(Special to New York Herald.)Madrid, April 12, 1873.The American Ambassador, Gen. Sickles, has formally notified Senor Castelar that the American Government will consent to the surrender to the British Government of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana upon charge of being concerned in the Bank of England forgery.
(Special to New York Herald.)
Madrid, April 12, 1873.
The American Ambassador, Gen. Sickles, has formally notified Senor Castelar that the American Government will consent to the surrender to the British Government of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana upon charge of being concerned in the Bank of England forgery.
(Special to New York Herald.)London, April 12, 1873.To the great gratification of the authorities here, official confirmation is given to the rumor that the Spanish Government has concluded to grant the extradition of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana. There seems to be no doubt thatBidwell is the mysterious Frederick Albert Warren, and there is a very general curiosity to see him. Many conflicting stories have been published of his extraordinary escape and equally extraordinary capture. The Times' report had it that he was mortally wounded, and that he had on his person when captured diamonds to an enormous value, which had disappeared soon after. Sergeants Hayden and Green of the Bow Street force and Mr. Good of the bank of England sail on the Java to-morrow to escort Bidwell to London.
(Special to New York Herald.)
London, April 12, 1873.
To the great gratification of the authorities here, official confirmation is given to the rumor that the Spanish Government has concluded to grant the extradition of Bidwell, now under arrest in Havana. There seems to be no doubt thatBidwell is the mysterious Frederick Albert Warren, and there is a very general curiosity to see him. Many conflicting stories have been published of his extraordinary escape and equally extraordinary capture. The Times' report had it that he was mortally wounded, and that he had on his person when captured diamonds to an enormous value, which had disappeared soon after. Sergeants Hayden and Green of the Bow Street force and Mr. Good of the bank of England sail on the Java to-morrow to escort Bidwell to London.
So the web was closing in on me. Of my daily sad interviews with my wife I will say nothing here. But could I have foreseen that this woman, on whom I had settled a fortune, would have married another soon after my sentence, I should not have felt so sorrowful on her account. In due time Green, Hayden and Good arrived, and were introduced to me. I did not give in, but made, by the aid of my friends, a hard fight to persuade the Captain-General to suspend the order for my delivery, and succeeded for a time.
At last, after many delays and many plans, early one May morning I was taken to the mouth of the harbor. There the boat of the English warship Vulture was in waiting, and I was formally transferred to the English Government, and Curtin. Perry, Hayden and Green went on board with me. Soon after she steamed out of the harbor. Later in the day the Moselle, the regular passenger steamer to Plymouth and Southampton, came out, and about ten miles out at sea was met by the Vulture's boat, and I and my four guardians were transferred to her.
At last I was off for England, and it looked very much as if Justice would weigh me in her balance after all, the more certainly because I found my wife on the Moselle. I had secretly resolved never to be taken back, but intended the first night out of Havana to jump overboard, possibly with a cork jacket, or something to help to keep me afloat. The waters of the gulf were warm, there were many passingships, and I would take my chance of surviving the night and being picked up. But, very cleverly, Curtin decided to send my wife with me and treat me like any other cabin passenger, rightly divining I would not kill her by committing suicide or going over the side on chances.
I was well treated all the way over, but every night my prayer was that we might run on an iceberg or go down, so that my wife might be spared long years of agony and me from the misery and degradation of prison life.
I had obtained a position in Havana for one of my servants, but Nunn was returning with me, feeling very badly and most unhappy over the sure prospect of my future misery. I was pleased to think he had held on to the money I had given him. Altogether, he was quite $2,000 ahead, and I wanted to make it $5,000. He certainly deserved it for his constancy and affection.
One lovely June day we sailed into Plymouth, there to land mail and such passengers as wanted to take the express to London. I instructed my wife to go to Southampton while I went ashore with my guardians.
From the London Times, June 10, 1873:
"Among the passengers who landed at Plymouth yesterday morning from the royal mail steamer Moselle was Bidwell, otherwise F.A. Warren, in charge of Detective Sergeant Michael Hayden and William Green, accompanied by Capt. John Curtin and Walter Perry of Mr. Pinkerton's staff. They were joined by Inspector Wallace and Detective Sergeant William Moss of the city police, who had come down from London the previous night to meet the steamer."It being known that Bidwell was expected from Havana in the Moselle, an enormous crowd assembled in Milbay pier to await the return of the steam tender with the mail, in order to get a sight of the prisoner, and so great was the crowd that it was with some difficulty that Bidwell and his escort managed to reach cabs, and were driven to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel adjoining the railway station. They left bythe 12.45 train for London. A crowd of 20,000 persons were present to see them off, and cheered Bidwell heartily."Bidwell will be taken before the Lord Mayor in the justice room at the Mansion House this morning."
"Among the passengers who landed at Plymouth yesterday morning from the royal mail steamer Moselle was Bidwell, otherwise F.A. Warren, in charge of Detective Sergeant Michael Hayden and William Green, accompanied by Capt. John Curtin and Walter Perry of Mr. Pinkerton's staff. They were joined by Inspector Wallace and Detective Sergeant William Moss of the city police, who had come down from London the previous night to meet the steamer.
"It being known that Bidwell was expected from Havana in the Moselle, an enormous crowd assembled in Milbay pier to await the return of the steam tender with the mail, in order to get a sight of the prisoner, and so great was the crowd that it was with some difficulty that Bidwell and his escort managed to reach cabs, and were driven to the Duke of Cornwall Hotel adjoining the railway station. They left bythe 12.45 train for London. A crowd of 20,000 persons were present to see them off, and cheered Bidwell heartily.
"Bidwell will be taken before the Lord Mayor in the justice room at the Mansion House this morning."
CHATHAM—CONVICTS AT LABOR.CHATHAM—CONVICTS AT LABOR.
Accompanied by my escort of six, I arrived in London one bright Spring morning, just as the mighty masses of that great Babylon were thronging in their thousands toward Epsom Downs, where on that day the Derby, that pivotal event in the English year, was to be run. All London was astir, and had put on holiday attire, while I, now a poor weed drifting to rot on Lethe's wharf, was on my way to Newgate.
Newgate! Then it had come to this! The Primrose Way wherein I had walked and lived delicately at the expense of honor, ended here!
"Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap," was written by one Paul. The wisdom of many was here and condensed in the wit of one, and one with the shrewdest insight into things and a practical knowledge of human history.
I was a prisoner in Newgate. Newgate! The very name casts a chill; so, too, does a sight of that granite fortress rising there in the heart of mighty London. Amid all the throbbing life of that great Babylon it stands—chill and grim—and has stood a prison fortress for 500 years. Through all those linked centuries how many thousands of the miserable and heartbroken of every generation have been garnered within its cold embrace! What sights and sounds those old walls have seen and heard! As I paced its gloomy corridors that first night, pictures of its past rose before me so grim and terrible that I turned shuddering from them, only to remember that I, too, had joined the long unending procession ever flowing through its gates, which had heaped its walls to the top with one inky sea of misery.
In the cruel days of old many a savage sentence had fallen from the lips of merciless judges, but none more terriblethan the one which was to fall on us from the lips of their ferocious imitator, Justice Archibald.
I found my three friends already prisoners there, and a sad party we were. When we said good-bye that night on the wharf at Calais, where we sat star-gazing and philosophizing, we little anticipated this reunion.
What a rude surprise it was to find how things were conducted in this same Newgate. I took it for granted—since the law regarded us as innocent until we were tried and convicted—that we could have any reasonable favor granted us there which was consistent with our safe keeping. But no. The system of the convict prison was enforced here, and with the same iron rigor. Strict silence was the rule along with the absolute exclusion of newspapers and all news of the outside world. The rules forbid any delicacy or books being furnished by one's friends from the outside. This iron system is as cruel as unphilosophical, for, pending trial, the inmates are more or less living in a perfect agony of mind, which drives many into insanity or to the verge of insanity, as it did me. How can one, then, when the past is remorse—and the present and future despair—find oblivion or raze out the written troubles of the brain save in absorption in books.
When Claudo is doomed to die and go "he knew not where," peering into the abyss, the fear strikes him that in the unknown he may be "prisoned in the viewless winds" and blown with restless violence round about this pendant world. A terrible figure! It filled at this time some corner of my brain and would not out. It went with me up and down in all my walks in Newgate.
PRINCIPAL WARDERS, WOKING PRISON. No. 1 Scott, No. 2. Metherell.PRINCIPAL WARDERS, WOKING PRISON.
ASSISTANT WARDERS, DARTMOOR PRISON.ASSISTANT WARDERS, DARTMOOR PRISON.
If I had the pen of Victor Hugo, what a picture I would draw of a mind consciously going down into the fearful abyss of insanity, making mighty struggles against it, yet looking on the cold walls shutting one in and weighing down the spirit, feeling that the struggle is ineffectual, thefight all in vain, for the dead, blank walls are staring coldly on you, without giving one reflex message, bearing on their gray surface no thought, no response of mind. For they have been looked over with anxious care to discover if any other mind had recorded there some thought which would awake thought in one's own, and help to shake off the fearful burden pressing one to earth. As a fact, a man so situated does—aye, must—make an effort to leave some visible impress of his mind as a message to his kind. It is a natural law, and the instinct is part of one's being. It is a passion of the mind—a longing to be united to the spiritual mass of minds from which the isolated soul is suffering an unnatural divorce of hideous material walls.
It is this law which makes the savage place his totem on the rocks, and it is, thanks to the same instinct, that this very day our savants are finding beneath the foundations of the temples and palaces which once decked the Phoenician plain, the baked tablets which tell us the family histories, no less than the story of the empires of those days. When the impress was made on the soft clay to be fire-hardened, each writer felt or hoped in the long ages in the far-off unknown,
"When time is old and hath forgot itself,When water drops have worn the streets of TroyAnd blind oblivion swallowed cities up,And mighty States, characterless, are gratedTo dusty nothing"——
then some thought, some message from their minds, there impressed on the senseless clay, would be communicated to some other mind, and wake a response there.
Many a time, with a brain reeling in agony, did I turn and stare blankly at those walls, and, in a sort of dumb stupor, search them over in hope to find some word, some message impressed there, some scratch of pen or finger nail. It might be a message of misery, some outcry from a wounded spirit, some expression of despair.
Had there been one such—had there been! Every one of my predecessors had left a message on that smooth-painted wall, but the red-tape official rogues—the stultified images sans reason, sans all imagination—had, after the departure of each one, carefully painted over all such legacies.
The hideous cruelty of it all! My blood, boils even now, when I think of it. Even in the days of Elizabeth the keepers of the Tower of London had enough human feeling to leave untouched the inscriptions made by Raleigh and others, and there they are to-day, and to-day wake a response in the heart of every visitor that looks on them.
A GANG IN BLOUSES MARCHING OUT.A GANG IN BLOUSES MARCHING OUT.
My life at Newgate was an ordeal such as I hope no reader of this will ever undergo. Day by day I saw the world slipping from under my feet, and the net drawing its deadly folds closer around me. Soon we all were forced to realize there was no escape for any of us.
Of course, we were all guilty and deserved punishment—I need not say we did not think so then—but the evidence was most weak, and had our trial taken place in America under the too liberal construction of our laws, undoubtedly we all would have escaped. But in England there is no court of criminal appeal, as with us, and when once the jury gives a verdict, that ends the matter. The result is that if judges are prejudiced, or want a man convicted, as in our case, he never escapes. The jury is always selected from the shopkeeping class, and they are horribly subservient to the aristocratic classes. They don't care for evidence—they simply watch the judge. If he smiles, the prisoner is innocent. If he frowns, then, of course, guilty.
With us when a man is charged with an offense against the laws he engages a lawyer—one is sufficient and quite costly enough. In England they are divided into three classes, viz.: solicitors, barristers and Queen's Counsels.
The solicitor takes the case and transacts all the business connected with it. A barrister is the lawyer who is employed by the solicitor to conduct the case in court and make the pleadings. He never comes in contact with theclient, but takes the brief and all instructions from the solicitor. The Queen's Counsel is a lawyer of a higher rank, and whenever his serene lordship takes a brief he must, to keep up his dignity, "be supported" by a barrister. So my reader will perhaps understand the raison d'etre of the proverb, "The lawyers own England." As no solicitor can plead in court, so no Queen's Counsel will come in direct contact with a client, and must be "supported" by a barrister. Ergo, any unfortunate having a case in court must fee two, if not three legal sharks to represent him, if represented at all.
We employed as solicitor a Mr. David Howell of 105 Cheapside, and a thoroughgoing, unprincipled rascal he proved to be. He was a small, spare, undersized man, with little beady eyes, light complexion, red hair, and stubby beard, and when he spoke it was with a thin reedy voice. From first to last he managed our case in exactly the way the prosecution would have desired. He bled us freely, and altogether we paid him nearly $10,000, and our defense by our eight lawyers—four Queen's Counsels and four barristers—was about the lamest and most idiotic possible.
We early came to the unanimous conclusion that in our country Howell would have had to face a jury for robbing us, and that but one of our eight lawyers had ability enough to appear in a police court here to conduct a hearing before an ordinary magistrate.
I do not propose to enter into the details of our preliminary hearings before the Lord Mayor at the Mansion House, or of the trial. Both the hearings and trial were sensational in the highest degree, and attracted universal attention all over the English-speaking world. Full-page pictures of the trial appeared in all the illustrated journals of Europe and America, and our portraits were on sale everywhere.
After many hearings before Sir Sidney Waterlaw, we were finally committed for trial.
Editorial from the London Times of Aug. 13, 1873:
"Monday next has been fixed for the trial, and the depositions taken before the Lord Mayor at the Justice Room of the Mansion House by Mr. Oke, the chief clerk, have been printed for the convenience of the presiding judge and of the counsel on both sides. They extend over 242 folio pages, including the oral and documentary evidence, and make of themselves a thick volume, together with an elaborate index for ready reference. Within living memory there has been no such case for length and importance heard before any Lord Mayor of London in its preliminary stage, nor one which excited a greater amount of public interest from first to last. The Overend Gurney prosecution is the only one in late years which at all approaches it in those respects, but in that the printed depositions only extended over 164 folio pages, or much less than those in the Bank case, in which as many as 108 witnesses gave evidence before the Lord Mayor, and the preliminary examinations—twenty-three in number from first to last—lasted from the first of March until the 2d of July, exclusive of the time spent in remands."
"Monday next has been fixed for the trial, and the depositions taken before the Lord Mayor at the Justice Room of the Mansion House by Mr. Oke, the chief clerk, have been printed for the convenience of the presiding judge and of the counsel on both sides. They extend over 242 folio pages, including the oral and documentary evidence, and make of themselves a thick volume, together with an elaborate index for ready reference. Within living memory there has been no such case for length and importance heard before any Lord Mayor of London in its preliminary stage, nor one which excited a greater amount of public interest from first to last. The Overend Gurney prosecution is the only one in late years which at all approaches it in those respects, but in that the printed depositions only extended over 164 folio pages, or much less than those in the Bank case, in which as many as 108 witnesses gave evidence before the Lord Mayor, and the preliminary examinations—twenty-three in number from first to last—lasted from the first of March until the 2d of July, exclusive of the time spent in remands."
From the London Times, Aug. 10, 1873:
"On the opening of the August sessions of the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court. The court and streets were much crowded from the beginning, and continued so throughout the day. Alderman Sir Robert Carden, representing the Lord Mayor; Mr. Alderman Finis, Mr. Alderman Besley, Mr. Alderman Lawrence, M.P., Mr. Alderman Whetham and Mr. Alderman Ellis, as commissioners of the Court, occupied seats upon the bench, as did also Alderman Sheriff White."Sheriff Sir Frederick Perkins, Mr. Under-Sheriff Hewitt and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley, Mr. R.B. Green, Mr. R.W. Crawford, M.P., Governor of the Bank. Mr. Lyall, Deputy Governor, and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild were present. The members of the bar mustered in force, and the reserved seats were chiefly occupied by ladies. Mr. Hardinge Gifford, Q.C. (now Lord Chancellor of the British Empire), and Mr. Watkin Williams, Q.C. (instructed by Messrs. Freshfield, the solicitors of the bank), appeared as counsel for the prosecution."
"On the opening of the August sessions of the Old Bailey Central Criminal Court. The court and streets were much crowded from the beginning, and continued so throughout the day. Alderman Sir Robert Carden, representing the Lord Mayor; Mr. Alderman Finis, Mr. Alderman Besley, Mr. Alderman Lawrence, M.P., Mr. Alderman Whetham and Mr. Alderman Ellis, as commissioners of the Court, occupied seats upon the bench, as did also Alderman Sheriff White.
"Sheriff Sir Frederick Perkins, Mr. Under-Sheriff Hewitt and Mr. Under-Sheriff Crosley, Mr. R.B. Green, Mr. R.W. Crawford, M.P., Governor of the Bank. Mr. Lyall, Deputy Governor, and Mr. Alfred de Rothschild were present. The members of the bar mustered in force, and the reserved seats were chiefly occupied by ladies. Mr. Hardinge Gifford, Q.C. (now Lord Chancellor of the British Empire), and Mr. Watkin Williams, Q.C. (instructed by Messrs. Freshfield, the solicitors of the bank), appeared as counsel for the prosecution."
For eight mortal days the final trial dragged on, and there we were pilloried in that horrible dock—a spectacle for the staring throngs that flocked to see the young Americans who had found a pregnable spot in the impregnable Bank of England.
The misery of those eight days! No language can describe it, nor would I undergo it again for the wealth of the world.
The court was filled with fashionables, ladies as well, who flocked to stare at misery, while the corridors of the Old Bailey and the street itself were packed with thousands eager to catch a glimpse of us. The Judge, in scarlet, sat in solemn state, with members of the nobility or gouty Aldermen in gold chains and robes on the bench beside him. The body of the court was filled with bewigged lawyers—a tippling lot of sharks and rogues, always after lunch half tipsy with the punch or dry sherry which English lawyers drink, jesting and cracking jokes, unmindful of the fate of their clients. Capt. Curtin and a score of detectives were present.
No fewer than 213 witnesses were called by the prosecution. Of these about fifty were from America, and by them they traced our lives for many years before. As the forged bills were all sent by mail it was necessary to convict us by circumstantial evidence. The evidence was all very weak, save only in that remarkable matter of the blotting paper. Our conviction was a foregone conclusion.
The jury retired to consider their verdict shortly after 7 o'clock, and on returning into court after the lapse of about a quarter of an hour they gave in a verdict of guilty against all of the four prisoners.
Judge Archibald proceeded to pass sentence. He began with the interesting and truthful remark: "I have anxiously considered whether anything less than the maximum penalty of the law will be adequate to meet the requirements of this case, and I think not." We had information that a few days previously a meeting of judges had been held and that he had been advised to pass a life sentence. What he really meant to say was that he had anxiously considered whether anything less would be adequate to satisfy the Bank of England. He went on to say that we had not only inflicted great loss on the bank, but had also seriously discredited that great institution in the eyes of the public. He continued: "It is difficult to see the motives for this crime; it was not want, for you were in possession of a large sum of money. You are men of education, some of you speak the Continental languages, and you have traveled considerably. I see no reason to make any distinction between you, and let it be understood from the sentence which I am about to pass upon you that men of education"—and he might have added, what he undoubtedly thought, Americans—"who commit crimes which none but men of education can commit must expect a terrible retribution, and that sentence is penal servitude for life, and I further order that each one of youpay one-fourth of the costs of prosecution—£49,000, or $245,000 in all."
And, after all, what aroused so greatly his indignation? It was simply this—because we were youngsters and Americans, and had successfully assaulted the fondly imagined impregnable Bank of England, and, worse still, had held up to the laughter of the whole world its red-tape idiotic management, for had the bank asked so common a thing as a reference the fraud would have been made impossible.
Let my reader contrast this modern Jeffreys, his savage tirade, and, for an offense against property, this most brutal sentence, with the treatment of the Warwickshire bank wreckers. Greenaway, the manager of this bank, and three of the directors by false balance sheets and perjured reports for years had looted the bank, finally robbing the depositors of £1,000,000, several of whom committed suicide and thousands more of whom were ruined.
They were tried, convicted, and in being sentenced were told that, being men of high social position, the disgrace in itself was a severe punishment; therefore, he should take that fact into consideration, and ended by sentencing two to eight months', one to twelve and one to fourteen months' imprisonment.
We were sentenced late at night—nearly 10 o'clock—a smoky, foggy London night. The court was packed, the corridors crowded, and when the jury came in with their verdict the suppressed excitement found vent. But when the vindictive and unheard-of sentence fell from the lips of this villain Judge an exclamation of horror fell from that crowded court.
We turned from the Judge and went down the stairs to the entrance to the underground passage leading to Newgate. There we halted to say farewell.
BEFORE THE GOVERNOR—ASSISTANT WARDER REPORTING A PRISONER FOR TALKING.BEFORE THE GOVERNOR—ASSISTANT WARDER REPORTING A PRISONER FOR TALKING.
To say farewell! Yes. The Primrose Way had come to an end, but we were comrades and friends still, and in orderthat in the gloom of the slow-moving days and the blackness and thick horror of the years to come we might have some thought in common, we then and there promised—what could we poor, broken bankrupts promise?
Where or to what in the thick horror enshrouding us could we turn? We had
"Nothing left us to call our own save death,And that small model of the barren earthWhich serves as paste and cover to our bones;"
nothing but a grave, that
"Small model of the barren earth,"
with dishonor and degradation for our epitaph!
But there, in the very instant of our overwhelming defeat, standing in the dark mouth of the stone conduit leading from the Old Bailey to the dungeons of Newgate, by virtue of the high resolve we made, we conquered Fate at her worst, and by our act in establishing a secret bond of sympathy in our separation dropped the bad, disastrous past, and starting on new things planted our feet on the bottom round of the ladder of success, feeling that, with plenty of faith and endurance, Fortune, frown as she might now, must in some distant day turn her wheel and smile again.
And what was this act? Why, it was a simple one, but bore in it the germ of great things.
As we halted there in the gloom we swore never to give in, however they might starve us, even grind us to powder, as we felt they would certainly try to do. We knew that in their anxiety about our souls they would be sure kindly to furnish each with a Bible, and we promised to read one chapter every day consecutively, and, while reading the same chapter at the same hour, think of the others. For twenty years we kept the promise. Then, making the resolve mentioned in the beginning of this book, I marched back to my cell. The door was opened and closed behind me, leavingme in pitch darkness—a convict in my dungeon. Dressed as I was I lay down on the little bed there, and through all that long and terrible night, with a million dread images rushing through my brain, I lay passive, with wide-open eyes, staring into the darkness, conscious that sanity and insanity were struggling for mastery in my brain, while I, like some interested spectator, watched the struggle; or, again, I was struggling in the air with some powerful but viewless monster form, that clutched my throat with iron fingers, but whose body was impalpable to the grasp of my hands. A mighty space, an eternity of time and daylight came. Then, like one in a dream, I rose mechanically, and, finding the pin I had secreted, I stood on the little wooden bench, and, impelled by some spiritual but irresistible force, I scratched on the wall the message I had resolved to leave:
"In the reproof of chanceLies the true proof of men."
Then I thought of my friends and my promise, and, like one in a dream, I took the ill-smelling and dirty little Bible from the shelf, and, turning to the first chapter, read:
"And the spirit of God moved upon the waters." ..."And God said let there be light, and there was light."
Then the book fell from my hand, and I remembered no more. My mind had gone whirling into the abyss.
I was sentenced on Wednesday. For three days, from Thursday to Sunday, my mind was a blank. I have no recollection of my removal under escort from Newgate to Pentonville.
On Sunday, the fourth day of my sentence, like one rousing from a trance, I awoke to find myself shaven and shorn, dressed in a coarse convict uniform, in a rough cell of white-washed brick. The small window had heavy double bars set with thick fluted glass, which, while admitting light, foiled any attempt of the eye to discern objects without. In thecorner there was a rusty iron shelf. A board let into the brickwork served for bed, bench and table. A zinc jug and basin for water, with a wooden plate, spoon and salt dish (no knife or fork for twenty years!) completed the furnishings.
As I was looking around in a helpless way a key suddenly rattled in the lock and, the door opening, a uniformed warder stepped in and, giving me a searching look, said in a rough voice: "Come on; you'll do for chapel; you have put on the balmy long enough." His kindly face belied his rough tones, and I followed him out of the door and soon found myself in the prison chapel. None was present, and I was ordered to sit on the front bench at the far end. The benches were simply common flat boards ranged in rows. Soon the prisoners came in singly, marching about two yards apart, and sat on the benches with that interval between them—that is, in the division of the chapel where I sat, it being separated from the rest by a high partition. Soon a white-robed, surpliced clergyman came in, and the service began; but I had no eye or ear, nor any comprehension save in a dim manner, as to what was going on. My brain was trying to connect the past and the present, feeling that something terrible had befallen me, but what it was I could not understand. When the services were over I returned under the escort of the warder, who, when I arrived at my cell, ordered me to go in and close the door, which I did, banging it behind me. It had a spring lock, and when I heard the snap of the catch and looked at the narrow, barred window, with its thick, fluted glass admitting only a dim light, I remembered everything. Like a flash it all came to me, and I realized the full horror of my position. Sitting down on the little board fastened to the wall, serving as bed, seat and table, I buried my face in my hands and began to ponder. Regrets came in floods, with remorse and despair, hand in hand, when, realizing that it was madness to think, I sprang up, saying to myself thehour and minute had come for me to decide—either for madness and a convict's dishonored grave, or to keep the promise I had made to my friends—never to give in, but to live and conquer fate.
I determined then and there to live in the future, and never to dwell on the horrible present or past. Then I remembered the last scene in Newgate and my promise to accompany my friends step by step, day by day, in our readings. Finding a Bible on the little rusty iron shelf in the corner, and this being the fourth day of our sentence, I turned to the fourth chapter. It gives the story of Cain's crime and punishment, and I read the graphic narrative with an intensity of interest difficult to describe. When I read, "And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth," I felt that the cry of Cain in all its intense naturalness, in its remorse and despair, was my own, and I was overcome. Laying the book down, I walked the floor for an hour in agony, until fantastic images came thronging thick and fast to my brain. I realized that my mind was going and felt I must do something to make me forget my misery.
I opened the Bible at random and my eye caught the word "misery." I looked closely at the verse and read:
"Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass away."
I threw the book down, crying with vehemence, "That's a lie! God never gives something for nothing." Soon I opened the book again and looked at the context. Those of my readers who care to do so can do the same. The verse is Job xi., 16. The context begins at verse 13. From that hour I never despaired again.
The same day I began committing the Book of Job to memory, and worked for dear life and reason. I became interested, and my interest in that wondrous poem deepeneduntil the study became a passion. Thus I turned the whole current of my thoughts into a new channel. Reason came back, and with it resolution and courage and strength.
I was in Pentonville Prison, in the suburbs of London. All men convicted in England are sent to this prison to undergo one year's solitary confinement. At the completion of the year they are drafted away to the public works' prisons, where, working in gangs, they complete their sentences.
Of my experience in Pentonville during my year of solitude it suffices to say that, passing through a great deal of mental conflict, I found I had grown stronger and was eager for transfer to the other prison, where I could for a few hours each day at least look on the sky and the faces of my fellow men.
At last the day of transfer came, and, escorted by two uniformed and armed warders, I was taken to the famous Chatham Prison, twenty-seven miles from London on the river Medway....
"You were sent here to work, and you will have to do it or I will make you suffer for it," was the friendly greeting that fell on my ears as I stood before a pompous little fellow (an ex-major from the army) at Chatham Prison one lovely morning in 1874.
I had arrived there under escort but an hour before, strong in the resolve to obey the regulations if I could, and never to give in if I had a fair chance; also with a desperate resolve never to submit to persecution, come what might, and these resolutions saved me—but only by a steady and dogged adherence to them on many occasions, through many years and amid surroundings that might well make me—as it did and does many good men—desperate and utterly reckless.
After a few more remarks of a very personal and pungent nature the little fellow marched off with a delicious swagger and an heroical air. I at once turned to the warder and asked, "Who is that little fellow?" "The Governor!" hegasped out. "If he had only heard you!" and then followed a pantomime that implied something very dreadful. Then I marched off to the doctor, and next to the chaplain, who (knowing who I was) asked me if I could read and write, to which I meekly replied, "Yes, sir;" but apparently being doubtful upon the point he gave me a book. Opening it and pretending to read, I said in a solemn tone of voice: "When time and place adhere write me down an ass." He took the book from me, looked at the open page, gazed solemnly in my face with a funny wagging of his head, as much as to say, "you will come to no good," and followed the little major.
Then my cicerone took me into the main building, filled up to the brim with what seemed to be little brick and stone boxes, and, halting in front of one, said, "This is your cell." Looking around to see if it was safe to talk, he began to question me rapidly about my case, and getting no satisfaction he wound up the questioning with the remark: "Well, you tried to take all our money over to America." Then, becoming confidential, he told me what wicked fellows the other prisoners were, chiefly because they went to the Governor and reported the officers, charging them with maltreatment and bullying particularly, and knocking them about generally. Of course, the warders never did such things, but were really of a very lamblike and gentle nature. In order to back up their lies the prisoners would knock their own heads against the walls and then swear by everything good that some one of the warders had done it. I said, perhaps he had.
Well, he said, perhaps an officer might give a man "a little clip," but never so as to hurt him, and "only in fun, you know." I felt at the time that I would never learn to appreciate Chatham "fun," but on the very next day I was convinced of it when a man named Farrier pulled out from his waistband a piece of rag, and, unrolling it, produced two ofhis front teeth with the information that a certain warder had struck him with his fist in the mouth and knocked them out.
But to return to my narrative. After many "wise saws and modern instances," he locked me up in the little brick and stone box and departed, having first informed me that I "would go out to labor in the morning."
I looked about my little box with a mixture of curiosity and consternation, for the thought smote me with blinding force that for long years that little box—eight feet six inches in length, seven feet in height and five feet in width, with its floor and roof of stone—would be my only home—would be! must be! and no power could avert my fate.
On the small iron shelf I found a tin dish used by some previous occupant, and smeared inside and out with gruel. There being no water in my jug, when the men came in for dinner, I, in my innocence, asked one of the officers for some water to wash the dish. He looked at me with great contempt and said: "You are a precious flat; lick it off, man. Before long you won't waste gruel by washing your tin dish. You won't be here many days and want to use water to clean your pint."
After dinner I saw the men marched out to labor, and was amazed to see their famished, wolfish looks—thin, gaunt and almost disguised out of all human resemblance by their ill-fitting, mud-covered garments and mud-splashed faces and hands. I myself was kept in, but the weary, almost ghastly spectre march I had witnessed constantly haunted me, and I said, "Will I ever resemble them?" And youthful spirit and pride rushed to the front and cried, "Never!"
Night and supper (eight ounces of brown bread) came at length, and I rose up from my meal cheerful and resolute to meet the worst, be it what it might short of deliberate persecution, with a stout heart and faith that at last all would be well.
In the morning I arose, had my breakfast (nine ounces of brown bread and one pint of gruel), and was eager to learn what this "labor" meant. I was prepared for much, but not for the grim reality. I had been ordered to join eighty-two party—a brickmaking party, but working in the "mud districts." So we, along with 1,200 others, marched out to our work, and as soon as we were outside of the prison grounds I saw a sight that, while it explained the mud-splashed appearance of my spectral array, was enough to daunt any man doomed to join in the game. Mud, mud everywhere, with groups of weary men with shovel, or shovel and barrow, working in it. A sort of road had been made over the mud with ashes and cinders, and our party of twenty-two men, with five other parties, moved steadily on for about a mile until we came to the clay banks or pits. Fortunately we had a very good officer by the name of James. He wanted the work done, and used his tongue pretty freely; still he was a man who would speak the truth, and treated his men as well as he dared to do under the brutal regime ruling in Chatham. He speedily told me off to a barrow and spade, and I was fully enlisted as barrow-and-spade man to Her Majesty.
A steam mill, or "pug," like a monster coffee mill, was used for mixing the clay and sand and delivering it in form of bricks below, where another party received them and laid them out to dry, preparatory to burning. Our duty was "to keep the pug going"—keep it full of clay to the top. The clay was in a high bank; we dug into it from the bottom with our spades, and filled it as fast as possible into our barrows. In front of each man was a "run," formed by a line of planks only eight inches in width, and all converging toward and meeting near the "pug." The distance we were wheeling was from thirty to forty yards, end the incline was really very steep; but that in itself would not have been so bad, but the labor of digging out the clay was severe, andthat everlasting "pug" was as hungry as if it were in the habit of taking "Plantation Bitters" to give it an appetite.
One had no period of rest between the filling of one's barrow and the start up the run. In an hour's time my poor hands were covered with blood blisters, and my left knee was a lame duck indeed, made so by the slight wrench given it each time I struck in my spade with my left foot; but I made no complaint. About 10 o'clock the man next to me with an oath threw down his spade and vowed he would do no more work. Putting on his vest and packet, he walked up to the warder, and quite as a matter of course turned his back to him and put both hands behind him. The warder produced a pair of handcuffs, and without any comment handcuffed his hands in that position, and then told him to stand with his back to the work. No one took the slightest notice and the toil did not slacken for an instant, but one man was out of the game, and we had to make his side good.
Noon came at last. We dropped our spades, hastily slipped on our jackets and at once set off at a quick march for the prison. I naturally looked at the various gangs piloting their way through the mud and all steering in a straight line for the Appian way whereon we were, for, as all roads lead to Rome, so all the sticky ways "on the works" led to the prison. Our laconic friend was trudging on behind the party, and to my surprise I noticed that several of the other parties had un enfant perdu, hands behind his back, marching in the rear, and as soon as we reached the prison each poor sheep in the rear fell out quite as a matter of course. When all the men were in, a warder came up and gave the order, "Right turn! Forward!" and off the poor fellows marched to the punishment cells for three days' bread and water each, and no bed, unless one designates an oak plank as such. It was all very sad; 'twas pitiful to see the matter-of-fact way in which every one concerned took it all.
So my first day in the mud and clay came to an end, and I found myself once more in my little box with a night before me for rest and thought. Although I had suffered, yet there were grounds for gratitude and hope, and I felt that I might regard the future steadily and without despair.
VISITOR TRYING ON THE HANGMAN'S IR ON PINIONING BELT AT NEWGATE.VISITOR TRYING ON THE HANGMAN'S IR ON PINIONING BELT AT NEWGATE.
The first day was over, but it seemed to me that something more must come. That what I had gone through could mean the life of a day must surely be impossible. Was there nothing before me but isolation so complete that no whisper from the outside world could reach me, that world which compared with the death into which I was being absorbed seemed the only world of the living?
Had I actually nothing to look for but the most repulsive work under the most repulsive conditions? I said there must be surely some change, that wheeling mud forever was not the doom of any man and could certainly not be mine.
I looked about my little cell, the stillness of the grave without, the utter solitude within. The ration which formed my supper was on the table, eight ounces of black bread. Try as I might to cheat myself with hope, I knew that hope for many a long year there was none, that so far as the most vindictive sentence could compass it, for many a long year the earth with her bars was about me.
No "De Profundis" cry could ever ascend from the abyss to the bottom of which I had fallen. What was outside of me had nothing but the hideous.
But although the visible seemed corruption, and the things which my soul, and body, too, had refused to touch were become my sorrowful meat, yet I could not but feelthat the invisible, that part of me which no bars could hold and no man deprive me of, was still my own, and that in it I might and would find sufficient to support what I began to feel was, after all, the only man.
To face the actualities of the position was the first thing; not to cheat myself, the second. I had seen the sort of men I was to be with. I set to work to study and to understand the kind of life we were to live together.
At early dawn we rose, receiving immediately after the nine ounces of bread and pint of oatmeal gruel which composed breakfast. At 6.30, to chapel to hear one of the schoolmasters drone through the morning prayers of the English Church service, and listen to some hymn shouted out from throats never accustomed to such accents. Then the morning hours would drag slowly on in the Summer's sun and Winter's blast until the noon hour; then there was the long march back from the scene of my toil to the prison for dinner. Arriving there, each man went to his cell, closing his door, which snapped to, having a spring lock. Soon after a dinner is given consisting of sixteen ounces of boiled potatoes and five ounces of bread, varied on three days of the week with five ounces of meat additional. At 1 o'clock the doors were unlocked and we marched out to our work again. At night, returning to the prison, eight ounces of black bread would be doled out for supper. Then came the hours between supper and bedtime, when shut in between those narrow walls one realized what it was to be a prisoner.
In the corner of the cell there was a board let into the stonework. There was a thin pallet and two blankets rolled up together during the day in a corner of the cell that served for bedding, but so thin and hard was the pallet that one might almost as well have slept on the board. For the first few weeks this bed made my bones ache. Most men have little patience and small fortitude, and this bed kills manyof the prisoners. I mean breaks their hearts, simply because they have not the wit to accept the matter philosophically and realize that they can soon become used to any hardship. It took six months for my bones to become used to the hard bed, but for the next nineteen years I used to sleep as sweetly on that oak board as I ever did or now do in a bed of down, only, like Jean Valjean, in "Les Miserables," I had become so used to it that upon my liberation I found it impossible for a time to sleep in a bed.
On a little rusty iron shelf, fixed in the corner, was our tinware. Although called tinware, it really was zinc, and was susceptible, through much hard work, of a high polish, but this "polishing tinware" was a fearful curse to the poor prisoner. It consisted of a jug for water and a bowl for washing in and a pint dish for gruel. There were strict and imperative orders, rigidly enforced, that this tinware should be kept polished, the result being that the men never washed themselves, and never took water in their jugs, for if they did their tinware would take a stain—"go off," as it was termed—the result being that if the poor devil washed and kept himself clean he would be reported and severely punished for having dirty tinware.
A prisoner is not permitted to receive anything from his friends or communicate with them in any way, save only once in three months he is permitted to write and receive a letter, provided he is a good character and has not been reported for any infraction of the rules for three months; for if reported for any cause, however trifling, the privilege of writing is postponed for three months, and, as a matter of fact, more than half of the men never get a chance to write during their imprisonment.
A visit of half an hour once in three months is permitted, but this is a favor that is only granted upon the same condition as the privilege of letter writing.
It will be well to present here some account of those who were to rule my life for so many years.
The Board of Prison Commissioners have their headquarters at the Home Office in Parliament street, London, and are under the control of the Home Secretary of State. One of these visits each of Her Majesty's convict establishments once a month, in order to try any cases of insubordination which are of too serious a nature for the governor of the prison to adjudicate upon, he not being permitted to order any penalty beyond a few days of bread and water and loss of a limited number of remission marks.
The head authority at each prison is the governor, of whom the largest establishments, like Chatham, have two. Next comes the deputy governors—the medical officer and an assistant doctor; the chaplains and schoolmasters, Protestant and Catholic. There are four grades of prison warders, viz., the chief warder, principal warders, warders and assistant warders. The chief warder, of course, stands first in the list, and his duties, if honestly executed, render him the most important, as he is the most responsible of the prison officials, save, perhaps, the medical officer, who is the autocrat of the place. But, in case anything goes wrong, he is the man who gets all the blame, and when matters run smoothly and well, the governor gets all the thanks. During the absence of the governor the deputy takes hisplace, and in turn the chief warder performs the duties of the deputy governor's office. As all business passes through the chief's hands, he must be a fair scholar, though sometimes a principal warder who understands bookkeeping is detailed to assist him. He must be of strict integrity, a thorough disciplinarian, and of a character to make him respected both by his superiors and inferiors in position. The warders of all grades are under his command, and must fear him for his inflexibility in punishing any breach of regulations, and have confidence in his disposition to act justly toward them, he being the one on whom the governor relies for all information regarding their conduct. It is on the reports of the chief warder that the governor acts in all cases involving their promotion, reprimands or fines, and their application for leave of absence must be approved of and signed by him. It is clear that unless he is very straight in the performance of his duties, he would soon place himself in the power of some of the warders, who would not fail to take advantage of any knowledge of his derelictions to benefit themselves, and to the detriment of discipline and good order. Under the English Government the salary of a man possessing these superior qualifications is between $500 and $600 a year and his uniform. This is of blue cloth, the sleeves and collar of his coat and his cap embroidered with gold lace. On alternate days, at the prison where I was confined, he came on duty at 5 a.m. in Summer and 5.30 in Winter, and left the prison at 4 p.m., leaving in charge a principal warder, coming on duty the following morning at 7 a.m. At 6 o'clock p.m., after receiving the reports from the ward officers, stating the number of prisoners each has just locked up, and thus seeing that all are safe, he locks with his master key the gates and outer doors of the main buildings, and before finally retiring for the night he must lock the outer gate, so that no one but the governor can get in or out—each watchman being lockedinto the ward which he is set to guard. There are bells in his room connecting with the various wards, and in case of sickness or any other emergency, he is the man who is aroused. It is the chief warder who keeps everything connected with the prison in running order, and whatever goes wrong the cry is for the chief, and he is sent for, be it day or night.
In a large establishment there are a dozen or more principal warders. These are the lieutenants of the chief, and have general supervision of the working parties. Their pay is about $400 a year and uniforms. There are of the other two grades, warders and assistant warders, from two to three thousand employed in all Her Majesty's prisons in Great Britain and Ireland. Warders and assistant warders are provided with a short, heavy truncheon, which each carries in his hand or in a leather sheath which hangs from his belt, to which is also attached a sort of cartouch box in which he keeps the keys, which are fastened to a chain, the other end to his belt. When about to leave the prison, on going off duty, he must hang up the belt and attachments in the chief warder's office. Their pay, besides uniforms, which are of blue cloth, is $350 a year for warders and $300 for assistant warders. All promotions are by seniority. In case of transfer by authorities to any other prison, they retain their position in the line of promotion, but if they volunteer or make application to be transferred they have to begin at the bottom in reckoning the length of service for promotion. When the authorities wish to transfer warders, it is usual for them to call for volunteers, of whom they find a sufficient number anxious for a change, unless the transfer is to an unpopular station, such as Dartmoor, which is among the bogs, and a lonely, bleak place.