“There are many well managed inns all over Germany, where respectable working men whose trade keeps them moving about can be comfortably lodged, and I will give a brief description of one of these hostelries called ‘The Homestead,’ situated on one of the banks of the Main, where I spent a night during my stay at Frankfurt, drawn there by curiosity. With my satchel packed and the air of being a newly arrived traveller, I sat down at a table and called for a glass of beer and a dram of spirits. The landlord inquired if I knew where I was, and said that though any decent traveller might remain at the ‘Homestead’ for three days if his means were sufficient, it was no place for drunkards and brawlers; that brandy was not sold and beer only in limited quantities. He then, having asked who and what I was, and being told that I was a sculptor out of work, said that I might stay three days if I liked. I was eager to know in what way this inn differed from those I had hitherto frequented, and resolved to remain until the next day in any case. About 8 o’clock in the evening the ‘father’ came in again and announced thatsupper was ready. Most of the artisans, of whom some forty were present, ordered some sort of meal. I asked for soup, potatoes and a sausage. I was not a little surprised when the landlord objected to our beginning to eat until he had said grace. Cards and dice were not allowed, nor cursing, singing or whistling. The only authorised games were dominoes, draughts and chess, and they might not be played for money. At 8 o’clock the bed tickets had been distributed; they cost 18, 12 or 6 kreutzers according to the sort of accommodation required. Each man had a separate bed, which is not usually the case in the low class inns. I took a 12 kreutzer ticket. My expenses were so far small, as only three glasses of beer were allowed per head. I noted down all these details most carefully, for I had never before been in a house of this description, having hitherto always avoided any place where there might be any allusion to God. At ten the father of the inn appeared and offered up a short prayer. Then we retired for the night. The beds were clean and so were all the rooms, and everything was very cheap. At half past seven in the morning we had to be up.
“My experiences in this inn made a deep impression upon me but I confess I did not enjoy being there; I preferred the haunts where I met loose characters, and I enjoyed ribald songs and dissolute companions. Consequently I left the Homestead as soon as I could and betook myself to the Sign of theStadt Ludwigsburg, where ne’er-do-weels congregate. Here I was initiated by a friend into the art of inveigling countrymen, small farmers and the like, to play cards. Our first attempt was made on a man who had just sold his produce in the town and been paid for it. We plied him with liquor and let him win for a while; then we relieved him of his ready money.
“Soon after this I was arrested as a disorderly tramp and sentenced to a short imprisonment with an injunction to find work on pain of being expelled from the town. The yearly fair was being held at Frankfurt, and I obtained employment on my release with the proprietor of a menagerie. My business was to attract people to his show, but I soon left him, as the public refused to pay for the sight of the sorry and starved wild beasts he exhibited. Next I hired myself out to the manager of a puppet show where I developed a great aptitude in the art of manipulating the puppets. When the fair was over, I had got together quite a considerable sum of money and I resolved to leave Frankfurt and go on to Stuttgart.
“Stuttgart is a happy hunting ground for those of my sort. It contains many ‘pietists,’—a sect made up of good and charitable souls who give freely. I remained there four weeks and did a wonderful business. I now figured in my papers as a compositor and on the strength of these documents even appeared before the Bavarian consul. I hadcollected a fine store of clothes and a lot of money when one day, toward the end of the fourth week of my stay, I was arrested in the Königstrasse by a man in civilian dress who told me to follow him. There was something in his looks which so impressed me that I dared not resist. I was condemned by the police actuary to fourteen days’ imprisonment and then to be banished from the town. I was taken to the Stuttgart prison where the governor received me with harsh words; he was a Swabian and the Swabians are ruder than any other Germans; in other respects I had nothing to complain of.
“Several of my colleagues were sitting or lying about in a large room where we were detained, and at first they did not notice me. At last an old boy, who had evidently been through many vicissitudes, addressed me, and after some conversation, promised to wake me next morning to communicate something of importance. At three o’clock he poked me gently in the side and then led me to a corner of the room; there he told me that he was interested in me and wished to contribute to my success in the future, and that though he knew I was a member of the guilds, still I did not understand what most appealed to the public. At the present time, the war being just over, soldiers played first fiddle. He possessed an iron cross and a genuine ‘legitimation’ as the owner of it. This would suit me excellently, as it came from a Bavarian.He was old and had no more use for it and would sell it to me for three thalers. I was overjoyed at this offer which promised me large receipts, and I gladly paid the old man the three thalers.
“On my release I resolved to try my luck at Baden-Baden. I began by purchasing a newly published illustrated description of the French war, which I studied carefully, and tried to form an idea of those regions where I intended to lay the scene of my deeds of heroism. I bought a list of the visitors at this fashionable resort and selected my victims. I decided to present myself in person to German families of position, but to foreigners of distinction I would appeal in writing. At the end of two days I had purchased all the outfit I required from a dealer of old clothes, and on the third day I started out fully equipped. I had strapped my left arm to my naked body; the empty sleeve was pinned to my coat; on my breast I proudly wore the iron cross; in the pocket of my blouse I carried my ‘legitimation,’ and I had given my small moustache a martial twist. I began with a German baron, into whose presence I was admitted and who looked at me approvingly. ‘Ah,’ he exclaimed, when he had read my papers, ‘one of our “Blue Devils;” you Bavarians must have given the French gentlemen a rare dressing.’ ‘We showed them,’ I replied, ‘that a Frenchman cannot wage war with Germans, Herr Baron.’ I then told him, in answer to his furtherinquiries, what regiment I had served in, etc., and that I had lost my arm at the storming of the Fort Ivry. He said he would gladly assist a brave soldier who had bled for his country, and gave me two gold pieces. This gift filled me with joy and confidence.
“At a country house where the family of a Prussian count were spending the summer, I was likewise admitted. The ladies were drinking their coffee on the veranda. ‘Look, mamma,’ exclaimed the daughter, ‘there comes a “knight of the iron cross,” like Papa. And the poor man has suffered the loss of an arm in battle.’ The young lady seemed to me rather over-enthusiastic, but that was all the better for my purpose, and I satisfied her curiosity with accounts of my prowess and deeds of daring and described how, when my heroism had resulted in my arm being shattered by a cannon ball during the storming of the village of Bazeilles, it had afterwards been sawed off in the hospital. I also told her in answer to her eager questions as to whether I was in want, that I had an aged mother to support and wished to buy a hand-organ. She gave me all the money in her cash box, and when I returned to my lodging I found a large parcel of clothes which she had directed a servant to leave for me. All my other visits were more or less profitable, and the foreign visitors whom I addressed by letter, two Russian princes, the Duchess of Hamilton and the Princess of Monaco, each sentme a handsome present in cash. Owing to the insufficiency of the police, I was able to carry on my frauds unmolested until I had almost exhausted the fashionable world at Baden-Baden. One morning whilst I was absent a police official called at my lodgings. Hearing of this on my return, I hastily packed my spoils and took train for Karlsruhe.
“The account of my criminal career would be incomplete without some mention of prisons. They play a larger part in the life of the budding convict than many people realise, and contribute materially to his development. While the state turns its chief attention to the larger gaols, the smaller prisons are often sadly neglected. If these were better administered, fewer large houses of correction would be required. Here the vagrants tarry, shaping their plans; here one thief learns from another various artifices and tricks; here young offenders are won over to the criminal life. The principal evils of these small prisons undoubtedly are the promiscuous congregating together of all offenders and the absence of occupation. It is not surprising, therefore, that the time is passed in idle talk, and that the man who can relate the largest number of rascally tricks he has played should be the hero of the company. Many an inexperienced lad listens to these anecdotes and acquires a taste for the life of a sharper. When to all this is added a brutal superintendent, open to bribery, then the prison becomes a real training school for criminals.
“Once in a prison at Baumholder I was locked up in company with a robber and murderer who had broken out of a Prussian gaol, and, on the road by which he was escaping, had killed a poor labourer for the sake of stealing his clothes and his small store of money. One evening this sinister individual sat brooding, his eyes glowing weirdly. Suddenly he said, ‘Hark you; when the warder comes round to-morrow he must be pulled in here; you shall hold him and I will cut his throat.’ I declined to be an accomplice in murder, and then he threatened me and looked at me so strangely that cold shivers ran down my back and I trembled like an aspen leaf. He saw my terror evidently and relented, for he offered me his brandy bottle and agreed to drop his murderous intentions if I would join with him in an attempt to escape that very night. This I was quite willing to do, but our essay came to nothing. We moved the stove and dug a hole in the floor beneath, but we presently came upon a beam with which we were not able to cope, and we were obliged to fill up the aperture with rags and bread and to move the stove back over it to escape detection.”
An account of a robbery perpetrated by Kürper on a larger scale, and its sequel, may be told in conclusion of this criminal’s career.
“On July 4th, in the year 1873, I was crossing the market place at Mannheim, when I met an old comrade of mine from the industrial school atSpeier. We greeted each other warmly and exchanged our experiences, which ran in a similar groove only in that he had been more unfortunate than myself, having already served two rather long terms in prison. We decided to enter into a temporary partnership, and this was the beginning of the end. He had a theft in view promising rich spoils, for which he required an accomplice, and that part he wished me to perform. Nothing loth, I agreed, and we arranged a plan of campaign. He related to me that a well-to-do man he knew of lived on the first floor of a house which was surrounded by a high wall, and in an unfrequented street, and kept his possessions in a heavy leather trunk. He went out every evening from nine until twelve o’clock, so that during his absence the coast was clear. We were to convey the trunk to the castle garden, carry it over the bridge which crosses the Rhine, and at Ludwigshafen break it open, bury it and take its contents to K., where my ally knew how to dispose of them.
“I liked the idea of the job, and we agreed to go to work that same evening. Accordingly just before ten o’clock we started. On reaching the street in question my heart began to beat furiously and I felt a presentiment that ruin was at hand, but it was too late to turn back. My colleague assured himself that the owner of the trunk was away, according to his usual custom, and engaged in playing cards. The street was quiet, and we scaled thewall around the house and entered the room where the heavy box stood. We dragged it out and succeeded in carrying it to the castle garden over the bridge already alluded to, bearing our burden slowly and securely in this region where the police is well represented. We passed through Ludwigshafen and reached a field where there is a fish-pond.
“Here we opened the trunk, which we found packed full to bursting, emptied it and buried it so successfully that the police were afterward four weeks in finding it, in spite of accurate indications. That same night we marched, laden with our spoils, to Rheingönnheim, from whence we travelled to K., where in a few hours, thanks to my companion’s admirable business talents, we disposed of all we had to sell at remunerative prices. Drunk with victory, we could not rest satisfied and determined to attempt anothercoup de main. By broad daylight we proceeded to enter the room of a tradesman and rifle it of all its contents. We sold everything we had stolen except one waistcoat. This was the cause of our undoing. My comrade carried the garment in question, being half drunk, to a commissionaire in the open market-place. The police were already on our traces. Two members of the force came round the corner and immediately took us both in charge. We were now imprisoned, previous to being tried, and when subjected to a severe cross-examination, of course took refuge in subterfuge and lies. As we were parted, however, andseparately interrogated, we soon made contradictory statements. My companion then decided to make a partial confession, but endeavoured at the same time to incriminate me as the ringleader in the affair. When I realised his infamy, I, on my part, did not hesitate to keep back the truth in regard to him. On December 24, 1873, we were taken, securely hand-cuffed, to the Court of the Assizes in Zweibrücken, where we were condemned to three years’ penal servitude. We entered a petition against this sentence, but it was thrown out. On February 5, 1874, the dark door of the gaol of Kaiserslautern closed upon me with a clanking sound.”
Extracts from the experiences of a Bavarian prison chaplain—Life history of a notorious criminal, Joseph Schenk—Early crimes—Kaiserslautern, “The Crescent Moon” prison—Schenk becomes known as the “Prison King”—Punishment has no effect on him—Frequent escapes—Passes through the prisons of Würzburg, Munich, Bayreuth—Würger, the usurer—Plies his trade when committed to gaol—Anecdotes of his rapacity—The tax collector who becomes his prey—Anna Pfeiffer, a rare example of a female hypocrite—Two recent crimes—The boy murdered in Xanten—A Jewish butcher accused—Trial causes an immense sensation—Gigantic sum stolen from Rothschild’s bank by chief cashier—Eventually arrested in Egypt—The causes of the cashier’s crime.
Some other interesting types of German criminals are described by a Bavarian prison chaplain, the Rev. Otto Fleischmann, who spent a quarter of a century in earnest labours among the inmates of a great penal institution. Some of his descriptions and experiences will be of interest and give us at the same time the life histories of notorious criminals. Let us begin with one Joseph Schenk, a curious example of the old-time convict, one of a class now rarely to be met with in the modern prison.
Joseph Schenk was born in Berlin in 1798. His mother was a canteen woman in a Prussian regiment. His father, whose name he never learned, was no doubt a soldier and a man of coarse, brutal disposition, many of whose worst traits had been clearly transmitted to his son. Joseph Schenk, from his earliest days, exhibited a cruel nature; his temper was ungovernable, his delinquencies incessant; he was given to acts of brutal violence, and to the last he was of an inhuman character. He passed much of his old age in the prison hospital, where his greatest treat as a patient was permission to attend at a post mortem and be present at the dissection of a corpse. It was horrible to see him gloating over the hideous details as he watched the autopsy.
Schenk’s mother, when she left the regiment, went to her native place, Oberlustadt, where her son served his apprenticeship to a weaver and was then drawn by conscription into a regiment of Bavarian light horse. He never talked much of those days (we are still quoting from the chaplain), but it is certain that when the restraints of strict discipline were loosened and he was discharged, he rapidly fell into evil courses and developed into an accomplished miscreant. He went home to Oberlustadt and became the terror of the neighbourhood as the author of repeated dastardly crimes. In 1824 Schenk was put upon his trial to answer for the commission of three heinous offences perpetratedin rapid succession. A large concourse of people attended the trial at the Assizes. He was charged with rape, street robbery and murder, and his sentence was death, but was commuted by the soft-hearted king, Maximilian I, into lifelong imprisonment in chains.
At that time the great central prison of Kaiserslautern, the so called “Crescent Moon,” was still in process of construction, and the reprieved convict was lodged in the gaol of Zweibrücken. There he quickly developed into a prison notoriety; he became a terror to his officers from his bold and cunning tricks, and the admiration of his fellow-convicts. He was known as the “prison king,” whom no walls, however high or thick, could hold, and who was endowed with such strength that he could carry with ease a leg chain and bullet weighing 28 pounds. He soon acquired the deepest insight into prison ways and was unceasingly insubordinate and the constant contriver of disturbance. He scoffed at all authority, sought perpetually to attain freedom and was for ever setting all rules and regulations at defiance. When the Kaiserslautern prison was finished he was transferred there to ensure his safe custody, but was still the same reckless, irreconcilable creature. In chapel services, which male and female prisoners attended in common, he attracted the attention of the women and started many intrigues by passing letters and presents to them. When the spirit moved him, he would burstout into loud roars of laughter or mock the officiating clergyman in the middle of the service. He was continually engaged in tampering with officers and guards, bribing them to carry on a clandestine traffic with “outside” and persuading them to supply him with food and prohibited articles. He was a power among his fellow-prisoners, who yielded ready obedience to his caprices and carried out his orders punctiliously. When searched, contraband articles were frequently found in his possession; weapons for assault and tools to be of assistance in his many projected escapes. Punishment, blows and close confinement in a dark cell, he endured with a stoical resignation which earned him the glory of martyrdom. With the higher authorities he comported himself cunningly, adapting himself to their individual peculiarities; he could in turn be cringingly civil, or audaciously impudent, and more than one letter of complaint against them he concocted and contrived to have secretly forwarded to Munich.
After making several attempts to escape on his own account, he formed a conspiracy with a number of daring convicts, the object of which was to obtain freedom by armed force. The plot was carried out on October 18, 1827, but proved disastrously unsuccessful. The conspirators, who were unable to effect the murder of some of the warders as contemplated, were completely overpowered. A special court met in the following year to sit injudgment on the would-be perpetrators of this foul attempt, and on June 9, 1828, Schenk, as well as two of his associates, was condemned to death for the second time, the execution to be carried out in the market place at Kaiserslautern. King Ludwig, the reigning monarch, was no more in favour of capital punishment than his predecessor, and Schenk’s sentence was again commuted to life-long imprisonment in chains.
His peregrinations now began, for he was transferred from one prison of Bavaria to another, until he had made acquaintance with nearly all. In each his conduct was so outrageous that the managing board always declined to keep him beyond a certain time, deeming him a constant menace to good order. He invariably obtained so great an influence in whatever prison he was held that the officials were in despair. On January 22, 1829, Schenk left Kaiserslautern, laden with chains and escorted by three of the most trustworthy police officials, and arrived at the prison in Würzburg on February 1st; he remained there until September 30, 1833. Here every thought was centred on means of escaping. He tried violence, and all kinds of clever schemes and devices, and in spite of being flogged and receiving other punishments, he persevered in his daring ventures until the authorities of the Würzburg prison declared that the prison was not sufficiently secure to retain him in durance. He was now transferred to Munich, where an interesting group of themost dangerous malefactors of Bavaria had been collected and were placed under the supervision of a strict and competent prison administrator. In Munich Schenk underwent a series of the most severe punishments that could be inflicted. The governor stated it as his opinion that Schenk was the most dangerous criminal of his kind and of his century. He added that never during the six and thirty years of his official life had he met with such a combination of astute cunning, incomparable audacity and hypocritical deceit.
Schenk remained at Munich until the year 1842, when the minister Abel succeeded in establishing the plan he had conceived of placing the Bavarian prisons on a denominational basis. This might have answered fairly well had the convicts not been allowed to alter their religion while in prison. As it was, whoever had had enough of one institution and desired a change, simply declared himself converted to another belief, and was then transferred to the fresh gaol where its professors were collected. The convicts could change their creed as often as they liked, but Schenk repudiated such weakness of character, and pretended to set great store by his Protestantism. He could not, however, remain at Munich because it was a Catholic prison, and at the beginning of the year 1842 he was removed to St. George at Bayreuth. In this institution he reached the pinnacle of his evil fame and influence. The administrator charged with its managementin the years 1848-1849 must have been a young and diffident man, for Schenk intimidated him to such an extent that the prisoner became the actual master of the gaol. Seldom or never, perhaps, has a convict occupied such a position in a prison as Schenk did during his palmy days at Bayreuth. To curry favour with him he was often invited to drink coffee with the governor in the office and while they drank it the governor discussed with him prison problems and the proper treatment of prisoners. It must have been a strange sight to witness the convict in his chains on a sofa and the director doing the honours. Of course a peremptory stop was put to such a scandal. The timid governor was superseded by a more severe disciplinarian and Schenk was grievously annoyed. He stirred up a fierce opposition to the new man, whom he represented as a ruthless despot, and filled his fellow-convicts with apprehension as to the future that lay before them. They determined, therefore, to greet this functionary with a striking proof of their bad humour and distrust. Accordingly, when the new administrator entered the building on February 9, 1850, a general insurrection broke out among the prisoners, which was only quelled with great difficulty by armed force. Schenk’s reign was now over. The new governor soon knew that he had been the ringleader and took measures to subdue his troublesome charge. Instead of coffee, he received hard blows, and inplace of the sofa he was provided with a wooden couch.
Yet Schenk contrived secretly that a letter full of complaints of the new director, whom he described as a bloodhound hungry for the life of a peaceful, inoffensive man, meaning himself, should reach the authorities at Munich. The director accused was not slow to explain the true facts; the lying denouncer met with his deserts and was soundly flogged. He was still untamed, however, and fought on stubbornly until his iron constitution began to give way. As his health declined and he felt that death was approaching, he became for a time singularly amenable. At last, in 1860, he was finally transferred to Plassenburg prison, which he entered for the first time. His old audacious and rebellious spirit reasserted itself, and he succeeded in breaking out of prison with several companions. They were all promptly recaptured by the peasants in the first village they reached, and laid by the heels like wild beasts escaped from their cages. When once more in durance, Schenk devoted himself to the writing of petitions for milder treatment, and he was granted a few small privileges, such as the lightening of his chains. In 1863 he was taken back to Kaiserslautern after an absence of thirty-four years. Although feeble and broken in health, he still enjoyed a great influence over the other prisoners, and, when he chose, could still incite them to mutiny and rebellion. In January,1864, a violent outbreak occurred at Kaiserslautern in which he did not figure personally but which he had no doubt brought about.
It was at this period of his career that Herr Fleischmann became acquainted with him and writes: “Schenk’s every thought was now centred in obtaining a pardon. I often heard him exclaim, ‘I would gladly die, if I could but enjoy freedom for a single day.’” His passionate appeals were nearly bearing fruit when the inhabitants of Oberlustadt protested, and, still remembering his parting threats on leaving the town, hastily sent in a petition against the liberation of so dangerous a man. With his hopes thus dashed to the ground forever, a last spark of energy revived and he made a final attempt to escape from the hospital, which miscarried, and in the end his release was only compassed by death. For forty-seven years he had maintained a ceaseless conflict with law and authority.
Herr Fleischmann gives a graphic presentment of this remarkable criminal, whom he first met in the hospital toward the end of his life. “My interlocutor was an old man in the seventies. I shall never forget his appearance, for I never beheld a more hideous or repulsive countenance. He was of medium height, strongly built, and dragged one leg slightly, like all those who have worn chains and balls for years. His head was covered with thin gray hair always carefully brushed. One side of his face was completely distorted from the effectsof a stroke of paralysis. Half the mouth and one wrinkled cheek hung down flabbily; one bloodshot eye stared dimly from its socket, but the other, on the contrary, was light gray and quite alive, with a look of extreme cunning. He was a man of great natural intelligence, unusually gifted, and he had improved himself by much reading; he expressed himself well, possessed a keen knowledge of human nature and often succeeded in deceiving the prison officials by his masterly power of dissimulation.”
We have to thank our reverend author for one or two more types of German prisoners. He speaks of one, Würger by name, who was of Jewish extraction, but a Christian according to the testimony of his baptismal certificate, although there was little to prove his real religion in the records of his life. As to the outer man, he was short of stature and very broad-shouldered; he had an enormous head with bushy, prominent eyebrows and teeth large and pointed like the fangs of a wild beast. His eyes were gray and cold but acute in their expression. The first time the chaplain visited him in his cell he was sitting on the edge of a big chest filled with papers and literally in hysterics. No other word could adequately describe the passionate outburst of rage and despair to which he was giving vent. When asked the cause of his distress, he asserted with renewed wails that he was a ruined man. The facts came out gradually. His wife had sent the huge chest to him, because not even themost astute man of business in her vicinity to whom she had applied could disentangle the mass of promissory notes and dubious deeds which it contained. She had also written that no one admitted indebtedness to him, and indeed, several of his debtors had already run off. She said he must put the papers in order himself and send the chest to some agent with instructions to act for him. The box was full of documents, and represented the ruin and wretchedness of the impecunious victims of his remorseless usury.
The chaplain had little sympathy with his whining regrets and strongly urged him to commit the contents of the box to the flames, but this advice WÜrger received with horror. It would bring his family to penury, he declared; he had done no one any harm but had rather been a public benefactor, honest and straightforward in all his dealings, and he had been ill-rewarded for his efforts to benefit his fellow creatures. The tears streamed from the eyes of this friend of humanity as he uttered this lying statement.
Two anecdotes told by the writer will give some idea of the character of this rapacious creature. His wife, who belonged to a good family, had once instituted divorce proceedings against him. Her lawyer insisted before the court that Würger was essentially a bad, vicious person, but that his client had been quite unaware of his evil tendencies before her marriage. Würger’s lawyer then took up theparable and exclaimed,—“What, the plaintiff pretends ignorance of what sort of man my client is! Why, it is notorious that in the whole of Pfalz there is no worse fellow than Würger. And you worshipful judges,” he added, “you certainly cannot assume that Würger’s wife was the only person who did not know anything about it.” The wife’s petition was dismissed and Würger, on hearing the result of the proceedings, rubbed his hands, smirked with glee and clapped his lawyer on the back, saying, “That was a lucky hit of yours, calling me the worst fellow in Pfalz; you deserve great credit for the conduct of my case.”
When Würger was in prison awaiting trial, a fraudulent tax-collector, whom an auditor had caught embezzling public money, occupied the same cell as the usurer. The collector was a man of fair character but afflicted with a consuming thirst and fit for nothing until he had swallowed many pints of beer. He brought into prison with him a certain sum in cash, a silver watch and chain and a gold ring. Here was Würger’s opportunity. He saw his companion’s funds gradually diminish by his terrible thirst, and when they were exhausted, proposed to buy his fellow-prisoner’s silver chain, and offered a ludicrously low price for it. Bargaining and haggling went on for some time but without result, although the usurer strove hard and backed up his offer by constantly calculating how many pints of beer the suggested price would buy. Everytime Würger mentioned the word “beer” the other would sigh deeply until the temptation conquered him, and finally the chain passed into Würger’s hands. The price of the chain was consumed in drink and the silver watch was the next to go. The last struggle was for the gold wedding ring. The poor collector was quite determined not to part with it; he inwardly took a solemn oath to conquer himself and not to sacrifice this last precious treasure. Würger did not utter a word for some days nor seem to notice the tortures of his mate. Finally, however, he appeared softened by the moans and groans of his companion who grew more and more thirsty, and offered to help him, but only at the cost of the ring. The tax-collector fell on his knees and begged the tyrant to lend him the money only and let him but pawn the ring; but Würger drove him to distraction by ordering a pint of beer which he slowly consumed before the drunkard. Again and again he tempted and played upon the appetite of the unfortunate man until at last the collector, half mad, tore the ring from his finger and threw it at the feet of the usurer, who smilingly slipped it into his pocket.
In prison Würger’s behaviour was cringing and artful. At the exercises in chapel he would sit with his head bowed, evidently cogitating over his impending lawsuits and thinking of his gold. His fellow-prisoners treated him with contempt, and revelled in the knowledge that this rich fiend, whohad cheated many a poor man out of his last farthing, was now one of themselves; and on Sunday especially they would cast up his misdeeds against him and hold him up to ridicule. Toward the end of his term he went to the chaplain and bought a Bible. This reckless extravagance seemed odd, but it became known that the chaplain bought his Bibles at a reduced rate, and the usurer had calculated that he could sell at a profit.
“A clergyman’s task,” says Herr Fleischmann, “is far more difficult in a prison for women than in one for men. In the latter he has to deal with coarseness, brutality and moral degradation, but in the former he meets with many despicable traits: unlimited cunning, spitefulness, love of revenge, deceit and artifice. The man often reveals himself as he is, while the woman, on the contrary, having lost caste, desires to conceal her abject condition and, with rare exceptions, assumes some part foreign to her real nature which she plays cleverly throughout. I was often obliged in spite of myself to compare the man’s gaol to a menagerie, the woman’s to a theatre or stage.
“I was twenty-six years of age when I started on my official career of activity in K. On making my first rounds through the cells on the female side, I found one woman sitting with her head on the table weeping bitterly. She gave no sign that she had noticed my entrance, but when I wished her ‘Good morning,’ she slowly lifted her head andtransfixed me with an uncomprehending gaze from soft, tear-dimmed brown eyes. She was apparently about fifty years of age and retained traces of great beauty.
“‘I am your new pastor’ I said. What is your name?’ Then she passed her hand across her forehead as if to dispel an evil dream and, rising from her seat with a great show of good feeling, begged me to excuse her seeming rudeness, but in truth she had been absorbed in the contemplation of her past life. She claimed to be unfeignedly grateful for my visit and as she spoke she seized my hand and would have kissed it had I not drawn it away. I asked her name. ‘Ursula Pfeiffer, reverend sir,’ she replied. ‘Very well,’ I said, ‘I will look into your record and the next time I come we will discuss your past.’ But she continued, ‘Let me confess at once; I am the greatest sinner in the whole prison, but thank heaven, I have at last found peace within these walls.’
“On the prison registers this woman’s record ran thus: ‘Anna Ursula Pfeiffer, born at Zirndorf, near Nürnberg, in 1813, sentenced for repeated thefts to four years’ penal servitude. Was, from 1838 to 1863, punished forty-one times for leading a vicious life, vagrancy and theft.’ During my next few visits, her behaviour was characterised by reserve, which led me to think she had realised that she must not lay on her colours too thick. After the lapse of some weeks, she told me her history simply,without flourishes, and I recognised from her manner of relating that I had before me a woman of uncommon mental gifts.
“Her parents had been poor people, earning an honest livelihood, who brought up their children respectably. They thought a great deal of their Ursula, who always took a high place in school. Her intelligence and her beauty, however, were to prove her curse. She went into domestic service with a rich Jewish family, where the son of the house seduced her and, when the consequences of the intrigue could no longer be concealed, she was dismissed ignominiously. She moved to Nürnberg, where she took to disreputable ways, and she always had plenty of money until her beauty began to wane. Then she gradually sank lower and lower in the social scale, and finally became addicted to thieving, which landed her continually in prison.
“I observed my penitent closely, but saw no reason to doubt or mistrust her. I now and then made use of a text on Sunday to inveigh against hypocrisy, but she continued to play the part of the crushed and contrite Magdalen and asked permission to take down my sermon on her slate. To this I could not, of course, object. I would sometimes look at the slate and compare it with my manuscript and seldom found a word wrong. What might not this woman have become had she been born in a higher sphere? When her term of solitary confinement had expired, she requested that itmight be extended over her full time, and remained for two years longer in her cell. By and by she became a prison nurse, and not only tended the sick with kindness and devotion but also with uncommon skill. Her conduct was exemplary to the last, and when she finally departed, it was with many protestations of gratitude and the most heartfelt assurances of reform.
“Yet a few months later, Ursula Pfeiffer’s papers were asked for by some other penal institution. She had soon fallen back into evil ways, and was sentenced to a fresh imprisonment. I was convinced that my first impression of her as a hypocrite and a dissembler was absolutely correct.”
The Reverend Otto Fleischmann’s experience will be borne out by hundreds of other God-fearing, philanthropic ministers who have devoted themselves to the care and possible regeneration of criminals.
Two sensational crimes committed in our own day, and which made a great stir in Germany, were much commented on in the journals of the time. One was the murder of a boy of five years old at Xanten in Prussian Rhineland. The trial took place at the provincial court of justice at Kleve, and the hall used was part of the ancient castle of the dukes of Kleve, around which the legend of the “Knights of the Swan” (Lohengrin) still lingers. The case excited widespread interest. The man accused was a Jew and the fiercest passions caused by religioushatred were engendered. Excesses were committed in the town; the case became a subject of heated dispute in the popular assemblies, and more than once occupied the attention of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies.
On June 29, 1891, soon after six o’clock, a servant maid, Dora Moll, found the body of a boy, Johann Hegemann, with his throat cut, in a barn where fruit was stored, belonging to a town councilman named Kupper. The boy was the son of the carpenter and coffin-maker of the place. At noon on the same day the child, a fine and healthy boy, had been seen playing near the barn. The wound was a clean one and there seemed to be no doubt that a murder had been committed, but there appeared to be no motive for it. Soon, however, suspicion fell upon Adolf Buschoff, a butcher and also the superintendent of the Jewish congregation. Several persons testified to the boy having been attracted by Buschoff’s wife and daughter to the butcher’s shop, situated close by the Kupper barn, on the eve of the crime. Other causes for suspicion were suggested, with the immediate result that Buschoff’s property was laid waste by his enraged fellow-citizens and “Murderer’s house” was written on his abode. Many shops belonging to Jews were also sacked; indignation was intensified by a report that the boy had been done to death by a knife such as is used by Jewish butchers, and that murder had been committed because the Jews require Christianblood for their Passover feast. The excitement of the Christian population grew to such a pitch that the Jewish community of Xanten begged, in their own defence, that a special detective might be employed to follow up the crime. The result of this inquiry was the arrest of Buschoff, with his wife and daughter, and their committal to the prison at Kleve, from which they were at last released on December 23rd.
Anti-Semitism, however, constantly rankled and inflamed public opinion; the case was re-opened, and Buschoff, who had settled at Cologne, was again arrested on the plea that further suspicion had arisen. His wife and daughter escaped, although a warrant had been issued against them as being also privy to the crime. Hitherto Buschoff had been looked upon as a popular and harmless citizen, but now feeling ran high against him and it was generally believed that the charge of deliberate murder would be fully proved.
The court was crowded to suffocation; many ladies looked down upon the crowd in the place set apart for them. A hum was heard like that in a theatre before the curtain rises, followed by a painful silence when the prisoner entered and took his place behind the barrier. Buschoff was a man of fifty, strongly built and of medium height. He sat with downcast eyes, his hands trembling; his colour was so ruddy that, but for the signs of inward agitation expressed in his face, it would not have beeneasy to suppose that he had spent a long time in prison awaiting trial. The case lasted ten days and many witnesses were called, but no evidence was adduced incriminating Buschoff, who, when interrogated, steadfastly denied his guilt. A professor of Semitic lore and an expert in interpreting the Talmud, was asked if murders in the cause of ritual were anywhere justified in the Talmud. This he denied, and other witnesses testified that Buschoff belonged to the order of priests commonly called Levites, who are not allowed to approach a corpse except those of their parents or brethren. On the sixth day, a bag belonging to Buschoff, apparently blood-stained, was examined, but it could not be proved to be human blood. On the seventh day, the chief interest was centred in the evidence of the provincial judge, Brixius, who had examined Buschoff at the time of his first arrest. The result was, upon the whole, favourable to the accused, as Brixius considered many of the statements which had been made by witnesses the result of heated fancy and unbridled imagination dictated by hatred of the Jews. On the last day of the trial, Frau Buschoff, who had not as yet been called, had to appear. The accused wept bitterly at the sight of his wife. She corroborated the testimony which had been given by her husband and daughter.
The jury was then asked to decide whether “the accused Adolf Buschoff were guilty of having deliberately murdered Johann Hegemann in Xantenon the 29th June, 1891.” A speech for the defence then followed, which lasted two hours, and in the afternoon a second counsel spoke for the prisoner, setting forth the innocence of the accused and appealing to the jury to acquit him. Then followed the judge’s summing up, which was absolutely fair and impartial. He called attention to the fact that the population of Germany was divided between friends and foes of the Jews. “Before the court of justice, however,” he said, “all men are equal. A judge’s task is not to inquire to what religion an accused belongs; he must have no partisan feeling.” The jury was absent for only half an hour, and returned with the verdict of “not guilty,” which was received with storms of applause. So ended a trial which produced an immense sensation, not only in the Rhine provinces but to the furthest confines of Germany, and was followed with strained and feverish attention.
Another great crime is of about the same date, but of a very different character,—the theft and misappropriation of gigantic sums by the chief cashier, Rudolf Jaeger, of the Rothschild banking-house at Frankfurt-on-the-Main. The story will be best understood by an extract from the indictment on which he was eventually charged. It stated that on Good Friday, April 15, 1892, the chief cashier of the banking-house of M. A. Rothschild and Sons disappeared, but was not missed until April 20th by reason of intervening holidays, both Christian andJewish. The suspicion of his flight was confirmed by two letters from him posted at Darmstadt. One was to a Frau Hoch, who sent it to the Rothschild house; the other was addressed to Baron Rothschild’s private secretary, Herr Kirch. In both letters Jaeger stated that he had been guilty of embezzlement and that he meant to take his own life. In the letter to Kirch he carried the comedy to the extent of sealing his letter with black, using a black-edged envelope and placing a memorial cross under his signature. He confessed that he had lost 1,700,000 marks by unlucky speculations on the bourse with money entrusted to him in the course of business by others, including the bank. The money was gone, he declared briefly, and he meant to expiate his deed by death, hoping for mercy from God alone.
Rudolf Jaeger first entered the Rothschild house as assistant to his father, then chief cashier, and on his father’s death he succeeded to the position. His salary was 4,500 marks; besides this, he received other payments for keeping the private accounts of the Barons Wilhelm and Mayer Karl Rothschild, as well as the New Year’s bonus, and such other extras, so that his circumstances were easy. He married in 1877. His first wrongdoing was when he embarked upon an egg-trading business in partnership with one Heusel, who subsequently entered the dock by his side. Heusel was always in financial straits, insatiable in his demands for money, and although Jaeger had advanced the sum of 102,000marks, he clamoured incessantly for more, and to satisfy him Jaeger made his first fatal dip into the Rothschild safe, which was in his keeping. For a long time he managed his depredations most skilfully, and his methods of throwing dust into the eyes of the clerks under him by manipulating the books of the bank were extremely clever. Even when a revision of the books took place, after he had gone so far as to falsify them, his dishonesty was not suspected. However, he only narrowly escaped. He felt he was on the verge of being discovered and began his preparations for flight, in company with Josephine Klez, with whom he had been intimate for some time.
The fugitives went first to Hamburg and thence to Marseilles, where they embarked for Egypt. Having arrived there, they considered themselves safe and went about freely and openly, frequenting different hotels. Jaeger bought many valuable jewels for Klez in Alexandria and Cairo. The police in pursuit were soon upon their track and on May 10th both were arrested by the German consul, with the assistance of the Egyptian authorities, at Ramleh in the Hotel Miramare, and their goods were seized. Both carried revolvers. Jaeger attempted to draw his, but was prevented. At first, both endeavoured to deny their identity, but in the end they gave their real names. Jaeger maintained, when brought before the consul, that he had lost the greater part of the embezzled sum on the bourses,but the examination of his luggage proved this to be false, and a sum of 489,779 marks was found among his effects. Part of it consisted in thousand mark notes, which Klez had sewn into a pin-cushion. She had two purses, a black and a red one; in the first was English, French and Egyptian money, and the second contained German bank bills and marks in gold. On a second search, one hundred notes of a thousand marks each were extracted from a pillow. Among the papers seized, the most important was Jaeger’s note book, for pasted under its cover was a slip of paper with abbreviated figures not very difficult to decipher, and with a complete account of the embezzled sum and of the persons in whose hands the money had been deposited; so, thanks to the discovery of this memorandum, the greater portion of the sums left in Frankfurt was discovered.
When Jaeger and Klez arrived in Germany, they were committed to the Frankfurt prison, where a number of their accomplices were already lodged. Jaeger, when arraigned, pleaded guilty on every count. The woman Klez admitted her complicity in the flight, but denied that she was concerned in the frauds or had accepted anything but jewelry from Jaeger. The trial was brief and judgment was soon given. Jaeger was condemned to ten years’ imprisonment and, over and above this, to five years’ deprivation of his civic rights, “because he was so lost to all sense of decency as to leavehis family and elope with a shameless woman.” Klez was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, Heusel to six years, and others concerned to short terms.
Spielberg for many centuries Imperial State prison—Its situation—Originally the castle of the ruling lords of Moravia—Silvio Pellico imprisoned there—Also Franz von der Trenck—Pellico’s relations with the Carbonari—His imprisonment in the Santa Margherita and the Piombi—Sentence of death commuted to fifteen years in Spielberg—Administration of this prison—His fellow sufferers—The gaoler, Schiller—Prison diet—Strict discipline enforced—Pellico is released at the end of ten years.
Spielberg, in Austria, served for several centuries as an imperial state prison to which many notable political and other offenders were committed. It stands on the top of an isolated hill, the Spielberg, 185 feet above the city of Brünn, the capital of Moravia and headquarters of the governor of the two provinces of Moravia and Silesia. The castle was originally the fortified residence of the ruling lords of Moravia and a formidable stronghold. It was the place of durance for that other baron Von der Trenck, Franz, the Colonel of Pandours or Austrian irregular cavalry, whose terrible excesses disgraced the Seven Years’ War. His unscrupulous and daring conduct gained him life-long incarceration in Spielberg which he endedby suicide. The fortress was besieged and captured by the French just before the famous battle of Austerlitz, which was fought in the neighbourhood. Its fortifications were never fully restored, but a portion of the enclosure was rebuilt and the place was again used as a place of durance, where some three hundred prisoners were constantly lodged. These were criminals largely, with a sprinkling of persons of higher and more respectable station who had become obnoxious to the Austrian government.
The lengthy sentence of imprisonment which Silvio Pellico endured at Spielberg was the penalty imposed upon him as an Italian subject who dared to conspire against the Austrian domination. The rich provinces of northern Italy had been apportioned to the emperor of Austria in the scramble for territory at the fall of Napoleon. The Italians fiercely resented the intolerable yoke of the arbitrary foreigners, and strove hard to shake it off, but in vain, for nearly fifty years. Secret societies pledged to resistance multiplied and flourished, defying all efforts to extinguish them. The most actively dangerous was that of the Carbonari, born at Naples of the hatred of the Bourbon rule and which aimed at securing general freedom for one united Italy. Its influence spread rapidly throughout the country and in the north helped forward the abortive uprisings, which were sharply repressed by the Austrian troops. Plots were constantlyrife in Lombardy against the oppressive rule in force and centred in Carbonarism which the government unceasingly pursued. Silvio Pellico was drawn almost innocently into association with the society and suffered severely for it.
Silvio Pellico was born in 1788 and spent a great part of his youth at Pinerolo, a place of captivity of the mysterious “Man with the Iron Mask.” His health was delicate; he was a student consumed with literary aspirations and intense political fervour, and he presently moved to Milan, where he began to write for the stage. A famous actress inspired him with the idea of his play,Francesca da Rimini, which eventually achieved such a brilliant success. Pellico was welcomed at Milan by the best literary society and made the acquaintance of many distinguished writers, native-born and foreign—Monti, Foscolo and Manzoni, Madame de Stael, Schlegel and Lords Byron and Brougham among them. The author of “Childe Harold” paid him the compliment of translating “Francesca” into English verse.
About this time Silvio Pellico accepted the post of tutor to the sons of Count Porro, a prominent leader of the agitation against Austria, and whose dream it was to give an independent crown to Lombardy. Count Porro approached the Emperor Joseph pleading the rights of his country, and but narrowly escaped arrest. He saw that overt resistance was impossible, but never ceased to conspireand encourage the desire for freedom in his fellow-countrymen. He opened schools for the purpose and founded a newspaper, theConciliatore, to which many talented writers contributed, including Pellico. It was a brilliant, though brief, epoch of literary splendour, and the new journal was supported by the most notable thinkers and eloquent publicists, whose productions were constantly mutilated by the censorship. In the end, theConciliatorewas suppressed.
Silvio Pellico, soon after his entry into Count Porro’s household, was invited to affiliate himself with the Carbonari but hesitated to join, having no accurate knowledge of the aims and intentions of the society. He was moved, however, to inquire further and very incautiously wrote through the post to a friend, asking what obligations he would have to assume and the form of oath he must take,—all of which he was willing to accept if his conscience would permit him. There was no inviolability for private correspondence under Austrian rule, and Silvio Pellico’s letter was intercepted and passed into the hands of Count Bubna, the governor of Milan, who was already well informed of the conspiracy brewing. He was, however, a humane official and did not wish to proceed to extreme measures, but quietly warned the most active leaders to disappear, telling them that “a trip to the country” might benefit them just then. Many took the hint and left the city, among them Count Porro, whoescaped on the very day that the police meant to make a descent on his house. Confalonieri, one of the chiefs, was not so fortunate. He declined to run away until thesbirriwere at his door and then climbed up to the top of the house, hoping to gain the roof, but the lock of a garret window had been changed and he was taken by the officers.
Silvio Pellico, having no suspicion of danger, was easily captured in his house and was carried at once to the prison of Santa Margherita in Milan, where he lay side by side with ordinary criminals, and also made the acquaintance of the “false” Dauphin commonly called the Duke of Normandy, the pretended heir of Louis XVI. It may be remembered that a fiction long survived of the escape of the little dauphin from the Temple prison, to which he had been sent by the French revolutionaries, and that an idiot boy had been substituted to send to the guillotine. The real dauphin—so runs the story—was spirited out of France and safely across the Atlantic to the United States and afterward to Brazil, where he passed through many dire adventures until the restoration in France. A serious illness at that time prevented him from vindicating his right to the throne, and thenceforth he became a wanderer in Europe, vainly endeavouring to win recognition and support from the various courts. The assassination of this inconvenient claimant had been more than once attempted, and his persistence ended in his arrest by the Austrian governor at theinstance of the French government, and resulted in his being held a close prisoner in Milan.
The warders of the Santa Margherita assured Silvio Pellico that they were certain his fellow prisoner was the real king of France, and they hoped that some day when he came to his own he would reward them handsomely for their devoted attention to him when in gaol. Pellico was not imposed upon by this pretender, but he noticed a strong family likeness to the Bourbons and very reasonably supposed that herein was the secret of the preposterous claim.
This curious encounter no doubt served to occupy Pellico’s thoughts during his long trial which was conducted by methods abhorrent to all ideas of justice. No indictments were made public and no depositions of witnesses, who were always invisible. Conviction was a foregone conclusion, and the sentence was death, on the ground that Pellico had been concerned in a conspiracy against the state, that he had been guilty of correspondence with a Carbonaro and that he had written articles in favour of Carbonarism. His fate was communicated to him at Venice, to which he had been removed and where he occupied a portion of the Piombi, or prison under the “leads” of the ducal palace.
After a wearisome delay, the sentence was read to the prisoners, Pellico and his intimate friend and companion Maroncelli, in court, and afterward formally communicated to them on a scaffold whichhad been raised in the Piazzetta of San Marco. An immense crowd had collected, full of compassionate sympathy, and to overawe them a strong body of troops had been paraded with bayonets fixed, and artillery was posted with port fires alight. An usher came out upon an elevated gallery of the palace above and read the order aloud until he reached the words “condemned to death,” when the crowd, unable to restrain overwrought feeling, burst into a loud murmur of condolence, which was followed by deep silence when the words of commutation were read. Maroncelli was sentenced to twenty years’ imprisonment and Silvio Pellico to fifteen, both to be confined under the rules ofcarcere duroin the fortress of Spielberg.
The conditions ofcarcere duromay be described as extremely irksome and rigorous. The subject was closely chained by the legs; he had to sleep on a bare board—thelit de soldator “plank bed”—and to subsist on a most limited diet, little more than bread and water, with a modicum of poor soup every other day. More merciless and brutal treatment was that ofcarcere durissimo, when the chaining consisted of a body belt or iron waist-band affixed to the wall by a chain so short that it allowed no movement beyond the length of the plank bed. Part of the rations was a most unpalatable and filthy food, consisting of flour fried in lard and put by in pots for six months, then ladled out and dissolved in boiling water.
An Austrian commissary of police came from Vienna to escort the patriot prisoners to Spielberg, and he brought with him news that afforded some small consolation. He had had an audience with the Emperor Joseph, who had been graciously pleased to grant a remission of sentence by making every twelve hours instead of twenty-four count as one day; in other words, diminishing the term by just half. No official endorsement of this proposal was signified and there was no certainty that it was true, and indeed, after the lapse of the first half of the sentence, release was not immediately accorded. Silvio’s seven and a half years was expanded into ten, and the imprisonment might have been dragged on for the full fifteen years but for the warm pleadings of the Sardinian ambassador at the court of Vienna.
The long journey to Brünn was taken in two carriages and in much discomfort, for each coach was crowded with the escort and their charges, and each prisoner was fettered with a transversal chain attached to the right wrist and left ankle. The one compensation was the kindly sympathy that greeted the prisoners everywhere along the road, in every town, village and isolated hut. The people came forth with friendly expressions, and as the news of their approach preceded them, great crowds collected to cheer them on their way. At one place, Udine, where beds had to be prepared, the hotel servants gave place to personal friends who camein, disguised, to shake them by the hand. The demonstrations were continued far across the frontier, and even Austrian subjects were anxious to commiserate the sad fate of men whose only crime was an ardent desire to free their country.