Eighteen Months' Imprisonment

by late captain Donald Shaw

One thing that struck me particularly was the small number of warders in comparison to the prisoners. Seven or eight, from the Governor to the lowest turnkey, comprised the entire staff, and were responsible for the safety of some two hundred prisoners. Such a number was clearly inadequate, and the risk they ran, however remote, was forcibly brought to my notice by a conversation I once overheard. Amongst others awaiting trial was a desperate-looking ruffian of low stature, with bull head and black shaggy eyebrows—a man who had undergone more than one sentence of penal servitude, and who, to judge by his appearance, was capable of any atrocity. This ruffian was pointing out one morning how easy it would be to make a dash at the warders, and then, without the possibility of opposition, simply to walk out. The plan certainly seems feasible, especially during chapel, where four or five warders are absolutely at the mercy of two hundred prisoners. One can only suppose that a moral restraint exists, and on which the authorities rely, that would prevent many from joining in such a mutiny, and who, if a choice had to be made, would prefer to join issue with the warders rather than with their unsavoury opponents. During the sessions the regular staff is augmented by five or six additional hands, for the most part feeble old men, suggestive of sandwich men out of employment. I was much amused by one of these patriarchs who was left in absolute and sole charge, and daily superintended the exercise of some fifty or sixty prisoners. I never lost an opportunity of having a chat with him, as he stood shivering in a threadbare ulster, with a dew-drop on his nose, a ragged comforter round his neck, and his poor old gums rattling in the drafty yard. I found, however, that he was not devoid of official dignity, and had a very high conception of the position and importance of “officers,” as every turnkey likes to be styled. I remember saying to the poor old chap one day, “You officers must have a very difficult duty to perform, what between maintaining your dignity and doing your duty strictly.” A leer, such as one might associate with a magpie looking down a marrow-bone, was all he vouchsafed in reply for a moment, and I feared he suspected I was pulling his leg; but I was eventually reassured by his replying, “Yis, there’s no responsibler dooty than an officer’s.” “Yes,” I replied, “but I’ve always heard that you officers are sad dogs;” and as I moved away I heard the old gums clatter as if pleased at the compliment, and if I had had a shilling in my pocket I should certainly have given it to the old “officer.” The first day of the sessions had now arrived, and I rose with mingled feelings of anxiety and pleasure; anxiety for what the day might bring forth, and pleasure at the thought that anything was better than the uncertainty that at present involved my future, and hailing with delight the prospect of knowing the worst. I never expected, however, that my case would be tried on the first day, and was therefore considerably taken back when, about 3 P.M., my door was suddenly opened, and with a “Come along, you’re wanted in the Court,” a warder made his appearance. The awful reality now burst on me for the first time that I was on the point of appearing in a criminal dock to answer a charge of forgery, and uttering forged bills. I won’t weary the reader by saying more than that I pleaded guilty to the uttering, but denied the forging, as I still do, and ever shall; but being informed that the two acts were considered synonymous, my plea was registered as “guilty,” and I was sentenced to eighteen months imprisonment with hard labour. I am now entering on a phase of my career which may be considered as the commencement proper of my narrative, and one that I expected, from the steps that led up to it, would consist of harshness and brutality, such as one reads of in stories of the Bastile and other prisons; whereas, on the contrary, I was leaving all that behind, and about to experience a kindness and consideration I can never adequately describe or be sufficiently grateful for. But a word or two is necessary before we leave Newgate to enable me to describe the Old Bailey Court House and its sombre approaches, its subterraneous passages, and dingy cells. I must also make a digression to narrate the heart-breaking story of a poor wretch which he himself told me, and which I’ve reason to believe is strictly true, and to which his position as a man of title—I shall refrain from giving his name—imparts a considerable degree of interest. It is a tale which demonstrates to what a contemptible state a man can bring himself by the excessive use of stimulants, and how that degradation is augmented when wedded to immorality, culminating in the inevitable shipwreck that waits on bright prospects and a long rent roll when drink and prostitution appear at the altar, only to be divorced, as in the present case, by a term of penal servitude.

CHAPTER XI.
THE TITLED CONVICT.

On the morning after my arrival at Newgate it was with considerable surprise that I saw a man in convict dress, who was apparently the object of special watch and guard. My curiosity was considerably increased from the circumstance of his being the only individual out of some two hundred in this conspicuous attire; he was moreover clearly not a novice, but wore the dreadful suit with the apparent ease of a man to whom it was by no means a novelty. He looked horribly ill, and a terrible eruption that showed itself on his neck, face, and hands gave unmistakable evidence that the unhappy wretch was literally rotten; added to this, however, there was a something about him, a “je ne sais quoi,” that marked the gentleman and asserted the blue blood, despite the convict dress, the loathsome disease, and the degrading surroundings. A fixed melancholy seemed never to desert him. When he moved, it was with eyes cast down, and nothing appeared to interest him; it was the motions of a human machine, bowed down with grief or shame, or meditating some awful vengeance. I was so struck with all this that I determined to lose no opportunity of scraping an acquaintance with the mysterious stranger. I enquired of a warder, but all he knew or pretended to know was that he was undergoing a sentence of 20 years’ penal servitude, and had lately been drafted there from a convict prison; that he had only been there a few days, and would in all probability be moved elsewhere very shortly. Chance favoured my desire to make his acquaintance. It was on a Saturday afternoon, a time devoted to a very general and extra clean up, and when almost everyone is put on a job. My warder—like a brick—had put me, at my urgent request, to “dusting” the rails, a duty, I had observed, at which the convict was frequently employed. I got as near as discretion would permit, and ventured to ask him who and what he was. He looked at me at first with a mingled expression of surprise and distrust, but being apparently reassured by either my manner or my dress, began in short, jerky sentences in something of the following style: “You ask me who I am. That’s a question I haven’t heard for six long years. Since that time I’ve been an unit, 4016 of Portland, and praying night and day that death would release me.” I was alarmed at his excited manner; his eyes flashed, he quivered like a maniac, and I begged him to be calm. This appeal seemed to touch some long dried-up spring; kind words evidently sounded strange to him, and a tear trickled down his seamed and hollow cheeks. The weakness, however, was but momentary, and wiping his eyes with his coarse blue handkerchief, he began in a melancholy voice the following sad story:—

“You ask me who I am, or rather who I was. Know, then, that six years ago I was known as —.” I started at the name, for it was a well-known and titled one. “At an early age my parents died, leaving me the possessor (under guardians) of £20,000 a year, an estate in England, and another in Ireland, a house in London, and an ancient title. My uncle and guardian, alas! was actuated by no affection for me, but considered that if he placed me under a good tutor, insured me a liberal education, and sent me to see the world, he was fairly earning the handsome salary allowed him by the Court of Chancery, whose ward I was. At the age of 18 I started with my tutor on a three years’ tour, it having been decided that I should thus have seen everything, and made a fitting termination to the education of a man with the bright prospects I so confidently considered were in store for me. Would to God I had been born a navvy; I should never then have become what you now see me. The eventful era in my life at length arrived. After seeing everything and going half over the world, I found myself in England again, and on the eve of being invested with the absolute control of my huge estates. I will not insult you, nor deceive myself, by concealing any of my blemishes. Know, then, I was a drunkard, a confirmed sot at 21, too weak to resist the dram bottle, and capable of every folly, every crime, when under the influence of its fatal spell. I moreover hated the society of gentlemen, and was never happy except in low company. In London, whither I came after taking possession of my estates, I did not know a soul; the few respectable friends or relatives of my father I studiously avoided. Pleasure for me was only to be attained by herding with cads and prostitutes. My position, my title, my wealth, made this an easy task, and I soon became acquainted with a number of that voracious, threadbare class. My most intimate friends were broken-down gentlemen and spendthrifts of shady reputation; fighting men and banjo men, and blood-suckers of every type, who flattered my vanity, and led me as it were, with the one hand, whilst they rifled my pockets with the other. They ate at my expense, they drank at my expense; I paid their debts in many instances, and any rascal had only to recount to me a tissue of lies for me to at once offer him consolation by the ‘loan’ of a cheque. ‘What matters it,’ thought I; ‘was I not —, and had I not more money than I could possibly spend in a century?’ I was passionately fond of theatres, not respectable ones where I should have had to behave decently, but low East-end and transpontine ones, where I was a very swan amongst the geese, and where my title and wealth obtained me the inestimable privilege of going behind the scenes, and throwing money about in handfuls. On these almost nightly visits I was invariably dunned and asked for aid by every designing knave; they saw I was a fool, and usually drunk, and what I mistook for homage was in reality the treatment that only a contemptible drunkard with money, such as I, ever gets. Every scene-shifter had a harrowing tale, or an imaginary subscription list, to all of whom I administered bounteous monetary consolation; and any varlet with a whole hand, and a greasy rag round it, at once received a ‘fiver’ as a mark of sympathy for his painful accident. In short, I was a fool, looked on as only fit to be fleeced, and simply tolerated for the sake of my money. Would to God I had confined myself to these contemptible but otherwise harmless follies!

“It was on a dull foggy night—a night I can never forget—that some half-dozen of my boon companions had been dining with me at a celebrated restaurant. The débris of the dessert had not been removed, and they were sipping their coffee whilst I was settling the bill, when a suggestion was made that we should go to the ‘Sussex.’ The ‘Sussex’ was a very disreputable theatre, situated somewhere over the water, and supported entirely by the lowest classes and a few golden calves, such as myself, who were serving their apprenticeship, and who were permitted the inestimable privilege of going behind the scenes—entering the green-room, or indeed any room, and paying ten shillings a bottle for as much fluid of an effervescent nature in champagne bottles as anybody and everybody chose to call for. On these occasions we were ushered into the sacred precincts, with a certain amount of implied caution similar to and about as necessary as that assumed by a ragamuffin in the streets when asking you to buy a spurious edition of the Fruits of Philosophy. This, however, in my ignorance, only enhanced the pleasure. We were, as I believed, participating in some illegal transaction, permitted only to the most fortunate. As a fact, we were violating no law; and if the Lord Chamberlain did not object, Scotland Yard certainly didn’t. Etiquette on these occasions demanded that we should be formally introduced to the various ‘ladies’ that frequented the green-room—a custom I considered highly commendable, for in my ignorance I believed that not the slightest difference existed between the highest exponent of tragedy and the frowsiest ballet-girl in worsted tights and spangles.

“On this particular night, as I was watching the transformation scene being ‘set,’ and listening to the sallies of the tawdry ‘fairies’ that crowded the wings, my attention was attracted by a tall woman, who was gnawing a bone with a gusto that conveyed to me the impression she hadn’t eaten for a month. I felt for the poor creature, and went and stood near her. I thought at the time (for I was very drunk) that she was the most beautiful being I had ever seen; her pink-and-white complexion (it was in reality dabs of paint) appeared to me to be comparable only to a beautiful shell. I was spellbound by the sight, and instantaneously and hopelessly in love. It would have been a mercy—may God forgive me!—if that bone had choked her. That woman eventually became ‘her ladyship.’ But I’m anticipating.”

The poor fellow here became so affected that I begged him to pause; it was, however, useless.

“The sight of her in a measure sobered me, and I asked her who and what she was. She told me a harrowing tale of how she was the eldest of seven children; that her mother was bed-ridden and her father blind; and how she toiled at a sewing-machine all day and at the theatre all night, and then only earned a miserable pittance, barely sufficient to keep a roof over their heads. The recital affected me considerably (drunken people are easily moved to tears), as she went on to tell me how she had been in the theatre since 11 that morning (for it was the pantomime season, and there had been a morning performance), and how she had not tasted food until a carpenter had kindly given her the remains of his supper. I lost no time in procuring a bottle of champagne, and felt happier than I had for years as she placed a tumblerful to her parched lips and drank it off at a gulp. A few moments later I saw ‘little Rosie’ (for so she told me her blind parent loved to call her) being lashed to an ‘iron,’ and posing as an angel for the great transformation scene in course of preparation. I subsequently discovered—though, alas! too late—that ‘little Rosie’ was nightly to be seen outside the ‘Criterion’ and in front of the ‘Raleigh,’ and was known as ‘big Rose.’ But my mind has again got in advance of my story. Oh, dear! oh, dear! where am I?”

At this stage I really got alarmed, far his excitement was evidently increasing. Happily, however, a passing official necessitated silence, and he eventually resumed with comparative composure.

“I will not weary you with unnecessary details; suffice it to say that within a month we were married, and the vows that were made ’till death should us part’ were eventually broken by the living death that consigned me to penal servitude. After our marriage ‘little Rosie’s’ nature gradually began to change; and the frankness and naïveté that had so captivated me gradually gave way to habits and sentiments that astonished and alarmed me. I verily believe that, had I found in her the woman I hoped and believed her to be, I should truly have reformed, and given up that vile curse, drink. Instead of that, however, I found at my elbow one who was always ready to encourage me in the vice. Port was her favourite tipple, and though my own state seldom permitted me to judge of her consumption, still in my lucid intervals of sobriety I was astonished at the amount she consumed. Gradually we began to turn night into day, and nights of debauch regularly followed the few hours of daylight we seldom or ever saw. Even yet I had not abandoned all hope of reform. My conscience smote me when I was sober enough to heed it, and in hopes of avoiding temptation I hurried with my wife to Ireland; but even here she could not rest quiet. The cloven foot persisted in showing itself, and we were tabooed by the whole county. In this I found further cause for mortification—I who might have been looked up to and sought after. I tried to spare my wife’s feelings by concealing the real cause of our existence being ignored; but, fool that I was, I gave way to her importunings, and actually called on those who had avoided us. The well-merited reward of my temerity was not long in coming. Some of the county families returned our cards by post, whilst others sent them back by a servant; and at a subscription ball that took place not long after we received the cut dead. This filled up the cup of my humiliation, and I rushed back to London. I had realised the fact that virtue won’t herd with vice.