EMPLOYMENTS OF THE CAPTIVES—STRAW PLAIT CONTROVERSY—CONDUCT—ESCAPES
Ye, to your hot and constant task
Heroically true,
Soldiers of Industry! we ask,
“Is there no Peace for you?”Lord Houghton, Occasional Poems.
It is a relief to turn over the last page of the chapter which illustrates the darkest side of the prison’s history, and to pass on to the consideration of what probably was the greatest solace which those in confinement experienced. This was work. Not the work done daily by the fatigue parties, but work by which the prisoners could earn something. By far the largest amount of the earnings was money brought into the prison from without, of which a portion circulated in the prison, finding remunerative work for other inmates. Much was spent in the market, and again left the prison, but a considerable amount accumulated in the hands of the thrifty, and sent the prisoners back to their own country all the richer for having been in Norman Cross.
Although remunerative is as a rule more attractive than unremunerative work, any work done by the prisoners must have been cheering and elevating to those condemned to the deadly monotony of an idle prison life. To those gifted with artistic taste, the production of the thousands of specimens of beautiful and ingenious articles of value must have been a positive joy.
The work open to the industrious prisoners included that of an ordinary labourer, of a skilled artisan, and of a man with a trade, and ranged up to that of a teacher, an actor, an author, or an artist!
A complaint of the French Government was that the British did not employ their prisoners on works outside the walls, as the British were employed in France. The answer to this is that the French male labour market was exhausted by the serious depletion due to conscription of the adult male population, and that the French Government, in the interests of France, gladly availed itself of the services of the British, under military surveillance, for public works, etc. No such necessity pressed on the British; there was an ample supply of labour, and the introduction of competing gangs of prisoners of war would have led to trouble, and was in fact a domestic impossibility. There were occasions when the prisoners were employed on large constructive works connected with their own prisons. Dartmoor Chapel was built by the prisoners in 1810–14; the masons were paid 6d. a day, it being understood that the money should accumulate, and that should any workman escape, the whole of the pay due to the gang would be forfeited. By this means every prisoner was made a warder over his fellows. [125]
They were also regularly employed in their prisons as labourers, and those who knew a trade as tradesmen. From the accounts of Norman Cross Prison (which are scattered among various bundles, and difficult to find) has been selected the wage sheet for the midsummer quarter of 1789. The total is £408 1s. 6d.; of this £13 7s. 6d. was paid to the Dutch, and £32 to the French prisoners employed as labourers. Under the head of tradesmen’s bills for the same quarter are entered, French prisoners £35 3s. 4d.; Dutch prisoners £541 6s. 2d. These sums represent the employment of a considerable number of men, as, the recipients being lodged and fed at the expense of the State, the wage each man received was very small, much below the normally low wage paid for labour at that date. The accounts show that the practice of employing and paying the prisoners was in vogue in the first years of the Depot’s existence, and that it went on until its last year is shown in the report of Mr. William Fearnall, the surveyor, [126] who recommends certain repairs, and states that Captain Hanwell, the Agent, can find thirty-six carpenters, two pairs of sawyers, and three masons from among the prisoners. Further, as already stated, the prisoners held several paid posts, such as cooks, nurses, hospital porters, and the like, within the prison walls.
In the sketch of the prison life, allusion has been made to the retail traders and merchants; there were also craftsmen—men who knew a trade—tailors, shoemakers, cooks, etc. These carried on a business, their customers being their fellow prisoners. The regulation made for the protection of the revenue and in the interests of our own workers, to the effect that in making slippers and shoes, they might use list, but no leather, must have applied only to articles made for sale outside. The employments by which the prisoners earned money from outside and brought it into the prison have, perhaps, the greatest interest to us. The greater part of this money was either transmitted for safe keeping to France or Holland, banked with the agent, or hoarded until the hoped-for day of release should come.
The industry, neatness of fingers, skill and artistic taste of the prisoners, enabled them to produce a great variety of ornamental and useful articles. The materials used in these manufactures were usually very simple, but it has puzzled writers on the subject to account for the possession by the prisoners of the dyes with which they stained the straws used in their brightly coloured and delicately tinted marquetry decorative work. One writer or imaginative person started the theory that the colours were all obtained from the tea served out to the prisoners, and this has been repeated in various literary notices on this subject, in magazines, newspapers, and other documents. The reader may be spared the effort of trying to account for the loss of the art of extracting such colours from such a source, by recognising the fact that no tea was served out to a prisoner, except to those in the hospital, and that it would be far cheaper for the prisoners to buy the dyes in the outside market than to purchase tea—which was at that time a costly article used only by persons with good incomes—from which to extract these mythical dyes.