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changed very little in the forty-three
years that have elapsed since my release,
as I know from men who have been
liberated in recent years and whose ex-
perience was very much longer than
mine. Although an Act of Parliament
passed a few years ago made many minor
changes, it is safe to say that in all es-
sentials the English prison system is just
the same as it was fifty years ago. Noth-
ing changes in England, and least of all
the spirit governing the treatment of
enemies of society or enemies of the
Government.
THWARTING SIR JOSHUA JEBB.
Some of Mr. 0sborne’s statements are
positively absurd and others are wholly
untrue. I have no doubt he believes
they are true, because he was told they
were, but that does not alter the fact.
“The reform idea, as practised in Great
Britain” ‘does not exist except in the
professions of the oillcials. Poor old
Sir Joshua Jebb, the honest and benevo-
lent Quaker, after whom the first Prison
Reform Act was called, undoubtedly
meant well. His intention was to create
a system that would tend to reform the
prisoner and train him to be able to live
an honest life after his release. Quota-
tions from it are hung up in the prison-
ers’ cells and shown to visitors to the
prison. They sound very well, and if
carried out might do some good, but
would not work miracles, or perform
impossibilities. But they are not car-
ricd out, and in every convict prison
there is a set of “customs,” or regula-
tions, which are not printed, are
rigidly carried out and the object
of which is to ‘defeat the purpose
of Sir Joshua Jebo’s rules. Some of
these customs are savage in spirit, detri-
mental to the prisoner's health, and cal-
culated to fill him with resentment. No
strong, healthy prisoner in England gets
enough to eat and all prisoners, no mat-
ter what their weight or size, get exact-
ly the same food in the two sets of pris-
ons in which convicts are kept-the
“separate” prisons in London, in which
they spend from nine months to a year
immediately after conviction, and the
“public: works” prisons where they spend
the remainder of their sentence. The
system, as administered, is intended to
break the spirit of the man, and not one
official in ten believes in the chance of
reforming the prisoner. This is true
even of the best of them, so they waste
no time on "reform," except in talking
to visitors. The “punishment theory”
prevails in Englan'd, even more strongly
than it does in America and among pris-
on oiiicials in most countries. But the
American prisoner is not starved, as the
English convict is. All the strong ad-
jectives Mr. Osborne applies to the Am-
erican system fittingly characterize the
English one.
OSBORNE’S AMAZING ZlIISSTATE-
MENTS.
“Keeping men apart” means probably
in Mr. 0sborne’s mind, housing them in
separate cells and forbidding them to
talk to each other. If he had spent a
night in a Jefferson Market cell, with a
companion like mine, he would probably
be somewhat shaken in his theory about
"keeping men apart.” While he was in
England he probably did not notice some
prisoners in parti-colored clothes-not
the fellows in black and brown, who
were only guilty of violence, but the men
in a suit having one side yellow and the
other brown. If the prison officials
would tell him the truth as to why this
inexpressibly mean dress has to be worn
he would learn a wholly sufficient rea-
son for keeping every prisoner in a sepa-
rate cell.
But the most extraordinary statement
made by Mr. Osborne is that “the Eng-
lish prisons do not have any such abomi-
nation as dark cells.” Who told him
that impudent falsehood? Every con-
vict prison in England has a number of
dark cells and they are in constant use.
'1‘he “old lags” call them “chokee” cells.
When a prisoner gets “three days bread
and water”-16 ounces of bread and two
pints of water, half in the morning and
the other half at night-he is “in cho-
kee.” And, though the printed rules
say nothing about it, he is deprived of
his mattress, his sheets, his blanket, his
braces and his shoes, has to sleep on the
bare boards of his “guard bed,” which is
fastened to the floor, and in Winter
shivers all night under one light coun-
terpane, or quilt. I spent only one night
in a ‘dark cell, but 0‘Donovan Rossa, now
lying ill in St. Vincent's Hospital in
Staten Island, spent many a night in
them, as did Colonel Ricard O’Sullivan
Burke, of Chicago, a distinguished
engineer officer who did splendid
service in the Civil War. But
I spent nine months, in two
separate periods, one of six months, the
other of three, in a darkened cell.
Did Mr. Osborne's English friends tell
him nothing of the “Penal Class"-“a
prison within prison, a darker hell in
UVIJ
hell,” as Rossa described it in some
strong verses he wrote while in a “Penal
Class” cell? Well, I can tell him all
about it, for besides the nine months I
spent on punishment in two of them, .
several of us were quartered in “Penal
Class” cells in Chatham Prison for near-
ly two years, but worked in a well-light-
ed and ventilated room in another build-
ing. The Fenians in Portland were also
kept in “Penal Class” cells-,.'but worked
in the open air. I was there for nearly
three months.
“A DARKER HELL IN HELL.”
When a prisoner is sentenced to the
‘‘Penal Class,” for three, four, or six
months, he is absolutely cut off from all
chance of communication with or sight
of any other prisoner. He is never
brought to any religious service in the
prison chapel, but may be called. on in
his cell by the Chaplain or his assistant.
He sees only the two warders in charge
of the “Penal Class” and the Governor,
Deputy-Governor, Chief Warder and
Principal Warder (adeputy-Chief) when
they pass on their rounds of inspection.
He gets one hour's open air exercise
every day in a small, separate yard with
high walls and an inspection hole in the
locked door, through which the Warder
on guard observes him, and from break-
fast time (which varies according to the
time Of daylight) until 6 P. M., he works
at picking oakum. The pieces of old
ShiD’S rope he teases are very hard and
toughened by a coat of tar.
The “Pena1.Class" cells in old Mill-
bank Prison were roomy enough-I
should say about 12% feet long and 7 01‘
7% feet wide. I can only guess the
dimensions from the fact that I could
take seven short steps diagonally from
corner to corner. In Portland and
Chatham where they are in separate
buildings, they are smaller by several
square feet. -The window is always
closed and is covered on the inside by a
thick perforated iron plate, like a large
sieve, which has a most destructive ef-
fect on the eyes. The light comes in al-
ternate, or mixed, patches of light and
shade, which produces a sort of “pepper
and salt” effect on the object the pris-
oner looks at. The only books allowed
are a New Testament in very small type,
I1 Draycr book and one or two other reli-
gious books, according to the religion of
the prisoner. In my case, being a Cath-
Oiici they were Bishop Challoner’s
“Think Well On’t” and one of St. Fran-
cis de Liguori’s little works describing