Six Years in the Prisons of England

by Unknown

The Surrey prison in which I was doomed to spend nearly five years of my life is a somewhat spacious looking building, situated in a healthy locality, and fitted up for the accommodation of about 660 prisoners. It is built in the shape of the letter E. The centre abutments are occupied as a chapel and work-room; the end wings are divided into cells, with an underground flat fitted up as a school and a Roman Catholic chapel. The upper story of the main portion of the building is divided into cells, which are the best specimens of the human cage yet constructed. The under flat is divided into eighteen rooms of various dimensions, some containing seven, others eight and twelve, and the largest twenty-four beds. The middle flat is in constant use as an hospital, and is divided into four wards, containing accommodation for 150 patients. Very frequently, however, while I was here that number was exceeded, and other portions of the prison were often appropriated to hospital use.

As I was for upwards of two years after my arrival an inmate of one of these hospital wards, I may here give an outline of the routine of our daily life there.

At half-past five every morning the great bell rang, and the nurses and convalescent patients started out of bed, washed and dressed, made their beds, rubbed their metal chamber-service as bright as silver—a remarkable contrast in that respect to the metal dinner dishes—dusted and cleaned the ward, which was usually kept remarkably tidy and clean. About half-past six breakfast was on the table. This meal consisted of very weak tea and dry bread for the majority, with an egg, or half-an-ounce of butter for the few who were supposed to be dangerously ill or dying. In the interval between the breakfast time and nine o'clock the patients' wounds were dressed by the nurses, and medicines served out by the officers of the ward; those patients not immediately under treatment having liberty to read or chat with each other. Before I left, however, the attempt was being made to prohibit this reading and talking, and to combine more punishment with the cure of disease.

The two medical officers generally began their rounds of examination about nine o'clock. As they entered the room "Attention!" was called, when all the prisoners out of bed stood up, and as the doctors passed, noting down on a ticket the date and remarks on each man's complaint, they were saluted by the patients in the military fashion. The doctors' visit over, the patients were assembled for prayers; after which, and until the dinner-hour—a quarter to twelve—the time was spent in out-door exercise. From twelve till two the patients sat on their stools reading or gossiping. At two they went out again to exercise. At half-past three they were again assembled for prayers. About five they got tea and dry bread, as at breakfast; and at eight o'clock they were all in bed.

The dinner of the patients varied according to the nature of their disease. The majority were served with the regular hospital dinner, which consisted of soup, potatoes, and what the dietary boards called "Ten ounces of mutton." With respect to the latter item, however, I fancy there must have been some mistake, although I have heard the prisoners characterize it in different and much stronger terms. Whether there be any mistake or not, five ounces, or it might occasionally be six ounces with the bone, is all the prisoners receive, and if complaint was made the invariable answer was, that it "Lost four ounces in the cooking." I am not sufficiently skilled in the culinary art to be able to say whether or not ten ounces of mutton loses four ounces in cooking, but the great majority of prisoners did not believe it; and the evil effects of placing ten ounces on a board for the public to see, and five or six ounces in the dish for the prisoner to eat, are very great.

The old maxim, "Set a thief to catch a thief," was based on a shrewd acquaintance with human nature, and convicts are usually very quick in discovering discrepancies of the kind to which I have alluded; and it is not to be wondered at if they put the very worst construction upon them. In any case, if it forms any part of our prison discipline to inculcate moral principles, or to instil into the convict mind a regard for truth and honesty, it is surely of the utmost importance, indeed absolutely necessary, that the prison authorities, their only instructors, should be beyond suspicion. As entertaining books and newspapers are not allowed him, the convict has nothing else to talk about but the conduct of his jailers, and foolish prison gossip; and any subject of the kind I have mentioned is eagerly discussed with very injurious results to all concerned.

To return to my own case: after being carried upstairs to the hospital, I was inspected by the medical officer, and ordered into one of the largest wards, containing thirty-six beds, on one of which I was destined to pass many long and painful months. On the following morning my knee was examined by both the prison surgeons. Unfortunately they seemed to differ in opinion as to the treatment it should receive. The senior officer, who took charge of my case, wished to make a stiff joint, whilst his junior thought it should be lanced and poulticed, to take out the matter, which by this time was creating an abscess in the joint. Had I been allowed to express my opinion on the subject I would have supported the latter mode of treatment; but a convict dare not utter a word with respect to medical treatment. I was accordingly obliged to lie in one position for three months with my leg strapped to a long slab, and to use a lotion which proved very injurious to it. During these three months I suffered the most intense pain. I not only could not get out of bed, but I could not change my position in it; and, to add to the wretchedness of my situation, I could not read; and finally I could not even sleep. My food, however, was better and more abundant than it had been hitherto. At first I was allowed a little porter and some very inferior beef-tea, in addition to the ordinary second-class hospital diet.

Some time after, when my knee was being frequently leeched, I said to the doctor that, if he thought it necessary to take more blood from me I would feel very grateful for a mutton chop in lieu of the beef-tea. This he at the time very snappishly refused, but next morning he appeared to have seen the reasonableness of my request, and allowed me the chop. Being always truly grateful when I obtained any concession of this kind, and always civil and polite to those with whom I was brought into contact, whether officers or prisoners, I received more favourable consideration than the generality of my neighbours; and I had nothing to complain of, so far as regarded diet, during my subsequent stay in the hospital.

After a few weeks of great suffering to me, it became quite evident that my leg was not to get better under the treatment prescribed for it, but was rapidly getting worse. The knee was now so sensitive that the tread of any person's foot passing near the bed caused me excessive pain. I was afraid to sneeze for the same reason, and at last so excruciating did the pain become that I begged and prayed to have my leg cut off. The idea of losing it, so horrible to me a few months previous, was altogether overpowered by the frightful torture, which night and day it now entailed upon me. I was again inspected about this time by a stranger doctor, and immediately after he left, my leg was lanced and poulticed. But the remedy came too late, for the time had come when I must either sacrifice my life, or give life a chance by the sacrifice of my leg. My readers can imagine for themselves what it must be to have the flesh cut, and the bone sawn through at the thickest part of the thigh. I fear I cannot give a more lucid description of the surgical operation. I was put under the influence of chloroform, which had to be administered a second time before the surgeons had completed their work, and with the exception of a momentary pang in the interval between the doses, I felt no pain whatever. The operation was skilfully performed, and occupied altogether about half-an-hour.

I was removed from the large ward, and placed in a small room by myself, with a prisoner to wait upon me, and for three or four days after the operation my life was despaired of by the medical officers. Strangely enough I did not feel so hopeless about my case. I felt a whispering within that seemed to tell me I should not die then. With the exception of the pain caused by the first few dressings of the wound, and a sharp violent twinge that seized the stump on my going to sleep, causing it to start some inches from the pillow on which it rested, I did not now experience anything to compare with my previous, sufferings. The head surgeon also relaxed from his customary silent, stingy, and cold hearted manner, and became generous, and even kind to me. I had been in the habit of writing to my friends that I felt comfortable enough under the circumstances, in order to keep up their spirits about me, but now I could and did express genuine feelings of gratitude, and until I wrote a letter to the late Mr. Cobden, more than a year afterwards, I believe I remained a favourite with the chiefs of the establishment. I had now become a cripple for life, and as I reflected upon all that these words involved in relation to my future history, and the circumstances which had entailed upon me a loss so irretrievable, I thought, amongst other things how easily, and still how fatally a little carelessness, negligence, or ill-temper on the part of our convict surgeons, may influence the future life and conduct of their convict patients. They are, without doubt, subjected to many vexations, and much annoyance, and their temper receives daily provocations. They have to deal professionally with a class of men who, as a rule, cannot be believed or trusted; who are as likely as not to give a false description of their complaint, and in many instances to do all in their power to frustrate the efforts made to relieve it. They have to discover not only what the disease is in real patients, but also frequently to detect well planned and well sustained imposture in those who are not diseased at all. The latter is a much more difficult task in many cases than the former, as I will subsequently show, and it has a tendency to sour the temper and harden the heart, which the former does not. I do not imagine that the medical men in our convict establishments are naturally less warm-hearted, less nobly devoted to their profession than their brethren outside, but it will not be disputed that the peculiar nature of their practice has a tendency to make them so. Were one hundred doctors each to have a patient for whom they had daily, for weeks, and even for months, been doing all that humanity and professional skill could suggest in order to relieve him, let us suppose of great suffering, and one fine morning to see the patient leap out of bed, laugh, and snap his fingers in their faces, and tell them that there had been nothing the matter with him all the while!—ninety-nine of them would probably look upon the next patient with some suspicion, and if deception was at all frequent, the really diseased would come in time to suffer even at the hands of the most tender and humane amongst them. I blame these "schemers" and "impostors" therefore for much of the apparent sourness, indifference to, and sometimes cruel neglect, if not positive aggravation of suffering, which I have noticed in the manner and treatment of most of the convict surgeons I have met with. I have seen the imperative necessity that exists for periodical inspection of our convict hospitals by competent medical men, not otherwise connected with them, in order to protect the "innocent patients," if I may use the term, from the indifference, mismanagement, and even punishment they are often compelled to undergo, because of the prejudices contracted by the prison officials, the result of a long experience perhaps of imposture and deception. Under the present system the resident medical superintendent has the lives of his patients at his sole disposal, and it is a very dangerous thing for a convict patient to offend the medical officers in any way, and of course the more so if they happen to be of a cruel or vindictive disposition. My own case was in some respects an instance of this. The experience I gained in the Yorkshire prison, after I had ventured to insinuate to the doctor there that he had not quite understood the nature of my complaint, kept my mouth hermetically closed during the ill-concealed disagreement between the two doctors here as to the method of my cure. The chief medical officer at this prison was very much disliked by the majority of the patients, particularly by the young prisoners in the early stages of consumption. The cause of this, was supposed to be the desire to keep the hospital well filled with patients, and to have the greater proportion of them of the class who were content to be idle without craving for "extras." He could thus keep the cost per head lower than the medical officers at other prisons, and obtain the greater credit at head-quarters. Young consumptive patients he found to be too expensive, and they were accordingly made uncomfortable. His junior, on the other hand, although blunt in his manner and speech, was held in general esteem. He seemed to have his heart in the profession, and endeavoured to cure complaints deemed curable without reference to the expense of the diet, if it contributed to the end he had in view.