Volume 7 — European Prison Discipline.

I. — Newgate.

We take pleasure in offering to American readers the following record of a visit to Newgate, as exhibiting the enlightened humanity shown in the treatment of public criminals in London. The guide whom we have selected as the interpreter of Newgate's mysteries is an imaginary personage. He expresses the impressions, thoughts, and comments of several persons, not the convictions of a single individual.

This way, sir, please. Yes, the passages do seem gloomy, coming in out of the sunny street, crowded with free men hurrying to and fro on business. Here we are in the kitchen; you see the good allowance of meat and potatoes the prisoners have for dinner four times a week; the other three days they have a good strong soup instead of meat; morning and night a mess of oatmeal, and with each meal half a pound of bread. Yes, they are well fed; better here, many of them, than they would be outside. Just look over your shoulder, sir. Through that low iron door behind you the condemned prisoners pass out into the square to be hanged. Why through the kitchen? Can't say, sir. It has always been so and that's all, I suppose. Do they take it quietly for the most part? Why—sometimes they give us a little trouble, but—yes, generally they bear it pretty well, poor fellows!

More narrow passages, with grated rooms like aviaries on each side. These are the apartments where the prisoners receive their friends, separated from them by two gratings several feet apart. It will remind you of the picture in Old Curiosity Shop, where Mrs. Nubbles and Barbara's mother go to see Kit in prison. A prisoner can receive a visit once in three months, write one letter, and receive one; but they are seldom here so long. Newgate is only a house of detention before trial, except for those condemned to death—a mere jail. Here we are in one of the great oblong halls with tiers of cells opening on to galleries. Up this iron staircase in the middle of the hall and across this little bridge, and we stand outside a cell door. In the American prisons you have seen, you say that the cells open on a corridor, with a grated door, and sometimes a grated window. Not so, here. The door is solid, with merely a small hole for purposes of surveillance, and a trap below it through which food, etc., may be passed. If the prisoner wants anything, he rings a bell, the action of which is curious. Fix your eye on the bell-spring outside. I pull the bell inside and a tin flap flies back, showing the number of the cell. Thus the officer knows what bell has rung, and the prisoner, having no power over the flap when it has once sprung back, cannot avoid discovery if he has rung merely in order to give trouble. The cell is sufficiently large, you see, and is lighted from the court-yard through that arched window near the ceiling. A nice little room enough, with the bedding stowed away on one of those shelves in the corner. On the shelf below is the prisoner's bowl with the spoon lying on it. Everything must be in its place. If the spoon were on the shelf, it would be out of place; it must lie on the reversed bowl. Resting against the wall is his plate, and on the lowest shelf are his books. Oh! yes, you may examine them—the same in all the cells, Bible, Prayer-Book, hymns, and psalms. [Footnote 222] The other volume comes from our library, and is changed every day, if necessary> At this little turn-up shelf the prisoner takes his meals, or reads by the small shade-lamp above it. In the corner is a nice copper basin with plenty of water. There are two apertures, one to admit warm air, the other for ventilation; every comfort provided for him, you see. Yes, we keep the prisoners entirely apart from each other, never two together, unless some one comes here for drunkenness, and has delirium tremens, and then we put two others with him for safety's sake. Now we'll go up to the next corridor; in the one below are the doctors' cells, where fresh prisoners are kept until they have passed through a sanitary examination.

Step into this cell, occupied, as you see, by a mere boy. There's his pile of oakum on the floor. Go on with your dinner, my man; no need to stop for us. As we go up higher, more light comes in from the courtyard; the upper cells are reserved for prisoners who are likely to be here some time. The next cell occupied too, you see, though we've not many prisoners here now, the trials being just over. Yes, sir, this man is trying to educate himself a little; has a dictionary on the shelf beside the library-book—a volume of travels this time. Now that we are in the corridor again, let me tell you that this same shock-headed young man is condemned to ten years of penal servitude and twenty lashes, for highway robbery with violence. The lashes are to be received before he leaves Newgate, but more on that subject presently.

Here we are in the old part of Newgate. In your reading, no doubt you've come across the name of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry. It was in this same long, dark room that she used to assemble the prisoners, and read and pray with them. No, I have no means of judging of the durability of her conversions. It is easy to talk of converting criminals; but perhaps her chief merit lay in setting the example in England of a friendly and trusting intercourse with these poor wretches. Yes, it is strange to see the whipping-block in this room, but indeed, sir, corporal punishment has become an absolute necessity. It is never used to force prison discipline, but is administered in execution of a sentence, imposed by a magistrate for wanton violence. It is a curious fact that these brutes, who go about garroting inoffensive travellers, breaking jaws and skulls with their brass knuckles or dusters, as they call them, are the veriest cowards on earth when physical pain comes to themselves. In this very room they will cry like children, and beg to be forgiven, I don't feel half the pity for them that I do for the poor creatures going to be hanged. [Footnote 223] This iron door survived the fire in the Gordon riots, you see. Come through here, if you please, sir. This is another of the large rooms in old Newgate, where prisoners were kept before the solitary system came into vogue. The change is a most fortunate one for all concerned, I'm confident.

I've no question that many a crime was hatched here among the men herded together in these cells. You can see for yourself what kind of talk there would be among them. Perhaps some footman was sent here for stealing his master's purse. What a chance for an old hand to get a little useful information in a friendly way: "Your master was an easy, comfortable kind of a man, was he? Well, them well-to-do city-men mostly is easy-tempered. Not partickerlerly well-to-do, an't he? Old family he belongs to, eh? What lots o' plate some o' them poor noblemen do have! Wonder myself that they don't sell it and get the good out on it, 'stead of hiding it away at the banker's? Don't keep it at the bankers! Pity the poor cuss as cleans it, then! Go to Brighton or Bath, of course, when the season's over; I thought as much; it takes poor folks to travel," etc., etc. And then, the first step after getting out of Newgate would be to make love to the maid-servant when the family was out of town. Very devoted he'd be, until some evening he'd think it "such a pity there were no oranges in the house, or something else to cool your mouth with; there was such a nice, respectable place round the corner; wouldn't she just step round there and choose something for herself?" And then, while the the poor girl was gone, the accomplices, well instructed as to the whereabouts of the plate, would ransack the safe at their leisure. You may depend upon it, sir, it was a good thing for society when the present discipline was adopted.

The little court-yard we are crossing now is one of those where the prisoners take their exercise. Oh! yes, sir; they all have regular times for exercise, and in these yards within the building there is no possibility of their making their escape. I am going to show one of our cells for solitary confinement. Let me turn up the gas in this small room. You see this door which I open, and again an inner door, which I open too. Step in, sir. Now, turn so that your eye may catch the gaslight outside. Here is a bedstead; you can feel it, if you don't see it. In this cell, pitch-dark and cut off from the rest of the prison so completely that no shouts or screams would be heard, unruly prisoners are confined for any period between one hour and three days, with only bread and water for food. There is ventilation and warmth here, as in the other cells. The doctor comes each morning to see that mind and body are sound. Only by sentence of a magistrate can the confinement be prolonged beyond three days. Yes, sir, it is an awful place; and then, too, the men look upon it as sheer lost time. We have soldiers in here sometimes, and they say that they can make up for three days on bread and water in the guard-house, by spending their whole pay in eating and drinking when they come out; but here it's just loss of rations, and nothing else. You'll hardly ever catch an old thief in here. "Oh! don't stop my grub, whatever you do," he'll say, and so he takes care to behave well enough to keep out of "solitary." The prisoners who mind it least are little ragamuffins, accustomed to creep into any dark hole, to curl themselves up and go to sleep. They are never afraid of anything. Decent boys, in prison on suspicion of forgery or whatever, are dreadfully scared. But you'll be glad to get out into the daylight again, I am thinking, sir.

I'll show you our chapel now. In that screened gallery the women sit, where they can see everything without being seen. There is divine service here every morning, as well as on Sundays. No, sir; I've no authority to show you the female side of the prison, which is quite distinct from ours, and has female warders, and a committee of lady visitors. The system of female keepers works perfectly well; but it would have been impracticable before we adopted separate cells, because the talk among the prisoners was such as no decent woman should hear. A wicked woman is a thousand times worse than a bad man, and less intelligent, too. You see, sir, a woman falls because she is either pretty, or silly, or unprotected. Now, bad men and boys are often the most intelligent of their class, and are selected as tools for that very reason, by older rogues than themselves. It is one of the terrible features of the case, that the country loses valuable servants in these quick-witted outlaws.

Here we come out upon the sloping passage, leading to the criminal courts—Birdcage-walk, the old thieves call it. Over-head we get the light through the open iron-work, you see. Under the flags are buried all those who have been hanged, and the initial letter of the name is scratched on the wall above the grave. That iron door at the end leads to the court-rooms. Yes, indeed, sir, some of the prisoners one learns to like best are those awaiting execution here, educated men sometimes. Oh! yes; I know the names that all these letters stand for. Muller lies there. No, he was not much of a man, any way. Here's Courvoisier, who murdered Lord Russell; he was my lord's valet. Those five letters stand for five pirates. This one was a coachman, who murdered a female in the city, and burned the remains in his stable. Here's a man who killed his wife. Why, yes, sir; there are a good many in here for wife-murder; aggravating, I suppose, at times. That was an Italian, who killed another female in the city. This man hung his own child in the cellar. Oh! no, he was not insane; jealous of his wife, or something of the sort, I believe. There are a good many more here, but their cases were not so well known. Another court-yard to be crossed, sir, and here we are in one of the condemned cells. A good deal larger it is than the common cells, you see, with a bedstead, a good-sized table, and a long bench. From the time of his condemnation, the poor fellow is never left alone, night or day; two officers take turn and turn about in staying with him. Oh! certainly, sir, they talk with him; not about his case, of course, but of any book they have been reading, or of things outside the prison, and so on. The idea is not to let his mind dwell much on what is before him, and so spare him all the suffering we can.

You are right, sir; it would be absolutely impossible to dispense with capital punishment in this country. Murder is common enough now, but I am confident it would be much more frequent if the fear of death were withdrawn. Your professional thief never commits murder. All rogues have an especial line of business. A house-breaker is never guilty of highway robbery; a highway-man never picks pockets; and they none of them commit murder. Now, sir, there is a deal of talk about the horrors of a public execution, and the bad effect such a sight must have on the people. Well, sir, I am of a different opinion. The people who come to a hanging are the very scum of London. Some gentlemen there are, too, I know, by the looks of the windows opposite; but the crowd is chiefly made up of the mere scum and dregs of London. I think, sir, it is a lesson to them, and a lesson they need badly. Sometimes we say to the little ragamuffins who get in here, "Did you ever go to a hanging?" "Yes, sir." "And what did you think of it?" "Why, I wasn't in a very good place, sir; I couldn't see much." "Well, don't you know that if you go on as you're going now, you may come to commit murder one of these days, and be hanged yourself?" "Oh! no, sir! I mustn't commit murder." He has learned that much, if he's not learned anything else. [Footnote 224]

I believe that if capital punishment were abolished, a thief, instead of leaving his pal (as the vulgar term is for accomplice) in a mask, to watch the man and wife while he searches for plate, would kill them both. He would know that he could only be transported for life, and if he killed the officers placed in charge over him, the law could only repeat the same sentence. Yes, sir; you are right; capital punishment is sometimes too severe a penalty, in proportion to the crime it punishes. It falls, now and then, on a man who has not led a bad life in general, but who is possessed by one passion—jealousy, or revenge, or whatever. There should be a clearer distinction of circumstances in pronouncing sentence. A man who sets out to do a thing, with a distinct determination to take life if he can in no other way accomplish his purpose, commits murder. A man devoured by passion, and acting under its influence, should be judged less severely. And yet, sir, since the penalty of death is less designed as a punishment of criminals than as a defence of the public, even this distinction is very hard to make. We can only hope that our children will judge the matter more wisely than we do.

This room, sir, inclosed in glass, is the apartment where a prisoner meets his solicitor. The door is closed upon client and counsel, and the officer in attendance cannot hear their talk, or learn what points are to be used in the defence.

Here we are in the room where the prisoner is prepared for execution. I'll get the key, and unlock the closet where our irons are kept. This is the old style, sir, very cumbrous, as you see. Here are the identical irons Jack Sheppard wore. They would be so much too large for me, that I could slip my foot out at once; but in those days they wore pads around the ankle, so that the ring fitted close. When you read of Jack's breaking loose from his irons, it sounds very grand; but all he did was to unwind the pad from his ankle, and draw his foot out. These are the irons we use in travelling with convicts; here are common handcuffs, as you see; and here is the sort of harness worn by prisoners about to be executed. It pinions the arms firmly, and, at the last moment, fastens the legs together. Why, no, sir; I can't say that educated men bear it any better than ignorant ones. I've seen educated men most awfully frightened. I think it was death they feared, sir, not shame. When they are ready, they pass through this passage, and out through the iron door I showed you in the kitchen, on to the square. Step into this cabinet a moment, sir. On those shelves are casts taken after death from those who have been executed. There is Muller, there is Courvoisier, there is Marchand. The young fellow with negro features was only nineteen. He murdered his fellow-servant. Yes, the one next him looks like a negro too; you are probably right, sir. The one with the well-formed, dimpled chin little thought how his pleasure-loving youth would end. Surprisingly life-like they all are. Yes, these are the men who lie under the flags in the Birdcage-walk. This way, sir, for your hat and cane. Good day, sir. Astonishingly fine weather for the season.

II. Saint Lazare.

The ancient convent of Saint Lazare, in Paris, once the home of St. Vincent de Paul, is now a prison for women taken from the lowest depths of Parisian life. Their name is legion; their sufferings from sickness and neglect before arrest are unutterable. France has no law for such as they beyond the will of the prefect of police. What alleviation, you ask, has been found for this corrosive social evil? A more effective one than disbelievers in French virtue would anticipate. All females who come under the notice of the police for sanitary reasons or criminal matters, are sent to Saint Lazare, where, instead of jailers, there are fifty-five Sisters of Charity. [Footnote 225]

How many of the miserable creatures are converted by intercourse with these noble and refined women, God only knows. The day of judgment will reveal the difference between real and apparent success. But a woman who has been first the plaything and then the scorn of society, must think more tenderly of God in Saint Lazare, than in any ordinary prison or workhouse.

Two objections which may be made to the system of treatment adopted at Saint Lazare, I will try to answer before enumerating the very details which would probably suggest them.

In the first place, it may be urged that the prisoners are made so comfortable that imprisonment becomes a reward rather than a punishment, a bribe rather than a threat. Secondly, it may be with truth asserted that the wicked poor receive better care in such an establishment, than society gives to the virtuous poor who have never seen the inside of a jail.

To the first objection I answer, that imprisonment is never easy for such women to bear, because the passions which bring them so low, love of excitement and vanity, find no food in a well-ordered prison; that the opposite system has been tested ever since the world was, and still the world overflows with impenitent sinners; that at least half the prisoners of Saint Lazare are wicked for want of precisely what they find there—judicious training; a decent dwelling-place, good example; and, last and best reason of all, that this system is the one most in accordance with the teaching and example of Christ.

And my answer to the second objection is this. Let us seek out the honest poor, provide them with decent lodging-houses at low prices, with practical education, useful and entertaining reading, innocent amusement, and, above all, with religious and moral instruction; but do not let us relax our efforts to reform sinners merely because we have shamefully neglected our duties toward saints. We may say truly that the respectable poor are hard to find, because their very virtues conceal them from the public eye. We have no such excuse where sinners are concerned; for they are festering in every jail, penitentiary, and almshouse in every city throughout the world. Justice, not charity, demands that society should provide decent asylums where its victims may hide their wretchedness.

But let us examine the discipline of Saint Lazare in detail, that the reader may judge for himself whether these objections have been satisfactorily disposed of.

The inmates are divided into three classes: 1st. Women who have been tried for crimes and condemned; 2d. Filles publiques, consigned to St. Lazare by the police for sanitary or other reasons; 3d. Young girls and children sent thither by their parents (correction paternelle) for safe keeping, or brought there by the police as vagrants.

The uniform is neat and inconspicuous, dark blue for one class of offenders, and maroon for the other; I think the children wear no uniform. The clothes-rooms are arranged very methodically, under-clothing and dresses being laid on shelves in orderly piles which would satisfy the most fastidious Yankee housekeeper. The common prison garments are comfortable and well made; but there is a higher grade of clothing for those who can afford to pay for it, who are there on "pistole," as the technical term is, taken from an old French coin. The same is to be said of food and lodging; comfortable accommodations being provided for all, while small luxuries can be purchased at a small expense. Tariffs are posted all over the prison, that the inmates may know the fixed prices of various articles, and not be subjected to dishonesty on the part of sub-officials. The present writer, who endured the terrible ordeal imposed on all conscientious visitors, of tasting everything the various kitchens produced, can answer for the excellent quality of soup, coffee, bread, etc., etc. Having been allowed to content himself with visual proof in passing through the well-ordered pharmacies, he can only vouch for their neatness and apparent convenience.

The work-rooms are generally furnished with tiers of benches graduated nearly to the ceiling, so that one sister can superintend a roomful of work-women. The gentleman who accompanied me in my first visit showed me with some pride the comfortable straw seats. "The empress came here one day," he said, and asked the prisoners if they were in need of anything. They told her the wooden benches were uncomfortable, and her majesty ordered these seats to be made, where they can sit and sew all day without great fatigue. Yes, our empress is a good and charitable soul."

Many institutions send work to be done at Saint Lazare, and each prisoner receives a certain proportion of the proceeds of her labor, that she may have the wherewithal to begin an honest life when her term is out. Each day's earnings she writes down in her own little account-book, a dingy record of hopes, as it must be to some of them. The court-yards, where there is an hour's recreation twice a day, are large and cheerful. In the centre are large tanks where the women are allowed to wash small articles of clothing; an inestimable privilege, as any one knows who has seen prisoners trying to extemporize a laundry in their cells with a tin wash-basin. These courts are the favored haunts of sparrows who twitter as cheerfully within the old prison walls as under the eaves of good men's dwellings. A magpie was hopping about in the cloister with the air of an habitué, looking amazingly as if he were there on sentence.

There are a number of infirmaries, all tended by Sisters of Charity, and well supplied from a kitchen devoted to hospital diet. The patients are of the lowest class, their maladies the saddest that flesh is heir to. That such a hospital should have any attraction to the visitor is impossible; but remembering the hosts of such forlorn creatures who throng our jails and almshouses in America, I longed to transport wards and warders to the other side of the Atlantic and inaugurate a change in prison discipline for women. [Footnote 226]

I had the good fortune to be accompanied by a gentleman associated for many years with prison reforms, and charged with high authority in the matter of prison discipline in Paris. He makes it his rule to visit the prisoners at all times and seasons, that he may detect any breach of discipline or lack of fidelity on the part of the superintendents. He is a man who under the wretched disguise of vice recognizes humanity, no matter how defiled; who looks rather to remove the causes of sin than to procure its punishment, and sees in every culprit a good man spoiled. Let no one suppose that I mean to advocate a feeble administration of justice. No; in a prison, over-indulgence means chaos; present weakness means future severity. At Saint Lazare steady, unswerving vigilance is observed, and silence enforced among the prisoners. Discipline being maintained evenly, not spasmodically, the prisoners can be allowed privileges very important to them. Visitors are admitted twice a week to converse with the women through two gratings, as at Newgate, a sister standing in the narrow passage between. Recreation in the yards is taken in common, instead of separately. It is surprising to find how a prisoner clings to the privilege of seeing his fellow-creatures, even when there is no chance of communication. The peculiar pangs inflicted by the solitary system, when endured for a long time, can only be appreciated by those who have had confidential intercourse with prisoners.

The prisoners' chapel is very cheerful, and has a pretty sanctuary with stained-glass windows, and an altar beautifully cared for. One of the points most worthy of approval in Saint Lazare, is the attractive form under which religion is everywhere presented. In each dormitory, infirmary, and work room, is an oratory; or, at least, some image or picture suited to impress the souls of the prisoners.

One part of the establishment is full of tender associations to every Christian soul—the sisters' private chapel, whose sanctuary was once the cell of Saint Vincent de Paul. The stone floor in the recessed window where he used to pray is worn hollow with the pressure of his knees. Saint Lazare was frequented in those days by many pilgrims, and in his cell the saint sought refuge from distraction and dissipation of spirit. It is from kneeling-cushions such as his, that the prayers go up to heaven which work true reforms, which achieve immortal victories whose laurels are fresh centuries after the conqueror's soul glories in the presence of God. I have never stood in any cathedral with a soul more filled with veneration than in this little chapel of Saint Lazare, where Saint Vincent de Paul prayed; and where his children pray still, devoted to the work most repugnant to human nature, that of tending beings who remind us what we should all be but for the grace of God.

One infirmary is a lying-in hospital. The mothers can keep their young children at Saint Lazare, or send them away as they choose. In this infirmary shone forth the kindly spirit of my guide. "This always touches me," he said; "for I am a père de famille" and he went from baby to baby with gentle looks and womanly sweetness, a man stalwart of frame as a grenadier. And it touched me, too, though I am not père de famille, to see the lines of little cribs, and the poor, forlorn mothers tending their tiny waifs and strays.

There is one serious defect in the construction of Saint Lazare, making it in that respect unsuitable for a prison. There is but one large dormitory for the adult prisoners who are in good health. The others sleep, two, three, or even four in a large cell, and with no arrangements for surveillance beyond a small aperture in the door, covered with glass. I remarked upon the imprudence of this arrangement, and was told that the danger was fully appreciated and deeply regretted. The French government is too generous in its treatment of public institutions to leave this evil long unremedied, I am confident.

Another defect in the regulations surprised me. There is no daily Mass in the public chapel of Saint Lazare, the prisoners hearing Mass on Sunday only. I had no opportunity of asking the reason of this omission, and will therefore refrain from making farther comment upon it. The third department in Saint Lazare is the most interesting, being the portion devoted to young girls and homeless children. The sentence is for six months only, but can be renewed if found expedient. My guide called to him child after child, and talked with them as he might talk with his own children at home. One little thing cried bitterly. Her mother had turned her into the streets to shift for herself, and the police, finding her wandering about the city, had brought her to Saint Lazare. He held her little hand in his and patted it softly as he said all the comforting things he could think of; there was not much to be said, one must confess. I asked where she would be sent when the six months were out. "To some industrial establishment under the charge of Sisters of Charity," was the answer; "The empress sees to all such things."

The young people are kept entirely separate from the prisoners, in the new part of Saint Lazare. They have several hours' schooling, and have their working hours, in which they earn money for themselves and for the establishment, as the women do. Each child has an exquisitely neat cell to herself for the night, opening with a grating on to a corridor, so that the watching sister can exercise a strict surveillance.

Whenever I see the right thing done in the right way for public offenders, I think of the man who first turned my attention to the subject of prison discipline—Governor Andrew, as he will be to us all in Massachusetts, no matter who holds the state reins. Surely the sun has not often shone on any spirit more steadfast or more tender than his; surely, the days of chivalry produced no knightly courage more unblenching than his; surely, whatever blessings come to Massachusetts in her future career, her children will never forget how valiantly that brave man fought for judicious legislation, for a humane execution of the laws, and for the equal rights of Catholics and Protestants—will never forget John Albion Andrew!