ENGLISH SKETCHES.
AN HOUR IN A JAIL.
There is nothing in the exterior of the building to indicate its real character, nor is it in any way calculated to strike terror into the mind of the beholder whose imagination, fed by early prejudices, connects the idea of a jail with gloomy precincts, drawbridges, and armed sentinels pacing before frowning gates. The jail of Reading, the chief town of the royal county of Berks, presents the very antithesis of all this. This is a gay edifice of variegated red brick and white stone, in the style called carpenter's Gothic—a rather appropriate name for the jocular mongrel performance it designates, and which is one of the most surprising hallucinations of the modern architect's mind. The building stands close by the Forbury gardens and at the back of the Catholic church. The delusion as to the character of the place is not dispelled on entering; the uninitiated stranger might, on passing the great door, still fancy himself in some free dwelling, where no abnormal impediments prevented his exit; but crossing the court, he ascends by a flight of steps to a second gate of ominous appearance, and before whose glittering steel bars the spell of liberty dissolves. Within this second gate there is another, equally formidable, which opens into a broad gallery lighted from the roof and crossed by light bridges at intervals, to which you ascend by a steep, ladder-like iron staircase. The second story is occupied by the women prisoners, the lower one by the men.
As few of our readers may have had the opportunity or the curiosity to go through an English jail, perhaps they would like to do so vicariously, as the Shah enjoyed dancing—sitting quietly in his chair, while foolish people fatigued themselves for his entertainment. We were accompanied by a young priest, whose ministry had frequently led him within the steel gates on another errand than curiosity; and, thanks to his friend's (Canon R——) introduction to the governor, we had permission to see every detail of the place. The aspect of the long galleries, with the bright-tiled flooring and white walls glancing in the flood of sunshine flowing from the roof, kept up the first impression of cheerfulness. There was nothing so far to suggest unnecessary rigor or broken spirits, still less cruelty and demoralization. All was airy and exquisitely clean. Warders in official uniforms paced leisurely up and down the corridors and galleries; and though the silence was broken only by their foot-falls and our own voices as we conversed with the warder who acted as our guide, there was no oppressive gloom in the atmosphere. The cells opened on either side of the gallery. They were each lighted by a good-sized window looking on the prison garden and protected by strong iron bars; in one corner was a complete washing apparatus, with a water-pipe over the basin; in another there was a gas-pipe. The furniture consisted of a small table, a stool, and a stretcher-bed, which is rolled up during the day. On a shelf were the prisoner's plate and mug. The Protestants are allowed the use of their Bible and the Common Prayer-Book; the Catholics have the Douay edition of the Bible and The Garden of the Soul; special good conduct is rewarded by the loan of story-books. Some of the cells were ornamented with prints from the Graphic and the Illustrated London News. A man with a good conscience and sound health might live comfortably in one of these cells.
The Reading jail is worked entirely on the isolated system, each prisoner being virtually as much alone amidst two hundred fellow-captives as if he were the only inmate. It is urged against this system that it frequently leads to madness, total solitude being the most cruel form of punishment, and the one against which the human mind is, by its very essence, least calculated to bear up. But the theory applies in its chief force to solitary confinement, where the sound of the human voice and the sight of his fellow-creature's face never intrude upon the tomblike silence of the dungeon; where complete inaction of the body feeds the despondency of the imagination dwelling on the one fixed idea of an interminable perspective of silence and solitude. In the case of short periods of incarceration, the separate system must be regarded as an immense improvement on the old gregarious one. It prevents the spread of vice, and protects the comparatively innocent subject from being utterly corrupted by the hardened sinner. In France, where the gregarious system is in full force, its effect is too plainly visible in the most deplorable results. A youth or a girl goes in a mere novice in iniquity, and, after a short sojourn in the midst of the offscourings of society, comes out utterly depraved. Nowhere is this truth more lamentably apparent than in those cases that come under the head of prison préventive, where any suspected person, on the smallest amount of evidence, is thrown into these social sloughs for weeks, nay, months sometimes, and held in hourly contact with thieves, forgers, burglars, and every species of offender. Strong indeed must be the principles, and pure the heart, that come out unshaken and unsullied from such an ordeal.
The men were at work on the day when we arrived at the jail, so we saw the penal system in full operation. The mildest form of hard labor is the oakum-picking. It is performed partly in the open air, partly in the cells, and consists of untwisting old cables, and then tearing them into loose hemp, which is used for caulking the seams of ships.
The next category was the stone-breaking. One side of a yard is walled off into separate compartments, with a railing at each end, and from these the ring of the pick-axe resounds dismally for many hours in the day. One of these cages was occupied by a lunatic, who had attempted the life of his brother. The poor fellow was only there for the day, awaiting an order for removal to some government asylum for the insane. He stood bolt upright, without leaning against the wall, with his hands hanging by his side, and his head bent downwards, the picture of melancholy and sullen despair. We noticed with satisfaction that the warder compassionately avoided passing before the poor creature's railing, and did not even speak within earshot of him.
On re-entering the house, we came into a corridor where the air was filled with a grinding noise of ominous import. On either side of us were cells, where the forced labor in its most severe aspect comes into view. Warders were walking slowly up and down, peeping at intervals into the cells through a narrow little aperture in the doors, where the prisoners were undergoing the sentence of the law. Some were grinding corn, others were turning the crankpump. The former is done by a machine which it takes all the strength of the workman's two arms to keep going. In one of these cells, the door of which was unlocked for us to examine closely, there was a lad of a little over twenty, of middle height, and with a countenance which, but for the sinister leer of the mouth, might have been called mild and almost prepossessing. We were startled to learn that this juvenile criminal had been taken up for highway robbery, with attempt to murder.
The cell opposite his was occupied by a middle-aged, broad-shouldered man, who was turning the crankpump. This is the most severe of all the forms of labor in the jail. To a superficial observer it would seem almost easy labor, so smooth is the movement of the crank as it gyrates under the clenched hands of the prisoner, his body rising and falling in rhythmic movement with the rotation of the crank he is propelling; but the strain upon the spine becomes after a while intolerable. This man was a very hardened criminal, and had just undergone seven days on bread and water in the dark cell, twenty-four lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails having proved unavailing; and he was still unsubdued. His misdemeanor in the prison was swearing at one of the warders, and threatening to break his skull against the wall; even after the fearful infliction of the dark cell, he repeated his threat to "do for him."
Coarse-matting weaving is another prison employment; it is far less laborious than either of the two preceding, yet working the heavy looms must be a great discipline to unpractised arms. One man's face in this category struck us as different from the others; it bore the unmistakable stamp of education; we found that the weaver was properly a man of a better class, and who, with half the ingenuity he had shown in getting into his present condition, might have been a well-to-do member of society.