Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
some shelter for his nude body from the driving rain, which had chilled
him through. While groping about in the dark his hand rested on
something soft, which, to his unbounded delight, proved to be an old
coat which had probably been left there by the sexton and forgotten. He
remained hidden all day, and traveled through the fields all night,
during which he found a scarecrow, from which he transferred to his own
person its old hat and trousers.
He said that although so hungry, he never had felt so happy as he did at
finding himself once more dressed up. After proceeding a few miles
farther, he ventured into a laborer's cottage in quest of food, which
was given him, and with it a pair of old boots. As dilapidated, ragged,
vagabond-looking, honest people are common in England, no questions were
asked, and he proceeded on his way rejoicing in that freedom of which he
had been deprived for ten years or more.
Amid all his pranks he had never been charged with idleness, and now
worked at odd jobs about the farms until he had procured a decent suit
of clothes, when he applied to a master house painter for work as a
journeyman, though he had never done anything of that kind. The master,
pleased with his appearance, gave him a trial, but the first job showed
such ignorance of the art of house painting that he was forthwith
discharged with half a day's wages. However, he had picked up some
valuable hints, and being very apt by the time he had been more or less
summarily discharged from half a dozen places he had become a good
workman, and henceforth had no trouble about retaining any situation as
long as he refrained from beer and restrained his temper; but at the
slightest fault-finding on the part of the master he would fly into a
passion and throw up the situation, and this, especially, if he
suspected that anything had leaked out about his imprisonment.
While at work with a companion at painting the interior of a gentleman's
residence near Bradford a word or two was dropped which made him believe
his fellow workman had become aware of his being an ex-convict. Quitting
work, he went to a public house, passing the rest of the day in
carousing. About midnight, while on his way to his boarding house, it
occurred to him that he had noticed a good many valuable things about
the gentleman's house which he could obtain. No sooner thought than
done; the entrance was in a moment gained; he had just consciousness
enough left to gather a few things, then lie down by the side of them
and fell into a drunkard's sleep, in which the servants found him when
they came down in the morning. A constable was sent for, he was given in
charge, tried, convicted of the crime of burglary and sentenced to seven
years' penal servitude.
His former term of five years had made him proficient in all the dodges
of prison life, and he felt justified in his own mind in using all his
craft in order to put in his seven years as easily as possible. As he
had been in Raynell asylum, he knew that by "putting on the balmy" so as
to be sent to the lunatic department he would not be subjected to the
prison rules and be as well off as he had been in the free asylum.
Persistent attempts at suicide by cutting himself in the arms and legs
with a piece of glass so as to bleed freely accomplished his purpose.
Being placed with the other convict lunatics, he made himself useful,
but on account of his bad temper and overbearing, quarrelsome
disposition, obnoxious to his fellow prisoners.
Eventually he was discharged with an eighteen months' ticket-of-leave
and $2.50 as capital for a new departure.
He went to Liverpool, procured a passage on board a freight steamer to
America, which he paid for by working at painting. Landing at New York,
he made his way to Norfolk, Va., where he procured work as a painter.
Owing to his infirmity of temper he did not keep his place long, and
after knocking about for a few months he took a freak to return to
England--the last place of all for any man who has once been a prisoner.
Once more in his native land, he procured work without difficulty at
house painting, but, as usual, remained in one place but a very short
time. His earnings, like those of a great majority of the working
class in England, were squandered in the public house.
Soon after the events just recorded, Heep concluded to visit his old
home in Macclesfield. He accordingly threw up his situation, and arrived
at the railway station an hour before the train was due. In order to
while away the time he entered a public house and drank several glasses
of ale. The compartment which he entered happened to be empty, and as
usual whenever he indulged his appetite for anything containing alcohol,
he was soon quite out of his mind and fancied that some one on the train
was coming to murder him, and leaped headlong from the train, which was
going at the rate of forty miles an hour. This came to a standstill, he
was taken on board again, not seriously injured, and left at Wrexham in
Denbighshire, from which he was sent to the Denbigh Insane Asylum. This
being a Welsh institution, did not, according to Heep, possess those
facilities for enjoying life which were so liberally supplied to the
inmates of the Raynell asylum near Liverpool. Accordingly he behaved
himself with so much propriety that the doctor discharged him as cured.
Not long after his return he got work near Manchester at painting in a
block of new houses where the plumbers were at work putting in the gas
and water pipes. On a Saturday, when he left work at noon, he met a
young plumber who was out of a job. This man said he knew where he could
earn a sovereign if he had tools to do a job in a butcher shop, and told
Heep that if he would go to the houses where he had been painting and
borrow a few plumbers' tools and assist him he would divide the amount.
Heep went back, but finding that the master plumber and all his men had
gone (Saturday afternoon in England being a half-holiday for laborers),
he took the few tools required, went and finished the job by 7 p.m.;
then instead of taking the tools back, they went into a public house
where they caroused till midnight, when they separated, Heep taking the
tools to his boarding house. On Monday he started early, so as to get
the tools back before the other workmen arrived. On nearing the houses
he passed a policeman who walked a little lame. He turned his head to
look back, and the policeman happened to do the same thing, and seeing
Heep looking at him his suspicions were aroused. Turning back, he came
up and asked him what he had in the two bosses (tool baskets). Heep
informed him, and on further questioning showed him the key to the house
from which he had taken the tools, and asked him to accompany him there,
which he did. They entered, Heep putting back the tools, and showed the
policeman where he had been painting and wished him to stay until the
master came in half an hour. This the policeman declined to do, and took
the tools and told Heep to come to the police station.
Heep lost his temper and began cursing him. The policeman went to the
door, and seeing another just passing beckoned him in, and the two
marched him to the station. The plumber was sent for, and was induced to
make a charge against Heep and value the stolen goods at ten shillings.
Seeing that the police were bound to make a case against him, he seized
the plumber's knife and cut his throat, severing the windpipe. The
doctor was sent for, he was transferred to the jail hospital, and in the
course of two or three weeks was well enough to appear before the
magistrate, though he could not speak, and was bound over for trial.
In the mean time the police had discovered that he had served two penal
terms, on the strength of which, when convicted, the magistrate
sentenced him to ten years' penal servitude.
At the trial he had not yet recovered the use of his voice, nor did he
have any one to defend him, for at that time, unlike the present, the
Crown did not furnish a lawyer for the defense of those who were unable
to employ one at their own expense. When the magistrate was about to
pronounce the sentence, he said that as the prisoner had escaped from
ordinary asylums he should send him to a place from which he could not
escape--meaning a prison.
CHAPTER XL.
WE WILL FERRY YOU OVER JORDAN THAT ROLLS BETWEEN.
Once convicted of a crime in England it is impossible, unless a man has
money or friends, for him to obtain an honest livelihood unless he is
the happy possessor of a trade. All the great corporations demand
references that will cover a series of years of the applicant's life,
and, above all, strict inquiry is made as to his last employer. This
cuts the ground out from under the feet of the unfortunate, and feeling
that England can no longer be a home to him he turns his eyes as a
matter of course to America.
A fair percentage of the prisoners are men who perhaps under great
temptation, or while under the influence of drink, have broken the laws,
but yet are honorably minded and resolved in future to lead an honest
life. Such are not undesirable citizens; but there is another class,
that of the professional criminal; with these the prisons swarm, and,
worse yet, the slums and saloons of the great cities are breeding
thousands more that will take the places of those now on the stage.
The conditions of society in England are such that the procession of
criminals is an unending one. The society that creates the criminal also
has established a system of police repression that makes the life
history of society's victim one of misery, until such time when the
criminal, growing wise by experience, shakes the dust of English soil
off from his feet and transfers himself, a moral ruin, to our country,
here to become a curse and a burden.
This flow of moral sewage to our shores is constant and unceasing. Our
Government has frequently protested against it, but with no success, for
the officials in England indignantly deny that the State either
encourages or assists the exodus of her criminal classes; but from my
personal knowledge I know this to be false. The officials over there
have found out an effectual way to rid themselves of their discharged
prisoners as fast as their sentences expire, and cast them on our
shores, and this is so ingenious a way that the wrong can never be
brought home to them.
During my twenty years' residence in Chatham I suppose nearly half as
many thousands asked me for information about America, and at least 95
per cent. assured me that when released they would "join the society"
and depart at once for that happy hunting ground--that Promised Land
which charms the imagination no less of the criminal than of the honest
poor of the Old World. In every English prison the walls are decorated
with placards, gorgeous in hue, of rival firms appealing to the readers
for patronage. "Join us," they all say; and every prisoner knows the
appeal "join us" means if you do we will ferry you over the Jordan that
rolls between this desert land and the plains flowing with milk and
honey on the other side. The "firms" I mention are those arch humbugs,
the Prisoners' Aid Societies of England.
Elizabeth Fry, who made "aid to prisoners" fashionable and a society fad
in England, has much to answer for. Prisoners' Aid Societies have sprung
up in every quarter of England, and having a rich soil, and under the
fostering care of the Government, have flourished with a rank and
luxuriant growth. These societies draw their nourishment from English