Prisons & Prisoners: Some Personal Experiences

by Lady Constance Lytton

After breakfast we cleared the table, the gate of the ward was unlocked and we carried the crockery to baskets on the floor in the passage. From there the 3rd Division prisoners took them and washed them out in the bath room cell next door. The hospital wardress had to stand at the gate all the time that we were doing this. Some wardresses allowed us sometimes to come and go freely; others, or the same wardresses on different days, would allow only one of us out of the ward at a time. This and all other rules of the kind would hardly ever be told to us in so many words, but suddenly the wardress would step out and block the way, laying her hand upon us without a word as if we were animals. This being handled when there is no occasion for it seems very insulting. Like all these prison methods, it seemed curious and interesting when first done to oneself, but aroused a feeling of indignation when one saw it being done to others. It gave one the feeling of belonging to a race apart, something degraded and imbecile, despised not only for the particular crime one had committed but as an all-round inferior being. The moral influence of this kind of treatment is rubbed in afresh through every hour of prison life and has a bad moral influence on both prisoners and wardresses. It seemed, moreover, quite unnecessary.

After breakfast the chief wardress who had reproved us for not lifting up the movable section of the beds, beckoned me to her—“Take off your slippers. Bring your shoes; you have to go before the Senior Medical Officer.” This made me anxious. I knew quite well that I was not in a state of ill-health to cause the release of an ordinary prisoner; I knew, too, that many suffrage prisoners had been kept in prison when much more seriously ill than I was. But I remembered the specially constructed rule which had sanctioned a letter being delivered to me, and I was on the look-out for more privileges of the kind. The wish was strong in me to have personal experience of the inflictions which a Liberal Government thought suitable to woman Suffragists, to share every incident of the treatment which my leaders and friends had suffered in our cause and to gain some experience of prison life from within for the sake of one day being equipped to work for prison reforms.

Outside the ward I was told to put on my shoes. I hated those shoes with the vigorous hatred of a child. The laces had no tags, my fingers were very cold, and being hurried up by the wardress made them the more awkward. I was given a cloak of green cloth and taken downstairs. The staircase was of stone and, with my feet encased in these thick unyielding shoes, I was afraid of slipping. I laid my hand on the banister to steady myself. “If you must have hold of that rail, can’t you use the uprights? Don’t you see the top’s polished, you’ll soil it.” This remark was made by the wardress who shouted past me with a sort of bark. At the foot of the stairs she pulled at my cloak, “Got it on inside out, is that how you mean to wear it?” This was said in the same voice, but I thought I caught something of a twinkle in her eye as if she were not without a sense of humour and would welcome an appeal to the same. I noted this for future experimenting, but was at the moment unable to take advantage of it. I felt mentally stunned, physically cowed, morally indignant, a blend of sensations which I think must be common to many prisoners.

The doctor’s room was a sort of office well lit by several large windows. The Senior Medical Officer was a different man from the doctor who had inspected us the previous night. I had expected a struggle on the question of tonics, but to my delight he quickly agreed that I should survive without drugs. He spoke in an ordinary voice, his expression of face and the things he said were quite natural, he treated me as though I were an ordinary mortal. After even twelve hours of prison customs this seemed a remarkable and gladdening thing. Up till that moment I had incessantly wished that I should some day be able to tell the officials the entirely harmful impression conveyed by their manner to the prisoners. It was obvious that this official manner was quite detached from the individual personality of those who assumed it. They looked and spoke in this way, not to serve their private ends, but in compliance with some strangely mistaken tradition, as a matter of conformity. When under the heel of it, one felt a conviction that no reform of prison regulations would alter the maiming influence of prison life until this tradition were altered. Now, on the contrary, I felt equally desirous of proclaiming that here was an individual with an innate gift to usefully fill the part of prison official; he had mastered the fundamental matter of treating prisoners as he would treat other human beings. I think this doctor tried some slight persuasion to obtain my release by consenting to be bound over. He quickly saw, however, that my imprisonment was not due to any hasty or unconsidered act, and he did not press the matter for long.

It was agreed that I should go back to bed for the benefit of my heart condition. After the prolonged strain I was only too glad to do this. The morning, however, was taken up with many visits of inspection. The Governor made his rounds in a formal way and never relaxed his official muscles, but he seemed kindly, nevertheless, and I felt sorry for him having to play what I supposed was a disagreeable game for him. The matron wore a quite different expression from when I had seen her the evening before. She looked very tired, and I wondered whether any part of her work gave her satisfaction. The Chaplain, too, looked ill and I thought what a harrowing life his must be, always pouring out sympathy for sorrows and sufferings that he had no power to relieve. He came up to my bed with a smile and said, in a voice well-flavoured with contempt: “Well, you must have done something very wicked to find yourself in here?” I was surprised, supposed he meant it for a joke; supposed, too, that possibly from his point of view it was an entirely comic thing that we should be in prison. But it seemed odd that his imagination and sympathy should not at least have led him to inquire first what was our point of view in the matter, and he seemed not to consider it possible that our actions should have entailed self-sacrifice and the pain of bringing anxiety to those we loved. I answered: “If I had thought what I did very wicked, I should not have done it.”

At ten o’clock hot milk was again brought into the ward for those who wished for it, also fruit, but, to my great relief, this was optional. The morning was taken up with cleaning the ward. The 3rd Division prisoner by a series of processes and with the aid of a long-handled polisher, first swept, then beeswaxed, then polished the wooden floor. She did it with the skill of an expert and her graceful gestures were a pleasure to watch. She never paused for a moment in her work except when the entry of some official necessitated a temporary suspension.

Then followed a polishing of metal fixtures and dusting of the walls, shelves, books, etc. To my great joy, the patients not in bed were ordered to take part in the dusting. It was a means of practising my favourite hobby of cleaning, also of keeping warm, of helping the little 3rd Division prisoner, and occasionally exchanging a whispered word with her, though this was rarely achieved. The dust was continuously stirred throughout the morning, moved from the floor, then from the wall. The grey fluff that came from the bedding and floated about the floor gathered a certain amount of dust as it was swept up and eventually burnt in the fire, but no damping or reasonable process to get rid of the dust was used, so that shelves, books, beds, were no sooner dusted than they were again covered as before. On one or two occasions I ventured to damp my duster, but this, of course, made it very dirty, which result met with disfavour. It was no doubt felt that as the more vigorous patients had nothing much better to do, they might as well go on dusting throughout the morning. In an ordinary home the daily processes of sweeping and dusting always seem to me absurdly laborious, elaborate and inadequate; the workers at these household crafts having had so little share in the application of modern invention to their toil, and little appeal on behalf of public service and utility has been made to women of higher education and greater leisure than the workers themselves. The housecraft of prison, as one watched it day by day, pressed one’s thoughts on to the subject. The collecting of dust by means of damp cloths immediately followed by a dry rubber would certainly be more effective.

At about twelve the midday food was served, it was the most solid meal in the twenty-four hours. It consisted every day of fried fish, potatoes, cabbage, bread, butter and a custard pudding or boiled rice pudding made with eggs. I, being a vegetarian, did not eat fish. After some days I had the courage to ask for a rice pudding made without eggs and was allowed this. The food was good and well cooked, but the absolute monotony of the bill of fare was a great trial to some of the prisoners, more especially the bed patients.

In the afternoon, those who were allowed out exercised for an hour walking round and round a yard with high walls to it. We were exercised at a different time from ordinary prisoners. We were not allowed to talk to each other and had to walk single file one behind the other at a given distance apart. As there were never more than four or five of us from the hospital a certain amount of laxness was allowed. We could go our own pace, the faster walkers from time to time overtaking the slower and now and then one was allowed to stop and lean up against the wall. The weather was cold, we had frost and snow, during most of my time in Holloway, and being used to furs, gloves and muffs, I felt the cold very much especially in my hands. The only extra garment for out of doors was an unlined cloth cape with hood attached. This was warmer than it looked. I used to do arm exercises as I walked to stir my blood. The discomfort of the shoes prevented any joy in walking, there was no yield in the soles and the hard leather pressed the feet in a way to make every footstep a consideration. I have sensitive feet and may have suffered more in this respect than others, but to judge from appearance the tread and gait of all prisoners is laborious and artificial, affecting the hang of the whole body, on account of the shoes.

I did not go out for the first two or three days. In the afternoon the sense of fatigue overcame one. Unless the patients were ill enough to undress and get into bed, they were not allowed to lie on it, we, however, sometimes sat on a chair close to the bed, leaned our heads upon the pillow and slept.