CONVICT LIFE.* Tnis is a remarkable book, and deserves the
attention of every one who is interested in the punishment and reformation of criminals. The writer has had ample experience of convict life, he is a shrewd observer, and his narrative bears the stamp of honesty. After living up to middle-life as a gentleman, "I was weak enough," he writes, "to allow a terrible domestic affliction to drive me into dissipation, and the end of my madness was the committal of an act for which the law claimed me as its victim." The sentence was penal servitude for seven years. The time spent at Pentonville and Brixton, at Portland and Dartmoor, has not been wholly spent in vain by this "Ticket- of-Leave Man." He professes to look back upon his past mis- conduct with feelings of shame and disgust, but feels bound to say, in the interests of society and the taxpayer, that six months of solitary confinement, with assiduous labour, rough food, and a hard bed, would have been as efficacious in a moral point of view, and would have saved him from the vile associations which have surrounded him for six years. The evils connected with the present system of penal servitude are fully and forcibly described by the writer. Whether his revelations, for such they may be called, are to be absolutely relied upon we are not in a position to say ; but as we have already stated, they have every mark of veracity, and the author professes his willingness, if
• Convict Life: or, Revelatioas concerning Convicts mod Convict Prism. By "A Ticket-of-Leave Man." London: Wyman and Boni. 1879.
allowed the opportunity, to prove the truth of some of his most astounding statements before a Committee of the House of Commons.
The object of punishment is the protection of society and the reformation of the criminal. In the author's judgment, neither of these objects is accomplished under the present system. The hereditary thief, who has never worked in his life, and never will work, teaches all he knows to comparatively innocent offenders, and to associate with this utterly reprobate class leads almost inevitably to moral deterioration and to crime. To prove this, instances are given of the fruits of prison life. The writer professes to tell what he heard and saw, and he -observes that not only are the irreclaimable rogues the greatest hypocrites, but that they know to perfection the art of avoiding work and of deceiving chaplain, doctor, and governor. The warders they do not deceive, but understand how to bribe. As a, general rule, these warders are stated to belong to a low class, to have no respect for truth, while "their every-day language is almost as filthy as that of the filthiest whom they are paid to control." During the nine months of probation convicts are supposed to be governed under the silent system, but this is said to be a delusion. Everything depends upon the fee a prisoner can give the warder ; and the author relates, with an -expression of regret, how he used to while away a large portion of his time in conversation with other "paying prisoners," and how during the whole of his nine months at Pentouville, thanks to a good friend and a corrupt warder, he had the daily papers with his breakfast, the Pall Mall with his supper, and all kinds of luxuries and dainties. This warder, it is said, had half-a- dozen more clients, and was able to double his salary, at the very least. "The British Government is not an economical one, but it is often economical in the wrong place. In the Convict Department, it gives small salaries, and imposes great responsi- bilities. It engages indigent and ignorant men, without any high moral qualities, and the result is corruption and mal- feasance in office."
Among the chief errors of the present system, the "Ticket-of- Leave Man" places the long sentences passed on offenders who do not belong to the criminal class, who have never committed a crime before, and who, under proper treatment, would pro- bably never commit one again. Six months of solitary im- prisonment, with coarse food and plenty of work, would, he says, be a severer punishment to these men than seven years to an old thief. A sharp and short punishment inflicted on the mere boys convicted for drunken assaults or for poaching might end in turning out honest citizens ; sent to Dartmoor, they are placed " under the tutelage of old thieves, nominally to learn how to make a shoe, really and truly to be instructed in the most ingenious ways of filching a watch or a purse." Profound con- tempt is expressed for the work done, or pretended to be done, by criminals. The average, in the large shoemaker's shop at Dart- moor, was three shoes, and bad shoes, too, to a man per week, by which he earns exactly is. 6d. ; whereas "if each man worked in his own cell, he could, after three months' practice, make a pair of shoes every day with great ease, and would have no opportunity to corrupt others, or if he be a novice, become himself corrupted." The old hands generally register themselves, it is said, as tailors or shoemakers, to avoid hard work ; but the out-door labour at Dartmoor and Portland appears to be neither severe nor profitable. The 500 men who have been at the disposal of the Government at Dartmoor for the last forty years might have brought all the surrounding land into cultivation, but "with the exception of a few hundred acres In the immediate vicinity of the prison, it remains a barren and dreary morass." At all these public works, according to the writer, nothing is done completely, and the only thing in which the authorities are systematic is in wasting time, labour, and money :—
"I am quite sure," he writes, "that all the land is at present made to produce could be purchased in the market for less money than it now costs, leaving the labour employed out of the question, and reckoning it as wasted, which it certainly is. I have lately con- versed with some practical men who are well acquainted with Dartmoor and its capacities. They are unanimous in thinking that with thorough draining, the whole Moor might be converted into magnificent pasture lands of inestimable value. I can testify that -all the work now done towards draining the land is executed so .carelessly and recklessly that it is very ineffective. I have seen miles of drain-pipes laid and covered in which could not be other -than inoperative, unless—as is not often the case—the laws of -nature were suspended or reversed. All that the officers in charge care for is to get so many feet of piping laid down, for the Governor's inspection. Whether the drains ever do drain the land is no affair of theirs."
At Portland, the same pretence of work is said to be carried on. An industrious stonemason would do as much in an hour as a convict at Portland does in a day, and free men working as leisurely as convicts are allowed to work could not earn their bread. "With such habits engendered in prison, what right have the Government to suppose that when prisoners are discharged they will be false to their prison training, and suddenly become possessed of habits of industry which will enable them to be honest P" This is not the whole of the writer's count against convict labour at Portland. He affirms that for twenty years men have been engaged in building useless ornamental batteries, which are pulled down and built up again, as if for the mere purpose of giving some pretence of employment to the convicts. He is convinced that half-a-dozen guns would blow these "so-called coast defences into smithereens," and suggests that the truth of his statements should be tested by some Member of Parliament. Let him move for a return of the works executed by convicts for the War Department at Portland during the period named, and let some Commissioner go down and see what the War Department have got to show for their money. This is the "Ticket-of-Leave Man's" proposal, and, considering the facts he mentions, it does not seem unreasonable. Work will always be shirked that is done without a motive, and the writer, among other proposals, suggests that a man working in his cell should be rewarded with the proceeds of his labour, after a sufficiency has been earned for his maintenance.
A great many anecdotes are related illustrative of the habits of prisoners, and of the deceptions they are accustomed to prac- tise. At Dartmoor, about 150 men would apply to see the doctor every day, 100 of the number having nothing the matter with them ; they will eat soap, which is said to affect the action of the heart, and cod's liver oil is regarded as a luxury. The tastes of the most degraded class of criminals are not refined. In spite of a good dietary, these men devour candles, frogs, and snails, and feed upon disgusting garbage of all sorts. The bread-and-water punishment often proves a very severe one, and is given for the most trivial offences, or rather for what, except in prison, would not be deemed offences at all. "I have known," says the writer," many prisoners to do twenty-one days out of a month upon bread-and-water, and in every case the victim was a man unaccustomed to prison discipline, who had been made a mark by some prison warder anxious for promo- tion." The old thieves never fell into these traps, and the warders are said, indeed, to be afraid of them.
Among the prisoners with whom the author was brought into contact was Roupell, of whom he writes with perhaps more severity than is deserved, considering the confession made of his own easy living at Pentonville. He considers that Roupell got on the blind side of Governors and doctors, observes that he never lacked fish or poultry, port wine or brandy, and was allowed to build him- self a summer-house and grotto in the infirmary grounds at Portland. With the" Claimant" no personal acquaintance was made, but some anecdotes, by no means favourable, are related about him, notwithstanding. Of another man, one of the criminals punished for the " Penge murder," we are told that he would go about crying, because he had to do a little light work and to eat his bread without butter. Such wretches, the writer adds pertinently, need no commiseration, and deserve much more punishment than they get.
And now we shall give without comment several charges made by the writer against the system pursued in our convict prisons. He asserts that the warders have, in the larger number of cases, an understanding with old gaol-birds, and deal with them as familiar friends ; that the inspection of prisons by the Directors, as at present conducted, is a farce. They see what it is intended they should see, and nothing more. He declares—and the statement is intended to show the evil of placing different classes of prisoners together—that there are hundreds and hundreds of men now in the convict prisons who occupy every moment spent in their cells which is not devoted to sleep in vicious conversa- tion with their neighbours, and in perfecting conspiracies against life and property. He states that when medicine is ordered by the doctor, it is given, in order to save trouble, during dinner-time; he declares, despite the Commissioners' Report, that prisoners at Dartmoor are, or were in August last, stripped naked in the sight of each other for purposes of searching. He considers that the money now spent on the edit-
cation of convicts is "absolutely squandered and wasted," and gives what seem to be sound reasons for the opinion. He thinks that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper should be omitted alto- gether in convict prisons, owing to the terrible way in which it is abused; and complains that prison chaplains attach far more importance to doctrinal Christianity than to practical godliness. The most unmitigated villains are always the greatest hypocrites, and find it " pay " to be devout; and the writer considers that the only remedy for this gross evil, is "to prevent any favour being shown to any prisoner on account of any religious profession which he may make."
On these points, and others that might be named, the author writes sensibly and forcibly, and apparently with ample knowledge. His book is full of practical suggestions, and the most prominent among the means he proposes for reforming criminals is "solitary confinement, no association with recon- victed men, the occasional visit and counsel of earnest practical advisers, and steady and unremitting labour, which shall enable the convict to earn sufficient money to emigrate, and begin a new life in a new land." That a classification of convicts is indispensable, and that habitual prisoners should be kept apart from men who have fallen but once, and may recover their place in society, is urged with arguments that appear to us irresistible. The book, it will be seen, abounds with matter worthy of serious regard.
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