Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
admitting light, foiled any attempt of the eye to discern objects
without. In the corner there was a rusty iron shelf. A board let into
the brickwork served for bed, bench and table. A zinc jug and basin for
water, with a wooden plate, spoon and salt dish (no knife or fork for
twenty years!) completed the furnishings.
As I was looking around in a helpless way a key suddenly rattled in the
lock and, the door opening, a uniformed warder stepped in and, giving me
a searching look, said in a rough voice: "Come on; you'll do for chapel;
you have put on the balmy long enough." His kindly face belied his rough
tones, and I followed him out of the door and soon found myself in the
prison chapel. None was present, and I was ordered to sit on the front
bench at the far end. The benches were simply common flat boards ranged
in rows. Soon the prisoners came in singly, marching about two yards
apart, and sat on the benches with that interval between them--that is,
in the division of the chapel where I sat, it being separated from the
rest by a high partition. Soon a white-robed, surpliced clergyman came
in, and the service began; but I had no eye or ear, nor any
comprehension save in a dim manner, as to what was going on. My brain
was trying to connect the past and the present, feeling that something
terrible had befallen me, but what it was I could not understand. When
the services were over I returned under the escort of the warder, who,
when I arrived at my cell, ordered me to go in and close the door, which
I did, banging it behind me. It had a spring lock, and when I heard the
snap of the catch and looked at the narrow, barred window, with its
thick, fluted glass admitting only a dim light, I remembered everything.
Like a flash it all came to me, and I realized the full horror of my
position. Sitting down on the little board fastened to the wall, serving
as bed, seat and table, I buried my face in my hands and began to
ponder. Regrets came in floods, with remorse and despair, hand in hand,
when, realizing that it was madness to think, I sprang up, saying to
myself the hour and minute had come for me to decide--either for
madness and a convict's dishonored grave, or to keep the promise I had
made to my friends--never to give in, but to live and conquer fate.
I determined then and there to live in the future, and never to dwell on
the horrible present or past. Then I remembered the last scene in
Newgate and my promise to accompany my friends step by step, day by day,
in our readings. Finding a Bible on the little rusty iron shelf in the
corner, and this being the fourth day of our sentence, I turned to the
fourth chapter. It gives the story of Cain's crime and punishment, and I
read the graphic narrative with an intensity of interest difficult to
describe. When I read, "And Cain said unto the Lord, my punishment is
greater than I can bear. Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from
the face of the earth," I felt that the cry of Cain in all its intense
naturalness, in its remorse and despair, was my own, and I was overcome.
Laying the book down, I walked the floor for an hour in agony, until
fantastic images came thronging thick and fast to my brain. I realized
that my mind was going and felt I must do something to make me forget my
misery.
I opened the Bible at random and my eye caught the word "misery." I
looked closely at the verse and read:
"Thou shalt forget thy misery, and remember it as waters that pass
away."
I threw the book down, crying with vehemence, "That's a lie! God never
gives something for nothing." Soon I opened the book again and looked at
the context. Those of my readers who care to do so can do the same. The
verse is Job xi., 16. The context begins at verse 13. From that hour I
never despaired again.
The same day I began committing the Book of Job to memory, and worked
for dear life and reason. I became interested, and my interest in that
wondrous poem deepened until the study became a passion. Thus I turned
the whole current of my thoughts into a new channel. Reason came back,
and with it resolution and courage and strength.
I was in Pentonville Prison, in the suburbs of London. All men convicted
in England are sent to this prison to undergo one year's solitary
confinement. At the completion of the year they are drafted away to the
public works' prisons, where, working in gangs, they complete their
sentences.
Of my experience in Pentonville during my year of solitude it suffices
to say that, passing through a great deal of mental conflict, I found I
had grown stronger and was eager for transfer to the other prison, where
I could for a few hours each day at least look on the sky and the faces
of my fellow men.
At last the day of transfer came, and, escorted by two uniformed and
armed warders, I was taken to the famous Chatham Prison, twenty-seven
miles from London on the river Medway....
"You were sent here to work, and you will have to do it or I will make
you suffer for it," was the friendly greeting that fell on my ears as I
stood before a pompous little fellow (an ex-major from the army) at
Chatham Prison one lovely morning in 1874.
I had arrived there under escort but an hour before, strong in the
resolve to obey the regulations if I could, and never to give in if I
had a fair chance; also with a desperate resolve never to submit to
persecution, come what might, and these resolutions saved me--but only
by a steady and dogged adherence to them on many occasions, through many
years and amid surroundings that might well make me--as it did and does
many good men--desperate and utterly reckless.
After a few more remarks of a very personal and pungent nature the
little fellow marched off with a delicious swagger and an heroical air.
I at once turned to the warder and asked, "Who is that little fellow?"
"The Governor!" he gasped out. "If he had only heard you!" and then
followed a pantomime that implied something very dreadful. Then I
marched off to the doctor, and next to the chaplain, who (knowing who I
was) asked me if I could read and write, to which I meekly replied,
"Yes, sir;" but apparently being doubtful upon the point he gave me a
book. Opening it and pretending to read, I said in a solemn tone of
voice: "When time and place adhere write me down an ass." He took the
book from me, looked at the open page, gazed solemnly in my face with a
funny wagging of his head, as much as to say, "you will come to no
good," and followed the little major.
Then my cicerone took me into the main building, filled up to the brim
with what seemed to be little brick and stone boxes, and, halting in
front of one, said, "This is your cell." Looking around to see if it was
safe to talk, he began to question me rapidly about my case, and getting
no satisfaction he wound up the questioning with the remark: "Well, you
tried to take all our money over to America." Then, becoming
confidential, he told me what wicked fellows the other prisoners were,
chiefly because they went to the Governor and reported the officers,
charging them with maltreatment and bullying particularly, and knocking
them about generally. Of course, the warders never did such things, but
were really of a very lamblike and gentle nature. In order to back up
their lies the prisoners would knock their own heads against the walls
and then swear by everything good that some one of the warders had done
it. I said, perhaps he had.
Well, he said, perhaps an officer might give a man "a little clip," but
never so as to hurt him, and "only in fun, you know." I felt at the time
that I would never learn to appreciate Chatham "fun," but on the very
next day I was convinced of it when a man named Farrier pulled out from
his waistband a piece of rag, and, unrolling it, produced two of his
front teeth with the information that a certain warder had struck him
with his fist in the mouth and knocked them out.
But to return to my narrative. After many "wise saws and modern
instances," he locked me up in the little brick and stone box and
departed, having first informed me that I "would go out to labor in the
morning."
I looked about my little box with a mixture of curiosity and
consternation, for the thought smote me with blinding force that for
long years that little box--eight feet six inches in length, seven feet
in height and five feet in width, with its floor and roof of
stone--would be my only home--would be! must be! and no power could
avert my fate.
On the small iron shelf I found a tin dish used by some previous
occupant, and smeared inside and out with gruel. There being no water in
my jug, when the men came in for dinner, I, in my innocence, asked one
of the officers for some water to wash the dish. He looked at me with
great contempt and said: "You are a precious flat; lick it off, man.
Before long you won't waste gruel by washing your tin dish. You won't be
here many days and want to use water to clean your pint."
After dinner I saw the men marched out to labor, and was amazed to see
their famished, wolfish looks--thin, gaunt and almost disguised out of
all human resemblance by their ill-fitting, mud-covered garments and
mud-splashed faces and hands. I myself was kept in, but the weary,
almost ghastly spectre march I had witnessed constantly haunted me, and
I said, "Will I ever resemble them?" And youthful spirit and pride
rushed to the front and cried, "Never!"
Night and supper (eight ounces of brown bread) came at length, and I
rose up from my meal cheerful and resolute to meet the worst, be it what
it might short of deliberate persecution, with a stout heart and faith
that at last all would be well.
In the morning I arose, had my breakfast (nine ounces of brown bread and
one pint of gruel), and was eager to learn what this "labor" meant. I
was prepared for much, but not for the grim reality. I had been ordered
to join eighty-two party--a brickmaking party, but working in the "mud
districts." So we, along with 1,200 others, marched out to our work, and
as soon as we were outside of the prison grounds I saw a sight that,
while it explained the mud-splashed appearance of my spectral array, was
enough to daunt any man doomed to join in the game. Mud, mud everywhere,
with groups of weary men with shovel, or shovel and barrow, working in
it. A sort of road had been made over the mud with ashes and cinders,
and our party of twenty-two men, with five other parties, moved steadily
on for about a mile until we came to the clay banks or pits. Fortunately
we had a very good officer by the name of James. He wanted the work
done, and used his tongue pretty freely; still he was a man who would
speak the truth, and treated his men as well as he dared to do under the
brutal regime ruling in Chatham. He speedily told me off to a barrow and
spade, and I was fully enlisted as barrow-and-spade man to Her Majesty.
A steam mill, or "pug," like a monster coffee mill, was used for mixing
the clay and sand and delivering it in form of bricks below, where
another party received them and laid them out to dry, preparatory to
burning. Our duty was "to keep the pug going"--keep it full of clay to
the top. The clay was in a high bank; we dug into it from the bottom
with our spades, and filled it as fast as possible into our barrows. In
front of each man was a "run," formed by a line of planks only eight
inches in width, and all converging toward and meeting near the "pug."
The distance we were wheeling was from thirty to forty yards, end the
incline was really very steep; but that in itself would not have been so
bad, but the labor of digging out the clay was severe, and that
everlasting "pug" was as hungry as if it were in the habit of taking
"Plantation Bitters" to give it an appetite.