Let us hope that, notwithstanding the fact that at Norman Cross many of the prisoners had been confined for ten years, while of those whom “Greenhorn” gazed upon, none had been behind the granite walls of Dartmoor more than four years, the dominant spirit was one of “contentment, order and good-fellowship”; but, unfortunately, it is beyond doubt that there was in the prison a submerged stratum of hungry, miserable, criminal individuals, who had been unable to resist the evil influence of their surroundings on natural or acquired tendencies.
The preceding pages should enable the reader, throwing his imagination back a hundred years to Norman Cross, to conjure up, in place of the photographic picture of forty acres of still and silent pasture, without one human inhabitant, which the camera would produce to-day, a cinematograph series exhibiting a moving panorama, set in the great group of wooden buildings, barracks and prisons, in which lodged nearly 10,000 men, with all the busy life of such a crowd. On the roads enclosing two sides of the site (one of which—the great North Road—was then always alive with the ever-flowing streams of traffic going and returning between London and the North) are soldiers passing to and fro, and civilians of all kinds having business at the Depot. Entering the gate on the Peterborough Road, are seen the prison market on the left and the Eastern Barracks on the right, and in the space between are soldiers off duty, local merchants carrying their goods to the market, the prisoners, officers, and civilians allowed on parole, visitors with orders, friends of the British officers, etc.; while at the western gate on the North Road not only is the busy life of the main entrance to the western barracks thrown on the screen, but also the carts and porters bringing in the daily supplies for feeding the thousands within the walls, passing through the gates, and filling with envy the half-starved British workmen who, from the road, gaze on the piled-up loads of meat, bread, and vegetables; beyond the gates the busy barrack life—companies of soldiers changing guard, sentries on their beat pass by; and then appears the outer wall of the prison, stockade fence or brick wall, according to the year in which the imaginary camera is at work; at the eastern of the four gates appears the busy market, with the vendors of the goods, vegetables, eggs, and farm produce, clothes, hardware, and other necessaries for sale at their stalls, and the prisoners from within making their purchases, and offering for sale products of their skill in handicraft; a cannon with its muzzle directed inwards to the prison commands the gate in the market fence, that of the prison itself, and the roadway to the Central Block House. Between the wall and the stockade enclosing the separate quadrangles, and on the cross roads which separate the four blocks, sixty sentries, posted day and night, are pacing their beats; while fenced in by the inner stockade are seen in each quadrangle crowds of prisoners, the majority young, a few old veterans—well fed and half-starved, well clothed and ragged, some in the yellow suit supplied by the British Government, industrious and idle—all forced to live together under the same conditions of isolation from the outer world.
Here appear, in a somewhat crowded quadrangle, the thickly packed 1,600 or 1,700 men, groups of whom appear on the screen, some availing themselves of a clear space are dancing, others racing, or fencing with single sticks; then is seen a group carrying on, with violent gesticulation, a hot argument, so heated has it become between two of the disputants that it may end in blows, and possibly in a duel, for duels with extemporised weapons were not infrequent and were occasionally fatal; another group are discussing earnestly, but quietly and in subdued tones, the possibility of the general rising of all the prisoners in England, news having been smuggled in to them that a plan for such a rising is under consideration by the French Government. Then follow pictures of men at work; they are mostly seated on boxes or rough prison-made stools on the flagged pavement which surrounds the airing-court—they are very numerous. Here a man in the corner, which he has appropriated for months, is cutting, scraping, polishing, and fitting together the pieces of bone which he is building into the beautiful model of the guillotine which now, a hundred years later, has found its way to the Peterborough Museum; he has bought in the market a good assortment of tools, which lie beside him. Then comes a group of men, who have selected a spot sheltered from the wind, and who are skilled in straw marquetry, employed in coating well-made work boxes, desks, etc., also all prison work, with marquetry pictures of varied and beautiful designs, so beautiful and so delicate, that we who, a hundred years after the workers and their prison vanished from Norman Cross, see the objects, can only marvel at the skill and the patient perseverance which could accomplish such work in such conditions.
A Dutch sailor appears giving the finishing touch to a marvellous model of a ship made from the bones received from the cooking-house, he is just fastening the Dutch flag to the ship; grouped around him are many of his admiring countrymen. Then appears on the screen a group who reveal a different side of the life in the quadrangles: a crowd surrounds a party of gamblers, and crushing through them are several anxious, ragged, emaciated men who, having just sold in advance their rations for several days, in order to obtain money for the indulgence of their passion, are eager to join in the game. Here and there pass by wretched half-naked members of the submerged tenth, which has developed within a year of the opening of the prison, seeking for scraps of food to appease the hunger pangs which have arisen from their selling their rations to the wretch, the usurer, who now appears searching among the losers, in the dispersing crowd for a fresh victim; this man is looked upon by the authorities as a bigger sinner than the starving gamblers themselves. [103]
Another group of young fellows is seen taking lessons in English from a polyglot; and so picture succeeds picture, until we see in another quadrangle more men at work, but the crowd generally engaged in and greatly excited over an election. The commissary whose duty it is to inspect, in the interest of his fellow prisoners, the supplies of food as they are delivered at the prison, has proved unsatisfactory, and permission has been given for the choice of another prisoner to replace him. There are several parties in the prison each anxious that one of their own group should be selected, hence the contest and the excited crowd of speakers and listeners. Some of the prisoners are “mugwumps” and take no interest in politics, even such as would touch their personalinterests, and of these a crowd interested in theology fills the screen; they are listening to a hot argument between a Protestant and a Romanist—an argument frequently interrupted by a little party of those who worship only the goddess of reason. Then follow on the screen the squad told off for fatigue duties for the day; they have just finished their tasks, and are settling down to their usual occupations, some throwing themselves down to rest, others joining a party whose sides are shaking with laughter, as they listen to two or three young men, excellent actors, who are improvising a scene, caricaturing the English, and introducing the peculiarities of the agent, turnkey, and other officials of the prison. [104]
The pictures of the next quadrangle are much the same. A man is seen in violent grief with the letter in his hand which has just announced to him the death of wife, father, mother, or child, leaving him more desolate than ever. At the turnkey’s gate a group of men are being led off with a guard of soldiers to the Black Hole for a brutal assault on one of their fellow prisoners. But what has happened to alter the characters of the pictures when the fourth quadrangle appears on the screen? Work has stopped, arguments have ceased, the excellent meal, with numerous luxuries which a party of prisoners well supplied with money have prepared as the great event of their day, lies on the table before them disregarded, the food untasted. Where men are speaking at all, it is with the intensity of bitter disappointment, here and there with violent expressions of anger against the authors of their misery.
For some months it has been known to these men that negotiations were going on between the two Governments for a General Exchange of prisoners, and although there have been to the knowledge of the prisoners many hitches, yet for the last few weeks it has been rumoured that these difficulties were all overcome, and the announcement of the day when the exchange should commence has been hourly expected; but, alas! in place of the expected news, one of the turnkeys has just handed in an authoritative statement that the negotiations have fallen through, and that all hope of freedom must again be banished from their thoughts!
To know the agony of despair that must on such a day have seized those 6,000 men, one must have shared their captivity and gone through their experiences.
The news from the outside world, the progress of the war, the successes and defeats on either side, the prospects of peace, must have varied the mood of the prisoners from day to day; we can only hope that the national contentment and cheerfulness was for the majority the usual tone.