Chapter I: Part 1

“_Familiar in their Mouths as HOUSEHOLD WORDS._”—SHAKESPEARE.

HOUSEHOLD WORDS.
A WEEKLY JOURNAL

CONDUCTED BY CHARLES DICKENS.

N^{o.} 5.] SATURDAY, APRIL 27, 1850. [PRICE 2_d._

PET PRISONERS

The system of separate confinement first experimented on in England at the model prison, Pentonville, London, and now spreading through the country, appears to us to require a little calm consideration and reflection on the part of the public. We purpose, in this paper, to suggest what we consider some grave objections to this System.

We shall do this temperately, and without considering it necessary to regard every one from whom we differ, as a scoundrel, actuated by base motives, to whom the most unprincipled conduct may be recklessly attributed. Our faith in most questions where the good men are represented to be all _pro_, and the bad men to be all _con_, is very small. There is a hot class of riders of hobby-horses in the field, in this century, who think they do nothing unless they make a steeple-chase of their object; throw a vast quantity of mud about, and spurn every sort of decent restraint and reasonable consideration under their horses’ heels. This question has not escaped such championship. It has its steeple-chase riders, who hold the dangerous principle that the end justifies any means, and to whom no means, truth and fair-dealing usually excepted, come amiss.

Considering the separate system of imprisonment, here, solely in reference to England, we discard, for the purpose of this discussion, the objection founded on its extreme severity, which would immediately arise if we were considering it with any reference to the State of Pennsylvania in America. For whereas in that State it may be inflicted for a dozen years, the idea is quite abandoned at home of extending it usually, beyond a dozen months, or in any case beyond eighteen months. Besides which, the school and the chapel afford periods of comparative relief here, which are not afforded in America.

Though it has been represented by the steeple-chase riders as a most enormous heresy to contemplate the possibility of any prisoner going mad or idiotic, under the prolonged effects of separate confinement; and although any one who should have the temerity to maintain such a doubt in Pennsylvania, would have a chance of becoming a profane St. Stephen; Lord Grey, in his very last speech in the House of Lords on this subject, made in the present session of Parliament, in praise of this separate system, said of it: ‘Wherever it has been fairly tried, one of its great defects has been discovered to be this,—that it cannot be continued for a sufficient length of time without danger to the individual, and that human nature cannot bear it beyond a limited period. The evidence of medical authorities proves beyond dispute that, if it is protracted beyond twelve months, the health of the convict, mental and physical, would require the most close and vigilant superintendence. Eighteen months is stated to be the _maximum_ time for the continuance of its infliction, and, as a general rule, it is advised that it never be continued for more than twelve months.’ This being conceded, and it being clear that the prisoner’s mind, and all the apprehensions weighing upon it, must be influenced from the first hour of his imprisonment by the greater or less extent of its duration in perspective before him, we are content to regard the system as dissociated in England from the American objection of too great severity.

We shall consider it, first in the relation of the extraordinary contrast it presents, in a country circumstanced as England is, between the physical condition of the convict in prison, and that of the hard-working man outside, or the pauper outside. We shall then enquire, and endeavour to lay before our readers some means of judging, whether its proved or probable efficiency in producing a real, trustworthy, practically repentant state of mind, is such as to justify the presentation of that extraordinary contrast. If, in the end, we indicate the conclusion that the associated silent system is less objectionable, it is not because we consider it in the abstract a good secondary punishment, but because it is a severe one, capable of judicious administration, much less expensive, not presenting the objectionable contrast so strongly, and not calculated to pet and pamper the mind of the prisoner and swell his sense of his own importance. We are not acquainted with any system of secondary punishment that we think reformatory, except the mark system of Captain Macconnochie, formerly governor of Norfolk Island, which proceeds upon the principle of obliging the convict to some exercise of self-denial and resolution in every act of his prison life, and which would condemn him to a sentence of so much labour and good conduct instead of so much time. There are details in Captain Macconnochie’s scheme on which we have our doubts (rigid silence we consider indispensable); but, in the main, we regard it as embodying sound and wise principles. We infer from the writings of Archbishop Whateley, that those principles have presented themselves to his profound and acute mind in a similar light.

We will first contrast the dietary of The Model Prison at Pentonville, with the dietary of what we take to be the nearest workhouse, namely, that of Saint Pancras. In the prison, every man receives twenty-eight ounces of meat weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives eighteen. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and forty ounces of bread weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives ninety-six. In the prison, every man receives one hundred and twelve ounces of potatoes weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives thirty-six. In the prison, every man receives five pints and a quarter of liquid cocoa weekly, (made of flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs), with fourteen ounces of milk and forty-two drams of molasses; also seven pints of gruel weekly, sweetened with forty-two drams of molasses. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult receives fourteen pints and a half of milk-porridge weekly, and no cocoa, and no gruel. In the prison, every man receives three pints and a half of soup weekly. In the workhouse, every able-bodied adult male receives four pints and a half, and a pint of Irish stew. This, with seven pints of table-beer weekly, and six ounces of cheese, is all the man in the workhouse has to set off against the immensely superior advantages of the prisoner in all the other respects we have stated. His lodging is very inferior to the prisoner’s, the costly nature of whose accommodation we shall presently show.

Let us reflect upon this contrast in another aspect. We beg the reader to glance once more at The Model Prison dietary, and consider its frightful disproportion to the dietary of the free labourer in any of the rural parts of England. What shall we take his wages at? Will twelve shillings a week do? It cannot be called a low average, at all events. Twelve shillings a week make thirty-one pounds four a year. The cost, in 1848, for the victualling and management of every prisoner in the Model Prison was within a little of thirty-six pounds. Consequently, that free labourer, with young children to support, with cottage-rent to pay, and clothes to buy, and no advantage of purchasing his food in large amounts by contract, has, for the whole subsistence of himself and family, between four and five pounds a year _less_ than the cost of feeding and overlooking one man in the Model Prison. Surely to his enlightened mind, and sometimes low morality, this must be an extraordinary good reason for keeping out of it!

But we will not confine ourselves to the contrast between the labourer’s scanty fare and the prisoner’s ‘flaked cocoa or cocoa-nibs,’ and daily dinner of soup, meat, and potatoes. We will rise a little higher in the scale. Let us see what advertisers in the _Times_ newspaper can board the middle classes at, and get a profit out of, too.

A LADY, residing in a cottage, with a large garden, in a pleasant and healthful locality, would be happy to receive one or two LADIES to BOARD with her. Two ladies occupying the same apartment may be accommodated for 12s. a week each. The cottage is within a quarter of an hour’s walk of a good market town, 10 minutes’ of a South-Western Railway Station, and an hour’s distance from town.

These two ladies could not be so cheaply boarded in the Model Prison.

BOARD and RESIDENCE, at £70 per annum, for a married couple, or in proportion for a single gentleman or lady, with a respectable family. Rooms large and airy, in an eligible dwelling, at Islington, about 20 minutes’ walk from the Bank. Dinner hour six o’clock. There are one or two vacancies to complete a small, cheerful, and agreeable circle.

Still cheaper than the Model Prison!

BOARD and RESIDENCE.—A lady, keeping a select school, in a town, about 30 miles from London, would be happy to meet with a LADY to BOARD and RESIDE with her. She would have her own bed-room and a sitting-room. Any lady wishing for accomplishments would find this desirable. Terms £30 per annum. References will be expected and given.

Again, some six pounds a year less than the Model Prison! And if we were to pursue the contrast through the newspaper file for a month, or through the advertising pages of two or three numbers of Bradshaw’s Railway Guide, we might probably fill the present number of this publication with similar examples, many of them including a decent education into the bargain.

This Model Prison had cost at the close of 1847, under the heads of ‘building’ and ‘repairs’ alone, the insignificant sum of ninety-three thousand pounds—within seven thousand pounds of the amount of the last Government grant for the Education of the whole people, and enough to pay for the emigration to Australia of four thousand, six hundred and fifty poor persons at twenty pounds per head. Upon the work done by five hundred prisoners in the Model Prison, in the year 1848, (we collate these figures from the Reports, and from Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s useful work on the London Prisons,) there was no profit, but an actual loss of upwards of eight hundred pounds. The cost of instruction, and the time occupied in instruction, when the labour is necessarily unskilled and unproductive, may be pleaded in explanation of this astonishing fact. We are ready to allow all due weight to such considerations, but we put it to our readers whether the whole system is right or wrong; whether the money ought or ought not rather to be spent in instructing the unskilled and neglected outside the prison walls. It will be urged that it is expended in preparing the convict for the exile to which he is doomed. We submit to our readers, who are the jury in this case, that all this should be done outside the prison, first; that the first persons to be prepared for emigration are the miserable children who are consigned to the tender mercies of a DROUET, or who disgrace our streets; and that in this beginning at the wrong end, a spectacle of monstrous inconsistency is presented, shocking to the mind. Where is our Model House of Youthful Industry, where is our Model Ragged School, costing for building and repairs, from ninety to a hundred thousand pounds, and for its annual maintenance upwards of twenty thousand pounds a year? Would it be a Christian act to build that, first? To breed our skilful labour there? To take the hewers of wood and drawers of water in a strange country from the convict ranks, until those men by earnest working, zeal, and perseverance, proved themselves, and raised themselves? Here are two sets of people in a densely populated land, always in the balance before the general eye. Is Crime for ever to carry it against Poverty, and to have a manifest advantage? There are the scales before all men. Whirlwinds of dust scattered in mens’ eyes—and there is plenty flying about—cannot blind them to the real state of the balance.

We now come to enquire into the condition of mind produced by the seclusion (limited in duration as Lord Grey limits it) which is purchased at this great cost in money, and this greater cost in stupendous injustice. That it is a consummation much to be desired, that a respectable man, lapsing into crime, should expiate his offence without incurring the liability of being afterwards recognised by hardened offenders who were his fellow-prisoners, we most readily admit. But, that this object, howsoever desirable and benevolent, is in itself sufficient to outweigh such objections as we have set forth, we cannot for a moment concede. Nor have we any sufficient guarantee that even this solitary point is gained. Under how many apparently inseparable difficulties, men immured in solitary cells, will by some means obtain a knowledge of other men immured in other solitary cells, most of us know from all the accounts and anecdotes we have read of secret prisons and secret prisoners from our school-time upwards. That there is a fascination in the desire to know something of the hidden presence beyond the blank wall of the cell; that the listening ear is often laid against that wall; that there is an overpowering temptation to respond to the muffled knock, or any other signal which sharpened ingenuity pondering day after day on one idea can devise: is in that constitution of human nature which impels mankind to communication with one another, and makes solitude a false condition against which nature strives. That such communication within the Model Prison, is not only probable, but indisputably proved to be possible by its actual discovery, we have no hesitation in stating as a fact. Some pains have been taken to hush the matter, but the truth is, that when the Prisoners at Pentonville ceased to be selected Prisoners, especially picked out and chosen for the purposes of that experiment, an extensive conspiracy was found out among them, involving, it is needless to say, extensive communication. Small pieces of paper with writing upon them, had been crushed into balls, and shot into the apertures of cell doors, by prisoners passing along the passages; false responses had been made during Divine Service in the chapel, in which responses they addressed one another; and armed men were secretly dispersed by the Governor in various parts of the building, to prevent the general rising, which was anticipated as the consequence of this plot. Undiscovered communication, under this system, we assume to be frequent.

The state of mind into which a man is brought who is the lonely inhabitant of his own small world, and who is only visited by certain regular visitors, all addressing themselves to him individually and personally, as the object of their particular solicitude—we believe in most cases to have very little promise in it, and very little of solid foundation. A strange absorbing selfishness—a spiritual egotism and vanity, real or assumed—is the first result. It is most remarkable to observe, in the cases of murderers who become this kind of object of interest, when they are at last consigned to the condemned cell, how the rule is (of course there are exceptions,) that the murdered person disappears from the stage of their thoughts, except as a part of their own important story; and how they occupy the whole scene. _I_ did this, _I_ feel that, _I_ confide in the mercy of Heaven being extended to _me_; this is the autograph of _me_, the unfortunate and unhappy; in my childhood I was so and so; in my youth I did such a thing, to which I attribute my downfall—not this thing of basely and barbarously defacing the image of my Creator, and sending an immortal soul into eternity without a moment’s warning, but something else of a venial kind that many unpunished people do. I don’t want the forgiveness of this foully murdered person’s bereaved wife, husband, brother, sister, child, friend; I don’t ask for it, I don’t care for it. I make no enquiry of the clergyman concerning the salvation of that murdered person’s soul; _mine_ is the matter; and I am almost happy that I came here, as to the gate of Paradise. ‘I never liked him,’ said the repentant Mr. Manning, false of heart to the last, calling a crowbar by a milder name, to lessen the cowardly horror of it, ‘and I beat in his skull with the ripping chisel.’ I am going to bliss, exclaims the same authority, in effect. Where my victim went to, is not my business at all. Now, GOD forbid that we, unworthily believing in the Redeemer, should shut out hope, or even humble trustfulness, from any criminal at that dread pass; but, it is not in us to call this state of mind repentance.

The present question is with a state of mind analogous to this (as we conceive) but with a far stronger tendency to hypocrisy; the dread of death not being present, and there being every possible inducement, either to feign contrition, or to set up an unreliable semblance of it. If I, John Styles, the prisoner, don’t do my work, and outwardly conform to the rules of the prison, I am a mere fool. There is nothing here to tempt me to do anything else, and everything to tempt me to do that. The capital dietary (and every meal is a great event in this lonely life) depends upon it; the alternative is a pound of bread a day. I should be weary of myself without occupation. I should be much more dull if I didn’t hold these dialogues with the gentlemen who are so anxious about me. I shouldn’t be half the object of interest I am, if I didn’t make the professions I do. Therefore, I John Styles go in for what is popular here, and I may mean it, or I may not.

There will always, under any decent system, be certain prisoners, betrayed into crime by a variety of circumstances, who will do well in exile, and offend against the laws no more. Upon this class, we think the Associated Silent System would have quite as good an influence as this expensive and anomalous one; and we cannot accept them as evidence of the efficiency of separate confinement. Assuming John Styles to mean what he professes, for the time being, we desire to track the workings of his mind, and to try to test the value of his professions. Where shall we find an account of John Styles, proceeding from no objector to this system, but from a staunch supporter of it? We will take it from a work called ‘Prison Discipline, and the advantages of the separate system of imprisonment,’ written by the Reverend Mr. Field, chaplain of the new County Gaol at Reading; pointing out to Mr. Field, in passing, that the question is not justly, as he would sometimes make it, a question between this system and the profligate abuses and customs of the old unreformed gaols, but between it and the improved gaols of this time, which are not constructed on his favourite principles.[1]

Footnote 1:

As Mr. Field condescends to quote some vapouring about the account
given by Mr. Charles Dickens in his ‘American Notes,’ of the Solitary
Prison at Philadelphia, he may perhaps really wish for some few words
of information on the subject. For this purpose, Mr. Charles Dickens
has referred to the entry in his Diary, made at the close of that day.

He left his hotel for the Prison at twelve o’clock, being waited on,
by appointment, by the gentleman who showed it to him; and he returned
between seven and eight at night; dining in the prison in the course
of that time; which, according to his calculation, in despite of the
Philadelphia Newspaper, rather exceeds two hours. He found the Prison
admirably conducted, extremely clean, and the system administered in a
most intelligent, kind, orderly, tender, and careful manner. He did
not consider (nor should he, if he were to visit Pentonville
to-morrow) that the book in which visitors were expected to record
their observation of the place, was intended for the insertion of
criticisms on the system, but for honest testimony to the manner of
its administration; and to that, he bore, as an impartial visitor, the
highest testimony in his power. In returning thanks for his health
being drunk, at the dinner within the walls, he said that what he had
seen that day was running in his mind; that he could not help
reflecting on it; and that it was an awful punishment. If the American
officer who rode back with him afterwards should ever see these words,
he will perhaps recall his conversation with Mr. Dickens on the road,
as to Mr. Dickens having said so, very plainly and strongly. In
reference to the ridiculous assertion that Mr. Dickens in his book
termed a woman ‘quite beautiful’ who was a Negress, he positively
believes that he was shown no Negress in the Prison, but one who was
nursing a woman much diseased, and to whom no reference whatever is
made in his published account. In describing three young women, ‘all
convicted at the same time of a conspiracy,’ he may, _possibly_, among
many cases, have substituted in his memory for one of them whom he did
not see, some other prisoner, confined for some other crime, whom he
did see; but he has not the least doubt of having been guilty of the
(American) enormity of detecting beauty in a pensive quadroon or
mulatto girl, or of having seen exactly what he describes; and he
remembers the girl more particularly described in this connexion,
perfectly. Can Mr. Field really suppose that Mr. Dickens had any
interest or purpose in misrepresenting the system, or that if he could
be guilty of such unworthy conduct, or desire to do it anything but
justice, he would have volunteered the narrative of a man’s having, of
his own choice, undergone it for two years?

We will not notice the objection of Mr. Field (who strengthens the
truth of Burns to nature, by the testimony of Mr. Pitt!) to the
discussion of such a topic as the present in a work of ‘mere
amusement;’ though, we had thought we remembered in that book a word
or two about slavery, which, although a very amusing, can scarcely be
considered an unmitigatedly comic theme. We are quite content to
believe, without seeking to make a convert of the Reverend Mr. Field,
that no work need be one of ‘mere amusement;’ and that some works to
which he would apply that designation have done a little good in
advancing principles to which, we hope, and will believe, for the
credit of his Christian office, he is not indifferent.

Now, here is John Styles, twenty years of age, in prison for a felony. He has been there five months, and he writes to his sister, ‘Don’t fret my dear sister, about my being here. I cannot help fretting when I think about my usage to my father and mother: when I think about it, it makes me quite ill. I hope God will forgive me; I pray for it night and day from my heart. Instead of fretting about imprisonment, I ought to thank God for it, for before I came here, I was living quite a careless life; neither was God in all my thoughts; all I thought about was ways that led me towards destruction. Give my respects to my wretched companions, and I hope they will alter their wicked course, for they don’t know for a day nor an hour but what they may be cut off. I have seen my folly, and I hope they may see their folly; but I shouldn’t if I had not been in trouble. It is good for me that I have been in trouble. Go to church, my sister, every Sunday, and don’t give your mind to going to playhouses and theatres, for that is no good to you. There are a great many temptations.’

Observe! John Styles, who has committed the felony has been ‘living quite a careless life.’ That is his worst opinion of it, whereas his companions who did not commit the felony are ‘wretched companions.’ John saw _his_ ‘folly,’ and sees _their_ ‘wicked course.’ It is playhouses and theatres which many unfelonious people go to, that prey upon John’s mind—not felony. John is shut up in that pulpit to lecture his companions and his sister, about the wickedness of the unfelonious world. Always supposing him to be sincere, is there no exaggeration of himself in this? Go to church where I can go, and don’t go to theatres where I can’t! Is there any tinge of the fox and the grapes in it? Is this the kind of penitence that will wear outside! Put the case that he had written, of his own mind, ‘My dear sister, I feel that I have disgraced you and all who should be dear to me, and if it please God that I live to be free, I will try hard to repair that, and to be a credit to you. My dear sister, when I committed this felony, I stole something—and these pining five months have not put it back—and I will work my fingers to the bone to make restitution, and oh! my dear sister, seek out my late companions, and tell Tom Jones, that poor boy, who was younger and littler than me, that I am grieved I ever led him so wrong, and I am suffering for it now!’ Would that be better? Would it be more like solid truth?

But no. This is not the pattern penitence. There would seem to be a pattern penitence, of a particular form, shape, limits, and dimensions, like the cells. While Mr. Field is correcting his proof-sheets for the press, another letter is brought to him, and in that letter too, that man, also a felon, speaks of his ‘past folly,’ and lectures his mother about labouring under ‘strong delusions of the devil.’ Does this overweening readiness to lecture other people, suggest the suspicion of any parrot-like imitation of Mr. Field, who lectures him, and any presumptuous confounding of their relative positions?

We venture altogether to protest against the citation, in support of this system, of assumed repentance which has stood no test or trial in the working world. We consider that it proves nothing, and is worth nothing, except as a discouraging sign of that spiritual egotism and presumption of which we have already spoken. It is not peculiar to the separate system at Reading; Miss Martineau, who was on the whole decidedly favourable to the separate prison at Philadelphia, observed it there. ‘The cases I became acquainted with,’ says she, ‘were not all hopeful. Some of the convicts were so stupid as not to be relied upon, more or less. Others canted so detestably, and were (always in connexion with their cant) so certain that they should never sin more, that I have every expectation that they will find themselves in prison again some day. One fellow, a sailor, notorious for having taken more lives than probably any man in the United States, was quite confident that he should be perfectly virtuous henceforth. He should never touch anything stronger than tea, or lift his hand against money or life. I told him I thought he could not be sure of all this till he was within sight of money and the smell of strong liquors; and that he was more confident than I should like to be. He shook his shock of red hair at me, and glared with his one ferocious eye, as he said he knew all about it. He had been the worst of men, and Christ had had mercy on his poor soul.’ (Observe again, as in the general case we have put, that he is not at all troubled about the souls of the people whom he had killed.)

Let us submit to our readers another instance from Mr. Field, of the wholesome state of mind produced by the separate system. ‘The 25th of March, in the last year, was the day appointed for a general fast, on account of the threatened famine. The following note is in my journal of that day. “During the evening I visited many prisoners, and found with much satisfaction that a large proportion of them had observed the day in a manner becoming their own situation, and the purpose for which it had been set apart. I think it right to record the following remarkable proof of the effect of discipline. * * * * * They were all supplied with their usual rations. I went first this evening to the cells of the prisoners recently committed for trial (Ward A. 1.), and amongst these (upwards of twenty) I found that but three had abstained from any portion of their food. I then visited twenty-one convicted prisoners who had spent some considerable time in the gaol (Ward C. 1.), and amongst them I found that some had altogether abstained from food, and of the whole number two-thirds had partially abstained.”’ We will take it for granted that this was not because they had more than they could eat, though we know that with such a dietary even that sometimes happens, especially in the case of persons long confined. ‘The remark of one prisoner whom I questioned concerning his abstinence was, I believe, sincere, and was very pleasing. “Sir, I have not felt able to eat to-day, whilst I have thought of those poor starving people; but I hope that I have prayed a good deal that God will give _them_ something to eat.”’

If this were not pattern penitence, and the thought of those poor starving people had honestly originated with that man, and were really on his mind, we want to know why he was not uneasy, every day, in the contemplation of his soup, meat, bread, potatoes, cocoa-nibs, milk, molasses, and gruel, and its contrast to the fare of ‘those poor starving people’ who, in some form or other, were taxed to pay for it?

We do not deem it necessary to comment on the authorities quoted by Mr. Field to show what a fine thing the separate system is, for the health of the body; how it never affects the mind except for good; how it is the true preventive of pulmonary disease; and so on. The deduction we must draw from such things is, that Providence was quite mistaken in making us gregarious, and that we had better all shut ourselves up directly. Neither will we refer to that ‘talented criminal,’ Dr. Dodd, whose exceedingly indifferent verses applied to a system now extinct, in reference to our penitentiaries for convicted prisoners. Neither, after what we have quoted from Lord Grey, need we refer to the likewise quoted report of the American authorities, who are perfectly sure that no extent of confinement in the Philadelphia prison has ever affected the intellectual powers of any prisoner. Mr. Croker cogently observes, in the Good-Natured Man, that either his hat must be on his head, or it must be off. By a parity of reasoning, we conclude that both Lord Grey and the American authorities cannot possibly be right—unless indeed the notoriously settled habits of the American people, and the absence of any approach to restlessness in the national character, render them unusually good subjects for protracted seclusion, and an exception from the rest of mankind.

In using the term ‘pattern penitence’ we beg it to be understood that we do not apply it to Mr. Field, or to any other chaplain, but to the system; which appears to us to make these doubtful converts all alike. Although Mr. Field has not shown any remarkable courtesy in the instance we have set forth in a note, it is our wish to show all courtesy to him, and to his office, and to his sincerity in the discharge of its duties. In our desire to represent him with fairness and impartiality, we will not take leave of him without the following quotation from his book:

‘Scarcely sufficient time has yet expired since the present system was introduced, for me to report much concerning discharged criminals. Out of a class so degraded—the very dregs of the community—it can be no wonder that some, of whose improvement I cherished the hope, should have relapsed. Disappointed in a few cases I have been, yet by no means discouraged, since I can with pleasure refer to many whose conduct is affording proof of reformation. Gratifying indeed have been some accounts received from liberated offenders themselves, as well as from clergymen of parishes to which they have returned. I have also myself visited the homes of some of our former prisoners, and have been cheered by the testimony given, and the evident signs of improved character which I have there observed. Although I do not venture at present to describe the particular cases of prisoners, concerning whose reformation I feel much confidence, because, as I have stated, the time of trial has hitherto been short; yet I can with pleasure refer to some public documents which prove the happy effects of similar discipline in other establishments.’

It should also be stated that the Reverend Mr. Kingsmill, the chaplain of the Model Prison at Pentonville, in his calm and intelligent report made to the Commissioners on the first of February, 1849, expresses his belief ‘that the effects produced here upon the character of prisoners, have been encouraging in a high degree.’

But, we entreat our readers once again to look at that Model Prison dietary (which is essential to the system, though the system is so very healthy of itself); to remember the other enormous expenses of the establishment; to consider the circumstances of this old country, with the inevitable anomalies and contrasts it must present; and to decide, on temperate reflection, whether there are any sufficient reasons for adding this monstrous contrast to the rest. Let us impress upon our readers that the existing question is, not between this system and the old abuses of the old profligate Gaols (with which, thank Heaven, we have nothing to do), but between this system and the associated silent system, where the dietary is much lower, where the annual cost of provision, management, repairs, clothing, &c., does not exceed, on a liberal average, £25 for each prisoner; where many prisoners are, and every prisoner would be (if due accommodation were provided in some over-crowded prisons), locked up alone, for twelve hours out of every twenty-four, and where, while preserved from contamination, he is still one of a society of men, and not an isolated being, filling his whole sphere of view with a diseased dilation of himself. We hear that the associated silent system is objectionable, because of the number of punishments it involves for breaches of the prison discipline; but how can we, in the same breath, be told that the resolutions of prisoners for the misty future are to be trusted, and that, on the least temptation, they are so little to be relied on, as to the solid present? How can I set the pattern penitence against the career that preceded it, when I am told that if I put that man with other men, and lay a solemn charge upon him not to address them by word or sign, there are such and such great chances that he will want the resolution to obey?

Remember that this separate system, though commended in the English Parliament and spreading in England, has not spread in America, despite of all the steeple-chase riders in the United States. Remember that it has never reached the State most distinguished for its learning, for its moderation, for its remarkable men of European reputation, for the excellence of its public Institutions. Let it be tried here, on a limited scale, if you will, with fair representatives of all classes of prisoners: let Captain Macconnochie’s system be tried: let anything with a ray of hope in it be tried: but, only as a part of some general system for raising up the prostrate portion of the people of this country, and not as an exhibition of such astonishing consideration for crime, in comparison with want and work. Any prison built, at a great expenditure, for this system, is comparatively useless for any other; and the ratepayers will do well to think of this, before they take it for granted that it is a proved boon to the country which will be enduring.

Under the separate system, the prisoners work at trades. Under the associated silent system, the Magistrates of Middlesex have almost abolished the treadmill. Is it no part of the legitimate consideration of this important point of work, to discover what kind of work the people always filtering through the gaols of large towns—the pickpocket, the sturdy vagrant, the habitual drunkard, and the begging-letter impostor—like least, and to give them that work to do in preference to any other? It is out of fashion with the steeple-chase riders we know; but we would have, for all such characters, a kind of work in gaols, badged and degraded as belonging to gaols only, and never done elsewhere. And we must avow that, in a country circumstanced as England is, with respect to labour and labourers, we have strong doubts of the propriety of bringing the results of prison labour into the over-stocked market. On this subject some public remonstrances have recently been made by tradesmen; and we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that they are well-founded.

A TALE OF THE GOOD OLD TIMES.

An alderman of the ancient borough of Beetlebury, and churchwarden of the parish of St. Wulfstan’s in the said borough, Mr. Blenkinsop might have been called, in the language of the sixteenth century, a man of worship. This title would probably have pleased him very much, it being an obsolete one, and he entertaining an extraordinary regard for all things obsolete, or thoroughly deserving to be so. He looked up with profound veneration to the griffins which formed the water-spouts of St. Wulfstan’s Church, and he almost worshipped an old boot under the name of a black jack, which on the affidavit of a forsworn broker, he had bought for a drinking vessel of the sixteenth century. Mr. Blenkinsop even more admired the wisdom of our ancestors than he did their furniture and fashions. He believed that none of their statutes and ordinances could possibly be improved on, and in this persuasion had petitioned Parliament against every just or merciful change, which, since he had arrived at man’s estate, had been made in the laws. He had successively opposed all the Beetlebury improvements, gas, waterworks, infant schools, mechanics’ institute, and library. He had been active in an agitation against any measure for the improvement of the public health, and, being a strong advocate of intramural interment, was instrumental in defeating an attempt to establish a pretty cemetery outside Beetlebury. He had successfully resisted a project for removing the pig-market from the middle of the High Street. Through his influence the shambles, which were corporation property, had been allowed to remain where they were; namely, close to the Town Hall, and immediately under his own and his brethren’s noses. In short, he had regularly, consistently, and nobly done his best to frustrate every scheme that was proposed for the comfort and advantage of his fellow creatures. For this conduct, he was highly esteemed and respected, and, indeed, his hostility to any interference with disease, had procured him the honour of a public testimonial;—shortly after the presentation of which, with several neat speeches, the cholera broke out in Beetlebury.

The truth is, that Mr. Blenkinsop’s views on the subject of public health and popular institutions were supposed to be economical (though they were, in truth, desperately costly), and so pleased some of the ratepayers. Besides, he withstood ameliorations, and defended nuisances and abuses with all the heartiness of an actual philanthropist. Moreover, he was a jovial fellow,—a boon companion; and his love of antiquity leant particularly towards old ale and old port wine. Of both of these beverages he had been partaking rather largely at a visitation-dinner, where, after the retirement of the bishop and his clergy, festivities were kept up till late, under the presidency of the deputy-registrar. One of the last to quit the Crown and Mitre was Mr. Blenkinsop.

He lived in a remote part of the town, whither, as he did not walk exactly in a right line, it may be allowable, perhaps, to say that he bent his course. Many of the dwellers in Beetlebury High Street, awakened at half-past twelve on that night, by somebody passing below, singing, not very distinctly,

‘With a jolly full bottle let each man be armed,’

were indebted, little as they may have suspected it, to Alderman Blenkinsop, for their serenade.

In his homeward way stood the Market Cross; a fine mediæval structure, supported on a series of circular steps by a groined arch, which served as a canopy to the stone figure of an ancient burgess. This was the effigies of Wynkyn de Vokes, once Mayor of Beetlebury, and a great benefactor to the town; in which he had founded almshouses and a grammar school, A.D. 1440. The post was formerly occupied by St. Wulfstan; but De Vokes had been removed from the Town Hall in Cromwell’s time, and promoted to the vacant pedestal, _vice_ Wulfstan, demolished. Mr. Blenkinsop highly revered this work of art, and he now stopped to take a view of it by moonlight. In that doubtful glimmer, it seemed almost life-like. Mr. Blenkinsop had not much imagination, yet he could well nigh fancy he was looking upon the veritable Wynkyn, with his bonnet, beard, furred gown, and staff, and his great book under his arm. So vivid was this impression, that it impelled him to apostrophise the statue.

‘Fine old fellow!’ said Mr. Blenkinsop. ‘Rare old buck! We shall never look upon your like, again. Ah! the good old times—the jolly good old times! No times like the good old times—my ancient worthy. No such times as the good old times!’

‘And pray, Sir, what times do you call the good old times?’ in distinct and deliberate accents, answered—according to the positive affirmation of Mr. Blenkinsop, subsequently made before divers witnesses—the Statue.

Mr. Blenkinsop is sure that he was in the perfect possession of his senses. He is certain that he was not the dupe of ventriloquism, or any other illusion. The value of these convictions must be a question between him and the world, to whose perusal the facts of his tale, simply as stated by himself, are here submitted.

When first he heard the Statue speak, Mr. Blenkinsop says, he certainly experienced a kind of sudden shock, a momentary feeling of consternation. But this soon abated in a wonderful manner. The Statue’s voice was quite mild and gentle—not in the least grim—had no funereal twang in it, and was quite different from the tone a statue might be expected to take by anybody who had derived his notions on that subject from having heard the representative of the class in ‘Don Giovanni.’

‘Well; what times do you mean by the good old times?’ repeated the Statue, quite familiarly. The churchwarden was able to reply with some composure, that such a question coming from such a quarter had taken him a little by surprise.

‘Come, come, Mr. Blenkinsop,’ said the Statue, ‘don’t be astonished. ’Tis half-past twelve, and a moonlight night, as your favourite police, the sleepy and infirm old watchman, says. Don’t you know that we statues are apt to speak when spoken to, at these hours? Collect yourself. I will help you to answer my own question. Let us go back step by step; and allow me to lead you. To begin. By the good old times, do you mean the reign of George the Third?’

‘The last of them, Sir,’ replied Mr. Blenkinsop, very respectfully, ‘I am inclined to think, were seen by the people who lived in those days.’

‘I should hope so,’ the Statue replied. ‘Those the good old times? What! Mr. Blenkinsop, when men were hanged by dozens, almost weekly, for paltry thefts. When a nursing woman was dragged to the gallows with her child at her breast, for shop-lifting, to the value of a shilling. When you lost your American colonies, and plunged into war with France, which, to say nothing of the useless bloodshed it cost, has left you saddled with the national debt. Surely you will not call these the good old times, will you, Mr. Blenkinsop?’

‘Not exactly, Sir; no: on reflection I don’t know that I can,’ answered Mr. Blenkinsop. He had now—it was such a civil, well-spoken statue—lost all sense of the preternatural horror of his situation, and scratched his head just as if he had been posed in argument by an ordinary mortal.

‘Well then,’ resumed the Statue, ‘my dear Sir, shall we take the two or three reigns preceding. What think you of the then existing state of prisons and prison discipline? Unfortunate debtors confined indiscriminately with felons, in the midst of filth, vice, and misery unspeakable. Criminals under sentence of death tippling in the condemned cell with the Ordinary for their pot companion. Flogging, a common punishment of women convicted of larceny. What say you of the times when London streets were absolutely dangerous, and the passenger ran the risk of being hustled and robbed even in the day-time? When not only Hounslow and Bagshot Heath, but the public roads swarmed with robbers, and a stage-coach was as frequently plundered as a hen-roost. When, indeed, “the road” was esteemed the legitimate resource of a gentleman in difficulties, and a highwayman was commonly called “Captain”—if not respected accordingly. When cock-fighting, bear-baiting, and bull-baiting were popular, nay, fashionable amusements. When the bulk of the landed gentry could barely read and write, and divided their time between fox-hunting and guzzling. When a duellist was a hero, and it was an honour to have “killed your man.” When a gentleman could hardly open his mouth without uttering a profane or filthy oath. When the country was continually in peril of civil war through a disputed succession; and two murderous insurrections, followed by more murderous executions, actually took place. This era of inhumanity, shamelessness, brigandage, brutality, and personal and political insecurity, what say you of it, Mr. Blenkinsop? Do you regard this wig and pigtail period as constituting the good old times, respected friend?’

‘There was Queen Anne’s golden reign, Sir,’ deferentially suggested Mr. Blenkinsop.

‘A golden reign!’ exclaimed the Statue. ‘A reign of favouritism and court trickery at home, and profitless war abroad. The time of Bolingbroke’s, and Harley’s, and Churchill’s intrigues. The reign of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough and of Mrs. Masham. A golden fiddlestick! I imagine you must go farther back yet for your good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop.’

‘Well,’ answered the churchwarden, ‘I suppose I must, Sir, after what you say.’

‘Take William the Third’s rule,’ pursued the Statue. ‘War, war again; nothing but war. I don’t think you’ll particularly call these the good old times. Then what will you say to those of James the Second? Were they the good old times when Judge Jefferies sat on the bench? When Monmouth’s rebellion was followed by the Bloody Assize—When the King tried to set himself above the law, and lost his crown in consequence—Does your worship fancy that these were the good old times?’

Mr. Blenkinsop admitted that he could not very well imagine that they were.

‘Were Charles the Second’s the good old times?’ demanded the Statue. ‘With a court full of riot and debauchery—a palace much less decent than any modern casino—whilst Scotch Covenanters were having their legs crushed in the “Boots,” under the auspices and personal superintendence of His Royal Highness the Duke of York. The time of Titus Oates, Bedloe, and Dangerfield, and their sham-plots, with the hangings, drawings, and quarterings, on perjured evidence, that followed them. When Russell and Sidney were judicially murdered. The time of the Great Plague and Fire of London. The public money wasted by roguery and embezzlement, while sailors lay starving in the streets for want of their just pay; the Dutch about the same time burning our ships in the Medway. My friend, I think you will hardly call the scandalous monarchy of the “Merry Monarch” the good old times.’

‘I feel the difficulty which you suggest, Sir,’ owned Mr. Blenkinsop.

‘Now, that a man of your loyalty,’ pursued the Statue, ‘should identify the good old times with Cromwell’s Protectorate, is of course out of the question.’

‘Decidedly, Sir!’ exclaimed Mr. Blenkinsop. ‘_He_ shall not have a statue, though you enjoy that honour,’ bowing.

‘And yet,’ said the Statue, ‘with all its faults, this era was perhaps no worse than any we have discussed yet. Never mind! It was a dreary, cant-ridden one, and if you don’t think those England’s palmy days, neither do I. There’s the previous reign then. During the first part of it, there was the king endeavouring to assert arbitrary power. During the latter, the Parliament were fighting against him in the open field. What ultimately became of him I need not say. At what stage of King Charles the First’s career did the good old times exist, Mr. Alderman? I need barely mention the Star Chamber and poor Prynne; and I merely allude to the fate of Strafford and of Laud. On consideration, should you fix the good old times anywhere thereabouts?’

‘I am afraid not, indeed, Sir,’ Mr. Blenkinsop responded, tapping his forehead.

‘What is your opinion of James the First’s reign? Are you enamoured of the good old times of the Gunpowder Plot? or when Sir Walter Raleigh was beheaded? or when hundreds of poor miserable old women were burnt alive for witchcraft, and the royal wiseacre on the throne wrote as wise a book, in defence of the execrable superstition through which they suffered?’

Mr. Blenkinsop confessed himself obliged to give up the times of James the First.

‘Now, then,’ continued the Statue, ‘we come to Elizabeth.’

‘There I’ve got you!’ interrupted Mr. Blenkinsop, exultingly. ‘I beg your pardon, Sir,’ he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; ‘but everybody talks of the times of Good Queen Bess, you know!’

‘Ha, ha!’ laughed the Statue, not at all like Zamiel, or Don Guzman, or a paviour’s rammer, but really with unaffected gaiety. ‘Everybody sometimes says very foolish things. Suppose Everybody’s lot had been cast under Elizabeth! How would Everybody have relished being subject to the jurisdiction of the Ecclesiastical Commission, with its power of imprisonment, rack, and torture? How would Everybody have liked to see his Roman Catholic and Dissenting fellow-subjects, butchered, fined, and imprisoned for their opinions; and charitable ladies butchered, too, for giving them shelter in the sweet compassion of their hearts? What would Everybody have thought of the murder of Mary Queen of Scots? Would Everybody, would Anybody, would _you_, wish to have lived in these days, whose emblems are cropped ears, pillory, stocks, thumb-screws, gibbet, axe, chopping-block, and Scavenger’s daughter? Will you take your stand upon this stage of History for the good old times, Mr. Blenkinsop?’

‘I should rather prefer firmer and safer ground, to be sure, upon the whole,’ answered the worshipper of antiquity, dubiously.

‘Well, now,’ said the Statue, ‘’tis getting late, and, unaccustomed as I am to conversational speaking, I must be brief. Were those the good old times when Sanguinary Mary roasted bishops, and lighted the fires of Smithfield? When Henry the Eighth, the British Bluebeard, cut his wives’ heads off, and burnt Catholic and Protestant at the same stake? When Richard the Third smothered his nephews in the Tower? When the Wars of the Roses deluged the land with blood? When Jack Cade marched upon London? When we were disgracefully driven out of France under Henry the Sixth, or, as disgracefully, went marauding there, under Henry the Fifth? Were the good old times those of Northumberland’s rebellion? Of Richard the Second’s assassination? Of the battles, burnings, massacres, cruel tormentings, and atrocities, which form the sum of the Plantagenet reigns? Of John’s declaring himself the Pope’s vassal, and performing dental operations on the Jews? Of the Forest Laws and Curfew under the Norman kings? At what point of this series of bloody and cruel annals will you place the times which you praise? Or do your good old times extend over all that period when somebody or other was constantly committing high treason, and there was a perpetual exhibition of heads on London Bridge and Temple Bar?’

It was allowed by Mr. Blenkinsop that either alternative presented considerable difficulty.

‘Was it in the good old times that Harold fell at Hastings, and William the Conqueror enslaved England? Were those blissful years the ages of monkery; of Odo and Dunstan, bearding monarchs and branding queens? Of Danish ravage and slaughter? Or were they those of the Saxon Heptarchy, and the worship of Thor and Odin? Of the advent of Hengist and Horsa? Of British subjugation by the Romans? Or, lastly, must we go back to the Ancient Britons, Druidism, and human sacrifices; and say that those were the real, unadulterated, genuine, good old times when the true-blue natives of this island went naked, painted with woad?’