There are three forms of religion recognised in prison: the Presbyterian, Roman Catholic, and Episcopalian. A service is held once a week by a clergyman of each of these Churches, and the Presbyterians go out to prayers daily.
The chapel has a more or less ecclesiastical appearance, and is divided in such a way that the male and the female prisoners do not see each other, though the preacher can see both divisions. Most of the prisoners do not attend religious services when they are at liberty, but some make an ingenious distinction between religion and conduct. I remember one old woman who had grown grey and almost blind after a long course of vicious and criminal conduct. She was eloquent regarding a person whom she described as being “nae better than an infidel.” I replied that “at least he had kept out of prison,” and she replied, “Aye; but though I have been a drunkard, a blackguard, and a thief, thank God I never neglected my religion.”
I do not know whether the Salvation Army representatives are more effective as religious agents than the other visitors. Their work is certainly better advertised, and they belong usually to the same social rank as many of the prisoners. The religion they teach, if more emotionally expressed, is not different from that taught by the other visitors; but they can appeal to the prisoner more effectively because they are better able than many others to appreciate and sympathise with the difficulties and temptations under which the wrongdoer has fallen.
Many of those in prison are not there because of idleness. They have worked harder in their day than the people who talk eloquently about the dignity of labour. Neither are they there because, like the heathen, they have never heard the message of the gospel. As a matter of fact, most of them can never get away from the voice of the preacher for any long time, for the evangelists are abroad nightly singing hymns and exhorting the public in all the poorer working-class districts. They have worked hard enough to earn money and are in prison because they have not known how to spend it wisely. In prison they are not taught useful work, and as little are they taught how to recreate themselves after work. Their day may be divided into four parts: There is a time for eating; there is a time for working; and what they do and what food they have has already been shown. There is a time for sleeping: they go to bed early in the evening and rise early in the morning. “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man——” well, it doesn’t. At any rate, the inmates of the prison have not attracted attention hitherto on account of their wealth or their wisdom. Then there is a time left for meditation.
Every prisoner has his Bible and his Prayer Book. I am far from suggesting that this is a provision that should not be made, but by this time it will be generally admitted that mere Bible reading, or praying, when a prisoner is in a measure compelled to it, are not likely to have the most beneficial effect. It is a useful thing occasionally to be able to quote scripture, and some of those who have spent a considerable portion of their lives in prison have stored their memory with a large and varied assortment of texts, which they are prepared to use when they think a profit is to be made thereby. A profession of reformation seems to have a more powerful effect when buttressed with texts of scripture, and an appeal for help on the part of the penitent is more likely to succeed when heard by the godly, many of whom are exceedingly kind to those who show a disposition to conform to their theological standards.
Persons whose sentences exceed fourteen days may have books from the prison library with which to beguile their time. The books provided resemble the clothing, in respect that it is greatly a matter of chance as to whether they suit the person who gets them. I have seen an illiterate lad from the slums hopelessly wrestling with an elementary manual on Electricity and Magnetism. I suppose this would be regarded as an educational work. The library is carefully selected with the intention of excluding all pernicious literature—certainly the sensational is passed by—but we all differ in our ideas as to the value of books; I myself would describe some popular works as pernicious literature; and many of the papers that one set of people appreciate and are able to read without apparent injury are of no use to others. The complaint which has been made that prison libraries contain a great deal of poor stuff, and do not contain a sufficient representation of the classic writers, leaves out of account the fact that these classic writers are more talked about than read. The popular novelist of to-day has a larger audience in his own generation than ever Shakespeare had. The one writer is read during his lifetime, the other finds his audience all through the ages. In a prison, as in all institutions, the attempt is made to work to an average. When the educated person appears in prison let us refrain from insulting his intelligence by giving him books to read which he despises; but he must remember that others are not as he is, and that they may even derive stimulus and benefit from those works which can only annoy him.
The untried prisoner may have newspapers and magazines sent in to him as well as books, unless, indeed, the Visiting Committee refuse to permit this. He can choose suitable literature for himself provided his friends are willing to send it to him, but immediately he is convicted he has no choice in the matter. The State is his librarian; and it seems a little absurd that the taxpayer should be charged for providing him with things which he does not want, and which can do him no good, if he or his friends could, at their own expense, procure him books he would enjoy.
Of late years lectures have been given to prisoners, and occasionally concerts have been provided for them. The lectures have been on all kinds of subjects. Some of them have dealt with travel and have been illustrated by limelight views; others have dealt with sanitation, physiology, and the treatment of common ailments; others have taken the form of cookery demonstrations; and the prison audience is invariably more appreciative than most audiences outside. They enjoy anything that breaks the dulness of their routine life. No sensible person expects that the lectures will make them travellers, or physiologists, or cooks, though an interest in these subjects may be kindled by the lecturer. Few people are ever lectured into a change of life, but anything that prevents them from sinking into apathy, from brooding on the petty incidents that go to make up their lives in prison, from beating against the bars of their cage, is beneficial.
There are those who protest against making the prison too comfortable and who seem to believe that people want to go there. There need be no fear of this. A cage is a cage even though it be gilded, and they are few indeed who seek imprisonment. Occasionally you have some saying they prefer the prison to the poorhouse. I have worked in both places and wholly agree with their preference, but that is not a testimony to the desirability of life in prison, but a reproach to the poorhouse. Those who support efforts to lessen the monotony of prison life are not moved by any desire that the prisoners may have a good time. For my own part, I am not concerned to make their lot less mechanical merely for their sakes, but for the sake of the community of which they are a part. I believe that imprisonment has been shown to have a bad effect on those who suffer it, and as some day they are to be turned loose on the community, it is advisable to prevent them being liberated in a condition that would make them more dangerous to their fellow-citizens, or more troublesome, than they were before their arrest.
Outside the block of cells is an airing-yard, which consists of a space round which two narrow paved walks run. On these the prisoners take their exercise, each walking for an hour daily for the benefit of his health; separated by a space from the prisoner in front and the prisoner behind him, and watched by a warder lest any conversation or sign of recognition takes place between him and his fellows. The elderly or physically defective prisoners walk round the inner ring, where the pace is slower.