In one of the padded cells was a dangerous lunatic. For weeks and months he had kept up an incessant conversation with himself, occasionally diversified by shrieks and yells. At first it was believed the man was shamming, and he was taken before the visiting justices and sentenced to be flogged, but this usually infallible cure had not the desired effect. Clothes were converted into rags in an incredibly short space of time. He was handcuffed in front, and still they were destroyed. He was handcuffed behind with the same result. On his door being opened he would be found naked, the handcuffs on the floor, and his clothes in shreds. Canvas sacks, with slits for the head and hands, were suggested, and, first clothed, then handcuffed with his hands behind him, and finally covered with the huge sack, he was again consigned to the cell. The same result, however, invariably followed, and the kind-hearted doctor, despairing of cure, and though inwardly convinced it was an artfully contrived sham, yet loth to persist in the stringent remedies that alone were effectual, gave him the benefit of the doubt, and consigned him to the Criminal Lunatic Asylum at Hanwell. I have frequently seen this maniac fed. His door was opened and he was brought out, and, half-naked and handcuffed, bleared, filthy, and bleeding from self-inflicted injuries, with dishevelled hair, and glaring like a panther, this wild beast in human form would open his mouth, and gruel and bread be shovelled in bounteously. Attempts would occasionally be made to induce him to wash, but at best they were qualified successes, and the assistance of four or five turnkeys had eventually to be resorted to. It was impossible to believe this being was sane and capable of keeping up the deception for such a time. Sleep was out of the question, for night was made hideous by the muffled shouts and blasphemies that forced themselves through the padded cell. But a reprieve at length came, and it was with a sense of relief that I one morning saw him taken off to Hanwell. The lull, however, was not of long duration; and he was eventually sent back as “cured.” The cure showed itself in a curious way. On finding himself again in his old quarters, and smarting under a pretended sense of breach of faith, he raved that the doctor at Hanwell had promised to release him if he withdrew his claim to the crown of Ireland. And now a reign of terror began in earnest, and shouting for Parnell, his secretary, the Empress Eugenie, and Old Ireland, he raved and roared day and night. How human nature could bear such a strain appeared marvellous. One night all was calm. “Thank goodness!” I thought, “he’s collapsed.” Had he? The wish, alas! was father to the thought, and the lull was only the precursor of the storm. Whilst we were sleeping the maniac was maturing his plans, and a shout of “Fire!” one night reminded us of his proximity. Smoke was now issuing from the padded cell. To draw back the ponderous bolts was the work of a second. To distinguish anything was absolutely impossible. Blinding smoke filled the cell, and as it poured out a terrible sight presented itself. On the floor was the charred mattress, the horse-hair alight, and the plank bed smouldering, and peacefully lying beside it was the madman. The first idea was that he was dead, but the smoke that would have killed a sane man had but temporarily stupefied him. In an instant he was on his feet, and, his arms being free, made a desperate attack with pieces of glass on the two men who had humanely approached him. Further help was now sent for, during which time he kicked, struck, and bit everything within reach, and it required sixteen men to secure and remove this wild beast in human form. The extent of his mischief now made itself apparent. How he had removed the handcuffs remains a mystery, but with the cunning and dexterity only to be found in maniacs, he had succeeded in reaching the gas, which, situated ten feet from the ground, and protected by a strong glass, must have taxed his ingenuity, not only to reach, but eventually to open, and yet this had been done so quietly that forty men and a watchful warder in the adjoining room heard nothing. With the fire now at his disposal, he had burnt the straps that were lashed round his body to secure the sack, but finding the effect not sufficiently expeditious, had proceeded to pull out the bed-stuffing, and lying down naked, bruised, and bleeding, beside the smouldering mass, calmly awaited the conflagration that was to free him. The cell presented an extraordinary appearance. On the floor were broken glass, burning wood, and his clothes torn to shreds; here the handcuffs, there the charred straps: the walls were smeared with filth and dabbed with porridge; the plank bed was torn up, and plaster and brickwork removed: a terrible wreck, an incredible performance, and all the work of two hands, handcuffed behind and strapped, and surrounded by every precaution that official ingenuity could suggest.
This final escapade materially assisted the magisterial finding as to the extent of the maniac’s “cure,” and he was again consigned to Hanwell.
Another lunatic of a different type was an inmate of the convalescent ward, a harmless, inoffensive creature, that had been flogged out of his senses. His physique proclaimed him incapable of doing bodily harm to a calf. He was not more than five feet high, with a fore-arm like a robin’s thigh, and the receding forehead, sunken eye, and conical skull associated with imbecility; but he had once “threatened” a warder, a hulking, round-shouldered old woman, that might have squeezed the life out of him without turning a hair, and discipline demanded he should be reported, and the visiting justices sentenced him to be flogged. From that day he never spoke, and would sit for hours without moving; suddenly he would break out into an immoderate fit of laughter, to be immediately followed by a paroxysm of grief, and, laying his head on the table, would sob like a child. Nothing appeared likely to restore his naturally limited intellect, and the country will be at the expense of keeping this “dangerous criminal” for another twelvemonth, who would be infinitely more at home at Earlswood Asylum for Idiots. A perfect child occupied another of these hospital cells, an incorrigible young scamp of about fourteen, that nothing seemed capable of taming. Everything within reach he proceeded to destroy, and clothes supplied him in the morning were in shreds at night. He, too, was constantly handcuffed; he refused to eat, and for a week nothing passed his lips. One day, on his door being opened, he was found suspended by a bed-strap from the bell-handle: another second, and life would have been extinct. For this he was taken before the visiting justices and birched. It had, however, no deterrent effect, and up to the time of his release he remained the same incorrigible young ruffian. There is no hope for such a lad; his future is bound to be a repetition of many instances I saw amongst the adults, who had commenced a career of crime with birchings, followed by three and five years in a reformatory, and ending with imprisonment and eventually penal servitude. Another companion that was the source of occasional anxiety, had been an inmate of a lunatic asylum, and though usually quiet, was subject to extraordinary fits. The first intimation of one coming on was a demoniacal groan, and in an incredibly short time a space was cleared round him. It had been found, indeed, that nothing could arrest the first paroxysm, and on the “band beginning to play,” a stampede invariably ensued: and not without cause, for everything within reach became an instant wreck, and tables, chairs, books, and (when procurable) arms and noses, were ruthlessly attacked by hands, feet, and teeth. When comparatively restored it took six or eight men to remove him into a cell, and the only thing that appeared to rouse him was the presence of the priest. So efficacious was this remedy that when everything else failed, the Roman Catholic chaplain was invariably sent for, and in a moment oil appeared to be thrown on the troubled waters, and the maniac arose subdued, and clothed in his right mind. Here was a religion that appeared to appeal to the feelings, and to produce results never attained by brow-beating and personality—a lesson to be laid to heart, and worthy of imitation, though in the quarter it was most needed it was, I fear, utterly thrown away. Personally this influence did not surprise me, for though debarred, by being a Protestant, from coming into actual contact with the priest, I was considerably struck, and almost fascinated, by the kind smile and friendly salutation he had for all his co-religionists. An Italian by nationality, with all the refinement of manner habitual to his countrymen, this polished gentleman was a pronounced contrast to the fire-and-brimstone snob occasionally met with in the “Established” ranks.
CHAPTER XXI.
PRISON CELEBRITIES.
I was surprised at the number of respectable men—such as solicitors, an ex-officer of Guards, a bank manager, a man of title, stockbrokers, cashiers, ex-officers of the army and navy, clerks, clergymen, etc.—in Coldbath Fields. Some of these had quite lost (supposing they ever had any) their pristine semblance of respectability; others, again, retained the appearance of persons of education, and spoke and deported themselves as such. A lamentable instance of the fatal effect of associating with the scum, and the ease with which a young man of good position can acquire the style and appearance of a vagrant, was exemplified in young B—. He was not more than 25 or 26, had been a subaltern in the — Guards, and came, moreover, of a good county stock; and yet in six short months he had so far degenerated as to be punished on the day his sentence expired for stealing a loaf from a fellow prisoner.
A worthy old man with grey hair and venerable appearance, and who might have passed for the chairman of a board of directors, appeared every morning at mine and other cells in the passage with a dust-pan, and with methodical precision removed the sweepings. He told me he had been a solicitor with a large connection, with chambers in — Street, and had a wife and grown-up family in a comfortable house in a well-known suburb. His imprisonment was perceptibly telling on him, and his hair and beard grew whiter every day.
A bustling, business-like man, one day attracted my attention. He was connected with the stores, and brought me a new pair of boots. He had been the manager of a London bank, and undergoing retirement for six months for some error regarding the ownership of £300.
A tall, smart-looking man that was pointed out to me, was, I was informed, an individual who attained notoriety some two years ago over a mining scheme. He was suffering two years’ incarceration for a miscalculation of over £7000.
A man who called himself Count H—, and an ex-convict to boot, was languishing for a year, because certain noblemen had had the bad taste to object to his having obtained money from them by false pretences. This nobleman! had a mania for petitioning the Home Office (I will give a specimen of his style hereafter).
In addition to these, numerous individuals who had been gentlemen in their day were known to me by sight. Conspicuous amongst them, was an old jail bird and ex-convict, who had 20 years ago been a captain in the army, and ever since had existed (and still is) in prison, for terms of seven, five, five, two, and one years. All the starch had been thoroughly wrung out of him, though he occasionally stood on a dilapidated kind of dignity. I once asked him where a friend of his had gone. He replied, “I don’t know; we don’t speak now; he’s no gentleman. Will you believe it, he had the impertinence to doubt my word.” As his word had been doubted a good many times during the past 20 years, I was considerably amused by this assumption of dignity.