"Do you think you could cure yourself?"
"If I had two herbs here I could prolong my days for a long time, I most thoroughly believe, but they can never touch my disease the way they go on here—I am dying by inches."
This prisoner (now dead) was quite an enthusiast about herbs, and succeeded in imparting confidence in his abilities to the officers as well as the majority of the prisoners. He was to all appearance a man of good principles, and a Christian. How far his own statements regarding his crime can be relied on, I cannot say, but that he succeeded in raising himself from being a poor weaver to be a money-making and successful herb doctor, I know to be correct. I have noticed his case chiefly in order to remark that he turned a good many of the prisoners into pill sellers and incipient quacks, but he never would tell them about the abortion medicine although he gave them prescriptions for almost all diseases. I saw them all, and know the herbs had at least the merit of being innocent. Had he been less honest, and had the herbs which he prescribed been poisonous, I fancy that a good many of Her Majesty's faithful, loyal, and gullible subjects would, long ere now, have returned to the dust from whence they sprang.
CHAPTER XVIII.
IN PRISON AGAIN—I SEE THE PRISON DIRECTOR FOR THE LAST TIME—GENTLEMEN-PRISONERS—A WILL FORGER—A "WARNING TO OTHERS"—FENIANS—TREATMENT OF POLITICAL PRISONERS—ANOTHER JAILBIRD.
Having recruited my strength in hospital, I was again discharged to resume my work in prison. Shortly after my return to my old quarters, I thought I would inform my friends that some of the companions I met with at the commencement of my prison career, who had longer sentences than I had, had been fortunate enough to obtain their liberty, and, in addition, a free passage to Western Australia—which was worth about 20l.—and that I wished them to try and do something to aid me in my race for liberty. But my letter was again suppressed, and not being able by this means to inform my friends of my wishes, I entered my name once more as being desirous to see the director. I anticipated meeting the regular visiting director, who very rarely refused a prisoner the privilege of writing a petition to the Home Secretary, if he had allowed the usual time (twelve months) to elapse since he had obtained the privilege before. But I was even in this doomed to disappointment, and instead of the director I expected to see, I found myself confronted by the old sinister-looking friend I had been introduced to on a former occasion. I told him on making my humble request that I had not petitioned the Home Secretary for several years, that, in fact, I had not petitioned on the merits of my case at all, and that I would feel grateful if he would extend to me the privilege, usually granted to all well-conducted prisoners, of petitioning the Home Secretary.
Conscience did not seem to be utterly powerless within him, for his eyes would not meet mine, they remained fixed on the desk before him; but his head shook, and his lips muttered, "No." I pleaded for a moment in beseeching tones which might have softened a heart of stone, but Bassanio's appeal to Shylock was not more futile than mine to him. The words and gesture with which my suppliant attitude was spurned, roused all the manhood in me, and for an instant I felt as if I were a free man and addressing my equal, and in language at once dignified and firm, I requested a sheet of paper that I might appeal to the Board of Directors. My altered mien and tone of voice, so unexpected, so unusual in that secret court, arrested him; his hand trembled, he looked as Felix might have done when he first heard of "righteousness, temperance and judgment to come." My request was granted, and my last interview with a prison director had come and gone. Two days afterwards I wrote a letter to the board of directors, in suitable language, and addressed to the chairman of the board, preferring my request. Month after month passed away, but I waited for a reply in vain. At one time I would have felt both surprised and annoyed that no notice had been taken of my letter, but now I knew that I had only experienced the usual treatment which prisoners receive who have justice on their side. I had now made three, and only three requests to the officials during my prison career, and all these had been denied, and I resolved to prefer no more. I gave my mind healthy exercise in the composition of verses, when I was not otherwise employed, and to a great extent forgot my troubles in my puny flight to obtain a sight of the poets' mountain.
The last year of my imprisonment was marked by the arrival of a number of Fenians, and the departure for freedom of one or two of the very few prisoners whose society had been a pleasure to me. One of these had been the editor and proprietor of an influential country newspaper, and his crime was very similar to my own. He was a man of deep thought, and far, very far, from being a criminal at heart. He was the best educated man I met with in prison, and eminently qualified for writing a treatise on the prevention of crime. The other had been in business in London, and had brought up a large and respectable family. Having been accustomed to mix in the society of some of the most eminent of the city merchants and bankers, his company in such a place as a prison was a great acquisition. After the departure of these two prisoners I had only one intimate and intelligent companion left. His case excited my sympathy, inasmuch as he was a very humble and penitent man, with a sentence of penal servitude for life. A sentence, I believe, inflicted not so much for the crime, but on account of the position the prisoner formerly occupied in society, and "as a warning to others." This is a formula which, in many cases, is made to sanction monstrous injustice, and in all cases, I may say, is practically inoperative. The only parties warned by the fall and punishment of such an one as the prisoner I here refer to, are those in the same respectable position in life, because they are the only parties who have it in their power to commit the same crime. The punishment cannot warn those who are not in and cannot attain to the position which makes the crime possible, and who could not find the opportunity to commit it, even if they were paid to seek it; then why punish such men as this prisoner the more severely, because he was in that position?
I know it is urged in opposition to that view, that such men ought to know better, that they have no excuse, and so on, but we must bear in mind that all who do wrong know it, the poor and the ignorant as well as the rich and educated, unless they are of unsound mind. Then again, do those in a good position in society require more warning than those who have no character or position to lose? It would be difficult, I think, for anyone to maintain that position! The fact is, that conviction merely, without any subsequent punishment at all, would be a much more effective warning to the former class than the gallows even would be to the latter! The thief plies his trade while the scaffold frowns overhead, it does not deter him, but the lynx eye of a policeman would, even although the penalty was a months' imprisonment instead of the rope. As I have already more than once asserted, it is the fear of being caught that deters the thief, and this fear increases and intensifies as we ascend the social ladder; in the case of all first offenders of the law, the punishment is an after-thought, and on that account, as well as on higher grounds, we ought to temper justice with mercy in dealing with all first offenders, more especially with those who offend against property only.