Dedication of New Chapel
On our arrival at Aylesbury Prison there was no chapel. Divine service was held in one of the halls, in which the prisoners assembled each morning for twenty minutes of service. This arrangement had many disadvantages, and one of the ladies on the Board of Visitors came nobly to our relief with an offer to provide the prison with a chapel. The Home Office “graciously” accepted this generous proposition, and twelve months later it was completed and dedicated by the Lord Bishop of Reading. (It was burned to the ground since my departure from Aylesbury.)
On the day preceding the ceremony I[168] was asked to assist in decorating the chapel with flowers kindly sent by Lady Rothschild. It was a delicate expression of sympathy for the prisoners, which she repeated on all high festival days. She was deeply affected when I told her how profoundly the women appreciated her recognition of a common humanity.
On the appointed day all work was suspended to enable the prisoners to be present. In the galleries were seated the families of the governor, chaplain, and doctor; at the right of the altar the generous donor of the chapel, Adeline, Duchess of Bedford, was seated with her friends. The organist played a prelude, and then the bishop, accompanied by the chaplain and the clergymen of the diocese, entered the chapel. After a hymn had been sung, a short service followed, and then the bishop stepped forward and, facing the altar, read the “dedication service.” It was most impressive. Then followed a prayer and a hymn, and the service was over. The prisoners[169] filed back to their respective cells and the visitors made the tour of the prison.
I was a patient in the infirmary at the time, but had received permission to attend the chapel. Before the Bishop of Reading left the prison he visited the sick, and as he passed my cell he stopped and spoke to me words of hope and encouragement, adding his blessing.
Influence of Religion upon Prisoners
Another occasion on which the Bishop of Reading visited the prison was the holding of a confirmation service. Many women of earnest minds in prison sought in this manner to prove the sincerity of their repentance and their resolution to live godly lives; and, with one exception, all those confirmed that day have remained true to their profession.
Penal servitude is a fiery test of one’s religious convictions. One’s faith is either strengthened and deepened or else it goes[170] under altogether. I have witnessed many a sad spiritual shipwreck within those walls.
On a dark, gloomy day in October the rain pattered against the window of my cell and the wind howled dismally around that huge “house of sorrow.” Now and then the sound of weeping broke upon the stillness, and I prayed in my heart for the poor souls in travail whose pains had broken through the enforced rule of silence. There is no sound in all the world so utterly unnerving as the hopeless sob of the woman in physical isolation who may not be spiritually comforted. Separated from loved ones, beyond the reach of tender hands and voices, she has no one, as in former years, to share her sufferings or minister to her pain. Alone, one of a mass, with no one to care but the good God above; for “to suffer” thus is the punishment that man has decreed.
The humanizing influences, in my opinion, can be brought to bear upon prisoners with beneficial results only when supported[171] by the advantages of religious teachings. During the early part of my sentence there were Scripture readers, laymen and laywomen, in all convict prisons, to assist the chaplain in his arduous duties; but, on the ground of expense, these have been dispensed with, thus practically removing the only means of administering the moral medicine which is essential to the cure of the habitual prisoner’s mental disease.
A large amount of crime is due to physical and mental degeneration. Nevertheless, crime is also the result of lovelessness, when it is not a disease, and the true curative system should give birth to love in human souls. There is not a man or woman living so low but we can do something to better him or her, if we give love and sympathy in the service and have an all-embracing affection for both God and man.
If the future system is to treat the criminal in a curative or reformative way,[172] rather than by punitive methods, the means to this end must certainly be increased. Even the worst woman can be approached through the emotional side of her nature. A kind word, a sympathetic look, a smile, a little commendation now and then, given by the officers in charge, would soon gain the respect and confidence of the prisoner, and thereby render her the more amenable to rules and regulations. A prisoner with whom I worked, and whose inner life by near association was revealed to me, had got into a very morbid, depressed state of mind. She was under close observation by the doctor’s orders. Her penal record was not a good one; her hasty temper was continually getting her into trouble, and when she was punished she would brood over it.
Suicide of a Prisoner
One day she asked for permission to see me; the permission was refused. She made the request a second time, and, the[173] fact coming to the knowledge of the chaplain, he advised that it be granted, believing, from his personal knowledge of my influence in the prison, that it would have a beneficial effect. I was allowed to see her, and after a few minutes’ conversation she appeared brighter. I told her that the people of God have a promise of a Comforter from heaven to come to them and abide with them, even in tribulation and in prison. She promised me she would try to be more submissive and accept her punishment in a better spirit. For several days after she seemed to improve. But one afternoon she once more made the request to be allowed to see me. As none of the authorities were in the building at the time, and the chief matron could not take upon herself the responsibility of granting the request, it was refused. I felt rather anxious about it, but was helpless. At five o’clock that evening, just before supper was served, the woman was found dead in her cell; she had hanged herself to the window.[174] She was only twenty-four years of age, and was serving a five years’ sentence for shooting her betrayer under great provocation. The tragedy was naturally kept quiet; none of the prisoners knew of it until the following morning. How the truth got abroad I do not know, but when the doors were unlocked after breakfast, instead of the women passing out of their cells in the usual orderly way, they rushed out, shouting excitedly at the top of their voices: “M—— has hanged herself; ... she was driven to it!” In vain the officers tried to pacify them or to explain the true state of things; they would not listen, and continued to scream: “Don’t talk to us—you are paid to say that! If you did not say that it was all right you would be turned out of the gates!” And the uproar increased. As I have already stated, the “Star Class” was sandwiched between two wards of habitual criminals, and we had the benefit of every disturbance. During the excitement one of the ringleaders caught[175] sight of me and shouted: “Mrs. Maybrick, is it true that M—— was driven to it?” The tumult was increasing and was growing beyond the control of the warder, when the chief matron, becoming alarmed, sent up word that I might explain to the women. Accompanied by an officer, I did so, and in a few minutes the uproar calmed down and the women returned quietly to their cells. I have reason to believe that I always had the full confidence of my fellow prisoners; they were quick to know and appreciate that I had their welfare at heart, and that I never countenanced any disobedience or breach of the rules. A first offender, under sentence for many years, will suffer from the punishment according as she maintains or damages her self-respect.
Tragedies in Prison
Above others there are four tragic prison episodes which, once witnessed, can never be forgotten:
1. Breaking bad news to a prisoner—telling her that a dear one in the outside world is dying, and that she may not go to him; that she must wait in terrible suspense until the last message is sent, no communication in the mean time being permitted.
2. Receiving an intimation of the death of a beloved father, mother, brother or sister, husband or child, whose visits and letters have been the sole comfort and support of that prisoner’s hard lot.
3. The loss of reason by a prisoner who was not strong enough to endure the punishment decreed by Act of Parliament.
4. The suicide, who prefers to trust to the mercy of God rather than suffer at the hands of man.
Why should a woman be considered less loving, less capable of suffering, because she is branded with the name of “convict?” She may be informed that her nearest and dearest are dying, but the rules will permit no departure to relieve the heart-breaking suspense. In the world at large telegrams[177] may be sent and daily bulletins received, but not in the convict’s world.
Death is a solemn event under any circumstances, and reverence for the dead is inculcated by our religion, but to die in prison is a thing that every inmate dreads with inexpressible horror. When a prisoner is at the point of death, she is put into a cell alone, or into a ward, if there is one vacant. There she lies alone. The nurse and infirmary officers come and go; her fellow prisoners gladly minister to her; the doctor and chaplain are assiduous in their attentions; but she is nevertheless alone, cut off from her kin, tended by the servants of the law instead of the servants of love, and it is only at the very last that her loved ones may come and say their farewell. Oh! the pathos, the anguish of such partings—who shall describe them? And when all is over, and the law has no longer any power over the body it has tortured, it may be claimed and taken away.
The case of the prisoner who becomes[178] insane is no less harrowing. She is kept in the infirmary with the other patients for three months. If she does not recover her reason within that period, she is certified by three doctors as insane and then removed to the criminal lunatic asylum. In the mean time the peace and rest of the other sick persons in the infirmary are disturbed by her ravings, and their feelings wrought upon by the daily sight of a demented fellow creature.
And the suicide! To see the ghastly and distorted features of a fellow prisoner, with whom one has worked and suffered, killed by her own hands—such scenes as these haunted me for weeks; and it needed all my reliance on God to throw off the depression that inevitably followed.
Moral Effect of Harsh Prison Regime
Have you ever tried to realize what kind of life that must be in which the sight of a child’s face and the sound of a child’s voice[179] are ever absent; in which there are none of the sweet influences of the home; the daily intercourse with those we love; the many trifling little happenings, so unimportant in themselves, but which go so far to make up the sum of human happiness? It commences with the clangor of bells and the jingling of keys, and closes with the banging of hundreds of doors, while the after silence is broken only by shrieks and blasphemies, the trampling of many feet, and the orders of warders.
In the winter the prisoners get up in the dark, and breakfast in the dark, to save the expense of gas. The sense of touch becomes very acute, as so much has to be done without light. Until I had served three years of my sentence I had not been allowed to see my own face. Then a looking-glass, three inches long, was placed in my cell. I have often wondered how this deprivation could be harmonized with a purpose to enforce tidiness or cleanliness in a prisoner. The obvious object in depriving[180] prisoners of the only means through which they can reasonably be expected to conform to the official standard of facial cleanliness is to eradicate woman’s assumed innate sense of vanity; but whether or no it succeeds in this, certain it is that cleanliness becomes a result of compulsion rather than of a natural womanly impulse. Also she must maintain the cleanliness of her prison cell on an ounce of soap per week. After I left Aylesbury I heard that the steward had received orders from the Home Office to reduce this enormous quantity. If true it will leave the unfortunate prisoners with three-quarters of an ounce of soap weekly wherewith to maintain t............