Eighteen Months' Imprisonment

by late captain Donald Shaw

This treatment in no way reflects on the prison officials, who simply carry out the regulations; it is the system that is to blame, and is capable, like the dispensation of justice before described, of considerable improvement on the score of humanity.

Floggings and birchings appear to have no effect on these hardened criminals, and though they shriek and bellow during the infliction, they invariably revert to the same offence, and qualify for a second edition. Shamming madness is a favourite form of malingering indulged in by prisoners. The uneducated mind, however, invariably resorts to the same tactics—a combination between the symptoms of idiocy and hydrophobia that generally fails in its objects, and invariably yields to treatment by the cat.

The boys that find their way into Coldbath are the most hardened young scamps I ever saw. They are supposed to be isolated, as required by recent agitation on the subject of juvenile offenders. That the isolation is a farce need hardly be said. At chapel they certainly occupy benches to themselves, but so do the various wards and trades; the tasks they are put to are similar to those done by adults; and the pains and penalties they undergo are identical in time and circumstance to those of the full-blown criminal. I have seen these urchins on arrival, with their knuckles in their eyes, blubbering in chapel, and a week later winking and making signs as if determined to assert their qualification to be clothed and treated like their adult fellow-prisoners.

Tearing up their clothes is the favourite pastime of these promising youths. I have frequently seen these children marched along a passage, handcuffed behind, and preceded by a warder carrying a bundle of rags three inches square, that formerly represented their linen and clothes. The treatment they receive puts this crime at a premium. Boys are admittedly vain, and desirous of appearing as men to their older associates, what more natural then, that a child (one of the instances I refer to could not have been fourteen) should aspire to the honour of appearing as a hero; marching through a crowded passage with his manly work conspicuously displayed, treated, moreover, like a real man, manacled, and eventually birched, and receiving the approbation invariably accorded by the criminal classes to the perpetrators of wanton mischief. One would suppose that in a huge building like Coldbath Fields these urchins might be absolutely isolated, and if their offences were punished without the publicity that at present attends them, they would soon be given up as not worth the consequence. That the treatment of this hardened class of boys is a difficult problem, cannot be denied, and the cunning and ingenuity they display is almost incredible. Fully aware that the visiting Justices only visit the prison once a fortnight, and that without their order a birching is impossible, it frequently happens that on the day of their discharge every article of their clothing is made into mincemeat. For this mischief they are absolutely free from any consequence, it being an offence against the prison, and not against the law. If a remedy was applied to this crime, similar to the Article of War that provides against the destruction of Government property, the delinquent might be handed over to a policeman, and this would effectually stop the practice.

CHAPTER XXII.
THE TREAD-WHEEL.

By Act of Parliament, all prisoners, till quite recently, were photographed after admission to the various prisons. This universal system is now abolished, and since January, 1882, it is only reserved for habitual criminals and prisoners sentenced to police supervision. I had the good fortune to add to my experiences and my desire to see everything, by coming under the universal system, I having become a Government ward exactly eleven days before the expiration of the Act. One morning, whilst at exercise, my name was called amongst some half-a-dozen others. I could not conceive what new atrocity I had perpetrated, and what could have occurred to disturb the even tenor of my ways. A few of my more experienced comrades, however, enlightened me by remarking I was “a-goin’ to be tuk,” and I found myself on the road to the studio.

Photography such as this can hardly be considered artistic, though I have seen worse, but not much. It probably, however, answers all the requirements it is intended for. These works of art are only produced in duplicate, and though I offered a fabulous price to the seedy artist for an extra copy, no business was done; for though negatives are kept, they are kept under lock and key. Of the copies usually printed one was presented to the Governor of Newgate (this individual being lately abolished, I do not know who is now the recipient), the other finds its way into the Coldbath album, and no doubt affords pleasure and instruction at such jubilant gatherings as prison lawn tennis parties, or warders’ beanfeasts, which I was informed (though never invited) are occasionally indulged in. Prisoners are taken in their own clothes, and it is a matter of regret that the ones I then wore have gone the way of all old clothes, for, like their owner, they did not improve by their incarceration, and their huge proportions made them worthless without alteration. Pose or position is a secondary consideration, a good out-and-out resemblance is the thing to be attained; a deformed ear, or a fly-blown nose, would at once be seized upon, and the lens directed point blank at such fortunate distinctions. In my case there was nothing to merit special reproduction, so with a smirk that would have hanged me fifty years ago (for even here the “artist” could not resist the conventional request) I qualified for the Government album. On one side one’s number is pinned to one’s coat, on the other is a slate with one’s name in full, thus supplying an index simple but complete, and in proportion to the intellects of such probable students as the motley crew one periodically saw at Newgate. To me the ordeal had neither terror nor charms, though to some of my companions it was evidently not agreeable. One rogue caused considerable trouble by persistently protruding his chin or distorting some feature; these antics were not indulged in in a spirit of levity, but resorted to gradually as the cap was being taken off. He evidently objected to an accurate likeness, and so he might. I never could find out particulars, but not long after he disappeared from Coldbath, and whether hanged or a “lifer,” I never heard. That photograph had fulfilled its mission.

Visits to Coldbath cannot under ordinary circumstances be undertaken by any but the most robust. The accommodation is clearly intended for the scum of London, and it is unfair to expect any respectable person to come unless smell-proof and provided with a box of Keating’s insect powder. I received one visit under these revolting conditions, though my subsequent ones left nothing to be desired. Conceive, then, a cell eighteen feet by twelve, fitted with four partitions on either side, divided by a narrow passage, with a warder walking up and down. Into one of these cages the visitor is conducted and locked in. Immediately opposite, and similarly enclosed, is the object of his visit. In appearance they resemble a Cochin China hen-coop; in size they about equal the den of the untameable hyæna in a travelling menagerie. Conversation of a private nature is out of the question, as, indeed, is intended; topical subjects are tabooed, and but for the sake of adding to my experiences I should never have subjected myself or my friend to such nasty conditions. Within a foot of one, and flanked on both sides, was either a costermonger talking to his missus and her frowsy, unvaccinated-looking offspring, or a pickpocket hearing the latest news from the Seven Dials; the Babel consequent being such as to leave no alternative but to say nothing, or shout at the top of one’s voice. There is a snobbishness about this custom that went far to determine me in my course of telephoning as the only way to retaliate effectually on official inconsideration. No one would be foolish enough to expect that a gentleman should be better treated than a costermonger under such painful circumstances, although it would be an act of consideration, involving neither inconvenience nor relaxation of discipline, if some little discretion were exercised, as at Newgate, regarding the visitors.

The tread-wheel occupies a prominent position in prison life. There was none at Coldbath on my arrival, the old one having been burnt down a short time previously. There is a delightful interpretation to the three magic letters, C. B. F. (Cold Bath Fields), that long puzzled me, and which takes its origin—as I heard—from the ancient structure. I had frequently heard this cheerful place referred to as “The Farm,” and on enquiry it was explained that it was facetiously known as “Charley Bates’s Farm.” “Charley,” it appears, was a peculiarly ferocious turnkey that some years ago superintended the tread-wheel, but whether burnt, like his toy, or still burning, or alive, I have not the remotest idea. Its successor was now being rapidly built, and all the artisan talent procurable was laid on, in order to complete without delay this necessary adjunct to hard labour.