Prisoners their own warders

by John Frederick Adolphus McNair; W. D. Bayliss

Some authorities say it arises from malarious exhalations, favoured by damp, or over-crowding in buildings improperly ventilated. To this latter cause we are inclined to attribute the outbreak in the Singapore prison; for when the prison was occupied by the Indian convicts, the area of open space round the different wards and buildings was well exposed to the action of sun and wind, but after its conversion into a criminal prison, this open space was divided off by high division walls, and for the purpose of shot drill and work sheds the enclosure was still further crowded. Perhaps the disturbance also of the soil may have had something to do with it, for we have known instances in the town where the excavation of subsoils had liberated noxious gases.

It was, however, very remarkable that during the period of over twenty-five years when this jail was occupied by the Indian convicts, not a single case of beri-beri was known to have occurred. The medical officers were quite unable to account for this, and of its non-occurrence in other parts of the town.

The Rev. Wallace Taylor, M.D., of Osaka in Japan, attributed the disease to a microscopic spore found largely developed in rice, and which he had also detected in the earth of certain alluvial and damp localities.

Feigned Diseases

The question of feigned diseases should find a place in a work treating upon convicts, for amongst a number of natives in confinement—and indeed also amongst European prisoners where—regular work is insisted upon, and idleness in any is severely punished, it is but natural that some should be found to resort to expedients to escape work, or, in other words, to malinger.

Perhaps the most frequent cases of convicts in irons was the encouraging of sores round the ankles, where the iron rings of their fetters were placed; and this was done, notwithstanding the precaution always taken to guard the ankles with leathern bands for the rings to rest upon. When suspicion was attached to a convict in irons that he was tampering with his leg sores, he was at once detailed to work with the gang beating out coir from cocoanut husks: it involved no use of the legs, but it was the hardest of labours. The result was that the convict soon gave up the trick, and begged to return to outdoor work with his own gang. Of course there were cases where convicts working on roads or at sand pits may get grit below their leathers, which, without knowing it at the time, would cause a sore; but such cases were readily distinguished from those sores wilfully caused and designedly kept open.

We had no cases of feigned insanity or any species of mania, but cases of imitated "moon blindness," or dim-sightedness, did occur now and again for the purpose of shirking night watch.

Upon one occasion we had a remarkable instance of shamming blind, which is worth giving in detail. The case was that of a life convict transported from Madras, who complained that lime had suddenly got into both of his eyes while employed at the lime kilns. It was deemed by the medical authorities as not unnatural that he should become blind from caustic quick-lime, and he was admitted into the convalescent gang, where he had only the simple and easy task of picking oakum. The deceit was as cleverly kept up for years as it was cleverly commenced at the outset, and was only detected by Dr. Cowpar, a hard-headed Scotchman and skilful surgeon, who, during the absence of the permanent incumbent, had been appointed by the Government to officiate as medical officer of the jail. After his inspection of the invalids in the convalescent gang, he looked at the eyes of the "blind man"; and, having some suspicion in his mind, he decided that he should be put aside for closer examination. When the inspection was over, the "blind man" was taken, and carefully led by the peon in charge of the gang to one of the long wards, when he was told to walk up and down in the presence of the doctor. After he had made two or three trips, the doctor directed two men to hold a long pole about a foot off the ground on the track he had to pass. When he came to the pole he fell over it flat on his face, and to the bystanders it seemed rather an inhuman proceeding on the part of the doctor, but he had observed an ominous pause before the convict had struck the pole with his legs.

He sent for his case of instruments, and, withdrawing a probe, he with little difficulty removed the film off both of the man's eyes, which proved to be nothing more nor less than the thin membrane found inside an egg, which the convict had artfully introduced, and renewed from time to time. Of course he was reduced to the fifth class, and to the hardest labour.

We have often thought it strange that none of his fellow-convicts appeared to suspect him, or if they did, they kept it back from the jail authorities; and certainly to any casual observer the deception was complete, and it was the best case of feigned blindness we have ever known or heard of.