He lives in a state of chronic irritation; he is morose or excitable by turns. He does not find the officials sympathetic or courteous, for they, too, are human, and even in prison like meets with like.
The sufferings of these men are intense. The iron enters into their souls—and though their sufferings are largely self-created, they are none the less real.
Ask such a man to give a description of prison life, and he will give one worthy of Charles Reade.
But suppose we ask a different type of man to give us his opinion; he may be equally well educated with the former, he may have served a similar sentence in the same prison at the same time, none the less, he will present us with a striking contrast.
He will tell you that the prison was dull and monotonous, but just what he expected; that the food was unpleasant, till he got used to it; that many things disgusted him in his early prison days, but he put up with them. He kept all the rules, got all his “marks,” and obtained full remission of sentence. In a word, he made the best of things.
He will tell you that he had no real work to do; that the officials were all good to him, but they had their duty to perform, and that he never insulted them. There was nothing of much interest going on, and that in reality formed his punishment, for he had many interests in the outside world.
Let me select another; this man may be considered an authority, for although he is under sixty years of age, his sentences amount to more than forty years. He knows Portland, Dartmoor, Parkhurst and, of course, many local prisons. He has had as much as fifteen years at a stretch, and as I understand he is again in prison, it is quite possible that ultimately (unless Mr. Gladstone’s Preventive Detention Act takes possession of him), the accumulation of his sentences may outnumber the years of his life.
For he, too, got all his “marks” and has never failed to get three months off every year served.
There is not an idle bone in his body; he is industrious, skilled and intelligent; he loves liberty; to him the song of the birds and the smiling of the flowers are pleasant; he is kind to dumb animals, and to him children are a joy.
His health is not broken, his intelligence is not atrophied, he is still alert and brisk—in fact, he is too much so. He knows all there is to be known about prisons, and he knows the “ropes” too.