Eighteen Months' Imprisonment

NEXT morning after breakfast we were drafted to our various localities, and, incredible as it may appear, and to show how efficient is the isolation system, men with whom I part...

DURING my career as a gardener I became very unwell. I attribute this in a measure to a recurrence of a malady contracted in the tropics, and a chill I caught from lying on damp...

AS the key turned in the ponderous door, and I found myself, with sixteen others, standing on a huge mat in a dismal corridor, I realised that I had arrived “home,” or at what I...

ON my admission into hospital I was at first sent to the convalescent ward, a huge room devoted to light and unpronounced cases. It accommodates 40 patients, and the entire furn...

From my birth up to within the past twelve months I have had the misfortune to be afflicted with one of the most dreadful diseases that flesh is heir to. It is one that entails...

RELIGIOUS ceremonial plays an important part at Coldbath Fields. The quantity, indeed, is lamentably in excess of the quality, and leavened with a degree of barbaric hypocrisy i...

ON the morning after my arrival at Newgate it was with considerable surprise that I saw a man in convict dress, who was apparently the object of special watch and guard. My curi...

THE number of admissions into hospital about this time necessitated my having a companion billeted on me, an unfortunate Frenchman, utterly oblivious of any language but his own...

A GREAT variety of trades are represented in Coldbath Fields—such as tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, tinsmiths, worsted-workers, laundrymen, bakers, needlemen, basket-makers,...

THE eventful day at length dawned when the scaffold was to be brought into requisition. “The condemned sermon” of the day before, to say nothing of the evident bustle that was g...

SO much has been written about this national Bastille, and so many have gone over the building, that one feels as if writing about “a tale that is told.” Nevertheless, I trust m...

SOMETHING was indeed up; a letter, in fact, that I had clandestinely written had been intercepted. Personally I was indifferent to the result; the worst had been done to me when...

A GREASY cold chop, smelling as if it had been cooked in “Benzine collas,” and with about as much warmth as would be imparted to it by a flat iron, a slice of bread that had evi...

BY Act of Parliament, all prisoners, till quite recently, were photographed after admission to the various prisons. This universal system is now abolished, and since January, 18...

ON a dreary afternoon in November, cheerless and foggy as befitted the occasion, and accompanied by that gentle rain which we are told “falleth on the just and on the unjust,” I...

VISITS at Newgate are made under great disadvantage, and have not even the recommendation of privacy. A few of the more respectable (as regards clothes) prisoners, such as mysel...

I HAD at last indeed tumbled on my legs. My new duties offered a combination of advantages—such as variety, fresh air, newspapers, tobacco, etc.—far in excess of my fondest drea...

I HAD now been many months in hospital, though all the care and kindness I received seemed incapable of improving my condition. Strengthening medicines, stimulants, tonics, all...

FRESH arrivals appear to come to this awful place at every hour of the day and night. The police courts belch forth their motley loads on an average about twice a day, and when...

THE unfortunate _contretemps_ that had indirectly associated me with the dismissal of a warder caused me to be looked upon for some time by his _confrères_ with considerable dis...

AFTER my sudden summons to attend the Court I found myself in the yard below, where, in company with some twenty others, I was placed in rotation according to a list the Governo...

IN the corner of the yard where I daily exercised stood an unpretending looking shed, with slate roof and large folding doors, and resembling a coach-house more than anything I...

I CANNOT conclude my story without asking, What constitutes honesty? and if anybody can give a really logical and satisfactory reply, I would ask him, Has he ever met a really h...

AFTER a delay of about twenty minutes—when for the first time I found myself an inmate of a police cell—a very civil gaoler (with the relative rank of a Police Sergeant) announc...

IN one of the padded cells was a dangerous lunatic. For weeks and months he had kept up an incessant conversation with himself, occasionally diversified by shrieks and yells. At...

There are men in Coldbath whose cards show upwards of seventy previous convictions, varying from a year to seven days; nor is it to be wondered at, considering the starvation th...

WHO has not heard of Georgina? Ask Gounod, ask Monsieur Riviere, ask Mr. Vaughan, ask me, ask yourself, indulgent reader. I made this lady’s acquaintance some five years ago, ab...

AN eventful day was now approaching, and on the morrow I was to appear at Bow Street for the first time after my formal remand of the previous Friday. I felt an instinctive conv...

I WAS surprised at the number of respectable men—such as solicitors, an ex-officer of Guards, a bank manager, a man of title, stockbrokers, cashiers, ex-officers of the army and...

PAGE 1.—“BLACK MARIA” _Frontispiece_. 2.—A CHEERFUL GROUP 60 3.—“SHOULD OLD ACQUAINTANCE BE FORGOT?” 63 4.—THE EFFECTS OF A WARM BATH AT “COLDBATH” 141 5.—A CELL, 8 A.M. 161 6.—...