Frederick Marryat – The Complete Collection

Chapter 47

When I visited this girl a second time, her term was nearly expired; she told me that she had not the least wish to leave her cell, and that, if they confined her for two years more, she was content to stay. "I am quite peaceful and happy here," she said, and I believe she really spoke the truth.

No. 10--a free mulatto girl, about eighteen years of age, one of the most forbidding of her race, and with a physiognomy perfectly brutal; but she evidently had no mean opinion of her own charms: her woolly hair was twisted into at least fifty short plaits, and she grinned from ear to ear as she advanced to meet me. "Pray, may I inquire what you are imprisoned for?" said I.--"Why, sir," replied she, smirking, smiling, and coquetting, as she tossed her head right and left,--"If you please, sir, I was put in here for poisoning a whole family ." She really appeared to think that she had done a very praiseworthy act. I inquired of her if she was aware of the heinousness of her offence. "Yes, she knew it was wrong, but if her mistress beat her again as she had done, she thought she would do it again. She had been in prison three years, and had four more to remain." I asked her if the fear of punishment--if another incarceration for seven years would not prevent her from committing such a crime a second time. "She didn't know; she didn't like being shut up--found it very tedious, but still she thought--was not quite sure--but she thought that, if ill-treated, she should certainly do it again."

I paid a second visit to this amiable young lady, and asked her what her opinion was then.--"Why, she had been thinking, but had not exactly made up her mind--but she still thought--indeed, she was convinced--that she should do it again ."

I entered many other cells, and had conversations with the prisoners but I did not elicit from them any thing worth narrating. There is, however, a great deal to be gained from the conversation which I have recorded. It must be remembered, that observations made by one prisoner, which struck me as important, if not made by others, were put as questions by me; and I found that the opinions of the most intelligent, although differently expressed, led to the same result-- that the present system of the Philadelphia penitentiary was the best that had been invented. As the schoolmaster said, if it did no good, it could do no harm. There is one decided advantage in this system, which is, that they all learn a trade, if they had not one before; and, when they leave the prison, have the means of obtaining an honest livelihood, if they wish so to do themselves, and are permitted so to do by others . Here is the stumbling-block which neutralises almost all the good effects which might be produced by the penitentiary system. The severity and harshness of the world; the unchristianlike feeling pervading society, which denies to the penitent what individually they will have to plead for themselves at the great tribunal, and which will not permit that punishment, awarded and suffered, can expiate the crime; on this point, there is no hope of a better feeling being engendered. Mankind have been, and will be, the same; and it is only to be hoped that we may receive more mercy in the next world than we are inclined to extend toward our fellow-creatures in this.

As I have before observed, I care little for the observations or assertions of directors or of officers entrusted with the charge of the penitentiaries and houses of correction; they are unintentionally biased, and things that appear to them to be mere trifles are very often extreme hardships to the prisoners. It is not only what the body suffers, but what the mind suffers, which must be considered; and it is from the want of this consideration that arise most of the defects in those establishments, not only in America, but everywhere else.

During my residence in the United States, a little work made its appearance, which I immediately procured; it was the production of an American, a scholar, once in the best society, but who, by intemperance, had forfeited his claim to it. He wrote the very best satirical poem I ever read by an American, full of force, and remarkable for energetic versification; but intemperance, the prevalent vice of America, had induced him to beggary and wretchedness, he was (by his own request I understand) shut up in the house of correction at South Boston, that he might, if possible, be reclaimed from intemperance; and, on his leaving it, he published a small work, called "The Rat-Trap, or Cogitations of a Convict in the House of Correction." This work bears the mark of a reflective, although buoyant mind; and as he speaks in the highest terms of Mr Robbins, the master, and bestows praise generally when deserved, his remarks, although occasionally jocose, are well worthy of attention and I shall, therefore, introduce a few of them to the reader.

His introduction commences thus:--

"I take it for granted that one of every two individuals in this most moral community in the world has been, will be, or deserves or fears to be, in the house of correction. Give every man his deserts, and who shall escape whipping? This book must, therefore, be interesting, and will have a good circulation--not, perhaps, in this state alone. The state spends its money for the above institution, and, therefore, has a right to know what it is; a knowledge which can never be obtained from the reports of the authorities, the cursory observations of visitors, or the statements of ignorant and exasperated convicts.

"`What thief e'er felt the halter draw, With good opinion of the law.'

"It has been my aim to furnish such knowledge, and it cannot be denied that I have had the best opportunities to obtain it."

To show the prevalence of intemperance in this country among the better classes, read the following:--

"On entering the wool-shop, a man nodded to me, whom I immediately recognised as a lawyer of no mean talent, who had, at no very distant period, been an ornament of society, and a man well esteemed for many excellent qualities, all of which are now forgotten, while his only fault, intemperance, remains engraven on steel. This was not his first term, or his second, or his third. At this time of writing he is discharged, a sober man, anxious for employment, which he cannot get. His having been in the house of correction shuts every door against him, and he must have more than ordinary firmness if he does not relapse again. From my inmost soul I pity him. Another aged man I recognised as a doctor of medicine: his grey hairs would have been venerable in any other place."

The labour in this house of correction which he describes is chiefly confined to wool-picking, stone-cutting, and blacksmiths' work. The fare he states to be plentiful, but not of the very best quality. Speaking of ill-treatment, he says:--

"The convicts all have the privilege of complaint against officers; but while I was there no one used it but myself. I believe they dared not. The officer would probably deny or gloss over the cause of complaint, and his word would be believed rather than that of the convict; and his power of retaliation is so tremendous, that few would care to brave it. The chance is ten to one that a complaint to the directors would be falsified and proved fruitless; and the visit of the governor, council, and magistrates, for the purpose of inquiry, is mere matter of form. When they asked me if I had reason to complain of my treatment, I answered in the negative, because I really had none; but had they asked me if there was any defect in the institution, I would have pointed out a good many."

The monotony of their existence is well described:--

"Few incidents chequered the monotony of our existence. `Who has got a piece of steel in his eye?'--`Who has gone to the hospital?'--`How many came to-day in the carry-all?' were almost the only questions we could ask. A man falling from the new prison, and breaking his bones in a fashion not to be approved, was a conversational godsend. One day the retiring tide left a small box on the sands at the bottom of the house of correction wharf, which was picked up by a convict, and found to contain the bequest of some woman who had `loved not wisely, but too well,' namely, a pair of new-born infants. In my mind, their fate was happy. If they never knew woman's tenderness, neither did they ever know woman's falsehood. There is less pleasure than pain in this bad world, and the earlier we take leave of it the better."

He complains of due regard not being paid to the cleanliness of the prisoners:--

"A great defect in the police of the house was the want of baths. We were shaved, or rather scraped, but once a week. Washing one's face and hands in ice-cold water of a winter morning, is little better than no ablution at all. The harbour water is interdicted, lest the convicts should swim away, and in the stone-shop there are no conveniences for bathing whatever: they would cost something! In the wool-shop, forty men have one tubful of warm water once a-week. When I say that shirts are worn a week in summer, and (as well as drawers) two or three weeks in winter, it will at once be conceded that some farther provision for personal cleanliness is imperatively demanded. I hope neither this nor any other remark I may think fit to make will be taken as emanating from a fault-finding spirit, since, while I pronounce upon the disease, I suggest the remedy."

Speaking of his companions, he says:--

"I had expected to find myself linked with a band of most outrageous ruffians, but such did not prove to be the case. Few of them were decidedly of a vicious temperament. The great fault with them seemed to be a want of moral knowledge and principle. Were I to commit a theft I should think myself unworthy to live an instant; but some of them spoke of the felonies for which they were adjudged to suffer with as much nonchalance as if they were the every-day business of life, without scruple and without shame. Few of them denied the justice of their sentences; and if they expressed any regret, it was not that they had sinned, but that they had been detected. The duration of the sentence, the time or money lost, the physical suffering, was what filled their estimate of their condition. Many had groans and oaths for a lost dinner, a night in the cells, or a tough piece of work, but none had a tear for the branding infamy of their conviction. Yet some, even of the most hardened, faltered, and spoke with quivering lip and glistening eye, when they thought of their parents, wives, and children. The flinty Horeb of their souls sometimes yielded gushing streams to the force of that appeal. But there were very few who felt any shame on their own account. Their apathy on the point of honour was amazing. A young man, not twenty-five years old, in particular, made his felonies his glory, and boasted that he had been a tenant of half the prisons in the United States. He was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for stealing a great number of pieces of broadcloth, which he unblushingly told me he had lodged in the hands of a receiver of stolen goods, and expected to receive the value at the expiration of his sentence. He relied on the proverbial `honour among thieves.' That fellow ought to be kept in safe custody the remainder of his natural life."