Under One Flag

by Richard Marsh

The fourth man appears to be the clearest-headed member of the party. He is a bricklayer's labourer, aged thirty-four. He is in for £1, 16s., an ancient baker's bill. His story also has elements of queerness. The bill was incurred nearly four years ago. He fell from a scaffold, was in hospital six months, his home was broken up; the baker, taking pity on his misfortunes, forgave the bill. Later on the baker himself was ruined. A speculator--you are destined to hear a good deal about this speculator; it seems that he sends a regular procession to the county gaol--bought up the baker's book debts. He immediately "went for" the bricklayer's labourer, who had the worst of it, and who, in consequence, is here. When in full work the labourer earns a pound a week. He was out of work for four weeks before he "came in." The day after he did "come in," his wife and six children went upon the parish. A pretty state of things.

I seems that there are four other prisoners for debt. But just now they are shut off in a room at the end of the ward, having an exercise-ground of their own; there is apt to be too much noise if the prisoners are all together.

Presently a warder appears, not only with your writing materials, but also with your bag, its contents left untouched, with all your property, indeed, except your watch, your tobacco, and your money. Almost simultaneously dinner appears, at noon. You are presented with two tins and a tiny loaf. The door leading to the exercise-ground is closed. With your dinner in your hand you troop up the stone steps with your companions. You discover that there is a large room at the end of the upper tier of cells, "First Class Misdemeanants" being painted on the panels of the door. There being, for the moment, no prisoner of that particular class, you have the use of it. It contains tables and stools, all sorts of things--among others, wooden spoons. Armed with a wooden spoon you investigate your tins. It is Wednesday. At the bottom of the large one, which is dirtier than ever, is a slab of suet pudding, brown in hue. With the aid of your spoon and your fingers you eat it; though lukewarm and sticky, it is grateful to your anxious stomach. In the smaller tin are two potatoes, in their jackets, said jackets having, apparently, never been washed. You eat the potatoes, too; but though you are hungrier than ever, the bread you cannot manage. On your mentioning that you could dispose neither of your supper nor of your breakfast, the labourer and the cabman tear off to your cell downstairs, immediately returning in possession of your despised food, which they eat with voracity. They assure you that you will be able to eat anything after you have been here a few days, even the tins. You learn that if you make your wants known to an officer, he will purchase whatever you choose to pay for. Your chief anxiety is to work. You know from experience that you cannot do good work upon an empty stomach. Slender though your resources are, you resolve that you will devote at least a portion of them to the purchase of something which you will be able to eat for breakfast and for supper.

In the afternoon, as you are working in your cell--with the door open--a warder enters the ward. You make known to him your wants. He says he will send you the officer whose duty it is to make purchases for prisoners. When the officer comes, you request him to lay out two shillings for you to the best advantage, and learn, to your dismay, that on the day on which you make a purchase you are supposed to be keeping yourself, and therefore receive none of the prison rations. It is too late to recede, so you tell the officer to make the best of your two shillings. You work till half-past four, then go into the exercise ground, which was opened again at two till five. At five it is closed for the night. Supper is served. You dispose of the greater portion of the gruel, this time you even dispose of some of the bread. Work in your cell till past seven, then stroll with the others up and down the ward. The room at the end of the lower ward has been unlocked. The prisoners are all together. The four you have not seen prove to be very like the four you have--two of them are here at the suit of the speculator in old and bad debts, who is responsible for the presence of the bricklayer's labourer; for poor rates another. A small calculation discloses the fact that a little over ten pounds would set all the eight men free. Shortly before eight you are locked in your cells till the morning. Another night of agony! When at half-past six the warder looks in to ask if you are all right, you answer "No"--you have not closed your eyes since entering the gaol--you have been eaten alive.

"I'll bring you a change of bedding." He does. "You'll find these all right, they've never been issued. You can't keep things clean this side--most of them wear their own clothes, you see, and they come in all alive, oh!"

You exchange your bedding for that which he brings, thankfully, wishing you had spoken before. About seven the same officer reappears. He brings your "things." There is a half-quartern loaf, two ounces of tea, quarter of a pound of butter, half a pound of cheese, tin of corned beef, couple of lemons; you never knew what good food was till you found yourself in possession of those supplies. Directly his back is turned, breaking a corner off the loaf, you rub it against the butter. If they would only allow you the use of a tin knife, what a godsend it would be! A kettle of boiling water is brought at breakfast time. Putting some tea in your pint pot, with a piece of lemon peel, you fill it from the kettle. Although you have to drink your tea from the teapot, you make a sumptuous meal.

At half-past eight you go with the other Church of England prisoners to chapel, a large room, which would probably seat five hundred, allowing to each person the same amount of space which he occupies outside. The debtors occupy the back seats. There is a gallery overhead. There are four raised seats on either side, against the walls; a warder sits in each of them. A pulpit is at the other end, an altar of rather a nondescript kind--which it need be, seeing that the Roman Catholic service is held here too--a couple of screens, more raised seats. A warder is standing before the altar; a door is at either side of him. Through these doors, so soon as the debtors are seated, begins to enter a stream of men, a space of several feet being between each. Those who are awaiting trial are the first to come. The prison costume of blue serge worn by the majority means that their own clothes are unfit to wear. So far as appearance goes, the four or five men in their own apparel would come within the scope of the immortal definition of a gentleman. You have heard about some of them in the debtors' ward. The slight, young fellow in black is a post-office clerk; he has to stand his trial for stealing a letter which contained a cheque. So soon as he reaches his place he falls upon his knees and prays. He wants all the help which prayer can bring him; in all human probability there is penal servitude ahead. The highly respectable-looking individual, with carefully-trimmed black hair and whiskers, who sits on the bench in front of you upon your right, is charged with stabbing his wife; luckily, she is not dead. The big, sandy-haired fellow upon his left, right in front of you, has rank murder to answer for. The story of his crime has been for weeks the talk of the countryside; a dramatic story, with glimpses of livid tragedy. He and his paramour, being shut out one night from the workhouse, took refuge on the hills under the shelter of an overhanging rock. In the night they quarrelled; he slew her with a stone. In the early morning a shepherd met him running across the hills, wet with her blood. Stopping, the man told the shepherd what he had done. Returning together they found the woman under the rock, dead, her head and face battered and broken, the stone beside her.

The trial men are followed by the convicted prisoners, in brick-coloured costumes; some with knickerbockers--those sentenced to penal servitude, who are waiting to be drafted to a convict station; some in trousers--those who are sentenced to not more than two years' imprisonment. The warders stand up as they enter, watching them as cats do mice. Each man is careful that he is a certain distance behind the man in front of him. They sit five on a bench which would comfortably accommodate twenty, in rows, each man exactly behind his fellow. While the procession continues, a woman passes behind one of the screens--a female warder. She commences to play a series of voluntaries on an unseen harmonium--"The Voice that Breathed o'er Eden," "There is a Green Hill"--airs which seem strange accompaniments to such a procession. The chaplain is away for his holidays. The schoolmaster reads the service--an abbreviated edition of Morning Prayer. He does not read badly. The congregation seems to listen with reverent attention, which is not to be wondered at, with the warders eyeing them like hawks. They join heartily in the responses, which is, again, not strange, considering that the only chance they have of hearing their own voice is in chapel. At the end a hymn is sung--"Thine for ever! God of love"--under the circumstance, an odd selection. The congregation sing with the full force of their lungs; perhaps strangely the result is not unpleasing. The female prisoners are in the gallery overhead. A woman's voice soars above the others, clear as a bell. You wonder who it is--officer or prisoner. After the hymn the schoolmaster pronounces the benediction. The service is over.

You work nearly all that day. How your companions manage without work is beyond your comprehension. This is an excellent school for the inculcation and encouragement of the Noble Art of Loafing. In the afternoon another prisoner is introduced. He calls himself a blacksmith, is about sixty, has scarcely a shirt to his back, and is here for poor rates! Later on, two more. One is in prison clothes, the other cowers in a corner of his cell, refusing to have intercourse with anyone. Presently the story goes that he is crying. The fellow in the prison clothes has been brought from a town more than thirty miles away, sentenced to fourteen days imprisonment, for a debt of twelve-and-sixpence.

When, shortly before five, ceasing work, you go into the exercise-ground for a breath of air, you find a warder with a bundle under his arm. In the corner is a brick erection with, fitted into the wall, a thermometer to register over 300° Fahrenheit. It is the oven in which they bake the prisoners' clothes. In the bundle under the warder's arm are the clothes of the twelve-and-sixpenny debtor. A debtor's clothes must be in an indescribable condition before they constrain him to wear the prison uniform. This man's rags--the warder, who is in a communicative mood, declares that you cannot call them clothes--are about as bad as they can be. It is only after the thermometer has continued for some minutes to register a temperature of over 230° that their unmentionable occupants are effectually destroyed.