Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
and Ireland. Warders and assistant warders are provided with a short,
heavy truncheon, which each carries in his hand or in a leather sheath
which hangs from his belt, to which is also attached a sort of cartouch
box in which he keeps the keys, which are fastened to a chain, the other
end to his belt. When about to leave the prison, on going off duty, he
must hang up the belt and attachments in the chief warder's office.
Their pay, besides uniforms, which are of blue cloth, is $350 a year for
warders and $300 for assistant warders. All promotions are by seniority.
In case of transfer by authorities to any other prison, they retain
their position in the line of promotion, but if they volunteer or make
application to be transferred they have to begin at the bottom in
reckoning the length of service for promotion. When the authorities wish
to transfer warders, it is usual for them to call for volunteers, of
whom they find a sufficient number anxious for a change, unless the
transfer is to an unpopular station, such as Dartmoor, which is among
the bogs, and a lonely, bleak place.
Warders are exempted from doing night duty, which is all done by the
assistant warders, who are on that service one week out of three.
Although when on night duty they had the day for sleep and recreation,
I never saw one who did not detest it, because they must remain on duty
continuously for twelve hours, and must not read, sit down nor lean
against anything, nor have their hands behind them. These military
regulations apply as well to the whole time they are on duty in the
prison, day or night. A few years ago the time of daily duty was reduced
to twelve hours, with one hour at noon for dinner. Besides this, at
times they must do a good deal of extra duty. Each is allowed ten days
annual holiday, but is frequently obliged to take it piecemeal, a day or
two at a time, so that he cannot go far away from the scene of his
servitude. Their duties require unflagging attention and never-ceasing
vigilance, which must be a heavy tax on the brain, and the twelve hours
must be passed in standing or walking about. In fact, they are subjected
to military discipline, or rather despotism, and any known infraction of
the rules subjects them to penalties according to the nature of the
offense. Leaning against a wall, sitting down, etc., for a first
offense, they are mulcted in a small sum--12 to 60 cents, usually--and
are put back in the line of promotion. The fines go to the Officers'
Library fund. I knew one officer, Joseph Matthews, who had been
assistant warder twenty years, and, being frequently set back for doing
some small favor to prisoners, was discharged from the service in 1886,
without a pension, for some slight breach of regulations. He had a wife
and six children, and had worked twenty years for less than $7 per week.
For giving a convict a small bit of tobacco, a heavy fine, suspension,
and in case it was not the first offense, expulsion from the service
without a pension. For acting the go-between and facilitating
correspondence with the friends of convicts, expulsion--possibly
imprisonment. One of the assistant warders, who was convicted of having
received a bribe of L100 from one of us at Newgate, was expelled from
the service and imprisoned eighteen months. Another at Portsmouth
Prison underwent the same fate, save that his term was but six months,
for sending and receiving letters for a prisoner, and similar cases are
of frequent occurrence.
The warders and assistant warders are the ones who come in direct and
constant contact with prisoners, and when the eye of no superior
authority is on them, or nothing else to deter, they are "hail fellow
well met" with such of the convicts as are unprincipled enough to curry
favor with and assist them in covering up their peccadilloes from their
superiors. They naturally recoil at the hardness and parsimony of the
Government toward them, evading the performance of duties when they can,
and I have heard more than one say: "Why should we care what prisoners
do, so long as we don't get into trouble? The Government grinds us down
to twelve hours' daily duty on just pay enough to keep body and soul
together; then, if we complain, tells us that we can leave if we like,
as there are others ready to step into our places. Bah! what do we care
for the Government? It is of no benefit to us; the big guns get big pay,
and the higher up the office the more the pay and the less the work. To
be sure, we can go out of the prison to sleep, but otherwise we are
bound as closely as you are." Yet these very warders, the moment any
superior authority appears on the scene, are as obsequious and fawning
as whipped dogs, and recoup themselves for this forced humiliation by
taking it out of such of the convicts as fail to curry their favor, or
offend, or make them trouble. Surely their office is a very responsible
one, and it is blind, false economy to retain low-priced men in such a
position. The present English system of penal servitude is perfect on
paper, but the moral qualities of most of the warders and assistant
warders preclude all possibility of the reformation of those in their
charge.
Notwithstanding the expositions of the English delegates at the
international meetings, prison reform has never yet been tried in Great
Britain and Ireland. In other words, all efforts in that direction have
been defeated by placing convicts in the immediate charge of a class of
men who, by education and training, possess none of the qualifications
requisite for such a responsible position.
In so far as forms are concerned, the business of the prison is carried
on most systematically. There are blank forms which cover everything,
from provisioning the prison to bathing the men, and these must be
filled in and signed by the warder in charge of the particular work
being done. For example, every week he must fill in the proper form and
certify that every man in his ward has had a bath. I have known men to
go unbathed for many months, simply because they did not wish to bathe,
and it saved the warder trouble--nearly all others in the ward only
bathed about once a month, and yet at the stated times the officer
filled up and signed the form, certifying to the superior authorities
that those in his ward had been bathed at the regulation times.
A great majority of the officers are soldiers who have been invalided or
pensioned off after doing the full term for which they enlisted--twelve
years--and of sailors in the same condition. In order to encourage
enlistment into the army and navy, the Government gives discharged
soldiers and sailors the preference in the civil service, apparently
heedless as to their moral qualifications. Indeed, it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain about these, for the very
nature and present requirements of these services tend to harden and
make men conscienceless, subservient and fawning toward their superiors,
and tyrannical to those in their power.
As to those in the prison service, there are many who would be good men
in a situation suited to their acquirements, and there are but a few of
those who are brought into immediate contact with the men--who, in fact,
virtually hold the power of life and death over them--whose influence is
of an elevating or reforming kind. Indeed, I have heard many of them
telling or exchanging obscene stories with prisoners, and using the
vilest language and bandying thieves' slang, in which they become
proficient. I am bold to say that at least one-half of all I have known
are in morals on a level with the average prisoner, or, as I have heard
more than one assistant warder say, "Too much of a coward to steal,
ashamed to beg and too lazy to work"--therefore became a soldier, then a
warder. This may, at the moment, have been spoken in a jesting way, but
it is none the less true.
What can be expected in the way of refinement and good morals from a
class of men who entered the army or navy, coming, as they did in most
cases, from the untaught and mind-debased multitude with which that land
of drink and debauchery swarms?
It will be seen from the foregoing that very much is expected from them,
and in order to fulfill the very hard terms of their contract with the
Government, and keep their places, they are forced to resort to
trickery, deception and perjury, until these, in their attitude toward
their employer, the Government, become second nature, readily resorting
to lies to clear themselves from blame, even in trivial matters, to save
themselves from a sixpence fine. There are jealousies among themselves,
but when it is a question of deceiving or keeping any neglect of duties
or violences against prisoners from the superior authorities they all
unite as one man and affirm or swear to anything they think the position
requires.
A real pleasure was derived from those prisoners' friends, the rats and
mice, which I easily tamed and taught to be my companions.
Not long after my arrival a prisoner gave me a young rat which became
the solace of an otherwise miserable existence. Nothing could he cleaner
in its habits or more affectionate in disposition than this pet member
of a despised race of rodents. It passed all its leisure time in
preening its fur, and after eating always most scrupulously cleaned
its hands and face. It was easily taught, and in course of time it could
perform many surprising feats. I made a small trapeze, the bar being a
slate pencil about four inches long, which was wound with yarn and hung
from strings of the same; and on this the rat would perform like an
acrobat, appearing to enjoy the exercise as much as the performance
always delighted me. I made a long cord out of yarn, on which it would
climb exactly in the manner in which a sailor shins up a rope; and when
the cord was stretched horizontally it would let its body sway under and
travel along the cord, clinging by its hands and feet like a human
performer.
A rat's natural position when eating a piece of bread is to sit on its
haunches, but I had trained this rat to stand upright on its feet, with
its head up like a soldier. Placing it in front of me on the bed, I
would hand it a piece of bread, which it would hold up to its mouth with
its hands while standing erect. Keeping one sharp eye on me and the
other on its food, the moment it noticed that I was not looking it would
gradually settle down upon its haunches. When my eyes turned on it it
would instantly straighten itself up like a schoolboy caught in some
mischief. It always showed great jealousy of my tame mice, and I had to
be very careful not to let it get a chance to get at one. On one
occasion I was training one of the mice, and did not notice that the rat
was near. Suddenly, like a flash, it leaped nearly two feet, seizing the
mouse by the neck precisely as a tiger seizes its prey. Although I
instantly snatched it away, it was too late, the one fierce bite having
severed the jugular.
I have mentioned mice, and indeed they were most interesting pets,
easily trained and as scrupulously clean and neat as any creature of a
higher race could be. I at times had a half dozen of them, which I had
caught in the following simple way: I first stuck a small bit of bread
on the inside of my pint tin cup, about half way down; then turning it
bottom up on the floor, I raised one edge just high enough so that a
mouse could enter, and let the edge of the cup rest on a splinter. It
would not be long before one would enter, and as it could not reach the
bread otherwise it stood up, putting its hands against the sides of the