowers from an infirmary warder whose heart comes out from its official shell; but through it all, sick though she be, she is still a prisoner under lock and key, a woman under surveillance, a woman denied communion with her kind.
Added Sufferings of the Delicately Nurtured
What words can adequately describe the long years, blank and weary enough for all prisoners, but which are indescribably so to one who has been delicately nurtured! I had enjoyed the refinements of social life; I had pitied, and tried, as far as lay in my power, to help the poor and afflicted, but I had never known anything of the barbarism, the sordid vices of low life. And I was condemned to drag out existence amid such surroundings, because twelve ignorant men had taken upon themselves to decide a question which neither the incompetent judge nor the medical witnesses could themselves determine.
So far as I can learn, there is no other instance of a woman undoubtedly innocent and of gentle birth, confined for a term of nearly fifteen years in an English convict prison. In the nature of things a delicate woman feels more acutely than a robust prisoner the rigors of prolonged captivity.
Neither confidence nor respect can be secured when punishment is excessive, for it then becomes an act of persecution, suitable only for ages of darkness. The supineness of Parliament in not establishing a court of criminal appeal fastens a dark blot upon the judicature of England, and is inconsistent with the innate love of justice and fair play of its people.
How Criminals and Imbeciles are Made
The law in prison is the same for the rich as the poor, the “Star Class” as for the ignorant, brutalized criminal. My register was “L. P. 29.” These letters and numbers were worked in white cotton upon a piece of black cloth. Your sentence is indicated thus: “L” stands for penal servitude for life; “P” for the year of conviction, which in my case was the sixteenth year since the previous lettering. This is done every twenty-five years. The “29” meant that I was the twenty-ninth convict of my year, 1889. In addition to this register I wore a red cloth star placed above it. The “Star Class,” of which I was a member, consisted of women who have been convicted of one crime only, committed in a moment of weakness or despair, or under pressure which they were not strong enough to resist at the time, such as infanticide, forgery, incendiarism; and who, having been educated and respectably brought up, betray otherwise no criminal instincts or inclinations; and who, when in the world, would be distinct in character from the habitual criminal, not only from a social point of view, but in their virtues, faults, and crimes.