A prison cell does not contain much furniture. The bed is a wooden shutter hinged to the wall, so that it can be folded up during the day-time. When not in use the bedding is rolled together and placed in a corner of the apartment. Convicted male prisoners who are under sixty years of age are not allowed a mattress during the first thirty days of their imprisonment; they just lie on the board. I do not suppose that anybody imagines that a man is more likely to lead a new life if he is made to sleep on a bare board, than he would be if he were allowed a mattress. It is intended to hurt, and it will hurt the more sensitive in a greater degree than those of a coarser constitution. It is a part of the system, and will go with it when people wake up to the fact that it is a senseless thing to set about to irritate and annoy others.
Of late years it has been discovered that prisoners were as little likely to escape if their cells were well lit as they would be their cells being ill lit. The windows have consequently been enlarged and nobody has been the loser. The cell at the best is not a place to inspire cheerfulness, but an effort has been made to make the place less bare. Some years ago a six-inch circle of glass was attached to the wall in many cells. The glass was of that variety that distorts everything seen through it when it is used for windows, and when it is silvered and converted into a mirror the effect is peculiar.
The walls of some of the cells are decorated with a chromolithograph, such as is given to customers as a calendar by many shopkeepers at the New Year time. The mirror and the print, bad work and bad art though they may be, relieve the bare, ugly walls of the cells, and indicate a consciousness that the present system is not quite so perfect as it might be. Whether any such mitigations (if it can always be called a mitigation to see your face twisted out of shape and to gaze upon a sentimental chromo) are worthy of the fuss made about them is another matter, for the main question is not whether imprisonment should be mitigated, but—what is its object?
In Scotland the diet prescribed is a very simple one. In quantity it is ample for the needs of the great majority of the prisoners. Indeed, a fair proportion receive more than they are fit to consume. The medical officer may reduce a diet to prevent waste; or he may increase a diet, if in his view the prisoner requires more food. As I believe that nearly every man knows his own needs a great deal better than the diet specialist, a request from a prisoner for more food is never refused provided he is consuming all he gets. A request for a change of food is quite another thing; but a man who for gluttony would gorge himself with the diet provided for prisoners would be a curiosity.
The food is excellent in quality, but there is not much variety. There are three meals daily. Porridge and sour milk with bread form the morning and evening meals, and the dinner usually consists of broth and bread. This is the ordinary routine diet, and one can understand that after a time it is not unnatural there should be longings for a change. It is a simple diet and is sufficient. The death-rate in prisons is small. The improvement in the health of broken-down and habitually debauched persons during their term of imprisonment is marked, and there can be no doubt that the regimen saves many of them from death and prolongs their lives.
In these days the benefits of sour milk have been preached by the scientific man, and the culture of the lactic-acid bacillus has become a recognised industry. In the Scottish prisons the inmates have had the advantage of its beneficent operations for many years, though they did not know its name and would have been glad to have seen sweet milk rather than sour. The state of their health forms a strong argument for the advocates of the simple life, yet most of them would choose greater variety in food, though they should die a few years earlier.
The clothing of prisoners, as regards cutting and material, resembles nothing seen outside. The untried male is officially clothed in brown corduroy, and when convicted he exchanges this for white mole-skin. The surface of the cloth used to be decorated with broad-arrows, so that the prisoner looked like a person in a prehistoric dress over which some gigantic hen had walked after puddling in printer’s ink; but this has been discontinued.
The cut of the clothing seems to be designed to save cloth, and so long as the prisoner is kept warm he does not concern himself about the unfashionable character of his clothes. As for the women’s dress, being a mere man I cannot describe it; but ladies who visit the prison seem to be agreed that it is plain and neat. It is certainly strikingly different from anything they wear.
It is a rule that all convicted prisoners shall wear prison clothes. There are not very many of them whose own clothing is clean enough for them to wear, and not a few are more ragged than they need be. Whether they would not be better employed in cleaning and mending their own clothes than in doing many of the things they are required to do is a question that might be considered. It certainly does not seem reasonable that because a person has offended we should thrust upon him our hospitality to the extent of causing him to use clothing provided by us, if he has clothing of his own that he can decently wear. His own clothing has been placed aside while under our care, and at the expiry of his sentence it may be handed back to him as it was taken from him, excepting for the creases it has acquired in the interval. It would cost more trouble to the officials to set prisoners to improve their own appearance than to set them to break stones, and yet it might not be a bad thing to do nothing for a man, not even to provide him with clothing, if he can do it for himself.[2]
When prisoners’ sentences exceed a certain term their own clothing is washed, and at the end of their imprisonment it is restored to them clean. This teaches them that if they do not keep their clothing clean it will be cleaned for them. At any rate, it does not teach them to do the necessary work themselves; but then it is much easier to do things for some people than to teach them to do these things for themselves.