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THE EXPERIENCES OF A FIRST-CLASS MISDEMEANANT.

HEN Dr. Jameson and his companions were sentenced to various terms of imprisonment, without hard labour, some doubt existed in the highest quarters as to

whether the Lord Chief Justice intended that they should be treated as first-class misdemeanants. A telegram was therefore sent from the Home Office to Holloway, ordering the prisoners not to be subjected to the ordinary treatment of criminal convicts until

opportunity

had been afforded of ascertaining the exact nature of the judicial sentence. Hence the report to which the Press Association gave widespread currency, that the Home Office had ordered them to be treated as first-class misdemeanants. Before that report was circulated, the Home Office, having ascertained that the sentence made no provision for exceptional treatment, had ordered the prison authorities to carry out the sentence according to law. That meant that Dr. Jameson and his officers were to be subjected to the usual indignities and hardships prescribed by law for the punishment of criminal convicts. They were carted over in Black Maria to Wormwood Scrubbs, and there for one day and one night were subjected to the usual discipline. They wore prison clothes, slept on plank beds, and were dieted with the skilly and brown bread which form the staff of the convict's life. Meanwhile the papers, misled by the Press Association's report, had been praising the Govern

ment for the action which had never been taken; a memorial, extensively signed by members of Parliament, had been presented to Ministers praying for the modification of the sentence; and at last, after some little dubitation, it was decided at a Cabinet that the Royal prerogative should be invoked in order to retransfer the raiders to the familiar fortress at Holloway, where they at the present moment are still ensconced.

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A

HOLLOWAY CASTLE.

Where Dr. Jameson, Sir J. Willoughby, and his companions are now confined.

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The action of the Home Office in this case was governed to some extent by the precedent of 1885, when in my own case a sentence passed by a judge was modified by a Minister. When this precedent was invoked at the Home Office in favour of Dr. Jameson, the reply was that the case was one of doubtful legality. The Home Office no doubt still remembers the hubbub that was made when stormy deputations of angry matrons from Exeter Hall invaded the official precincts with petitions for my release, and when, to add to the discomfort of outside

storm, the wrath of the Prime Minister blazed fiercely about the Department. The end of it was that the Home Office, coerced alike by outside pressure and Ministerial displeasure, converted me from an ordinary criminal convict into a first-class misdemeanant by one of those absurd official fictions which are so dear to the bureaucratic mind.

I had been three days and three nights in Coldbath Fields Prison as an ordinary criminal convict, when the

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was better in my life," I replied. He looked grave. "I don't quite see how that will do," he said, "I am officially instructed to report upon your health. My instructions are that your life was in such imminent danger, owing to the conditions of your imprisonment, that it was imperative you should be brought here, it being necessary in order to save your life. And now you tell me that you never were better in your life!"

I laughed heartily, seeing how the land lay. "Well," I said, "if you are officially informed that I was dangerously ill, all that you can now do is to report that the change has effected a marvellous cure, for I am now quite well."

The good doctor smiled grimly, and took his departure. What his report contained I have never heard. But it was well for me the Home Office acted first and inquired afterwards.

The precedent so established brought the Government into sharp collision with the judge. It had not been considered proper heretofore to interfere with a judicial sentence without first consulting with the judge. Mr. Justice Lopes, the judge who sentenced me, was reported at the time to have received the first intimation of the change in his sentence from the papers. Rumour had it that there was much wrath in high judicial quarters, and in a day or two offended dignity was appeased by the publication of an official notification that the judge, being placed in possession of the official report as to my health, entirely concurred in the modification of my

sentence.

The precedent was invaluable, because it showed with what ease the Home Office can do anything it is made to do. The official non possumus perished when my sentence was modified by virtue, not of imputed righteousness, but imputed ill-health. With this precedent ready to hand, Ministers had no difficulty in overruling the Lord Chief Justice, and converting his criminal convicts into first-class misdemeanants.

As many of the friends and relatives of Dr. Jameson and his officers must have wondered much how their friends fared at Wormwood Scrubbs and how they are suffering at Holloway, I think it may not be amiss to reprint here the description which I wrote eleven years ago of my adventures in the samo dolorous regions. They were originally printed in the Pall Mall Gazette, and when republished as a threepenny pamphlet, under the title "My First Imprisonment," some thirty thousand copies were sold. The pamphlet has long been out of print, and I was not even able to obtain a copy to send to Dr. Jameson to prepare him for what was awaiting

him. Since his conviction, however, I have recovered a copy, and reproduce the substance of it here, with the rough original sketches, and a portrait of the writer, not as first-class misdemeanant, but as Dr. Jameson was in Wormwood Scrubbs—an ordinary criminal convict of the second division.

For those who may never have heard or who have long ago forgotten the circumstances under which I was sent to gaol, I may say that I was prosecuted and convicted on a charge of conspiring to abduct a girl of thirteen years of age, Eliza Armstrong by name, whom I had endeavoured to rescue from a life of shame, into which I had been assured her mother wished to sell her. The jury found me guilty of being deceived by my agent, strongly recommended me to mercy, and expressed emphatic approval of the motive with which I acted, and of the result-the passing of the law raising the age of consent-which I achieved. My sentence-three months' imprisonment without hard labour-was passed at the Old Bailey after a protracted trial, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Manning, the Bishop of London, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Morley, Mr. Labouchere, and a host of others were subpoenaed as my witnesses. Not till long after I had served my time was it discoverei that Eliza Armstrong was illegitimate. During the trial I had proposed to ask a fishing question that might have elicited the truth, but Sir Charles Russell-now Lord Russell of Killowen-who was retained on our side, would not hear of any such question being put unless we had evidence to produce in justification of casting such a slur upon the mother's character. Had the question been put, the whole issue of the trial would probably have been different. For the judge ruled that, as I admittedly had not the father's consent, I was guilty, had the mother consented to part with her child. As the girl was in reality illegitimate, the father had no legal rights.

This, however, is an old story now, into which it is unnecessary to go further. So, without further preface. here is the story of my experiences in gaol, which resemble very closely those of the raiders, who are still enjoying Her Majesty's hospitality on the breezy heights of Holloway.

I. AS CRIMINAL CONVICTS IN COLDBATH. Sentence was pronounced, a buzz of eager conversation filled the crowded court. Friends were pressing round the dock, where we had spent so many exciting days, to say good-bye. All was movement-a feverish murmur of many voices. The long tension had given way, last words were being hurriedly exchanged "Good-bye. good-bye, God bless you!" "I'd rather be in your place than in that of your julge "—it was Mr. Waugh who said that, although I did not know his voice at the time from other voices rising from below. "Once more, good-bye." And waving my hand to the excited throng. I descended the steps, with a confused vision of horsehair wigs, eager faces, and a patch of scarlet still lingering on my retina. Down we went, Jacques* and I-and

Jacques was the faithful and enthusiastic guide who had personally conducted me through the mazes of the modern Labyrinth.

we were prisoners. We had been below for a few minutes every day of the trial, but now we went further afield.

FIRST IMPRESSION OF
NEWGATE.

Newgate is a deserted gaol. The long corridors, like combs of empty cells, stand silent as the grave. As we were marched down passages and through one iron gate after another, I experienced my first feel of a gaol. Those who

have not been in prison will understand it when they in their turn receive sentence of imprisonment. It is a feel of stone and iron, hard and cold, and, when, as in Newgate, the prison is empty, there is added the chill and silence

of the grave. The first thing that strikes you is the number of iron gates that are to be locked and unlocked, and the word turnkey first seems real to you. Overhead

the tiers of cells, with their iron balustrades and iron stairs, rose story after story. It was as if you were walking at the

PICKING OAKUM.

bottom of the hold of some great petrified ship, looking up at the deserted decks. What a sepulchre of hopes it once was, and how many ghosts of the unhallowed dead must walk these aisles and corridors, where rings now but the echo of the clang of the iron gate, or the spring of the lock, as the warder passes his prisoners along the via dolorosa that leads to the condemned cells.

AFTER THE SENTENCE.

When we reached these grim chambers we turned to the left and entered the warder's office. It was bright and cheerful, and the fire glowed from the grate like a live thing, after the deadly chilly mirk of the prison. There we sat and waited, and as the minutes passed, and we waited and waited, some faint sense of the change came over me. At last, after years of incessant stress and strain, and after six months in which every hour had to get through the work of two, I had come to a place where time was a drug in the market-where time was to hang heavy on my hands, where, after being long a bankrupt in minutes, I was to be a millionaire in hours. It was a sudden transition from the busy, crowded stirring excitement of an existence exceptionally full of life and interest to the dull monotony of a gaol.

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At last the prison van was ready. We were ushered out into the yard. "Look there," said the warder to Jacques; see that door-that is where you will be next time you come here." "What is that?" said Jacques. "The condemned cell," said the warder, with a grim laugh, and we marched off to the prison van.

IN BLACK MARIA.

We were alone locked in with the warders. A lamp at one end shed a dim light down the centre. At last we started. As we drove through the prison gates we heard the hoarse roar of the crowd which had waited to give us a parting yell of execration as we left the scene in which for so many days we had been the central figures. It was a poor howl, the crowd apparently being small; but like Don Silva in the "Spanish Gypsy," when Father Isidor was hanged, we

Knew the shout

For wonted exultation of the crowd When malefactors die-or saints or

heroes.

It was the last sound from the outside world which we heard a curious contrast to the cheering crowd which little more than two months before had followed us from Hyde Park to Northumberland Street. After ten minutes' drive we arrived at Coldbath-in-the-Fields.

IN THE RECEPTION-ROOM.

Jacques and I were made to stand in line, and then marched off through echoing corridors and the usual endless series of grated gates to the reception-room, where some dozen or more fellow-prisoners were already assembled waiting till the dregs had drained into this human cesspool from all the contributory police-stations. We were seated on forms fronting an officer, who entered our names, emptied our pockets, labelled us, and sent us across the room to select caps and shoes. The night was raw and cold. There was a glorious fire close to the officer, but so far from us as to make us only colder for its sight. The officer was smart, somewhat rough, although not with me; but as we sat waiting an hour in the great empty room with our fellow-criminals, he became drowsy, and, contrary to regulations, the criminal crew began to exchange notes. A wild-looking larrikin whispered to me, "Do you know how much them wot was in the Armstrong case has got?" I had the pleasure of announcing my sentence, and explaining that we were "them wot was in it," and noting the sensation that followed. "You've got off cheap," said my left hand neighbour. Then came in a broken-down old gentleman who had evidently seen better days. He had been drinking, and smelt of it, although he was sober enough to walk with a stick. When his pockets were searched no fewer than nine pocket knives were discovered hidden in about as many different pockets. The unearthing of each fresh pocket-knife produced a titter of merriment. Now, old Dicky Nine Knives," said the officer, "what is your name?" And the poor, dilapidated, red-nosed creature

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said his name was Mr. "journalist!" Poor fellow, his journalistic days had been over some time. "Costermongers," a prisoner in Clerkenwell once remarked, "when times are bad, turn journalists "a fact which explains many things. Most of the prisoners were drunk. Several might have avoided imprisonment by paying a few shillings' fine; but when you have not got a sixpence, a few shillings' fine is as hopeless as a king's

ransom.

HATS AND SHOES.

Prisoners are allowed to select their own hats and shoes out of a miscellaneous assortment of all sizes. Whether the ordinary criminal head is abnormally small, or whether the persons who had preceded us that day were abnormally big-headed men, I do not know; but I found nearly all the hats-dun-yellow glengarries without buttons or tails-too small for me. At last, after trying some twenty hats which had been going in succession round the score of my fellow-prisoners, I found one which was luckily split open a little, so that by wearing it with the back to the front I could get a tolerable fit. The shoes were another difficulty. They were fearfully and wonderfully patched. Some of them were monuments of careful industry. By careful selection I got two misfellowed ones which I thought would fit. When I came to lace them, however, I found them nip my feet so badly that, after trying them for two days, I had to get them changed. My new pair were so large I had to fill them up with oakum when I went for exercise, and then stumbled along as best I could.

THE BATH.

When we had all been entered up, we marched in single file downstairs along passages until we came to the bath and dressing

room. Here we were halted, and sent to bath in detachments. I squirmed a little at the thought of the bath from the description of the Amateur Casual, but I was agreeably surprised. The bath was filled fresh for each prisoner; the water was clean, and although it might have been pleasanter if a little more of the chill had been taken off, for it was nearly nine at night in mid-November, there was nothing to complain of. Your own clothes are then taken away, and a prison suit given you. The suits are allotted in sizes. Jacques, being large and stout, was ill to fit, and his toilet took him along time. As we had come in with drawers

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PRISON UNIFORM.

The prisoners' complete outfit is as follows:-Cap and shoes, selected in the reception-room; a pair of worsted stockings, even more monumental specimens of industry and ingenuity than the boots-which was darn and which was original stocking no one could tell, and in the darning one of the heels had somehow managed to stray half down the foot towards the toe; flannel shirt and drawers; a blue-striped cotton shirt; trousers, waistcoat, coat, pocket handkerchief, and stock. The stock is a narrow strip of cloth, which buttons round the neck and over which the shirt collar folds. There is only one pocket in the suit, into which the large, coarse pocket handkerchief is thrust. The trousers are held in situ by the waistband. At Coldbath the band had only one buckle, and a hole pierced to receive it. If I might make a suggestion to benevolent governors, it is that wherever the single-pronged waistband is used they will pierce more than one hole in the thong of the buckle. The girth of prisoners differs so much that if there were three holes an inch apart it would conduce much both to comfort and seemliness. Where there is only one hole. and the prisoner is slim, he has continually to be hitching up his breeches. It is a small reform, and it could easily be carried out. At Holloway the waistband has the ordinary double sharp-pronged buckle, which makes its own holes, and this, of course, is the best. But somebody no doubt is wearing my old breeches to-day, and although they were of a most lovely hue-a fine shade of rich creamy-coloured yellow, plentifully bespattered with the broad arrow-he will be often tempted, if he be thin and of an impatient disposition, to swear at the absence of means for girthing himself up tight. When dressed complete a small pocket comb is given you and a

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pair of leather bootlaces, an article I never possessed since I gave up wearing a leather bootlace as a watch-guard. When the last loiterer had finished his toilette we tramped back to the reception-room, where, after a time, we were taken off to our cells.

THE FIRST MEAL IN
GAOL.

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Before we went, however, a tin looking like an old American beef tin, with something like paste at the bottom of it, and a small loaf of hard. wholemeal brown bread, were handed to each of us. I thought of the waite at the London Club, where I had dined the night before, and valorously put the tin to my lips, following the example of my neighbours. The viscous fluid crawled slowly down the tin and touched my lips. And there it stopped. Gruel at the best is an abominationto me. But prison gruel without any salt is about as

"MY LITTLE ROOM."

and flannels, we were allotted underclothing-fairly comfortable, although the drawers were short in the leg. Braces are superfluities of civilisation. So are cuffs, collars, and neckties.

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savoury a beverage as the contents of
the editorial paste-pot. There was
salt in my cell, I was told, and carry-
ing our skilly and our bread in our
hands, we were marched off to the
reception wing, where we were to
sleep that night. The warder who
conducted us was a decent fellow.
"You had better say good-bye," said
he; "you will not see each other
again." In this, however, he was
wrong. We went to the doctor
together next morning and also to
the governor.

HARD LABOUR" AND "WITHOUT
HARD LABOUR."

It was when trudging to our cells that the warder told us that the distinction between hard labour and not hard labour prisoners was a distinc

tion without a difference. "If I had to do a turn," said he, "I should prefer hard labour, for you don't do much more work, and you do get a bit more food." As there are very few of the judges who know this, and as Lord Justice Lopes in particular seemed to imagine that by sentencing us to imprisonment without hard labour he was giving us a lighter sentence than he awarded to Mdme. Mourez, I will quote here an extract from Sir E. Du Cane's book on convict prisons, the contents of which seem to be unknown to at least one judge on the bench:

The distinction made by the use of the term "imprisonment" to denote sentences of two years and under, and penal servitude to denote sentences of five years and upwards, no longer has any significance, now that they are both carried out in the United Kingdom; and it is misleading, for both classes of prisoners are undergoing "imprisonment" and are equally in a condition of penal servitude. The use of the term "hard labour" in imposing the sentence of imprisonment, which is not used in passing one of penal servitude, might also well be omitted, for any prisoner sentenced to imprisonment should be and is by law required to labour under specified conditions suitable to his health and his capacity; and, in fact, except the specific kind of labour called first-class hard labour, defined in the Prisons Act, 1865, as crank, tread wheel, and other like kind of labour, the term "hard" has no particular meaning. and its employment in the sentence makes no practical difference.

HOW TO MINGLE MERCY WITH JUSTICE.

Judges ought to serve experimentally for a short term all the varieties of sentences which they inflict, except of course the capital penalty. At present they are often scandalously ignorant of the nature of the penalties which they deal out right and left, often in the most reckless fashion. Lord Justice Lopes, I have subsequently heard, expressed his surprise that a sentence of "simple imprisonment" carried with it all the penalties and indignities of hard labour, minus the non-existent crank and the rarely used treadmill. He is not the only judge on the bench whose general information on the subject of the treatment of criminal convict prisoners stands sadly in need of a little personal investigation and experience.

MY FIRST CELL.

Here was my cell. As I entered it my first sensation was one of pleasant satisfaction. There was the plank bed. I had heard so much about it from Irish members, and had so often alluded to it in my campaign in the North, that it seemed almost like an old acquaintance

THE VIEW FROM "HAPPY HOLLOWAY."

standing up there against the wall. The gaoler explained the whereabouts of the various articles, handed me the bedclothes and a mattress about an inch thick, and then. left me to my meditations. The cell was better than I expected that is to say, it was larger, loftier, and not a bad kind of retreat, immeasurably superior to all the hermits' cells I had seen or heard of. There was a jet of gas, turned off and on by a tap outside the cell, the clean scrubbed wooden table and stool, and there also was the wooden salt cellar. Prison salt cellars are of wood, and there is no stinting of quantity. I salted my skilly, and broke the bread into it to soften it, fished it out with my wooden spoon, and tried to eat a piece or two. I unrolled my bedclothes, laid my plank bed down, stretched the mattress, and felt thoroughly glad to be alone after all the turmoil. Here was quiet at least.

THE FIRST NIGHT IN GAOL.

After a little time I lay down and slept. I woke once or twice and heard the chimes of a clock in some distant spire, and dozed again, with a strange kind of consciousness of the presence of an immense multitude of friendly faces all around me. The enthusiastic audiences that I had addressed in the North were visible as you see things: in a camera obscura, on this side and on that, and I heard the din and ghostly echoes of their cheers in the otherwise unbroken silence of the prison. At a quarter to six the bell rang, and every one was on the alert. A warder opened the door and gave me instructions. I was only in a reception cell R, that is to say, in the seventh cell on the second floor of the reception wing. I would have to be taken to my destined abiding place in the course of the day. I need not, therefore, clean out my cell, or attend chapel, until I got into my regular cell. prisoner swept out my cell. Then one of the principal warders came round. He was a big kindly man. "You' may have made a mistake," he said, "but you have done a good work."

CHAPLAIN STOCKEN.

A.

An hour afterwards I heard another voice engaged in conversation with Jacques. Our cells were opposite, and you could hear a voice from across the corridor. I could not catch all that was said, but there was some sneering allusion to the Salvation Army, some words about criminal vice and Mdme. Mourez. Then it ceased, and in a few moments my door was unlocked, and a man with a high hat cn, in appearance not unlike a "gent with a sporting turn," looked in. Well," he said, as he scanned me from head to foot, "don't you think you've got off very

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