Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison: Fifteen Years in Solitude
soil, but, unhappily for us, their tall branches hang over our wall and
their ripened fruit falls on our ground.
From the time a prisoner becomes accustomed to his surroundings until
the hour of his release the one thing ever uppermost in his thoughts,
the one distracting subject and cause of anxious solicitude, is the
question, "Which society shall I join?" It is a tolerably safe venture
to predict that he will "join" "The Royal Prisoners' Aid Society of
London," which society is happy in having Her Gracious Majesty and a
long list of illustrious lords and ladies for "governors." What that may
mean no one knows. Certainly no benefit from these people ever accrues
to the discharged prisoners, but who can describe the glory that falls
on the four or five reverend gentlemen, sons, nephews or brothers of
deans or bishops, high-salaried secretaries of this particular society,
who pose at the annual meeting in Exeter Hall, before a brilliant
audience, and after have the felicity of seeing their report in the
church and society journals and their names connected with such exalted
people.
The way the Government over there accomplishes its purpose of getting
rid of its criminal population at our expense and at the same time is
able to answer the charges of our Government with disavowal is this:
The Home Secretary alone possesses the pardoning power for the United
Kingdom, and directly controls every prison, his fiat being law in all
things to every official as well as to every inmate. He has officially
recognized and registered at the Home Office every prisoners' aid
society in England, Scotland and Wales, and in order to boom them he
gives to every discharged prisoner an extra gratuity of L3 provided he
"joins" a prisoners' aid society on his discharge, the result being that
all do so. England is a small and compact country, and the police have
practically one head, and that head is the Home Secretary. Under the
circumstances the system of police espionage is so perfect that whenever
a discharged prisoner is reconvicted for another crime he cannot escape
recognition, and in all such cases the Home Secretary notifies the
particular aid society who received the prisoner on his discharge of the
fact, very much to the vexation of the officials of the society, who are
all anxious for a good record in reforming men that come officially
under their auspices. They publish that all who are never reported as
reconvicted are reformed, and all love to make a big showing for the
money subscribed at the all-important annual meeting, the result being
that all the men hustled out of the country by the society count as
reformed men.
These societies are supported by subscriptions, which all go in salaries
and office rents. The assistance given to the discharged prisoner is
limited to the L3 extra gratuity given the society by the Government on
the prisoner's behalf. The London societies have an agreement with the
Netherlands Line and the Wilson Line of steamers to "take to sea" for L2
10s. all "workingmen" they send to them. I have talked to thousands of
men who "joined the society," most of whom intended to go to America,
and I have talked to scores who had "joined," but who, unluckily for
themselves, not leaving England, were reconvicted and sent back to
Chatham. Throughout twenty years I conversed with several thousand men
who joined the society avowing they were going to America, and were
never heard of again in England, and have also known some scores of men
who passed through the hands of the society agents, yet were afterward
reconvicted. Therefore I am in a position to speak with authority on the
important question of England dumping her criminal population on our
shores.
CHAPTER XLI.
"WELL MY MAN, WHAT DO YOU INTEND TO DO?" "I WANT TO GO TO AMERICA, SIR."
"TUT! TUT! YOU MEAN YOU WANT TO GO TO SEA!" "YES, SIR; I WANT TO GO TO
SEA."
The Royal Society and The Christian Aid Societies, presided over by a
Rev. Mr. Whitely, enjoy a bad pre-eminence in this respect. The year
before my release the latter stated at the annual meeting that six
thousand discharged prisoners had passed through his society, and I
venture to assert that five thousand of these found their way to this
country through the assistance of this society. These two societies have
been boomed to an incredible extent, and it would be a curious study if
any report could be had as to how the large subscriptions were actually
expended.
For the sake of making my narrative clear, I will here only speak of the
first-named society.
Two months before release the prisoner must inform the warder that he
intends to join the Royal Society. He notifies the Home Office, which in
turn notifies the society and forwards a warrant for L3. The prisoner
upon discharge takes a certain train for London, and is met upon his
arrival at the station by an agent of the society. This agent ranks as a
servant, is usually an ex-prisoner and is always paid 21 shillings a
week. He pilots his man at a certain hour before the Reverend Secretary,
and here follows a verbatim report of the dialogue between the great
man and the poor, timid and dreadfully embarrassed ex-prisoner:
Great Man--Well, my man, what do you intend to do?
Ex-Prisoner--I want to go to America.
Great Man--Tut! tut! my man; you mean you want to go to sea.
Ex-Prisoner (taking the hint)--Yes, sir; I want to go to sea.
Great Man--Very well, my man. Go with this agent, who will fix it with
the ship captain so you can go to sea.
If a steamer of either line named is about to sail he is taken on board
at once goes to the steerage, and just before sailing the agent hands
him a ticket and the criminal is safely off for America. England is rid
of a bad subject, and the Royal Society has one more "reformed" man to
put in its report. In addition to the L3 gratuity the ex-prisoner has
been paid L1, L2 or L3 in addition, provided his sentence had been at
least five years. The society is not a cent out of pocket over him, and
forlorn and friendless he lands here with from $2 to $15 in his pocket.
He has got the cheap suit of clothes he wears, one handkerchief and one
pair of stockings extra. It is almost certain he will speedily drift
into crime, spending the remainder of his life in prison, and finally
dying there or in the poorhouse.
There is just one way this evil can be stopped--I might say two ways.
The first, and a method that would be effectual in stopping the influx
of criminals from all countries, is to let Congress put a tax of $30 or
$50 on the steamship companies for every passenger not an American
citizen whom they bring to America. Not one discharged criminal in a
thousand could meet the tax in addition to the fare. The only other way
possible would be for our Government to request the English Government
to furnish them with photographs, marks and measurements of all
discharged criminals. Then have them copied and sent to the
Immigration Commissioners of our ports. But that would involve a radical
change in these boards and their methods. Efficiency there under our
corrupt system is, I fear, hopeless.
I visited Ellis Island a few days ago and saw how they passed a shipload
of immigrants in a few minutes, and as I looked I felt it was hopeless
to expect any efficient measures to throw back the foul tide that is
polluting our shores.
Seldom as men of the criminal class once safe in America ever return to
England, yet they do now and then return. In the two or three cases that
came under my observation it was very much to their loss and grief, for
they only came back to undergo another term.
One day, in 1890, a man working in my party slipped a note into my hand
that had been given him for me in chapel that morning. As in similar
cases, I secreted the note, and when safe in my little room I read it.
The writer said he had lately come down from London, and was most
anxious to get into my party in order to have a chance to talk with me.
He said he had been living in Chicago and could give me all the news. He
ended the note by stating he was being murdered by hard work, and
implored me to try and get him into my party, where it was not so hard.
This I was most anxious to do, as in my party you could talk almost with
impunity. To have a man near me fresh and only a year before in Chicago
would be like a letter from home and also a newspaper. Therefore, I
determined to get Foster in my party if possible. At this time I had
been seventeen years a resident, and was, in fact, the oldest
inhabitant, and had some little influence in a quiet way. About eleven
years before I had been put in the party, and had a chance to learn
bricklaying, and having become an expert in the art was given charge of
the bricklaying. I was on the best of terms with our officer, so when, a
day or two later, one of our men was so fortunate (in the Chatham view
of it) as to meet with an accident and be admitted to that heaven, the
infirmary, I told my officer to ask for Foster to replace him. He did
so, and he, very much to his gratification, found himself by my side,
with a trowel instead of a shovel in his hand. We worked side by side,
Winter and Summer, storm and shine, for two years, and in spite of
myself I began soon to like the man. His chief and only virtues were
truthfulness and fair-mindedness toward his friends--rare and
incongruous virtues for a professional burglar; nevertheless, he
possessed them in a marked degree. This is a statement to make a cynic
smile, and is one of those cases where the result is justifiable; yet,
however the cynic may smile, there is plenty of all-around good faith in
the world, and there is no nation, race or color, no clique, religion
nor social strata, that has a monopoly of the article. Good faith and
truth grow in unlikely places, as I have found in my career, for I have
looked on life from both sides, and to look on it from the seamy side is
instructive, indeed, for then the mask is off and the true character is
revealed. I have been away down in the depths, and for years have toiled
cheek by jowl, through sunshine and storm, in blinding snows and pelting
rain, with my brother men under conditions too brutal and demoralizing
to be understood if described--conditions where the very worst side of
human character would naturally be thought to come to the front, and I
came out of the fierce struggle in that pit of death with conclusions as
to the human animal that are decidedly favorable, and I am inclined to
the view that man was born almost an angel, and that, in spite of the
fearful temptations of the world into which he has been thrust, much of
the angelic pottery abides.
CHAPTER XLII.
MANY A MAN MORE DANGEROUS WRITES ALDERMAN AFTER HIS NAME.
Foster's experience during his four years' residence in Chicago was
decidedly novel, and it had evidently brightened his wits--that is,
increased his cunning without adding to his honesty. And as I think it
will interest my reader to get a view of life from the actor's own
standpoint, I will relate one of the many stories he told me during the
years we worked together.
Upon Foster's release from his first term of imprisonment he joined the
Christian Aid Society of London, and Mr. Whitely, the secretary,
promptly "sent him to sea," as he has thousands of others. In due time
he arrived in New York, but as he had heard much of Chicago he
determined to go there. He arrived penniless, but within an hour ran
against an old friend in the person of a former partner in the art of
burglary who had been a fellow prisoner with him in London. This man's
name was Turtle, and Mr. Whitely had only "sent him to sea" two brief