CHAPTER THREE In Solitary Confinement

Removal to Woking Prison

On the morning of the 29th of August I was hastily awakened by a female warder, who said that orders had come down from the Home Office for my removal that day to a convict prison.

When I left, the governor was standing at the gate, and, with a kindliness of voice which I deeply appreciated, told me to be brave and good.

A crowd was in waiting at the station. I was roughly hustled through it into a third-class carriage.

The only ray of light that penetrated those dark hours of my journey came from [62]an American woman. God bless her, whoever she is or wherever she is! At every station that the train stopped she got out and came to the carriage door and spoke words of sympathy and comfort. She was the first of my countrywomen to voice to me the protest that swelled into greater volume as the years rolled by.

As the train drew up at Woking station a crowd assembled. Outside stood a cab, to which I was at once conducted, and we drove through lovely woods; the scent of flowers was wafted by the breeze into what seemed to be a hearse that was bearing me on toward my living tomb.

As we approached the prison the great iron gate swung wide, and the cab drove silently into the yard. There I descended. The governor gave an order, and a woman—who I afterward found was assistant superintendent—came forward. Accompanied by her and an officer, I was led across a near-by yard to a building which stood somewhat apart from the others and is known as the infirmary. There a principal[63] matron received me, and the assistant superintendent and the chief matron returned to their quarters.
The Convict Uniform

In the grasp of what seemed to me a horrible nightmare, I found myself in a cell with barred windows, a bed, and a chair. Without, the stillness of death reigned. I remained there perhaps half an hour when the door opened and I was commanded by a female warder to follow her. In a daze I obeyed mechanically. We crossed the same yard again and entered a door that led into a room containing only a fireplace, a table, and a bath. Here I was told to take off my clothes, as those I had traveled in had to be sent back to the prison at Liverpool, where they belonged.

When I was dressed in the uniform to which the greatest stigma and disgrace is attached, I was told to sit down. The warder then stepped quickly forward, and with a pair of scissors cut off my hair to the[64] nape of my neck. This act seemed, above all others, to bring me to a sense of my degradation, my utter helplessness; and the iron of the awful tragedy, of which I was the innocent victim, entered my soul. I was then weighed and my height taken. My weight was one hundred and twelve pounds, and my height five feet three inches.

Once more I was bidden to follow my guide. We recrossed the yard and entered the infirmary. Here I was locked in the cell already mentioned. At last I could be alone after the anguish and torture of the day. I prayed for sleep that I might lose consciousness of my intolerable anguish. But sleep, that gentle nurse of the sad and suffering, came not. What a night! I shudder even now at the memory of it. Physically exhausted, smarting with the thought of the cruel, heartless way in which I had been beaten down and trodden under foot, I felt that mortal death would have been more merciful than the living death[65] to which I was condemned. In the adjoining cell an insane woman was raving and weeping throughout the night, and I wondered whether in the years to come I should become like her.

The next day I was visited by the governor on his official rounds. Then the doctor came and made a medical examination, and ordered me to be detained in the infirmary until further orders. My mind is a blank as to what happened for some time afterward. My next remembrance is being told by a coarse-looking, harsh-spoken female warder to get ready to go into the prison. Once more I was led across the big yard, and then I stood within the walls that were to be for years my tomb. Outside the sun was shining and the birds were singing.
In Solitary Confinement

Without, picture a vast outline of frowning masonry. Within, when I had passed the double outer gates and had been locked[66] out and locked in in succession, I found myself in a central hall, from which ran cage-like galleries divided into tiers and landings, with a row of small cells on either side. The floors are of stone, the landings of slate, the railings of steel, and the stairs of iron. Wire netting is stretched over the lowest tier to prevent prisoners from throwing themselves over in one of those frenzies of rage and despair of which every prison has its record. Within their walls can be found, above all places, that most degrading, heart-breaking product of civilization, a human automaton. All will, all initiative, all individuality, all friendship, all the things that make human beings attractive to one another, are absent. Suffering there is dumb, and when it goes beyond endurance—alas!

I followed the warder to a door, perhaps not more than two feet in width. She unlocked it and said, “Pass in.” I stepped forward, but started back in horror. Through the open door I saw, by the dim[67] light of a small window that was never cleaned, a cell seven feet by four.

“Oh, don’t put me in there!” I cried. “I can not bear it.”

For answer the warder took me roughly by the shoulder, gave me a push, and shut the door. There was nothing to sit upon but the cold slate floor. I sank to my knees. I felt suffocated. It seemed that the walls were drawing nearer and nearer together, and presently the life would be crushed out of me. I sprang to my feet and beat wildly with my hands against the door. “For God’s sake let me out! Let me out!” But my voice could not penetrate that massive barrier, and exhausted I sank once more to the floor. I can not recall those nine months of solitary confinement without a feeling of horror. My cell contained only a hammock rolled up in a corner, and three shelves let into the wall—no table nor stool. For a seat I was compelled to place my bedclothes on the floor.

The Daily Routine

No one can realize the horror of solitary confinement who has not experienced it. Here is one day’s routine: It is six o’clock; I arise and dress in the dark; I put up my hammock and wait for breakfast. I hear the ward officer in the gallery outside. I take a tin plate and a tin mug in my hands and stand before the cell door. Presently the door opens; a brown, whole-meal, six-ounce loaf is placed upon the plate; the tin mug is taken, and three-quarters of a pint of gruel is measured in my presence, when the mug is handed back in silence, and the door is closed and locked. After I have taken a few mouthfuls of bread I begin to scrub my cell. A bell rings and my door is again unlocked. No word is spoken, because I know exactly what to do. I leave my cell and fall into single file, three paces in the rear of my nearest fellow convict. All of us are alike in knowing what we have to do, and we march away silently[69] to Divine service. We are criminals under punishment, and our keepers march us like dumb cattle to the worship of God. To me the twenty minutes of its duration were as an oasis in a weary desert. When it came to an end I felt comforted, and always a little more resigned to my fate. Chapel over, I returned directly to my cell, for I was in solitary confinement, and might not enjoy the privilege of working in company with my prison companions.

Work I must, but I must work alone. Needlework and knitting fall to my lot. My task for the day is handed to me, and I sit in my cell plying my needle, with the consciousness that I must not indulge in an idle moment, for an unaccomplished task means loss of marks, and loss of marks means loss of letters and visits. As chapel begins at 8:30 I am back in my cell soon after nine, and the requirement is that I shall make one shirt a day—certainly not less than five shirts a week. If I am obstinate or indolent, I shall be reported by the[70] ward officer, and be brought to book with punishment—perhaps reduced to a diet of bread and water and total confinement in my cell for twenty-four hours. If I am faint, weak, or unwell, I may be excused the full performance of my task; but there must be no doubt of my inability. In such case it is for me to have my name entered for the prison doctor, and obtain from him the indulgence that will remit a portion of my prescribed work to three or four shirts.

However, as I am well, I work automatically, closely, and with persistence. Then comes ten o’clock, and with it the governor with his escort. He inspects each cell, and if all is not as it should be, the prisoner will hear of it. There is no friendly greeting of “Good-morning” nor parting “Good-night” within those gloomy walls. The tone is formal and the governor says: “How are you, Maybrick? Any complaints? Do you want anything?” and then he passes on. Then I am again alone with my work and my brooding thoughts.[71] I never made complaints. One but adds to one’s burden by finding causes for complaint. With the coming and the going of the governor the monotony returns to stagnation.
The Exercise Hour

Presently, however, the prison bell rings again. I know what the clangor means, and mechanically lay down my work. It is the hour for exercise, and I put on my bonnet and cape. One by one the cell doors of the ward are opened. One by one we come out from our cells and fall into single file. Then, with a ward officer in charge, we march into the exercise yard. We have drawn up in line, three paces apart, and this is the form in which we tramp around the yard and take our exercise. This yard is perhaps forty feet square, and there are thirty-five of us to expand in its “freedom.” The inclosure is oppressively repulsive. Stone-flagged, hemmed within ugly walls, it gives one a[72] hideous feeling of compression. It seems more like a bear-pit than an airing ground for human beings. But I forget that we are not here to have things made easy, comfortable, and pleasant for us. We are here to be punished, to be scourged for our crimes and misdeeds. Can you wonder that human nature sometimes revolts and dares even prison rigor? Human instincts may be suppressed, but not wholly crushed.

There were at Woking two yards in which flowers and green trees were visible, but it was only in after years that I was permitted to take my exercise in these yards, and then only half an hour on Sunday.

When the one hour for exercise is over, in a file as before, we tramp back to our work. Confined as we are for twenty-two hours in our narrow, gloomy cells, the exercise, dull as it is, is our only opportunity for a glimpse of the sky and for a taste of outdoor life, and affords our only relief from an otherwise almost unbearable day.

The Midday Meal

At noon the midday meal. The first sign of its approach is the sound of the fatigue party of prisoners bringing the food from the kitchen into the ward. I hear the ward officer passing with the weary group from cell to cell, and presently she will reach my door. My food is handed to me, then the door is closed and double locked. In the following two hours, having finished my meal, I can work or read. At two o’clock the fatigue party again goes on its mechanical round; the cell door is again unlocked, this time for the collection of dinner-cans. The meal of each prisoner is served out by weight, and the law allows her to claim her full quantity to the uttermost fraction of an ounce. She is even entitled to see it weighed if she fancies it falls short. Work is then resumed until five o’clock, when gruel and bread is again served, as at breakfast, with half an hour for its disposal. From that time on until[74] seven o’clock more work, when again is heard the clang of the prison bell, and with it comes the end of our monotonous day. I take down my hammock, and once more await the opening of the door. We have learned exactly what to do. With the opening of our cells we go forward, and each places her broom outside the door. So shall it be known that we each have been visited in our cells before the locking of our doors and gates for the night. If any of us are taking medicine by the doctor’s orders we now receive it. On through the ten long, weary hours of the night the night officers patrol the wards, keeping watch, and through a glass peep-hole silently inspect us in our beds to see that nothing is amiss.
The Cruelty of Solitary Confinement

Solitary confinement is by far the most cruel feature of English penal servitude. It inflicts upon the prisoner at the commencement[75] of her sentence, when most sensitive to the horrors which prison punishment entails, the voiceless solitude, the hopeless monotony, the long vista of to-morrow, to-morrow, to-morrow stretching before her, all filled with desolation and despair. Once a prisoner has crossed the threshold of a convict prison, not only is she dead to the world, but she is expected in word and deed to lose or forget every vestige of her personality. Verily,

The mills of the gods grind slowly,

But they grind exceeding small,

And woe to the wight unholy

On whom those millstones fall.

So it is with the Penal Code which directs this vast machinery, doing its utmost with tireless, ceaseless revolutions to mold body and soul slowly, remorselessly, into the shape demanded by Act of Parliament.