CHAPTER XILAST DAYS OF MILLBANKCaptain Groves at Millbank—New Staff—Governor a strict disciplinarian—His methods unpopular—Discontent among old officers—Petition to House of Commons charging Captain Groves with tyranny and misconduct—Another Parliamentary enquiry—Prolonged investigation—Report fully absolves Groves—His task difficult—The boys’ reformatory gives the most trouble—Mistaken methods employed, but Captain Groves’ firmness in due course establishes peace—Later history of Millbank—“Wormwood Scrubs” to replace it—Erected on the same lines as Sing Sing built by Elam Lynds—Some of the later Millbank celebrities—Latest uses of Millbank—Closed in 1891.Withthe changes which were instituted in Millbank in 1843, its character and constitution were alike materially altered. It was a penitentiary no longer, for it did not now deserve the high-sounding title. The lofty purposes with which it started were unfulfilled, and its future usefulness depended upon the wide area it embraced within its gloomy walls, rather than on the results its reformatory system might be expected to achieve. But as a plain prison, it might yet render more tangible service to the state. And just as Millbank became more practically useful than heretofore, so those who ruled it were no longer amateurs. The superintendingcommittee, composed of well-disposed gentlemen of rank, were replaced by a board of three permanent inspectors, two of whom were already well known to prison history. Mr. Crawford, the senior member, had given much time to the examination of the American prisons; and Mr. Whitworth Russell, the second member, had been for years chaplain of Millbank. Both also had been long employed as inspectors of all prisons in England. Under them was a new governor—a person of a different stamp from mild Captain Chapman, or pious, painstaking Mr. Nihil. Captain John B. Groves, a gentleman of some position and not unknown in society, was also a military officer of distinction. He did not seek the appointment, but as those in high places who knew his character thought him eminently well suited for the post, he was told that if he applied he could have it. A soldier, firm and resolute of will, but clear-headed, practical, able, Captain Groves had but one fault,—he was of an irascible temper. However, like many other passionate men, though quickly aroused, he was as speedily cooled. After an outburst of wrath he was as bright and pleasant as a summer landscape when the thunderstorm has passed. Added to this was a certain roughness of demeanour, which, though native often to men of his cloth, might easily be mistaken for overbearing, peremptory harshness. But that Captain Groves was well-suited for the task that had devolved upon him there couldbe little doubt. The Millbank he was called upon to rule differed more or less from the old Penitentiary which had just been wiped out by Act of Parliament. The population was no longer permanent, but fluctuating: instead of two or three hundred men and youths specially chosen to remain within the walls for years, Captain Groves had to take in all that came,en routefor the colonies; so that in the twelve months several thousands passed through his hands. Moreover, among these thousands were the choicest specimens of criminality, male and female, ripe always for desperate deeds, and at times almost unmanageable; yet these scoundrels he had to discipline and keep under with only such means as Mr. Nihil had left behind; for the most part the same staff of warders and with no increase in their numbers. And with all the difficulties of maintaining his repressive measures, were the gigantic worries inseparable from a depot prison, such as Millbank had become. The constant change of numbers; the daily influx of new prisoners, in batches varying from twos and threes to forties and fifties, in all degrees of discipline—sometimes drunk, always dirty, men and women occasionally chained together; the continuous outflow of prisoners to the convict transport ships—a draft of one hundred one day, three hundred the next, all of whom must carefully be inspected, tended, and escorted as far as the Nore,—these were among the many duties of his charge.But Captain Groves soon seated himself firmly in the saddle, and made himself felt as master. The promptitude with which he grasped the position is proved by his early orders. On the first day he found out that there were no standing regulations in case of fire. No fixed system or plan of action was established, but it was left to the governor, at the moment of emergency, to issue such instructions as might suggest themselves. There were no stations at which the several officials should take post on the first alarm, no regular practice with the fire engine; the machine itself was quite insufficient, and the hose out of repair. There had been one or two fires already inside the prison, and the consequences had been sufficiently disastrous; yet no attempt had been made to reduce the chances by previous forethought and arrangement. Captain Groves begged therefore to be permitted to frame regulations in advance and in cold blood, instead of leaving the calamity to be coped with amid the excitement of an actual conflagration. The fire question disposed of, the governor turned his eyes upon the appearance of the men under his charge; and, true soldier again, I find him complaining seriously of the slouching gait and slovenly garb of the warders trained under the late regime. “I think,” he says, “that the officers when together on parade, or at other times, should present something of the appearance of a military body.” He wished, therefore, to give them drill, and a waist-belt,and a smarter uniform. Again, he found fault with the armoury, and remarked that all the fire-arms in the prison consisted of one or two old blunderbusses, with brass barrels exceedingly short, and he suggested a stand of fifty carbines from the Tower. Next he made a raid upon the dishevelled locks of the convicts, remarking: “The practice of cutting the prisoners’ hair appears to be much neglected. I observe the majority of the prisoners’ heads are dirty; the hair long, and the whiskers growing under the chin.” To remedy this, he introduced forthwith the principles of the military barbers of that time,—the hair to be short on the top and sides of the head and whiskers trimmed on a level with the lower part of the ear—an innovation which the prisoners resented, resisting the execution of the order, one to the extent of saying that the next time he was given a razor he would cut his throat with it. But the rules were enforced, as all other rules that issued from Captain Groves. Not that the adjustment of such trifles satisfied his searching spirit of reorganization. He was much annoyed at the idleness and determined laziness of all the prisoners. They did not do half the work they might; the tailoring was a mere farce, and the little boys in Tothill Fields Prison picked twice as much coir-junk as full grown men in Millbank, and in a shorter time. As for great-coats, the average turned out was one per week, while they should have been able to complete three or four atleast. The governor attributed this chiefly to the undercurrent of opposition to his orders from officers of the manufacturing department.Indeed, not only from this branch, but from all his subordinates, Captain Groves appears to have got but half-hearted service. The double-faced backbitings, which had brought many to preferment in the last regime, were thrown away on the new governor. He preferred to see things with his own eyes, and he did not encourage officers to tell tales of one another. When a senior officer reported a junior for using bad language, Captain Groves remarked, “I must state my apprehensions that the practice which has prevailed ofwatchingfor bad or gross language uttered by warders off duty, and reported without their knowledge, accompanied by additions to the actual offence, will be most certain to introduce discussion and discord into the prison, and produce universal distrust and fear. No warder can feel himself safe when he knows that an unguarded word may be brought against him at some future day.” The practical common sense of these remarks no one can deny; but those who knew Captain Groves will smile as they remember that his own language at times savoured “of the camps,” and he possibly felt that under such a system of espionage he might himself be caught tripping. But in setting his face against the old practices he was clearly right, although it might bring him into disfavour with those hypocriticalsubordinates who felt that their day of favour was over. Of most of the Penitentiary officers, indeed, Captain Groves had formed but a low estimate. In more ways than one he had found them lax, just as he found that the routine of duties was but carelessly arranged. There was no system: the night patrols, two in number to every two pentagons, slept as they pleased half the night or more, and were seldom subject to the visits of “rounds” or other impertinences from over-zealous officials; no one was responsible for the prison during the night; by day, strangers came and went through the inner gates and passed on to the innermost part of the prison, ostensibly to buy shoes and other articles made by the prisoners, but really to see their friends among the latter; coal porters, irresponsible persons, often from the lowest classes (one was afterwards a convict), were admitted with their sacks into the heart of the wards, male and female, and could converse and traffic with the prisoners all day long. There was no notice board at the gates or elsewhere to warn visitors of the penalties of wrong-doing.In all these matters the reform that was so urgently needed Captain Groves introduced, and that with no faltering hand. Naturally in the process he trod on many toes, rubbed up many old prejudices, and made himself generally unpopular. Nor was the bad feeling lessened when it became known that he looked on the bulk of the old officers as inefficient,and recommended their dismissalen masse. Discontent grew and rankled among the majority; but although nearly all chafed under the tightened bit, few for a long time went beyond a certain insolent restiveness, though some were brave enough to complain against the governor’s tyranny and to talk of active resistance. It was not, however, till Captain Groves had been in office nearly three years that all these muttered grumblings took shape in an actual combination against him. Of this he had notice, for a paper was put into his hand giving full disclosures and a list of the conspirators, many of whom he had thought trustworthy men; but he disdained to act on the information. The malcontents were not, however, to be disarmed by his magnanimity. Feeling certain that their case was strong, and that they could substantiate their charges against him, one of their number, in the name of all, presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for an inquiry into the condition of Millbank Prison. This petition was signed by Edward Baker, ex-warder, and it was laid upon the table of the House by Mr. Duncombe, M. P.Baker’s petition set forth that he had filled the office of warder for more than three years, but that he had at length been compelled to resign “in consequence of the oppressive and tyrannical conduct” on the part of Captain Groves, the governor of the prison, towards the prisoners and officers themselves. He also impugned the character of thegovernor, charging him with drunkenness and the habitual use of foul language, and indirectly reflecting on the three inspectors, who in permitting such malpractices had culpably neglected their duties.The first allegation was that on one occasion a prisoner, Chinnery, had a fit in the airing-yard, just before the governor entered it.“What’s the matter here?” asked Captain Grove.“A prisoner in a fit.”“A fit—he’s not in a fit!” (He was standing on his feet.)“No, he’s reviving.”“Nonsense,” said the governor, “he never had a fit. If this man has any more of his tricks report him to me.”Further, the governor had sent the supervisor to bring up the prisoner for this same feigning of a fit, and had sentenced him, without medical testimony, to three days’ bread and water. Yet this very Chinnery had been in the prison under a previous sentence, and had been lodged always next door to a warder, so that assistance might always be at hand when he had a fit.The next charge was that the governor had sentenced three boys for opening their Bibles in church, to seven days’ bread and water, censuring them for such conduct, “which he considered irreverent.” (The words are Baker’s.)The third charge was that a prisoner who had assaultedand wounded a warder with a pair of scissors, had not only been flogged, but the governor had specially sentenced him to be deprived henceforward of all instruction, religious or moral.The fourth charge referred to a prisoner, Bourne, whom it was alleged the doctor had neglected, refusing to see him, although he was actually in a dying state. At length the officer of his ward sent specially to the doctor, who came and had Bourne removed to the infirmary, where he died two days afterward. “It was the governors plain duty to have prevented such a catastrophe,” said Baker.Fifth: a prisoner, Harris Nash, died of dysentery after three months of the ordinary discipline. “The body was what may be termed a perfect skeleton.”Sixth: another prisoner, a boy, Richmond, from Edinburgh, died after four months, having been confined in a dungeon on one pound of bread and two pints of water per diem, for an unlimited number of days. At night he lay upon the boards and had only a rug and blanket to cover him.Seventh: several prisoners who had been present at the infliction of corporal punishment had immediately after hanged themselves, shocked by the sight they had seen.Eighth: many instances were quoted of the governor’s harshness and partiality: fines inflicted unequally, old officers punished through his misrepresentation,others deprived of their situations as inefficient, though for years they had been considered efficient; while several had resigned sooner than submit to such tyranny.Ninth: Edward Baker further asserted that the reply furnished to the House to his first petition was garbled and untrue. It had been prepared secretly in the prison; it was altogether false; facts had been suppressed or distorted; and that besides, the “cats” used were not those sanctioned by law.Tenth: that the governor had exceeded his powers of punishment, and that in some cases prisoners had undergone as many as eighteen days’ bread and water in one month.Finally, to quote the words of the petition, Baker urged that—“During the last three years the cruel conduct of the governor is known to have induced twenty prisoners to attempt suicide, and that four have actually succeeded in destroying themselves, and that others are constantly threatening self-destruction; forming a melancholy contrast with the system pursued during the twenty-three preceding years at the Millbank Penitentiary, that system being free from any such stain during that period:“That the severity of punishments for alleged offences has led to the removal of many prisoners in a dying state to the invalid hulk at Woolwich, where every seventh man has since died, although when they came into the prison they were in goodhealth. This cruel removal takes place to prevent the necessity for coroner’s inquests within the walls, and exposure of the discipline of the prison.”The petitioner therefore prays for an immediate inquiry into the manner in which Millbank is conducted, the deaths that have occurred, the cruelties that are practised, the dying prisoners that have been removed; also into the numerous reports and irregular hours and conduct of the governor, and how far the inspectors have done their duty by allowing such irregularities to pass unnoticed; “such facts being notorious to all the prison.”In consequence of this petition an inquiry was instituted by the House of Commons; and the Earl of Chichester, Lord Seymour, and Mr. Bickham Escott were appointed commissioners.A very searching and patient investigation followed, the full report of which fills an enormous Blue-Book of hundreds of pages. It would be tedious to the reader if I were to go through the evidence, in anything like detail, of the many witnesses examined; the commissioners may be trusted to have done this conscientiously, and their summing up in deciding on the allegations against Captain Grove may be quoted here. The evident animus of the subordinates against their governor is very clearly shown in every page: nothing he did was right, and the complaints when not actually false, as in the case of prisoner Chinnery, were childish and almost beneath consideration. Oneofficer declared that Captain Groves did not like the old prison officers; that he had said openly “he would get them all out.” They could never please him; they got no credit however much they might exert themselves. Another told the governor he was breaking his (the officer’s) spirit and his heart. “He (Captain Groves), after making his rounds, would send for supervisors and warders in a body and reprimand them in his office. Once when an officer expostulated with him, Captain Groves struck him to the ground with his stick, and swore he’d have none of his d——d Penitentiary tricks.” Another officer, who had been sent to Pentonville and came back without an important document, complained that he had been sent again all the way to the Caledonian Road to fetch it. Mr. Gray (the victim) considered this was a great hardship, although he admitted that he was none the worse for his walk. All the officers were positive they had much more to do now than ever before. Mr. Gray, above-mentioned, complained also that he had been deprived of his lawful leave; yet he admitted that when all the paint work of the prison was filthily dirty and had to be scrubbed, it was badly done; and that the governor had only insisted on officers remaining on duty till the whole was properly cleaned.It was indeed quite evident from cross-examination and from the evidence of Captain Groves, that the bulk of his officers were slovenly, slack in theexecution of their duties, and contentious. Captain Groves, on the other hand, was doing his best to improve the tone of discipline. No doubt he was stern and peremptory in his dealings. We can quite understand that his reprimands were not couched in milk-and-water language; that he more than once said, “By this, or that,” and swore he would not suffer such doings to pass unpunished, and that those who opposed him should forthwith be dismissed. But it is also clear that he was not well served. Those who held under him important posts were not always reliable and fitted for the charge. On one occasion, for instance, an officer was so negligent of the prisoners in his charge, that the governor, as he came by, was able to remove one unobserved. This prisoner he took back to his cell, and then returned to the spot to ask the officer how many he had in charge.“So many.”“Are you sure? Count them.”“No; I am one short!”“Ah!” said the governor, and added something more in rather stronger language. Again, in the case of two barefaced escapes the governor expressed himself as follows:“Prisoner Howard escaped under the very nose of No. 2 sentry. The night was clear and fine, and the governor cannot acquit the sentry of No. 2 beat of great negligence. It is quite impossible, on such a night as the night of last Friday, for any individualto have performed such work in the garden as raising planks, etc., against the boundary wall without detection had common care been taken.”“In regard to the escape of Timothy Tobin, the operations he had recourse to, to break through the cell, made great noise, and attracted the attention of several of the night guard; and the governor is concerned to find that the principal warder in charge of the prison as orderly officer made no effort to detect the cause of the constant knocking in Pentagon five, but contented himself with the reports of inferior officers without rising from his bed or anticipating his intended time of going his rounds. The qualifications which entitle an officer to promotion in this and every other establishment, are intelligence, activity, and a sense of individual responsibility; and no person is fit for the situation of supervisor or principal warder who is not prepared to exercise them on all occasions.”This was a reference to Mr. Gray; and it was he who, with others equally negligent, were so sensitive, that they felt aggrieved at Captain Groves’ seemingly merited reprimands. But in actual investigation all charges of this kind melted into thin air as soon as the commissioners looked into them. The charges of tyranny were not substantiated, because they were far-fetched and exaggerated. Such stories must have been difficult to find when one of the charges trumped up against the governor was that he had kept the chaplain’s clerk one daywithout his dinner. We should even assert that the whole inquiry was another monument of misdirected zeal, were it not that the original petition opened up serious topics which demanded attention. The mere details of administrative bickering might have been better settled by officials within the department than by parliamentary interference; but when it is alleged in an indictment that unfortunate prisoners, without a friend in the world, are done to death by ill-treatment, it is clearly necessary that the said charges should be sifted without delay. In this way the inquiry was distinctly useful, and I shall now give the decision at which the commissioners arrived.“These petitions seriously impugned the character and conduct of the governor of Millbank Prison; and consequently imputed to the inspectors, under whose superintendence the government of this prison is placed, a culpable neglect of their duty in having permitted such maladministration to continue.“First: the allegation respecting the treatment of Chinnery is the only charge on which the petitioner could prove anything from his own knowledge; and, since it occurred after he had sent in his resignation, could not be one of the instances of cruelty in consequence of which he resigned. The fault or innocence of the governor on this occasion depends entirely upon the validity of reasons alleged by him for concluding that the prisoner wasonly feigning a fit. There being no other witness but himself and Baker, we cannot pronounce a decided opinion upon so very doubtful a question. Reviewing, however, all the circumstances which were brought under our notice in connection with this case, we think the governor should, before awarding the punishment, have made a closer investigation into all the facts, and have consulted the medical officer for the purpose of testing the probable accuracy of his impressions. In this case, therefore, we are of opinion that the punishment, whether merited or not merited by the prisoner, was injudiciously inflicted by the governor.“Second: The commissioners think the governor rather overstrained his powers in punishing the boys for reading their Bibles in chapel.“Third: The prisoner Bunyan was sentenced and punished by flogging, as described, for an aggravated and malicious assault. The second allegation, that he was ordered to receive ‘no instruction, either religious or moral’ is untrue. He was visited by the chaplain, and had the usual access to religious books.“Fourth: No evidence to support charge against the governor in case of H. Bourne; but the latter was certainly not well treated by the resident medical officer.“Fifth: Harris Nash died of a severe attack of dysentery. He was an ill-conditioned, mutinous prisoner, who frequently attacked his officers; but,though he was often punished, his death was attributable to the dysentery and nothing else.“Sixth: No responsibility rests with the governor as to Richmond’s death. No symptom of disease on him when first he arrived at Millbank, and he was never punished when the disease showed itself.“Seventh: There does not appear to be the slightest foundation for the suggestion insinuated in this charge; neither of the three prisoners named having witnessed any punishments calculated to produce a bad effect on their minds.“Eighth: The charges of partiality were distinctly disproved; as were also the allegations contained under Ninth and Tenth, which were found to be quite ‘unfounded, in fact.’“Upon the general charge of irregularity, and especially upon a charge of intoxication preferred by some of the witnesses, after a minute consideration of all the circumstances detailed in the evidence, we feel bound to acquit the governor, and to express our strong disapprobation of the manner in which the charge was attempted to be proved.“Having thoroughly sifted the complaint against the governor, and made some allowance for exaggeration on the part of witnesses, whose accusations were seldom warranted by the facts which they attempted to prove, we have no hesitation in pronouncing our opinion that he (Captain Groves) has endeavoured to perform his duties with zeal and intelligence,and has done nothing to discredit the very high testimonials which he possesses from the officers in the army under whom he formerly served. His treatment of the prisoners, except in the two cases above mentioned, appears to have been judicious and considerate. Cases were indeed brought under our notice in which the prisoners complained of excessive severity; but the responsibility for these cases rests upon the subordinate officers, as it does not appear that the governor was made acquainted with these complaints. The substitution of the punishment of reduced diet in lieu of a dark cell appears to have been made by the governor from motives of leniency and with a view to preserving the health of prisoners.“The only faults with which he appears justly chargeable are:—“First: A too hasty method of dealing with his officers when reported to him by others, or detected by himself in some neglect of duty; not always giving them a sufficient opportunity for explanation or defence.“Second: The occasional use of improper or offensive expressions, of which we should express our condemnation more strongly were it not that the instances adduced by all the witnesses amounted only to three.“Third: An insufficient attention to the rules of the prison; it appearing from his own evidence that he was entirely ignorant of the legal force ofthe old penitentiary rules, and that in two important instances the rules actually stuck up in the prison were not strictly attended to by him.“The want of a complete code of rules suited to the present government of the prison has apparently given rise to many of the charges and to much of the ill-feeling which have come under our observation during this inquiry.“No doubt there existed a very extended feeling of discontent among the officers. It is probable that this may partly have originated in the changes which took place in the organization of the present establishment, by which the duties of the prison were necessarily rendered more irksome and severe.“The old prison possessed more of a reformatory character: the prisoners were confined there for much longer periods, were under the influence of stronger motives to good conduct, and by habits longer exercised became more accustomed to the regular routine of prison life. In the prison, as now constituted, few of the adult convicts remain for more than two, or at most, three months; and of those who remain for a longer period, the greater part are criminals of the worst description, who are awaiting embarkation for their final destination, Norfolk Island.“The effective government of these convicts can only be carried on by a very strict and vigilant attention on the part of the officers. We must addthat these important changes had to be commenced and carried out by a new governor with an old set of officers, and, in our opinion, with an inadequate addition of strength. It was but natural that the old officers, receiving little or no increase of pay, while their duties were generally augmented, should have felt some dissatisfaction, and that a portion of it should have vented itself in personal feelings towards the governor, who appears to be both a zealous and energetic officer, giving his orders in a peremptory manner as a man accustomed to military life, and expecting them to be obeyed with soldierlike precision. We regret, however, to observe that, whilst these officers omitted to make a single complaint or suggestion of grievance to their legitimate superiors, they formed a kind of combination amongst themselves for the discussion of their supposed wrongs and for collecting matter for complaint against the governor.”On the whole, then, Captain Groves came triumphantly out of the inquiry into his conduct. Beyond doubt his task was a difficult one. He had within the walls of his prison a large body of criminals who were not to be managed easily. Their offences were more deliberate, and their violence more systematic than anything which I have described in the Penitentiary days. When they assaulted officers, which they did frequently, from Captain Groves himself downwards, it was with the intention of murdering them; and when they wished to escape,as often as not they managed to get away. They stabbed their officers with shoemakers’ knives, or dug scissors into their arms; while one, when searched, was found with a heavy cell stone slung to a cord, supplying thus a murderous weapon, of which he coolly promised to make use against the first who approached. Another ruffian, named Long, a powerful, athletic man, dashed at his officer’s throat and demanded the instant surrender of his keys. Edward King, another, meeting the governor on his rounds, assailed him with abuse, then struck him on the mouth; whereupon Captain Groves promptly knocked him down.Of all the annoyances, none equalled those that came from the “juvenile ward,” as it was termed. In this Captain Groves had raised a sort of Frankenstein to irritate and annoy him, which he found difficult to control. Early in his reign he had felt the necessity for some special treatment of boy prisoners. There were nearly two hundred of these; and though styled boys, they were many of them youths of ages varying from seventeen to twenty years. After much anxious consideration he constructed from his own plans a large general ward to accommodate the whole number. This building long existed, although it was afterwards converted into a Roman Catholic chapel. It was built of brick, only one story high, with a light roof supported by slender iron rods. Around the wall were bays, holding each three hammocks bynight, but in which these juveniles worked during the day. And they could work well if they pleased. For general intelligence and astuteness these boys were not to be matched in all the world. They were theéliteof the Londongamins, the most noted rogues, the cleverest thieves, and the most unmitigated young vagabonds of the whole metropolis. It was a similar gathering, but on a larger scale, to that with which we are familiar in the pages of “Oliver Twist.” Properly directed, they had talent enough for anything. They were soon taught to be expert tradesmen; could stitch with the best tailors, and turn out an “upper” or a “half sole” without a flaw. It was part of Captain Groves’ scheme to drill them; and these active lads soon constituted an uncommonly smart battalion.So far we see only the bright side of the picture; the reverse is not so exhilarating. The mere fact of bringing together in this way a mass of juvenile rascality, without adequate means of restraint, was to open the door to mutinous combinations and defiant conduct. Over and above the buoyancy of spirits natural to youth, which tempts every schoolboy to mischief, there was present among the inmates of this juvenile ward an amount of innate depravity, due to early training and general recklessness of life, which soon led them to the most violent excesses. Within a week or two of the opening of the ward under the brightest auspices, the governor recorded that already they exhibitedstrong tendencies to run riot. They used threatening language to their officers, were continually at loggerheads with each other, and their quarrels soon ended in blows. Presently one made a violent attack on his warder, and kicked his shins; but for this he was incontinently flogged, and for a time the lightheartedness of the ward was checked. But only for a time; within a week the bickering recommenced, and there were half a dozen fights in less than half a dozen days. Appeal was now made to the birch-rod, also for a time effectual. But the temptation to misconduct in marching to and fro from drill, exercise, or chapel was too strong for these young ragamuffins, and their next feat was to put out the gas as they went, then lark along the passages. The governor prayed for more power to punish them. “By their refractory and insolent conduct,” he says, “they wear out the patience of every officer set over them, and turn him into an object of ridicule and contempt.”It occurred to them now that they could cause some considerable inconvenience by breaking out at night; so night after night, when the watch was set and the prison was quiet, they burst out into yells and general uproar, till the night guards were compelled to ring the alarm bells to call assistance. This continued to such an extent that Captain Groves feared it would be impossible to persuade officers to remain in the general ward after dark. Of course they were all experienced thieves. Onone occasion an officer on duty had his pocket picked of a snuff-box. “I know where it is,” volunteered a boy; but after a long search it could not be found in the place he indicated: then they searched the boy himself, and found the box secreted on his person. Another lad, with infinite cunning, nearly succeeded in effecting his escape. One night after midnight he left his bed, and crawling under the other hammocks, got to a wide stone which covered the entrance to the ventilating flues. This stone he removed, and then descended into the flue, meaning to follow it till he reached the airing-yard; thence he meant to climb to the roof and descend again. In view of this he carried with him a long cord, made of sundry skeins of thread, which from time to time he had stolen and secreted. As it happened, a warder going his rounds set his foot on the mat which the boy had placed over the hole into the flue, tripped, and nearly tumbled in; then the prisoner, who was in the flue, fearing he was discovered, came out. But for this accident he might have got clean away. After this the uproarious behaviour of the boys waxed worse. The governor began to have serious apprehensions that discipline would greatly suffer. Stronger measures of repression were tried, but without effect. They continued to fight, to yell in concert after dark, and refused to work, assaulting and maltreating their officers by throwing brooms at their heads and kicking their shins. Throughout, too, their conduct in chapel wasmost disgraceful, and it became a serious question “whether they ought not to be kept away altogether from divine service, as their example would certainly attract followers among the general body of the prisoners.”At length it came to pass that the ward must be broken up, and the boys distributed among the various pentagons. It was felt to be dangerous to keep so many elements of discord concentrated together in one room. This was accordingly done; but by and by, for reasons that are not given—probably on account of want of space in the crowded condition of the prison—the general ward was again occupied with these precocious juveniles. Yet, as I find it recorded, within a few days a scene took place in the room at a late hour of the night, which called for immediate decisive action.About eleven o’clock the governor was sent for. The ward was described to be in a state of mutiny. On his arrival the prisoners appeared much excited, but comparatively quiet. At his order they assembled quietly enough and fell in by word of command. He then asked what it all meant, and heard that for a half hour there had been periodic shoutings, and this chiefly from one particular boy. As it rose at last to something serious, the alarm bell was rung, and on the arrival of the reserve guard the ringleader was pointed out, by name Sullivan, who had shouted the loudest. Ordered first to get out of his hammock, he obstinately refused to move,and when at last dislodged by force, he broke away from the officers, jumped on to the hammock rails, and thence to the iron girders of the roof. An officer promptly followed him, and “a scene ensued which it is impossible to describe.” He was at length captured, and upon the whole incident the governor remarks as follows: “These circumstances afford matter for grave consideration. Hitherto, owing to strict discipline and energy on the part of the officers, the system of the juvenile ward has been successful, with occasional exceptions in regard to misbehaviour on the part of a few turbulent characters. Of late, generally speaking, their conduct has been insubordinate and disorderly, and the fact is that the officers in charge of them are under serious apprehensions for their own personal safety. Besides, as I have before noticed, owing to the paucity of their number, their rest is broken night after night by being obliged to rise from their beds to quell disturbances; whilst the night guards, who ought to be taking their rest in the day time, are obliged to attend at the prison for the purpose of substantiating their reports of the previous night.“It is quite evident that there are so many prisoners (180) assembled an outbreak would be difficult to quell; and in my opinion the situation is a serious one, calling for immediate consideration. Many of them are athletic, and fierce in point of temper likewise.”The governor decided to place patrols in the juvenile ward taken from the garden, although he was loath to denude the garden of guards, seeing that the prison was full to overflowing of convicts.I have dealt in the last few pages with the misconduct of the boys as it showed itself in a comparatively short period of time.The contumacy of these lads continued for more than a year: again and again they broke out, insulted, bearded, browbeat their officers till the latter stood almost in awe of their charges; night after night the pentagon was made hideous with their outcries and uproar. The governor was pressed to abolish the ward altogether; but the project was a pet one, and he hesitated to abandon it. He never quite got the better of the boys; but in the end firmness and a resolute exhibition of authority had its effect, and the ward, if not entirely quelled, was at least brought to something like subordination and order.It is of course clear to the reader that the convicts who were now and hereafter contained within the Millbank walls comprised the worst of the criminal class. There is this difference between the calendars at Newgate and at Millbank, that at the former place the worst criminals passed without delay to the gallows, while at the large depot prison they remained to continually vex their keepers.The life of Millbank was prolonged until the end of the nineteenth century, by which time the newand palatial buildings at Wormwood Scrubs, on the western outskirts of London, had been completed. A word is appropriate here as to this imposing edifice which was begun in a very small way by the writer, in the winter of 1874. The plan pursued was identical with that of Elam Lynds when he built Sing Sing on the banks of the Hudson. Lynds must have been a fine self-reliant character, of such unwavering courage that it gave him personal ascendency over the dangerous elements in his charge. When they told him that a certain convict openly threatened to murder him, he sent for the man, who was a barber, and made him shave him. “I knew you had said you would kill me,” he remarked quietly after the shaving was over. “I despised you too much to believe you would do it. Here alone, unarmed, I am stronger than you, and the whole of your companions.”The work at Wormwood Scrubs as at Sing Sing was almost entirely done by the convicts themselves under the supervision of the warders and directing staff.An indispensable preliminary was the provision of a boundary fence enclosing an area of three acres of common land. This fence was of simple planking ten feet in height. Inside this space the shell of a slight temporary prison had also been erected, a two-storied building, of wood on an iron framework filled in with brick “nogging” (a single brick thick), the cells lined and separated with sheet iron.Nine of these cells were completed with locked doors and barred windows when they were at once occupied by nine “special class” prisoners, men who were in the last year of a lengthy sentence and little likely to run away and forfeit privileges already earned. From this germ or nucleus the whole establishment grew. The first comers laboured on the still unfinished cells and as they were gotten ready fresh arrivals were imported to fill them. In a short time the whole block of a hundred cells was completed, and with the numbers which could now be lodged there was strength sufficient for very extended operations: the erection of a second block for another hundred convicts; and the preparation of clay for brickmaking, and the digging for the foundations of the main prison. Such rapid progress was made that within six months I had established the brick mills and had turned out a large number of “London stock,”—the sound, hard, light yellow bricks, the chief building material of our modern metropolis. The place was largely self-contained and self-supporting; we did everything as far as possible for ourselves; we had our own carpenters and smiths; we dressed stone for the window sills and cast the iron bars and framework for staircases. Ere long the prison population reached a daily average of from five to six hundred, and in less than five years we had built four large blocks containing 350 cells apiece, a spacious chapel, a boundary wall and beyond itnumerous residences for the governor and staff. Throughout this period, Millbank was the parent prison, Wormwood Scrubs only an offshoot drawing support, supplies, cash, all necessaries from the older establishment.Millbank continued to be a centre of great criminal interest to the very end. As has been shown, it became the depot and starting-point for all convicts sentenced to penal exile, and when a peremptory stop was put to transportation, it worked in with the substituted system of Public Works prisons. For fifty years it was a receptacle for male and female convicts undergoing the first period of separate confinement, the preliminary to associated work with greater freedom. Notorieties of all kinds passed through it; and the names of almost all the celebrated prisoners of the time were to be found upon its registers. There were murderers who had scraped through and just escaped the death penalty, such as Dixblanc, the French cook who murdered her mistress in Park Lane. Constance Kent, who confessed to the mysterious crime of killing her infant brother, spent many years at Millbank; the cruel and infamous Stantons, who starved poor Alice—— at Penge, began their retribution there; Madame Rachel, the would-be benefactor to her sex which she desired to make beautiful for ever, tried her blandishments on more than one Millbank matron. It was my fate to welcome the Tichborne claimant to durance vile, to watch him wastingfrom excessive obesity to a decent and respectable size, lachrymose and repentant, but secretive and defiant to the last. The moving spirits in the De Goncourt affair, Kurr and Benson, made Millbank their medium of communication with the dishonest detective officers who for a time shook public confidence in the London police force.Millbank served for other prison purposes. In its latest phases, part of its accommodation was leased to military authorities and it was long the home of court-martial prisoners. When the State finally acquired all prisons of every category in the country, it was used for the retention of venial offenders sent by petty sessions and police courts.The end came in 1891, when Millbank was finally closed and the site surrendered by the prison authorities to the government Office of Works.Here the London County Council have built dwellings for the poor; a handsome military hospital for the Guards and London District has been erected by the War Office; and the trustees of the Tait bequest have put up a fine gallery to house the valuable pictures with which that munificent patron has endowed London. Thus buildings of a new and very different character have now replaced the old Penitentiary.
CHAPTER XILAST DAYS OF MILLBANKCaptain Groves at Millbank—New Staff—Governor a strict disciplinarian—His methods unpopular—Discontent among old officers—Petition to House of Commons charging Captain Groves with tyranny and misconduct—Another Parliamentary enquiry—Prolonged investigation—Report fully absolves Groves—His task difficult—The boys’ reformatory gives the most trouble—Mistaken methods employed, but Captain Groves’ firmness in due course establishes peace—Later history of Millbank—“Wormwood Scrubs” to replace it—Erected on the same lines as Sing Sing built by Elam Lynds—Some of the later Millbank celebrities—Latest uses of Millbank—Closed in 1891.Withthe changes which were instituted in Millbank in 1843, its character and constitution were alike materially altered. It was a penitentiary no longer, for it did not now deserve the high-sounding title. The lofty purposes with which it started were unfulfilled, and its future usefulness depended upon the wide area it embraced within its gloomy walls, rather than on the results its reformatory system might be expected to achieve. But as a plain prison, it might yet render more tangible service to the state. And just as Millbank became more practically useful than heretofore, so those who ruled it were no longer amateurs. The superintendingcommittee, composed of well-disposed gentlemen of rank, were replaced by a board of three permanent inspectors, two of whom were already well known to prison history. Mr. Crawford, the senior member, had given much time to the examination of the American prisons; and Mr. Whitworth Russell, the second member, had been for years chaplain of Millbank. Both also had been long employed as inspectors of all prisons in England. Under them was a new governor—a person of a different stamp from mild Captain Chapman, or pious, painstaking Mr. Nihil. Captain John B. Groves, a gentleman of some position and not unknown in society, was also a military officer of distinction. He did not seek the appointment, but as those in high places who knew his character thought him eminently well suited for the post, he was told that if he applied he could have it. A soldier, firm and resolute of will, but clear-headed, practical, able, Captain Groves had but one fault,—he was of an irascible temper. However, like many other passionate men, though quickly aroused, he was as speedily cooled. After an outburst of wrath he was as bright and pleasant as a summer landscape when the thunderstorm has passed. Added to this was a certain roughness of demeanour, which, though native often to men of his cloth, might easily be mistaken for overbearing, peremptory harshness. But that Captain Groves was well-suited for the task that had devolved upon him there couldbe little doubt. The Millbank he was called upon to rule differed more or less from the old Penitentiary which had just been wiped out by Act of Parliament. The population was no longer permanent, but fluctuating: instead of two or three hundred men and youths specially chosen to remain within the walls for years, Captain Groves had to take in all that came,en routefor the colonies; so that in the twelve months several thousands passed through his hands. Moreover, among these thousands were the choicest specimens of criminality, male and female, ripe always for desperate deeds, and at times almost unmanageable; yet these scoundrels he had to discipline and keep under with only such means as Mr. Nihil had left behind; for the most part the same staff of warders and with no increase in their numbers. And with all the difficulties of maintaining his repressive measures, were the gigantic worries inseparable from a depot prison, such as Millbank had become. The constant change of numbers; the daily influx of new prisoners, in batches varying from twos and threes to forties and fifties, in all degrees of discipline—sometimes drunk, always dirty, men and women occasionally chained together; the continuous outflow of prisoners to the convict transport ships—a draft of one hundred one day, three hundred the next, all of whom must carefully be inspected, tended, and escorted as far as the Nore,—these were among the many duties of his charge.But Captain Groves soon seated himself firmly in the saddle, and made himself felt as master. The promptitude with which he grasped the position is proved by his early orders. On the first day he found out that there were no standing regulations in case of fire. No fixed system or plan of action was established, but it was left to the governor, at the moment of emergency, to issue such instructions as might suggest themselves. There were no stations at which the several officials should take post on the first alarm, no regular practice with the fire engine; the machine itself was quite insufficient, and the hose out of repair. There had been one or two fires already inside the prison, and the consequences had been sufficiently disastrous; yet no attempt had been made to reduce the chances by previous forethought and arrangement. Captain Groves begged therefore to be permitted to frame regulations in advance and in cold blood, instead of leaving the calamity to be coped with amid the excitement of an actual conflagration. The fire question disposed of, the governor turned his eyes upon the appearance of the men under his charge; and, true soldier again, I find him complaining seriously of the slouching gait and slovenly garb of the warders trained under the late regime. “I think,” he says, “that the officers when together on parade, or at other times, should present something of the appearance of a military body.” He wished, therefore, to give them drill, and a waist-belt,and a smarter uniform. Again, he found fault with the armoury, and remarked that all the fire-arms in the prison consisted of one or two old blunderbusses, with brass barrels exceedingly short, and he suggested a stand of fifty carbines from the Tower. Next he made a raid upon the dishevelled locks of the convicts, remarking: “The practice of cutting the prisoners’ hair appears to be much neglected. I observe the majority of the prisoners’ heads are dirty; the hair long, and the whiskers growing under the chin.” To remedy this, he introduced forthwith the principles of the military barbers of that time,—the hair to be short on the top and sides of the head and whiskers trimmed on a level with the lower part of the ear—an innovation which the prisoners resented, resisting the execution of the order, one to the extent of saying that the next time he was given a razor he would cut his throat with it. But the rules were enforced, as all other rules that issued from Captain Groves. Not that the adjustment of such trifles satisfied his searching spirit of reorganization. He was much annoyed at the idleness and determined laziness of all the prisoners. They did not do half the work they might; the tailoring was a mere farce, and the little boys in Tothill Fields Prison picked twice as much coir-junk as full grown men in Millbank, and in a shorter time. As for great-coats, the average turned out was one per week, while they should have been able to complete three or four atleast. The governor attributed this chiefly to the undercurrent of opposition to his orders from officers of the manufacturing department.Indeed, not only from this branch, but from all his subordinates, Captain Groves appears to have got but half-hearted service. The double-faced backbitings, which had brought many to preferment in the last regime, were thrown away on the new governor. He preferred to see things with his own eyes, and he did not encourage officers to tell tales of one another. When a senior officer reported a junior for using bad language, Captain Groves remarked, “I must state my apprehensions that the practice which has prevailed ofwatchingfor bad or gross language uttered by warders off duty, and reported without their knowledge, accompanied by additions to the actual offence, will be most certain to introduce discussion and discord into the prison, and produce universal distrust and fear. No warder can feel himself safe when he knows that an unguarded word may be brought against him at some future day.” The practical common sense of these remarks no one can deny; but those who knew Captain Groves will smile as they remember that his own language at times savoured “of the camps,” and he possibly felt that under such a system of espionage he might himself be caught tripping. But in setting his face against the old practices he was clearly right, although it might bring him into disfavour with those hypocriticalsubordinates who felt that their day of favour was over. Of most of the Penitentiary officers, indeed, Captain Groves had formed but a low estimate. In more ways than one he had found them lax, just as he found that the routine of duties was but carelessly arranged. There was no system: the night patrols, two in number to every two pentagons, slept as they pleased half the night or more, and were seldom subject to the visits of “rounds” or other impertinences from over-zealous officials; no one was responsible for the prison during the night; by day, strangers came and went through the inner gates and passed on to the innermost part of the prison, ostensibly to buy shoes and other articles made by the prisoners, but really to see their friends among the latter; coal porters, irresponsible persons, often from the lowest classes (one was afterwards a convict), were admitted with their sacks into the heart of the wards, male and female, and could converse and traffic with the prisoners all day long. There was no notice board at the gates or elsewhere to warn visitors of the penalties of wrong-doing.In all these matters the reform that was so urgently needed Captain Groves introduced, and that with no faltering hand. Naturally in the process he trod on many toes, rubbed up many old prejudices, and made himself generally unpopular. Nor was the bad feeling lessened when it became known that he looked on the bulk of the old officers as inefficient,and recommended their dismissalen masse. Discontent grew and rankled among the majority; but although nearly all chafed under the tightened bit, few for a long time went beyond a certain insolent restiveness, though some were brave enough to complain against the governor’s tyranny and to talk of active resistance. It was not, however, till Captain Groves had been in office nearly three years that all these muttered grumblings took shape in an actual combination against him. Of this he had notice, for a paper was put into his hand giving full disclosures and a list of the conspirators, many of whom he had thought trustworthy men; but he disdained to act on the information. The malcontents were not, however, to be disarmed by his magnanimity. Feeling certain that their case was strong, and that they could substantiate their charges against him, one of their number, in the name of all, presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for an inquiry into the condition of Millbank Prison. This petition was signed by Edward Baker, ex-warder, and it was laid upon the table of the House by Mr. Duncombe, M. P.Baker’s petition set forth that he had filled the office of warder for more than three years, but that he had at length been compelled to resign “in consequence of the oppressive and tyrannical conduct” on the part of Captain Groves, the governor of the prison, towards the prisoners and officers themselves. He also impugned the character of thegovernor, charging him with drunkenness and the habitual use of foul language, and indirectly reflecting on the three inspectors, who in permitting such malpractices had culpably neglected their duties.The first allegation was that on one occasion a prisoner, Chinnery, had a fit in the airing-yard, just before the governor entered it.“What’s the matter here?” asked Captain Grove.“A prisoner in a fit.”“A fit—he’s not in a fit!” (He was standing on his feet.)“No, he’s reviving.”“Nonsense,” said the governor, “he never had a fit. If this man has any more of his tricks report him to me.”Further, the governor had sent the supervisor to bring up the prisoner for this same feigning of a fit, and had sentenced him, without medical testimony, to three days’ bread and water. Yet this very Chinnery had been in the prison under a previous sentence, and had been lodged always next door to a warder, so that assistance might always be at hand when he had a fit.The next charge was that the governor had sentenced three boys for opening their Bibles in church, to seven days’ bread and water, censuring them for such conduct, “which he considered irreverent.” (The words are Baker’s.)The third charge was that a prisoner who had assaultedand wounded a warder with a pair of scissors, had not only been flogged, but the governor had specially sentenced him to be deprived henceforward of all instruction, religious or moral.The fourth charge referred to a prisoner, Bourne, whom it was alleged the doctor had neglected, refusing to see him, although he was actually in a dying state. At length the officer of his ward sent specially to the doctor, who came and had Bourne removed to the infirmary, where he died two days afterward. “It was the governors plain duty to have prevented such a catastrophe,” said Baker.Fifth: a prisoner, Harris Nash, died of dysentery after three months of the ordinary discipline. “The body was what may be termed a perfect skeleton.”Sixth: another prisoner, a boy, Richmond, from Edinburgh, died after four months, having been confined in a dungeon on one pound of bread and two pints of water per diem, for an unlimited number of days. At night he lay upon the boards and had only a rug and blanket to cover him.Seventh: several prisoners who had been present at the infliction of corporal punishment had immediately after hanged themselves, shocked by the sight they had seen.Eighth: many instances were quoted of the governor’s harshness and partiality: fines inflicted unequally, old officers punished through his misrepresentation,others deprived of their situations as inefficient, though for years they had been considered efficient; while several had resigned sooner than submit to such tyranny.Ninth: Edward Baker further asserted that the reply furnished to the House to his first petition was garbled and untrue. It had been prepared secretly in the prison; it was altogether false; facts had been suppressed or distorted; and that besides, the “cats” used were not those sanctioned by law.Tenth: that the governor had exceeded his powers of punishment, and that in some cases prisoners had undergone as many as eighteen days’ bread and water in one month.Finally, to quote the words of the petition, Baker urged that—“During the last three years the cruel conduct of the governor is known to have induced twenty prisoners to attempt suicide, and that four have actually succeeded in destroying themselves, and that others are constantly threatening self-destruction; forming a melancholy contrast with the system pursued during the twenty-three preceding years at the Millbank Penitentiary, that system being free from any such stain during that period:“That the severity of punishments for alleged offences has led to the removal of many prisoners in a dying state to the invalid hulk at Woolwich, where every seventh man has since died, although when they came into the prison they were in goodhealth. This cruel removal takes place to prevent the necessity for coroner’s inquests within the walls, and exposure of the discipline of the prison.”The petitioner therefore prays for an immediate inquiry into the manner in which Millbank is conducted, the deaths that have occurred, the cruelties that are practised, the dying prisoners that have been removed; also into the numerous reports and irregular hours and conduct of the governor, and how far the inspectors have done their duty by allowing such irregularities to pass unnoticed; “such facts being notorious to all the prison.”In consequence of this petition an inquiry was instituted by the House of Commons; and the Earl of Chichester, Lord Seymour, and Mr. Bickham Escott were appointed commissioners.A very searching and patient investigation followed, the full report of which fills an enormous Blue-Book of hundreds of pages. It would be tedious to the reader if I were to go through the evidence, in anything like detail, of the many witnesses examined; the commissioners may be trusted to have done this conscientiously, and their summing up in deciding on the allegations against Captain Grove may be quoted here. The evident animus of the subordinates against their governor is very clearly shown in every page: nothing he did was right, and the complaints when not actually false, as in the case of prisoner Chinnery, were childish and almost beneath consideration. Oneofficer declared that Captain Groves did not like the old prison officers; that he had said openly “he would get them all out.” They could never please him; they got no credit however much they might exert themselves. Another told the governor he was breaking his (the officer’s) spirit and his heart. “He (Captain Groves), after making his rounds, would send for supervisors and warders in a body and reprimand them in his office. Once when an officer expostulated with him, Captain Groves struck him to the ground with his stick, and swore he’d have none of his d——d Penitentiary tricks.” Another officer, who had been sent to Pentonville and came back without an important document, complained that he had been sent again all the way to the Caledonian Road to fetch it. Mr. Gray (the victim) considered this was a great hardship, although he admitted that he was none the worse for his walk. All the officers were positive they had much more to do now than ever before. Mr. Gray, above-mentioned, complained also that he had been deprived of his lawful leave; yet he admitted that when all the paint work of the prison was filthily dirty and had to be scrubbed, it was badly done; and that the governor had only insisted on officers remaining on duty till the whole was properly cleaned.It was indeed quite evident from cross-examination and from the evidence of Captain Groves, that the bulk of his officers were slovenly, slack in theexecution of their duties, and contentious. Captain Groves, on the other hand, was doing his best to improve the tone of discipline. No doubt he was stern and peremptory in his dealings. We can quite understand that his reprimands were not couched in milk-and-water language; that he more than once said, “By this, or that,” and swore he would not suffer such doings to pass unpunished, and that those who opposed him should forthwith be dismissed. But it is also clear that he was not well served. Those who held under him important posts were not always reliable and fitted for the charge. On one occasion, for instance, an officer was so negligent of the prisoners in his charge, that the governor, as he came by, was able to remove one unobserved. This prisoner he took back to his cell, and then returned to the spot to ask the officer how many he had in charge.“So many.”“Are you sure? Count them.”“No; I am one short!”“Ah!” said the governor, and added something more in rather stronger language. Again, in the case of two barefaced escapes the governor expressed himself as follows:“Prisoner Howard escaped under the very nose of No. 2 sentry. The night was clear and fine, and the governor cannot acquit the sentry of No. 2 beat of great negligence. It is quite impossible, on such a night as the night of last Friday, for any individualto have performed such work in the garden as raising planks, etc., against the boundary wall without detection had common care been taken.”“In regard to the escape of Timothy Tobin, the operations he had recourse to, to break through the cell, made great noise, and attracted the attention of several of the night guard; and the governor is concerned to find that the principal warder in charge of the prison as orderly officer made no effort to detect the cause of the constant knocking in Pentagon five, but contented himself with the reports of inferior officers without rising from his bed or anticipating his intended time of going his rounds. The qualifications which entitle an officer to promotion in this and every other establishment, are intelligence, activity, and a sense of individual responsibility; and no person is fit for the situation of supervisor or principal warder who is not prepared to exercise them on all occasions.”This was a reference to Mr. Gray; and it was he who, with others equally negligent, were so sensitive, that they felt aggrieved at Captain Groves’ seemingly merited reprimands. But in actual investigation all charges of this kind melted into thin air as soon as the commissioners looked into them. The charges of tyranny were not substantiated, because they were far-fetched and exaggerated. Such stories must have been difficult to find when one of the charges trumped up against the governor was that he had kept the chaplain’s clerk one daywithout his dinner. We should even assert that the whole inquiry was another monument of misdirected zeal, were it not that the original petition opened up serious topics which demanded attention. The mere details of administrative bickering might have been better settled by officials within the department than by parliamentary interference; but when it is alleged in an indictment that unfortunate prisoners, without a friend in the world, are done to death by ill-treatment, it is clearly necessary that the said charges should be sifted without delay. In this way the inquiry was distinctly useful, and I shall now give the decision at which the commissioners arrived.“These petitions seriously impugned the character and conduct of the governor of Millbank Prison; and consequently imputed to the inspectors, under whose superintendence the government of this prison is placed, a culpable neglect of their duty in having permitted such maladministration to continue.“First: the allegation respecting the treatment of Chinnery is the only charge on which the petitioner could prove anything from his own knowledge; and, since it occurred after he had sent in his resignation, could not be one of the instances of cruelty in consequence of which he resigned. The fault or innocence of the governor on this occasion depends entirely upon the validity of reasons alleged by him for concluding that the prisoner wasonly feigning a fit. There being no other witness but himself and Baker, we cannot pronounce a decided opinion upon so very doubtful a question. Reviewing, however, all the circumstances which were brought under our notice in connection with this case, we think the governor should, before awarding the punishment, have made a closer investigation into all the facts, and have consulted the medical officer for the purpose of testing the probable accuracy of his impressions. In this case, therefore, we are of opinion that the punishment, whether merited or not merited by the prisoner, was injudiciously inflicted by the governor.“Second: The commissioners think the governor rather overstrained his powers in punishing the boys for reading their Bibles in chapel.“Third: The prisoner Bunyan was sentenced and punished by flogging, as described, for an aggravated and malicious assault. The second allegation, that he was ordered to receive ‘no instruction, either religious or moral’ is untrue. He was visited by the chaplain, and had the usual access to religious books.“Fourth: No evidence to support charge against the governor in case of H. Bourne; but the latter was certainly not well treated by the resident medical officer.“Fifth: Harris Nash died of a severe attack of dysentery. He was an ill-conditioned, mutinous prisoner, who frequently attacked his officers; but,though he was often punished, his death was attributable to the dysentery and nothing else.“Sixth: No responsibility rests with the governor as to Richmond’s death. No symptom of disease on him when first he arrived at Millbank, and he was never punished when the disease showed itself.“Seventh: There does not appear to be the slightest foundation for the suggestion insinuated in this charge; neither of the three prisoners named having witnessed any punishments calculated to produce a bad effect on their minds.“Eighth: The charges of partiality were distinctly disproved; as were also the allegations contained under Ninth and Tenth, which were found to be quite ‘unfounded, in fact.’“Upon the general charge of irregularity, and especially upon a charge of intoxication preferred by some of the witnesses, after a minute consideration of all the circumstances detailed in the evidence, we feel bound to acquit the governor, and to express our strong disapprobation of the manner in which the charge was attempted to be proved.“Having thoroughly sifted the complaint against the governor, and made some allowance for exaggeration on the part of witnesses, whose accusations were seldom warranted by the facts which they attempted to prove, we have no hesitation in pronouncing our opinion that he (Captain Groves) has endeavoured to perform his duties with zeal and intelligence,and has done nothing to discredit the very high testimonials which he possesses from the officers in the army under whom he formerly served. His treatment of the prisoners, except in the two cases above mentioned, appears to have been judicious and considerate. Cases were indeed brought under our notice in which the prisoners complained of excessive severity; but the responsibility for these cases rests upon the subordinate officers, as it does not appear that the governor was made acquainted with these complaints. The substitution of the punishment of reduced diet in lieu of a dark cell appears to have been made by the governor from motives of leniency and with a view to preserving the health of prisoners.“The only faults with which he appears justly chargeable are:—“First: A too hasty method of dealing with his officers when reported to him by others, or detected by himself in some neglect of duty; not always giving them a sufficient opportunity for explanation or defence.“Second: The occasional use of improper or offensive expressions, of which we should express our condemnation more strongly were it not that the instances adduced by all the witnesses amounted only to three.“Third: An insufficient attention to the rules of the prison; it appearing from his own evidence that he was entirely ignorant of the legal force ofthe old penitentiary rules, and that in two important instances the rules actually stuck up in the prison were not strictly attended to by him.“The want of a complete code of rules suited to the present government of the prison has apparently given rise to many of the charges and to much of the ill-feeling which have come under our observation during this inquiry.“No doubt there existed a very extended feeling of discontent among the officers. It is probable that this may partly have originated in the changes which took place in the organization of the present establishment, by which the duties of the prison were necessarily rendered more irksome and severe.“The old prison possessed more of a reformatory character: the prisoners were confined there for much longer periods, were under the influence of stronger motives to good conduct, and by habits longer exercised became more accustomed to the regular routine of prison life. In the prison, as now constituted, few of the adult convicts remain for more than two, or at most, three months; and of those who remain for a longer period, the greater part are criminals of the worst description, who are awaiting embarkation for their final destination, Norfolk Island.“The effective government of these convicts can only be carried on by a very strict and vigilant attention on the part of the officers. We must addthat these important changes had to be commenced and carried out by a new governor with an old set of officers, and, in our opinion, with an inadequate addition of strength. It was but natural that the old officers, receiving little or no increase of pay, while their duties were generally augmented, should have felt some dissatisfaction, and that a portion of it should have vented itself in personal feelings towards the governor, who appears to be both a zealous and energetic officer, giving his orders in a peremptory manner as a man accustomed to military life, and expecting them to be obeyed with soldierlike precision. We regret, however, to observe that, whilst these officers omitted to make a single complaint or suggestion of grievance to their legitimate superiors, they formed a kind of combination amongst themselves for the discussion of their supposed wrongs and for collecting matter for complaint against the governor.”On the whole, then, Captain Groves came triumphantly out of the inquiry into his conduct. Beyond doubt his task was a difficult one. He had within the walls of his prison a large body of criminals who were not to be managed easily. Their offences were more deliberate, and their violence more systematic than anything which I have described in the Penitentiary days. When they assaulted officers, which they did frequently, from Captain Groves himself downwards, it was with the intention of murdering them; and when they wished to escape,as often as not they managed to get away. They stabbed their officers with shoemakers’ knives, or dug scissors into their arms; while one, when searched, was found with a heavy cell stone slung to a cord, supplying thus a murderous weapon, of which he coolly promised to make use against the first who approached. Another ruffian, named Long, a powerful, athletic man, dashed at his officer’s throat and demanded the instant surrender of his keys. Edward King, another, meeting the governor on his rounds, assailed him with abuse, then struck him on the mouth; whereupon Captain Groves promptly knocked him down.Of all the annoyances, none equalled those that came from the “juvenile ward,” as it was termed. In this Captain Groves had raised a sort of Frankenstein to irritate and annoy him, which he found difficult to control. Early in his reign he had felt the necessity for some special treatment of boy prisoners. There were nearly two hundred of these; and though styled boys, they were many of them youths of ages varying from seventeen to twenty years. After much anxious consideration he constructed from his own plans a large general ward to accommodate the whole number. This building long existed, although it was afterwards converted into a Roman Catholic chapel. It was built of brick, only one story high, with a light roof supported by slender iron rods. Around the wall were bays, holding each three hammocks bynight, but in which these juveniles worked during the day. And they could work well if they pleased. For general intelligence and astuteness these boys were not to be matched in all the world. They were theéliteof the Londongamins, the most noted rogues, the cleverest thieves, and the most unmitigated young vagabonds of the whole metropolis. It was a similar gathering, but on a larger scale, to that with which we are familiar in the pages of “Oliver Twist.” Properly directed, they had talent enough for anything. They were soon taught to be expert tradesmen; could stitch with the best tailors, and turn out an “upper” or a “half sole” without a flaw. It was part of Captain Groves’ scheme to drill them; and these active lads soon constituted an uncommonly smart battalion.So far we see only the bright side of the picture; the reverse is not so exhilarating. The mere fact of bringing together in this way a mass of juvenile rascality, without adequate means of restraint, was to open the door to mutinous combinations and defiant conduct. Over and above the buoyancy of spirits natural to youth, which tempts every schoolboy to mischief, there was present among the inmates of this juvenile ward an amount of innate depravity, due to early training and general recklessness of life, which soon led them to the most violent excesses. Within a week or two of the opening of the ward under the brightest auspices, the governor recorded that already they exhibitedstrong tendencies to run riot. They used threatening language to their officers, were continually at loggerheads with each other, and their quarrels soon ended in blows. Presently one made a violent attack on his warder, and kicked his shins; but for this he was incontinently flogged, and for a time the lightheartedness of the ward was checked. But only for a time; within a week the bickering recommenced, and there were half a dozen fights in less than half a dozen days. Appeal was now made to the birch-rod, also for a time effectual. But the temptation to misconduct in marching to and fro from drill, exercise, or chapel was too strong for these young ragamuffins, and their next feat was to put out the gas as they went, then lark along the passages. The governor prayed for more power to punish them. “By their refractory and insolent conduct,” he says, “they wear out the patience of every officer set over them, and turn him into an object of ridicule and contempt.”It occurred to them now that they could cause some considerable inconvenience by breaking out at night; so night after night, when the watch was set and the prison was quiet, they burst out into yells and general uproar, till the night guards were compelled to ring the alarm bells to call assistance. This continued to such an extent that Captain Groves feared it would be impossible to persuade officers to remain in the general ward after dark. Of course they were all experienced thieves. Onone occasion an officer on duty had his pocket picked of a snuff-box. “I know where it is,” volunteered a boy; but after a long search it could not be found in the place he indicated: then they searched the boy himself, and found the box secreted on his person. Another lad, with infinite cunning, nearly succeeded in effecting his escape. One night after midnight he left his bed, and crawling under the other hammocks, got to a wide stone which covered the entrance to the ventilating flues. This stone he removed, and then descended into the flue, meaning to follow it till he reached the airing-yard; thence he meant to climb to the roof and descend again. In view of this he carried with him a long cord, made of sundry skeins of thread, which from time to time he had stolen and secreted. As it happened, a warder going his rounds set his foot on the mat which the boy had placed over the hole into the flue, tripped, and nearly tumbled in; then the prisoner, who was in the flue, fearing he was discovered, came out. But for this accident he might have got clean away. After this the uproarious behaviour of the boys waxed worse. The governor began to have serious apprehensions that discipline would greatly suffer. Stronger measures of repression were tried, but without effect. They continued to fight, to yell in concert after dark, and refused to work, assaulting and maltreating their officers by throwing brooms at their heads and kicking their shins. Throughout, too, their conduct in chapel wasmost disgraceful, and it became a serious question “whether they ought not to be kept away altogether from divine service, as their example would certainly attract followers among the general body of the prisoners.”At length it came to pass that the ward must be broken up, and the boys distributed among the various pentagons. It was felt to be dangerous to keep so many elements of discord concentrated together in one room. This was accordingly done; but by and by, for reasons that are not given—probably on account of want of space in the crowded condition of the prison—the general ward was again occupied with these precocious juveniles. Yet, as I find it recorded, within a few days a scene took place in the room at a late hour of the night, which called for immediate decisive action.About eleven o’clock the governor was sent for. The ward was described to be in a state of mutiny. On his arrival the prisoners appeared much excited, but comparatively quiet. At his order they assembled quietly enough and fell in by word of command. He then asked what it all meant, and heard that for a half hour there had been periodic shoutings, and this chiefly from one particular boy. As it rose at last to something serious, the alarm bell was rung, and on the arrival of the reserve guard the ringleader was pointed out, by name Sullivan, who had shouted the loudest. Ordered first to get out of his hammock, he obstinately refused to move,and when at last dislodged by force, he broke away from the officers, jumped on to the hammock rails, and thence to the iron girders of the roof. An officer promptly followed him, and “a scene ensued which it is impossible to describe.” He was at length captured, and upon the whole incident the governor remarks as follows: “These circumstances afford matter for grave consideration. Hitherto, owing to strict discipline and energy on the part of the officers, the system of the juvenile ward has been successful, with occasional exceptions in regard to misbehaviour on the part of a few turbulent characters. Of late, generally speaking, their conduct has been insubordinate and disorderly, and the fact is that the officers in charge of them are under serious apprehensions for their own personal safety. Besides, as I have before noticed, owing to the paucity of their number, their rest is broken night after night by being obliged to rise from their beds to quell disturbances; whilst the night guards, who ought to be taking their rest in the day time, are obliged to attend at the prison for the purpose of substantiating their reports of the previous night.“It is quite evident that there are so many prisoners (180) assembled an outbreak would be difficult to quell; and in my opinion the situation is a serious one, calling for immediate consideration. Many of them are athletic, and fierce in point of temper likewise.”The governor decided to place patrols in the juvenile ward taken from the garden, although he was loath to denude the garden of guards, seeing that the prison was full to overflowing of convicts.I have dealt in the last few pages with the misconduct of the boys as it showed itself in a comparatively short period of time.The contumacy of these lads continued for more than a year: again and again they broke out, insulted, bearded, browbeat their officers till the latter stood almost in awe of their charges; night after night the pentagon was made hideous with their outcries and uproar. The governor was pressed to abolish the ward altogether; but the project was a pet one, and he hesitated to abandon it. He never quite got the better of the boys; but in the end firmness and a resolute exhibition of authority had its effect, and the ward, if not entirely quelled, was at least brought to something like subordination and order.It is of course clear to the reader that the convicts who were now and hereafter contained within the Millbank walls comprised the worst of the criminal class. There is this difference between the calendars at Newgate and at Millbank, that at the former place the worst criminals passed without delay to the gallows, while at the large depot prison they remained to continually vex their keepers.The life of Millbank was prolonged until the end of the nineteenth century, by which time the newand palatial buildings at Wormwood Scrubs, on the western outskirts of London, had been completed. A word is appropriate here as to this imposing edifice which was begun in a very small way by the writer, in the winter of 1874. The plan pursued was identical with that of Elam Lynds when he built Sing Sing on the banks of the Hudson. Lynds must have been a fine self-reliant character, of such unwavering courage that it gave him personal ascendency over the dangerous elements in his charge. When they told him that a certain convict openly threatened to murder him, he sent for the man, who was a barber, and made him shave him. “I knew you had said you would kill me,” he remarked quietly after the shaving was over. “I despised you too much to believe you would do it. Here alone, unarmed, I am stronger than you, and the whole of your companions.”The work at Wormwood Scrubs as at Sing Sing was almost entirely done by the convicts themselves under the supervision of the warders and directing staff.An indispensable preliminary was the provision of a boundary fence enclosing an area of three acres of common land. This fence was of simple planking ten feet in height. Inside this space the shell of a slight temporary prison had also been erected, a two-storied building, of wood on an iron framework filled in with brick “nogging” (a single brick thick), the cells lined and separated with sheet iron.Nine of these cells were completed with locked doors and barred windows when they were at once occupied by nine “special class” prisoners, men who were in the last year of a lengthy sentence and little likely to run away and forfeit privileges already earned. From this germ or nucleus the whole establishment grew. The first comers laboured on the still unfinished cells and as they were gotten ready fresh arrivals were imported to fill them. In a short time the whole block of a hundred cells was completed, and with the numbers which could now be lodged there was strength sufficient for very extended operations: the erection of a second block for another hundred convicts; and the preparation of clay for brickmaking, and the digging for the foundations of the main prison. Such rapid progress was made that within six months I had established the brick mills and had turned out a large number of “London stock,”—the sound, hard, light yellow bricks, the chief building material of our modern metropolis. The place was largely self-contained and self-supporting; we did everything as far as possible for ourselves; we had our own carpenters and smiths; we dressed stone for the window sills and cast the iron bars and framework for staircases. Ere long the prison population reached a daily average of from five to six hundred, and in less than five years we had built four large blocks containing 350 cells apiece, a spacious chapel, a boundary wall and beyond itnumerous residences for the governor and staff. Throughout this period, Millbank was the parent prison, Wormwood Scrubs only an offshoot drawing support, supplies, cash, all necessaries from the older establishment.Millbank continued to be a centre of great criminal interest to the very end. As has been shown, it became the depot and starting-point for all convicts sentenced to penal exile, and when a peremptory stop was put to transportation, it worked in with the substituted system of Public Works prisons. For fifty years it was a receptacle for male and female convicts undergoing the first period of separate confinement, the preliminary to associated work with greater freedom. Notorieties of all kinds passed through it; and the names of almost all the celebrated prisoners of the time were to be found upon its registers. There were murderers who had scraped through and just escaped the death penalty, such as Dixblanc, the French cook who murdered her mistress in Park Lane. Constance Kent, who confessed to the mysterious crime of killing her infant brother, spent many years at Millbank; the cruel and infamous Stantons, who starved poor Alice—— at Penge, began their retribution there; Madame Rachel, the would-be benefactor to her sex which she desired to make beautiful for ever, tried her blandishments on more than one Millbank matron. It was my fate to welcome the Tichborne claimant to durance vile, to watch him wastingfrom excessive obesity to a decent and respectable size, lachrymose and repentant, but secretive and defiant to the last. The moving spirits in the De Goncourt affair, Kurr and Benson, made Millbank their medium of communication with the dishonest detective officers who for a time shook public confidence in the London police force.Millbank served for other prison purposes. In its latest phases, part of its accommodation was leased to military authorities and it was long the home of court-martial prisoners. When the State finally acquired all prisons of every category in the country, it was used for the retention of venial offenders sent by petty sessions and police courts.The end came in 1891, when Millbank was finally closed and the site surrendered by the prison authorities to the government Office of Works.Here the London County Council have built dwellings for the poor; a handsome military hospital for the Guards and London District has been erected by the War Office; and the trustees of the Tait bequest have put up a fine gallery to house the valuable pictures with which that munificent patron has endowed London. Thus buildings of a new and very different character have now replaced the old Penitentiary.
Captain Groves at Millbank—New Staff—Governor a strict disciplinarian—His methods unpopular—Discontent among old officers—Petition to House of Commons charging Captain Groves with tyranny and misconduct—Another Parliamentary enquiry—Prolonged investigation—Report fully absolves Groves—His task difficult—The boys’ reformatory gives the most trouble—Mistaken methods employed, but Captain Groves’ firmness in due course establishes peace—Later history of Millbank—“Wormwood Scrubs” to replace it—Erected on the same lines as Sing Sing built by Elam Lynds—Some of the later Millbank celebrities—Latest uses of Millbank—Closed in 1891.
Withthe changes which were instituted in Millbank in 1843, its character and constitution were alike materially altered. It was a penitentiary no longer, for it did not now deserve the high-sounding title. The lofty purposes with which it started were unfulfilled, and its future usefulness depended upon the wide area it embraced within its gloomy walls, rather than on the results its reformatory system might be expected to achieve. But as a plain prison, it might yet render more tangible service to the state. And just as Millbank became more practically useful than heretofore, so those who ruled it were no longer amateurs. The superintendingcommittee, composed of well-disposed gentlemen of rank, were replaced by a board of three permanent inspectors, two of whom were already well known to prison history. Mr. Crawford, the senior member, had given much time to the examination of the American prisons; and Mr. Whitworth Russell, the second member, had been for years chaplain of Millbank. Both also had been long employed as inspectors of all prisons in England. Under them was a new governor—a person of a different stamp from mild Captain Chapman, or pious, painstaking Mr. Nihil. Captain John B. Groves, a gentleman of some position and not unknown in society, was also a military officer of distinction. He did not seek the appointment, but as those in high places who knew his character thought him eminently well suited for the post, he was told that if he applied he could have it. A soldier, firm and resolute of will, but clear-headed, practical, able, Captain Groves had but one fault,—he was of an irascible temper. However, like many other passionate men, though quickly aroused, he was as speedily cooled. After an outburst of wrath he was as bright and pleasant as a summer landscape when the thunderstorm has passed. Added to this was a certain roughness of demeanour, which, though native often to men of his cloth, might easily be mistaken for overbearing, peremptory harshness. But that Captain Groves was well-suited for the task that had devolved upon him there couldbe little doubt. The Millbank he was called upon to rule differed more or less from the old Penitentiary which had just been wiped out by Act of Parliament. The population was no longer permanent, but fluctuating: instead of two or three hundred men and youths specially chosen to remain within the walls for years, Captain Groves had to take in all that came,en routefor the colonies; so that in the twelve months several thousands passed through his hands. Moreover, among these thousands were the choicest specimens of criminality, male and female, ripe always for desperate deeds, and at times almost unmanageable; yet these scoundrels he had to discipline and keep under with only such means as Mr. Nihil had left behind; for the most part the same staff of warders and with no increase in their numbers. And with all the difficulties of maintaining his repressive measures, were the gigantic worries inseparable from a depot prison, such as Millbank had become. The constant change of numbers; the daily influx of new prisoners, in batches varying from twos and threes to forties and fifties, in all degrees of discipline—sometimes drunk, always dirty, men and women occasionally chained together; the continuous outflow of prisoners to the convict transport ships—a draft of one hundred one day, three hundred the next, all of whom must carefully be inspected, tended, and escorted as far as the Nore,—these were among the many duties of his charge.
But Captain Groves soon seated himself firmly in the saddle, and made himself felt as master. The promptitude with which he grasped the position is proved by his early orders. On the first day he found out that there were no standing regulations in case of fire. No fixed system or plan of action was established, but it was left to the governor, at the moment of emergency, to issue such instructions as might suggest themselves. There were no stations at which the several officials should take post on the first alarm, no regular practice with the fire engine; the machine itself was quite insufficient, and the hose out of repair. There had been one or two fires already inside the prison, and the consequences had been sufficiently disastrous; yet no attempt had been made to reduce the chances by previous forethought and arrangement. Captain Groves begged therefore to be permitted to frame regulations in advance and in cold blood, instead of leaving the calamity to be coped with amid the excitement of an actual conflagration. The fire question disposed of, the governor turned his eyes upon the appearance of the men under his charge; and, true soldier again, I find him complaining seriously of the slouching gait and slovenly garb of the warders trained under the late regime. “I think,” he says, “that the officers when together on parade, or at other times, should present something of the appearance of a military body.” He wished, therefore, to give them drill, and a waist-belt,and a smarter uniform. Again, he found fault with the armoury, and remarked that all the fire-arms in the prison consisted of one or two old blunderbusses, with brass barrels exceedingly short, and he suggested a stand of fifty carbines from the Tower. Next he made a raid upon the dishevelled locks of the convicts, remarking: “The practice of cutting the prisoners’ hair appears to be much neglected. I observe the majority of the prisoners’ heads are dirty; the hair long, and the whiskers growing under the chin.” To remedy this, he introduced forthwith the principles of the military barbers of that time,—the hair to be short on the top and sides of the head and whiskers trimmed on a level with the lower part of the ear—an innovation which the prisoners resented, resisting the execution of the order, one to the extent of saying that the next time he was given a razor he would cut his throat with it. But the rules were enforced, as all other rules that issued from Captain Groves. Not that the adjustment of such trifles satisfied his searching spirit of reorganization. He was much annoyed at the idleness and determined laziness of all the prisoners. They did not do half the work they might; the tailoring was a mere farce, and the little boys in Tothill Fields Prison picked twice as much coir-junk as full grown men in Millbank, and in a shorter time. As for great-coats, the average turned out was one per week, while they should have been able to complete three or four atleast. The governor attributed this chiefly to the undercurrent of opposition to his orders from officers of the manufacturing department.
Indeed, not only from this branch, but from all his subordinates, Captain Groves appears to have got but half-hearted service. The double-faced backbitings, which had brought many to preferment in the last regime, were thrown away on the new governor. He preferred to see things with his own eyes, and he did not encourage officers to tell tales of one another. When a senior officer reported a junior for using bad language, Captain Groves remarked, “I must state my apprehensions that the practice which has prevailed ofwatchingfor bad or gross language uttered by warders off duty, and reported without their knowledge, accompanied by additions to the actual offence, will be most certain to introduce discussion and discord into the prison, and produce universal distrust and fear. No warder can feel himself safe when he knows that an unguarded word may be brought against him at some future day.” The practical common sense of these remarks no one can deny; but those who knew Captain Groves will smile as they remember that his own language at times savoured “of the camps,” and he possibly felt that under such a system of espionage he might himself be caught tripping. But in setting his face against the old practices he was clearly right, although it might bring him into disfavour with those hypocriticalsubordinates who felt that their day of favour was over. Of most of the Penitentiary officers, indeed, Captain Groves had formed but a low estimate. In more ways than one he had found them lax, just as he found that the routine of duties was but carelessly arranged. There was no system: the night patrols, two in number to every two pentagons, slept as they pleased half the night or more, and were seldom subject to the visits of “rounds” or other impertinences from over-zealous officials; no one was responsible for the prison during the night; by day, strangers came and went through the inner gates and passed on to the innermost part of the prison, ostensibly to buy shoes and other articles made by the prisoners, but really to see their friends among the latter; coal porters, irresponsible persons, often from the lowest classes (one was afterwards a convict), were admitted with their sacks into the heart of the wards, male and female, and could converse and traffic with the prisoners all day long. There was no notice board at the gates or elsewhere to warn visitors of the penalties of wrong-doing.
In all these matters the reform that was so urgently needed Captain Groves introduced, and that with no faltering hand. Naturally in the process he trod on many toes, rubbed up many old prejudices, and made himself generally unpopular. Nor was the bad feeling lessened when it became known that he looked on the bulk of the old officers as inefficient,and recommended their dismissalen masse. Discontent grew and rankled among the majority; but although nearly all chafed under the tightened bit, few for a long time went beyond a certain insolent restiveness, though some were brave enough to complain against the governor’s tyranny and to talk of active resistance. It was not, however, till Captain Groves had been in office nearly three years that all these muttered grumblings took shape in an actual combination against him. Of this he had notice, for a paper was put into his hand giving full disclosures and a list of the conspirators, many of whom he had thought trustworthy men; but he disdained to act on the information. The malcontents were not, however, to be disarmed by his magnanimity. Feeling certain that their case was strong, and that they could substantiate their charges against him, one of their number, in the name of all, presented a petition to the House of Commons, praying for an inquiry into the condition of Millbank Prison. This petition was signed by Edward Baker, ex-warder, and it was laid upon the table of the House by Mr. Duncombe, M. P.
Baker’s petition set forth that he had filled the office of warder for more than three years, but that he had at length been compelled to resign “in consequence of the oppressive and tyrannical conduct” on the part of Captain Groves, the governor of the prison, towards the prisoners and officers themselves. He also impugned the character of thegovernor, charging him with drunkenness and the habitual use of foul language, and indirectly reflecting on the three inspectors, who in permitting such malpractices had culpably neglected their duties.
The first allegation was that on one occasion a prisoner, Chinnery, had a fit in the airing-yard, just before the governor entered it.
“What’s the matter here?” asked Captain Grove.
“A prisoner in a fit.”
“A fit—he’s not in a fit!” (He was standing on his feet.)
“No, he’s reviving.”
“Nonsense,” said the governor, “he never had a fit. If this man has any more of his tricks report him to me.”
Further, the governor had sent the supervisor to bring up the prisoner for this same feigning of a fit, and had sentenced him, without medical testimony, to three days’ bread and water. Yet this very Chinnery had been in the prison under a previous sentence, and had been lodged always next door to a warder, so that assistance might always be at hand when he had a fit.
The next charge was that the governor had sentenced three boys for opening their Bibles in church, to seven days’ bread and water, censuring them for such conduct, “which he considered irreverent.” (The words are Baker’s.)
The third charge was that a prisoner who had assaultedand wounded a warder with a pair of scissors, had not only been flogged, but the governor had specially sentenced him to be deprived henceforward of all instruction, religious or moral.
The fourth charge referred to a prisoner, Bourne, whom it was alleged the doctor had neglected, refusing to see him, although he was actually in a dying state. At length the officer of his ward sent specially to the doctor, who came and had Bourne removed to the infirmary, where he died two days afterward. “It was the governors plain duty to have prevented such a catastrophe,” said Baker.
Fifth: a prisoner, Harris Nash, died of dysentery after three months of the ordinary discipline. “The body was what may be termed a perfect skeleton.”
Sixth: another prisoner, a boy, Richmond, from Edinburgh, died after four months, having been confined in a dungeon on one pound of bread and two pints of water per diem, for an unlimited number of days. At night he lay upon the boards and had only a rug and blanket to cover him.
Seventh: several prisoners who had been present at the infliction of corporal punishment had immediately after hanged themselves, shocked by the sight they had seen.
Eighth: many instances were quoted of the governor’s harshness and partiality: fines inflicted unequally, old officers punished through his misrepresentation,others deprived of their situations as inefficient, though for years they had been considered efficient; while several had resigned sooner than submit to such tyranny.
Ninth: Edward Baker further asserted that the reply furnished to the House to his first petition was garbled and untrue. It had been prepared secretly in the prison; it was altogether false; facts had been suppressed or distorted; and that besides, the “cats” used were not those sanctioned by law.
Tenth: that the governor had exceeded his powers of punishment, and that in some cases prisoners had undergone as many as eighteen days’ bread and water in one month.
Finally, to quote the words of the petition, Baker urged that—“During the last three years the cruel conduct of the governor is known to have induced twenty prisoners to attempt suicide, and that four have actually succeeded in destroying themselves, and that others are constantly threatening self-destruction; forming a melancholy contrast with the system pursued during the twenty-three preceding years at the Millbank Penitentiary, that system being free from any such stain during that period:
“That the severity of punishments for alleged offences has led to the removal of many prisoners in a dying state to the invalid hulk at Woolwich, where every seventh man has since died, although when they came into the prison they were in goodhealth. This cruel removal takes place to prevent the necessity for coroner’s inquests within the walls, and exposure of the discipline of the prison.”
The petitioner therefore prays for an immediate inquiry into the manner in which Millbank is conducted, the deaths that have occurred, the cruelties that are practised, the dying prisoners that have been removed; also into the numerous reports and irregular hours and conduct of the governor, and how far the inspectors have done their duty by allowing such irregularities to pass unnoticed; “such facts being notorious to all the prison.”
In consequence of this petition an inquiry was instituted by the House of Commons; and the Earl of Chichester, Lord Seymour, and Mr. Bickham Escott were appointed commissioners.
A very searching and patient investigation followed, the full report of which fills an enormous Blue-Book of hundreds of pages. It would be tedious to the reader if I were to go through the evidence, in anything like detail, of the many witnesses examined; the commissioners may be trusted to have done this conscientiously, and their summing up in deciding on the allegations against Captain Grove may be quoted here. The evident animus of the subordinates against their governor is very clearly shown in every page: nothing he did was right, and the complaints when not actually false, as in the case of prisoner Chinnery, were childish and almost beneath consideration. Oneofficer declared that Captain Groves did not like the old prison officers; that he had said openly “he would get them all out.” They could never please him; they got no credit however much they might exert themselves. Another told the governor he was breaking his (the officer’s) spirit and his heart. “He (Captain Groves), after making his rounds, would send for supervisors and warders in a body and reprimand them in his office. Once when an officer expostulated with him, Captain Groves struck him to the ground with his stick, and swore he’d have none of his d——d Penitentiary tricks.” Another officer, who had been sent to Pentonville and came back without an important document, complained that he had been sent again all the way to the Caledonian Road to fetch it. Mr. Gray (the victim) considered this was a great hardship, although he admitted that he was none the worse for his walk. All the officers were positive they had much more to do now than ever before. Mr. Gray, above-mentioned, complained also that he had been deprived of his lawful leave; yet he admitted that when all the paint work of the prison was filthily dirty and had to be scrubbed, it was badly done; and that the governor had only insisted on officers remaining on duty till the whole was properly cleaned.
It was indeed quite evident from cross-examination and from the evidence of Captain Groves, that the bulk of his officers were slovenly, slack in theexecution of their duties, and contentious. Captain Groves, on the other hand, was doing his best to improve the tone of discipline. No doubt he was stern and peremptory in his dealings. We can quite understand that his reprimands were not couched in milk-and-water language; that he more than once said, “By this, or that,” and swore he would not suffer such doings to pass unpunished, and that those who opposed him should forthwith be dismissed. But it is also clear that he was not well served. Those who held under him important posts were not always reliable and fitted for the charge. On one occasion, for instance, an officer was so negligent of the prisoners in his charge, that the governor, as he came by, was able to remove one unobserved. This prisoner he took back to his cell, and then returned to the spot to ask the officer how many he had in charge.
“So many.”
“Are you sure? Count them.”
“No; I am one short!”
“Ah!” said the governor, and added something more in rather stronger language. Again, in the case of two barefaced escapes the governor expressed himself as follows:
“Prisoner Howard escaped under the very nose of No. 2 sentry. The night was clear and fine, and the governor cannot acquit the sentry of No. 2 beat of great negligence. It is quite impossible, on such a night as the night of last Friday, for any individualto have performed such work in the garden as raising planks, etc., against the boundary wall without detection had common care been taken.”
“In regard to the escape of Timothy Tobin, the operations he had recourse to, to break through the cell, made great noise, and attracted the attention of several of the night guard; and the governor is concerned to find that the principal warder in charge of the prison as orderly officer made no effort to detect the cause of the constant knocking in Pentagon five, but contented himself with the reports of inferior officers without rising from his bed or anticipating his intended time of going his rounds. The qualifications which entitle an officer to promotion in this and every other establishment, are intelligence, activity, and a sense of individual responsibility; and no person is fit for the situation of supervisor or principal warder who is not prepared to exercise them on all occasions.”
This was a reference to Mr. Gray; and it was he who, with others equally negligent, were so sensitive, that they felt aggrieved at Captain Groves’ seemingly merited reprimands. But in actual investigation all charges of this kind melted into thin air as soon as the commissioners looked into them. The charges of tyranny were not substantiated, because they were far-fetched and exaggerated. Such stories must have been difficult to find when one of the charges trumped up against the governor was that he had kept the chaplain’s clerk one daywithout his dinner. We should even assert that the whole inquiry was another monument of misdirected zeal, were it not that the original petition opened up serious topics which demanded attention. The mere details of administrative bickering might have been better settled by officials within the department than by parliamentary interference; but when it is alleged in an indictment that unfortunate prisoners, without a friend in the world, are done to death by ill-treatment, it is clearly necessary that the said charges should be sifted without delay. In this way the inquiry was distinctly useful, and I shall now give the decision at which the commissioners arrived.
“These petitions seriously impugned the character and conduct of the governor of Millbank Prison; and consequently imputed to the inspectors, under whose superintendence the government of this prison is placed, a culpable neglect of their duty in having permitted such maladministration to continue.
“First: the allegation respecting the treatment of Chinnery is the only charge on which the petitioner could prove anything from his own knowledge; and, since it occurred after he had sent in his resignation, could not be one of the instances of cruelty in consequence of which he resigned. The fault or innocence of the governor on this occasion depends entirely upon the validity of reasons alleged by him for concluding that the prisoner wasonly feigning a fit. There being no other witness but himself and Baker, we cannot pronounce a decided opinion upon so very doubtful a question. Reviewing, however, all the circumstances which were brought under our notice in connection with this case, we think the governor should, before awarding the punishment, have made a closer investigation into all the facts, and have consulted the medical officer for the purpose of testing the probable accuracy of his impressions. In this case, therefore, we are of opinion that the punishment, whether merited or not merited by the prisoner, was injudiciously inflicted by the governor.
“Second: The commissioners think the governor rather overstrained his powers in punishing the boys for reading their Bibles in chapel.
“Third: The prisoner Bunyan was sentenced and punished by flogging, as described, for an aggravated and malicious assault. The second allegation, that he was ordered to receive ‘no instruction, either religious or moral’ is untrue. He was visited by the chaplain, and had the usual access to religious books.
“Fourth: No evidence to support charge against the governor in case of H. Bourne; but the latter was certainly not well treated by the resident medical officer.
“Fifth: Harris Nash died of a severe attack of dysentery. He was an ill-conditioned, mutinous prisoner, who frequently attacked his officers; but,though he was often punished, his death was attributable to the dysentery and nothing else.
“Sixth: No responsibility rests with the governor as to Richmond’s death. No symptom of disease on him when first he arrived at Millbank, and he was never punished when the disease showed itself.
“Seventh: There does not appear to be the slightest foundation for the suggestion insinuated in this charge; neither of the three prisoners named having witnessed any punishments calculated to produce a bad effect on their minds.
“Eighth: The charges of partiality were distinctly disproved; as were also the allegations contained under Ninth and Tenth, which were found to be quite ‘unfounded, in fact.’
“Upon the general charge of irregularity, and especially upon a charge of intoxication preferred by some of the witnesses, after a minute consideration of all the circumstances detailed in the evidence, we feel bound to acquit the governor, and to express our strong disapprobation of the manner in which the charge was attempted to be proved.
“Having thoroughly sifted the complaint against the governor, and made some allowance for exaggeration on the part of witnesses, whose accusations were seldom warranted by the facts which they attempted to prove, we have no hesitation in pronouncing our opinion that he (Captain Groves) has endeavoured to perform his duties with zeal and intelligence,and has done nothing to discredit the very high testimonials which he possesses from the officers in the army under whom he formerly served. His treatment of the prisoners, except in the two cases above mentioned, appears to have been judicious and considerate. Cases were indeed brought under our notice in which the prisoners complained of excessive severity; but the responsibility for these cases rests upon the subordinate officers, as it does not appear that the governor was made acquainted with these complaints. The substitution of the punishment of reduced diet in lieu of a dark cell appears to have been made by the governor from motives of leniency and with a view to preserving the health of prisoners.
“The only faults with which he appears justly chargeable are:—
“First: A too hasty method of dealing with his officers when reported to him by others, or detected by himself in some neglect of duty; not always giving them a sufficient opportunity for explanation or defence.
“Second: The occasional use of improper or offensive expressions, of which we should express our condemnation more strongly were it not that the instances adduced by all the witnesses amounted only to three.
“Third: An insufficient attention to the rules of the prison; it appearing from his own evidence that he was entirely ignorant of the legal force ofthe old penitentiary rules, and that in two important instances the rules actually stuck up in the prison were not strictly attended to by him.
“The want of a complete code of rules suited to the present government of the prison has apparently given rise to many of the charges and to much of the ill-feeling which have come under our observation during this inquiry.
“No doubt there existed a very extended feeling of discontent among the officers. It is probable that this may partly have originated in the changes which took place in the organization of the present establishment, by which the duties of the prison were necessarily rendered more irksome and severe.
“The old prison possessed more of a reformatory character: the prisoners were confined there for much longer periods, were under the influence of stronger motives to good conduct, and by habits longer exercised became more accustomed to the regular routine of prison life. In the prison, as now constituted, few of the adult convicts remain for more than two, or at most, three months; and of those who remain for a longer period, the greater part are criminals of the worst description, who are awaiting embarkation for their final destination, Norfolk Island.
“The effective government of these convicts can only be carried on by a very strict and vigilant attention on the part of the officers. We must addthat these important changes had to be commenced and carried out by a new governor with an old set of officers, and, in our opinion, with an inadequate addition of strength. It was but natural that the old officers, receiving little or no increase of pay, while their duties were generally augmented, should have felt some dissatisfaction, and that a portion of it should have vented itself in personal feelings towards the governor, who appears to be both a zealous and energetic officer, giving his orders in a peremptory manner as a man accustomed to military life, and expecting them to be obeyed with soldierlike precision. We regret, however, to observe that, whilst these officers omitted to make a single complaint or suggestion of grievance to their legitimate superiors, they formed a kind of combination amongst themselves for the discussion of their supposed wrongs and for collecting matter for complaint against the governor.”
On the whole, then, Captain Groves came triumphantly out of the inquiry into his conduct. Beyond doubt his task was a difficult one. He had within the walls of his prison a large body of criminals who were not to be managed easily. Their offences were more deliberate, and their violence more systematic than anything which I have described in the Penitentiary days. When they assaulted officers, which they did frequently, from Captain Groves himself downwards, it was with the intention of murdering them; and when they wished to escape,as often as not they managed to get away. They stabbed their officers with shoemakers’ knives, or dug scissors into their arms; while one, when searched, was found with a heavy cell stone slung to a cord, supplying thus a murderous weapon, of which he coolly promised to make use against the first who approached. Another ruffian, named Long, a powerful, athletic man, dashed at his officer’s throat and demanded the instant surrender of his keys. Edward King, another, meeting the governor on his rounds, assailed him with abuse, then struck him on the mouth; whereupon Captain Groves promptly knocked him down.
Of all the annoyances, none equalled those that came from the “juvenile ward,” as it was termed. In this Captain Groves had raised a sort of Frankenstein to irritate and annoy him, which he found difficult to control. Early in his reign he had felt the necessity for some special treatment of boy prisoners. There were nearly two hundred of these; and though styled boys, they were many of them youths of ages varying from seventeen to twenty years. After much anxious consideration he constructed from his own plans a large general ward to accommodate the whole number. This building long existed, although it was afterwards converted into a Roman Catholic chapel. It was built of brick, only one story high, with a light roof supported by slender iron rods. Around the wall were bays, holding each three hammocks bynight, but in which these juveniles worked during the day. And they could work well if they pleased. For general intelligence and astuteness these boys were not to be matched in all the world. They were theéliteof the Londongamins, the most noted rogues, the cleverest thieves, and the most unmitigated young vagabonds of the whole metropolis. It was a similar gathering, but on a larger scale, to that with which we are familiar in the pages of “Oliver Twist.” Properly directed, they had talent enough for anything. They were soon taught to be expert tradesmen; could stitch with the best tailors, and turn out an “upper” or a “half sole” without a flaw. It was part of Captain Groves’ scheme to drill them; and these active lads soon constituted an uncommonly smart battalion.
So far we see only the bright side of the picture; the reverse is not so exhilarating. The mere fact of bringing together in this way a mass of juvenile rascality, without adequate means of restraint, was to open the door to mutinous combinations and defiant conduct. Over and above the buoyancy of spirits natural to youth, which tempts every schoolboy to mischief, there was present among the inmates of this juvenile ward an amount of innate depravity, due to early training and general recklessness of life, which soon led them to the most violent excesses. Within a week or two of the opening of the ward under the brightest auspices, the governor recorded that already they exhibitedstrong tendencies to run riot. They used threatening language to their officers, were continually at loggerheads with each other, and their quarrels soon ended in blows. Presently one made a violent attack on his warder, and kicked his shins; but for this he was incontinently flogged, and for a time the lightheartedness of the ward was checked. But only for a time; within a week the bickering recommenced, and there were half a dozen fights in less than half a dozen days. Appeal was now made to the birch-rod, also for a time effectual. But the temptation to misconduct in marching to and fro from drill, exercise, or chapel was too strong for these young ragamuffins, and their next feat was to put out the gas as they went, then lark along the passages. The governor prayed for more power to punish them. “By their refractory and insolent conduct,” he says, “they wear out the patience of every officer set over them, and turn him into an object of ridicule and contempt.”
It occurred to them now that they could cause some considerable inconvenience by breaking out at night; so night after night, when the watch was set and the prison was quiet, they burst out into yells and general uproar, till the night guards were compelled to ring the alarm bells to call assistance. This continued to such an extent that Captain Groves feared it would be impossible to persuade officers to remain in the general ward after dark. Of course they were all experienced thieves. Onone occasion an officer on duty had his pocket picked of a snuff-box. “I know where it is,” volunteered a boy; but after a long search it could not be found in the place he indicated: then they searched the boy himself, and found the box secreted on his person. Another lad, with infinite cunning, nearly succeeded in effecting his escape. One night after midnight he left his bed, and crawling under the other hammocks, got to a wide stone which covered the entrance to the ventilating flues. This stone he removed, and then descended into the flue, meaning to follow it till he reached the airing-yard; thence he meant to climb to the roof and descend again. In view of this he carried with him a long cord, made of sundry skeins of thread, which from time to time he had stolen and secreted. As it happened, a warder going his rounds set his foot on the mat which the boy had placed over the hole into the flue, tripped, and nearly tumbled in; then the prisoner, who was in the flue, fearing he was discovered, came out. But for this accident he might have got clean away. After this the uproarious behaviour of the boys waxed worse. The governor began to have serious apprehensions that discipline would greatly suffer. Stronger measures of repression were tried, but without effect. They continued to fight, to yell in concert after dark, and refused to work, assaulting and maltreating their officers by throwing brooms at their heads and kicking their shins. Throughout, too, their conduct in chapel wasmost disgraceful, and it became a serious question “whether they ought not to be kept away altogether from divine service, as their example would certainly attract followers among the general body of the prisoners.”
At length it came to pass that the ward must be broken up, and the boys distributed among the various pentagons. It was felt to be dangerous to keep so many elements of discord concentrated together in one room. This was accordingly done; but by and by, for reasons that are not given—probably on account of want of space in the crowded condition of the prison—the general ward was again occupied with these precocious juveniles. Yet, as I find it recorded, within a few days a scene took place in the room at a late hour of the night, which called for immediate decisive action.
About eleven o’clock the governor was sent for. The ward was described to be in a state of mutiny. On his arrival the prisoners appeared much excited, but comparatively quiet. At his order they assembled quietly enough and fell in by word of command. He then asked what it all meant, and heard that for a half hour there had been periodic shoutings, and this chiefly from one particular boy. As it rose at last to something serious, the alarm bell was rung, and on the arrival of the reserve guard the ringleader was pointed out, by name Sullivan, who had shouted the loudest. Ordered first to get out of his hammock, he obstinately refused to move,and when at last dislodged by force, he broke away from the officers, jumped on to the hammock rails, and thence to the iron girders of the roof. An officer promptly followed him, and “a scene ensued which it is impossible to describe.” He was at length captured, and upon the whole incident the governor remarks as follows: “These circumstances afford matter for grave consideration. Hitherto, owing to strict discipline and energy on the part of the officers, the system of the juvenile ward has been successful, with occasional exceptions in regard to misbehaviour on the part of a few turbulent characters. Of late, generally speaking, their conduct has been insubordinate and disorderly, and the fact is that the officers in charge of them are under serious apprehensions for their own personal safety. Besides, as I have before noticed, owing to the paucity of their number, their rest is broken night after night by being obliged to rise from their beds to quell disturbances; whilst the night guards, who ought to be taking their rest in the day time, are obliged to attend at the prison for the purpose of substantiating their reports of the previous night.
“It is quite evident that there are so many prisoners (180) assembled an outbreak would be difficult to quell; and in my opinion the situation is a serious one, calling for immediate consideration. Many of them are athletic, and fierce in point of temper likewise.”
The governor decided to place patrols in the juvenile ward taken from the garden, although he was loath to denude the garden of guards, seeing that the prison was full to overflowing of convicts.
I have dealt in the last few pages with the misconduct of the boys as it showed itself in a comparatively short period of time.
The contumacy of these lads continued for more than a year: again and again they broke out, insulted, bearded, browbeat their officers till the latter stood almost in awe of their charges; night after night the pentagon was made hideous with their outcries and uproar. The governor was pressed to abolish the ward altogether; but the project was a pet one, and he hesitated to abandon it. He never quite got the better of the boys; but in the end firmness and a resolute exhibition of authority had its effect, and the ward, if not entirely quelled, was at least brought to something like subordination and order.
It is of course clear to the reader that the convicts who were now and hereafter contained within the Millbank walls comprised the worst of the criminal class. There is this difference between the calendars at Newgate and at Millbank, that at the former place the worst criminals passed without delay to the gallows, while at the large depot prison they remained to continually vex their keepers.
The life of Millbank was prolonged until the end of the nineteenth century, by which time the newand palatial buildings at Wormwood Scrubs, on the western outskirts of London, had been completed. A word is appropriate here as to this imposing edifice which was begun in a very small way by the writer, in the winter of 1874. The plan pursued was identical with that of Elam Lynds when he built Sing Sing on the banks of the Hudson. Lynds must have been a fine self-reliant character, of such unwavering courage that it gave him personal ascendency over the dangerous elements in his charge. When they told him that a certain convict openly threatened to murder him, he sent for the man, who was a barber, and made him shave him. “I knew you had said you would kill me,” he remarked quietly after the shaving was over. “I despised you too much to believe you would do it. Here alone, unarmed, I am stronger than you, and the whole of your companions.”
The work at Wormwood Scrubs as at Sing Sing was almost entirely done by the convicts themselves under the supervision of the warders and directing staff.
An indispensable preliminary was the provision of a boundary fence enclosing an area of three acres of common land. This fence was of simple planking ten feet in height. Inside this space the shell of a slight temporary prison had also been erected, a two-storied building, of wood on an iron framework filled in with brick “nogging” (a single brick thick), the cells lined and separated with sheet iron.Nine of these cells were completed with locked doors and barred windows when they were at once occupied by nine “special class” prisoners, men who were in the last year of a lengthy sentence and little likely to run away and forfeit privileges already earned. From this germ or nucleus the whole establishment grew. The first comers laboured on the still unfinished cells and as they were gotten ready fresh arrivals were imported to fill them. In a short time the whole block of a hundred cells was completed, and with the numbers which could now be lodged there was strength sufficient for very extended operations: the erection of a second block for another hundred convicts; and the preparation of clay for brickmaking, and the digging for the foundations of the main prison. Such rapid progress was made that within six months I had established the brick mills and had turned out a large number of “London stock,”—the sound, hard, light yellow bricks, the chief building material of our modern metropolis. The place was largely self-contained and self-supporting; we did everything as far as possible for ourselves; we had our own carpenters and smiths; we dressed stone for the window sills and cast the iron bars and framework for staircases. Ere long the prison population reached a daily average of from five to six hundred, and in less than five years we had built four large blocks containing 350 cells apiece, a spacious chapel, a boundary wall and beyond itnumerous residences for the governor and staff. Throughout this period, Millbank was the parent prison, Wormwood Scrubs only an offshoot drawing support, supplies, cash, all necessaries from the older establishment.
Millbank continued to be a centre of great criminal interest to the very end. As has been shown, it became the depot and starting-point for all convicts sentenced to penal exile, and when a peremptory stop was put to transportation, it worked in with the substituted system of Public Works prisons. For fifty years it was a receptacle for male and female convicts undergoing the first period of separate confinement, the preliminary to associated work with greater freedom. Notorieties of all kinds passed through it; and the names of almost all the celebrated prisoners of the time were to be found upon its registers. There were murderers who had scraped through and just escaped the death penalty, such as Dixblanc, the French cook who murdered her mistress in Park Lane. Constance Kent, who confessed to the mysterious crime of killing her infant brother, spent many years at Millbank; the cruel and infamous Stantons, who starved poor Alice—— at Penge, began their retribution there; Madame Rachel, the would-be benefactor to her sex which she desired to make beautiful for ever, tried her blandishments on more than one Millbank matron. It was my fate to welcome the Tichborne claimant to durance vile, to watch him wastingfrom excessive obesity to a decent and respectable size, lachrymose and repentant, but secretive and defiant to the last. The moving spirits in the De Goncourt affair, Kurr and Benson, made Millbank their medium of communication with the dishonest detective officers who for a time shook public confidence in the London police force.
Millbank served for other prison purposes. In its latest phases, part of its accommodation was leased to military authorities and it was long the home of court-martial prisoners. When the State finally acquired all prisons of every category in the country, it was used for the retention of venial offenders sent by petty sessions and police courts.
The end came in 1891, when Millbank was finally closed and the site surrendered by the prison authorities to the government Office of Works.
Here the London County Council have built dwellings for the poor; a handsome military hospital for the Guards and London District has been erected by the War Office; and the trustees of the Tait bequest have put up a fine gallery to house the valuable pictures with which that munificent patron has endowed London. Thus buildings of a new and very different character have now replaced the old Penitentiary.