I settled down to my work and had a chance to look about me. The prison, a stone building, was on the finest site in New Westminster, a gently sloping eminence overlooking a broad sweep of the Fraser River where it widens to its delta. The prison contained one hundred single cells and the silent system obtained. There was never any overcrowding or haphazard makeshifts. When the cells were all filled, a batch of prisoners was at once shipped away to the eastern prisons at Kingston, Ontario, or Stony Mountain, Manitoba, to make room for newcomers. We were closely watched and guarded by the officers, who were nearly all ex-army and navy men, iron disciplinarians and sticklers for the enforcement of rules. I looked about for some way out of the place, but it seemed hopeless and I gave it up, settling down to do my time.
The prison population came from the four corners of the earth. Sailors and ex-soldiers, deserters from the navy, a few “Yanks,” fugitives from the “American side,” Indians from the Arctic Circle brought down by the Mounted Police to do time for violating laws they never could understand, and a sprinkling of Chinamen and Japs. The sixty acres of prison land were farmed intensively, yielding an abundance of fine vegetables, hay, and grain. Clothing, shoes, and socks were made by prisoners. The food was coarse but wholesome. An American prison commissary would not believe a penitentiary could be run without beans. In my two years at this prison I did not see a bean. An English prison warden would not believe a prison could exist without peas. I never saw a pea in an American prison. I never saw a cup of coffee in the place. We had pea “coffee” twice a day. It was made from peas grown on the farm, threshed out on the barn floors with flails, roasted and ground like coffee. It was very nutritious and not at all unpalatable. We had plenty of vegetables, mush and pea soup, lots of bread, not too fresh, and not much meat. The food ration, even to the salt and pepper that seasoned it, was regulated by law. Every prisoner got just what the law allowed him and no more. We always had good appetites, never quite had them satisfied, had no smoking tobacco, no coffee, very little meat, and plenty of sleep—the hospital was always empty and there was not a death in the prison in my two years’ time there.
The place was clean and well ventilated. We had coarse, warm clothing, enough blankets, plenty of light, lots of good books, and nothing to distract us when reading. I never saw a bug, flea, or mosquito while there. The guards were not brutal or overbearing. I never saw one strike a prisoner; I never saw a prisoner strike a guard.
One morning I glimpsed a familiar face and figure; it was Soldier Johnnie. I forgot the rules, and sang out, “How long are you doing?” Before he could answer I was snatched out of the line and locked in my cell.
The warden was a hardened man, old, sick, and cynical. His motto was “Break them first and make them over.” The guard submitted a written report of my misconduct, talking. My punishment was three days on bread and water. The prison had no dungeon. The prisoner under punishment was kept in his cell, which was stripped of its furniture and darkened by placing a blank, wooden, movable door against the outer side of the cell door proper.
In my dark cell I thought of Soldier Johnnie, and wondered if he remembered how they bored a hole and fed me through it in the Utah prison. All the yeggs and “Johnsons” in Christendom couldn’t have put a crumb of bread into this dark cell in this backwoods prison—it was English. In all the time I was there I never had a chance to talk to Johnnie. He was discharged before me, and we had no chance to compare notes for years.
My cell was darkened many times and I lived many days on bread and water before I got my time in. I came to learn that a satisfying meal may be made of two ounces of stale bread if it is eaten slowly and chewed thoroughly. I was chewing my ration of bread two hours, taking small bits and chewing them to liquid in my dark cell years before I heard of Fletcher and his system of Fletcherizing food. My experience with short rations in many places has convinced me that we would all be healthier and better nourished if we ate half as much food and chewed it twice as long.
I soon got into a feud with the officers and guards. I talked and laughed and whistled and sang; all of which outraged the ironbound system of silence. The Fourth of July came along, and as I was registered as an American I refused to work on that glorious day. This was a very serious offense, and I was sentenced to twelve days bread and water. They opened my cell every fourth day, put in the furniture, and fed me the regular prison fare. No prisoner may be kept on bread and water for more than three consecutive days. That’s English, also.
When the Queen’s birthday, the big holiday, came around, I wrote a note to the warden asking permission to work; twelve days more, in four installments.
I read about hay fever in the encyclopedia, and when haying time came I refused to make hay on the grounds that I was a hay-fever addict. The doctor disagreed, and my cell was darkened again. When I was sentenced there was a law under which all prisoners got a plug of “black strap” chewing tobacco every week. While I was in prison the law was repealed. Newcomers got no tobacco, but those sentenced while the law was in force, even if they were life-timers, continued to draw their ration every week. A rule was posted forbidding a prisoner who drew tobacco to give a chew of it to one who didn’t. That’s English, too. I was caught throwing a chew to a chap that arrived too late, and got another dose of bread and water.