Part 13

Would not, therefore, the effects resulting from education be the best preventative of crime?--and, if so, heavy indeed is the responsibility of every man who puts an impediment in the way of a nation’s enlightenment. Circumstanced as Great Britain now is, internally speaking, with her countless millions congregated or _hived_ in large towns, ready to follow any leader of more daring or greater knowledge than themselves, comparatively indifferent as to the means for compassing any much desired end,--though actuated by no wish to work ill to others, even when excited beyond the unmanageableness of irrational physical force,--there is much to be feared from the effects of any combustion which might suddenly inflame a people thus charged to the full with every ingredient requisite for scenes of violence, whilst at the same time, through a strong line of prescribed demarcation, separated from the privileged classes; and it cannot but be mainly by the controlling power of knowledge that we can expect to see the masses endeavouring to be satisfied with their lot in life. Thus it is, as I have before asserted, that the poverty of opportunity for information, and consequently acquirement of knowledge, originates much of the present state of crime. Oh, that I could distinctly see my way through the halo which as yet obscures that glorious day, when ignorance shall be deplored as much as shame! With what satisfaction would the statesman then die and bequeath his country to the care of, not the fate of accident, as now, but the masses of its own population. Methinks the gleam which harbingers this bright morning, already, though faintly, begins to tinge the horizon, under the happy auspices of our beloved Queen; and to the credit of the liberal advisers of Her Majesty, a more liberal arrangement of schools has been established,--though it probably remains for ages yet unborn to develope fully the blessings of such a system. Well worthy, aye, brighter than a diadem of a thousand stars, is the advancement of a nation’s happiness. May such thoughts have our beloved Queen’s deep and considerate attention; and as her noble mind traces, on an ideal map, the future destinies of her people, and turns to times when another generation, with its train of guilt or happiness, shall arise, may she anticipate in time the benefits which will flow from a system of general education!

But if these things be now lightly accounted, the time may arrive when population shall be yet more dense, and the strong arm of numbers become yet more strong; for if no countervailing power intervene, force and numbers must prevail at last, and there must come a time when it will alone depend upon the respective powers of intellect or animal force being dominant, whether confidence in our stability shall be shaken, capital cease to be here expended, and commerce leave our shores,--whether, in fact, brute force or reason become the recognized sovereign of the people; whether the influence of intellect has been fostered, and nobler thoughts and more refined pleasures become the pastime of this great nation. Then, but not till then, will crime hide her head, and the race no longer be to the swift or the battle to the strong: a calm and steady breeze will temper the course of the swift to wrath, or the powerfully scientific lever of knowledge uproot violence out of the councils of the nation; for they will then appreciate law, knowing it is peculiarly the palladium of the defenceless, and confident in the strength of their cause, they will cast off the trammels of tradition, form unions of information, not restriction; and when the various classes of society shall have learned to know that each has his proper duties, each his proper limits, each is equally necessary to each, whose strength is a combination of the whole,--like the arch, sure to drop to pieces if the key-stone were removed.

Oh, how the heart bleeds to reflect on the pains which are taken to render efficient the laws for punishing crime, and the little care to fortify the minds of the people to resist the first impress of crime. Train up the child in the way he should go, and he will not depart therefrom. If, therefore, we train it not up, it never has wherefrom to depart, but is cast forth, like a helmless, pilotless bark, on the waters of life; strange if it founder not, or at least if it become not damaged by striking on some of the shoals by which it is beset on every side. We talk of “penal laws” or a “penal settlement” as though the aim and intention of laws were to be _penal_, instead of being as they most decidedly are, or ought to be, _sanitary_. Wherefore do we, as we term it, _punish_, but to cure an evil which hurts and pains society? Just so we cauterize a wound, in order to heal the body, not for the sake of giving pain to the affected limb.

The very fact of the common acceptation of the word _penal_, as applied to our criminal system, is of itself a strong proof of the misunderstanding on which that system is founded, and on which we legislate. If we arrogate to ourselves a right to judge men for their criminality, instead of urging our only legitimate excuse for punishing, namely, “the giving over the offending member to that course of discipline we deem most likely to restrain a similar disposition to delinquency in another member of the frame-work of society,” let us at least carry out this principle to the full extent; and then the man who cheats his neighbour of money by availing himself of his ignorance, and leads him to make an improvident bargain, will be deemed as guilty in the eye of the law as he who, throwing him off his guard, surreptitiously conveys his hand into the other’s pocket.

But it is really absurd to talk of laws being framed to punish sin. It is to restrain others, as well as the culprit himself, from similar offences that pains and penalties are inflicted. If they fail of this end they become themselves improper; if the same end can be attained by a mild as by a severe sentence, the milder course should be adopted.

Perhaps there may be some who are only timid regarding the total abolition of capital punishment because they are fearful of a license being given which would render human life of less value in the sight of man. Can then the destruction of a second life increase the reverence for its sacredness? Surely, not! If we were, in imagination, to place ourselves in the chamber of the condemned, or by the fire-side of the mere spectator of an execution, we shall find the heart of the first generally in a morbid state, whilst the spectator commiserates the fate of the condemned more than he learns to reprobate the crime for which the guilty one suffered.

Punishment, when strained beyond what is necessary becomes revenge; punishment, also, should never exceed, but rather be milder than, public opinion. In the awful decision of death, more especially, we should be careful not to inflict a penalty which we cannot repay back to the sufferer if the condemnation should afterwards prove to have been erroneous. There can be no recall from the grave: in the beautiful words of our author, “THE DOOR OF THE TOMB OPENS NOT INWARDS!”

* * * * *

There are several points in “The Last Days of a Condemned” to which I would particularly invite the attention of the reader. In the first place, the story being left unfinished, and there being a doubt as to whether the condemned was executed or pardoned, takes from the feeling of horror without affecting our interest in his fate. It is as a veil cast over the last moments,--a film, an indistinctness that blends into harmony the last distorted features of the vision we are contemplating.

Next, I would mention the papers relating to chaplains. How touchingly does the author paint the pure and pastorly being who has dwelt in the homely cure, and amid the peaceful scenes of nature studied nature’s God! At page 277, the poor captive, crushed in worldly feeling, yearns for those “good and consoling words” that shall “heal the bruised reed, and quench the smoking flax.” How beautiful to see the soul seeking for that hope which dieth not; and whether we look at pages 279 and 280, or 289, we cannot but feel a happy and holy wish that Heavenly Peace may rest on the poor condemned.

Pass we now to a beautiful scene of nature, page 290,--the final interview between the prisoner and his infant daughter, which few could read unmoved by its pathos. How happy for the parent who can enfold his child in his arms,--a happiness of which parents seldom know the value until the grave has closed over them, or they have left the homestead and parental hearth for the pathway of independent manhood. Agonizing must it be to a parent when absence has transferred much of the warmth of filial affection to strangers, to behold the child you have pictured, possibly for years, as anxious to welcome home from distant noxious climes the parent from whom it parted in the happy days of innocence, perhaps ere yet the mind was conscious of the father’s parting blessing. How the pulse throbs and the heart beats when the vessel touches land, and the waving handkerchief is indistinctly discerned amidst hundreds of spectators; and if when disengaged from the crowd, and with the beloved object seated beside you as the carriage speeds you to your home, how scrutinizingly does the heart search each gaze, fearfully anxious lest it should be able to fathom the depth of a love it would hold fathomless! But oh! how bitter beyond expression must be a meeting such as is described by the author of “The Condemned:” not only want of recognition from the innocent little prattler, not only indifference towards him,--but _terror_! How infinitely more must this have reconciled him, and made him court death than all that myriads of arguments could have effected!

A widely contrasted scene is painted from page 245 to 251, wherein is described the departure of the convicts for the Galleys. What an interesting and painful study for the philanthropist or the moralist! In a few words we read the history of years, the downward path, the emulation in vice. The pride of the hardened sinner to show his superiority in crime, and the effort of the newer delinquent to hide his inexperience under a more hardened exterior, prove forcibly how equally emulative is man, whether the object be a sceptre or a public execution, that his fellows may admire him when he is gone, that his compeers shall not surpass him while he remains!

The deterioration of mind on all connected with a crowded gaol,--that university for crime--is shown, in a paper a few pages further on (page 255), where even the song of a young girl, the outpouring of an unburthened heart, is tainted by the details of crime. The words are left in their original tongue; retained for the sake of showing the ability of the author, but not translated, as being little suited to give pleasure or effect any good. Alas! that the gaol should have power thus to efface even the charms of melody, and render discordant music’s silvery tones. But even that sweetest of sounds, a female voice, becomes tainted by prison association: the rust of a gaol corrodes the heart, and eats into every thing; time cannot efface its mark, nor the brightest sun call forth one gleam from where its dimness has once affixed itself.

As it mars lovely woman’s charms, so it renders disgustful the venerableness of age. From the song of the young girl we trace its earlier mildew; from the powerful paper narrating the history of the old convict (which is by far the most stirring and full of adventure of the whole, see pages 268 to 272) we learn its baleful effects on old age.

May a beneficent, rationally-grounded clemency be, in future, the means of redeeming “all such as have erred;” and may a widely-spread system of enlightened education happily train the children of adverse circumstances “in the way they should go.”

P. HESKETH FLEETWOOD.

THE LAST DAY OF A CONDEMNED.

FIRST PAPER.

BICÊTRE PRISON.

Condemned to death!

These five weeks have I dwelt with this idea,--always alone with it, always frozen by its presence, always bent under its weight.

Formerly (for it seems to me rather years than weeks since I was free) I was a being like any other; every day, every hour, every minute had its idea. My mind, youthful and rich, was full of fancies, which it developed successively, without order or aim, but weaving inexhaustible arabesques on the poor and coarse web of life. Sometimes it was of youthful beauties, sometimes of unbounded possessions, then of battles gained, next of theatres full of sound and light, and then again the young beauties, and shadowy walks at night beneath spreading chestnut-trees. There was a perpetual revel in my imagination: I might think on what I chose,--I was free.

But now,--I am a Captive! Bodily in irons in a dungeon, and mentally imprisoned in one idea,--one horrible, one hideous, one unconquerable idea! I have only one thought, one conviction, one certitude,--

_Condemned to death!_

Whatever I do, that frightful thought is always here, like a spectre, beside me,--solitary and jealous, banishing all else, haunting me for ever, and shaking me with its two icy hands whenever I wish to turn my head away or to close my eyes. It glides into all forms in which my mind seeks to shun it; mixes itself, like a horrible chant, with all the words which are addressed to me; presses against me even to the odious gratings of my prison. It haunts me while awake, spies on my convulsive slumbers, and re-appears, a vivid incubus, in my dreams!

I have just started from a troubled sleep in which I was pursued by this thought, and I made an effort to say to myself, “Oh, it was but a dream!”

Well, even before my heavy eyes could read the fatal truth in the dreadful reality which surrounds me,--on the damp and reeking dungeon-walls, in the pale rays of my night-lamp, in the rough material of my prison-garb, on the sombre visage of the sentry, whose cap gleams through the grating of the door,--it seems to me that already a voice has murmured in my ear,--

“_Condemned to death!_”

SECOND PAPER.

Five weeks have now elapsed since I was tried,--found guilty,--sentenced.

Let me endeavour to recall the circumstances which attended that fatal day.

It was a beautiful morning at the close of August. My trial had already lasted three days; my name and accusation had collected each morning a knot of spectators, who crowded the benches of the Court, as ravens surrounded a corpse. During three days all the assembly of judges, witnesses, lawyers, and officers had passed and repassed as a phantasmagoria before my troubled vision.

The two first nights, through uneasiness and terror, I had been unable to sleep; on the third I had slept, from fatigue and exhaustion. I had left the jury deliberating at midnight, and was taken back to the heap of straw in my prison, where I instantly fell into a profound sleep,--the sleep of forgetfulness. These were the first hours of repose I had obtained after long watchfulness.

I was buried in this oblivion when they sent to have me awakened, and my sound slumber was not broken by the heavy step and iron shoes of the jailor, by the clanking of his keys, or the rusty grating of the lock; to rouse me from my lethargy it required his harsh voice in my ear, his rough hand on my arm.

“Come,” shouted he, “rise directly!”

I opened my eyes, and started up from my straw bed: it was already daylight.

At this moment, through the high and narrow window of my cell, I saw on the ceiling of the next corridor (the only firmament I was allowed to see) that yellow reflection by which eyes accustomed to the darkness of a prison recognize sunshine. And oh, how I love sunshine!

“It is a fine day!” said I to the jailor.

He remained a moment without answering me, as if uncertain whether it was worth while to expend a word; then, as if with an effort, he coolly murmured, “Very likely.”

I remained motionless, my senses half sleeping, with smiling lips, and my eyes fixed on that soft golden reflection which reverberated on the ceiling.

“What a lovely day!” I repeated.

“Yes,” answered the jailor; “_they are waiting for you_.”

These few words, like a web which stops the flight of an insect, flung me back into the reality of my position. I pictured to myself instantly, as in a flash of lightning, that sombre Court of Justice, the Bench of Judges, in their robes of sanguine hue, the three rows of stupid-looking witnesses, two gendarmes at the extremity of my bench; black robes waving, and the heads of the crowd clustering in the depth of the shadow, while I fancied that I felt upon me the fixed look of the twelve jurymen, who had sat up while I slept.

I rose: my teeth chattered, my hands trembled, my limbs were so weak that at the first step I had nearly fallen; however, I followed the jailor slowly.

Two gendarmes waited for me at the door-way of the cell; they replaced my fetters, to which I yielded mechanically, as in a dream.

We traversed an interior court, and the balmy air of morning reanimated me. I raised my head: the sky was cloudless, and the warm rays of the sun (partially intercepted by the tall chimneys) traced brilliant angles of light on the high and sombre walls of the prison. It was indeed a delicious day.

We ascended a winding staircase; we passed a corridor, then another, then a third, and then a low door was opened. A current of hot air, laden with noise, rushed from it; it was the breath of the crowd in the Court of Justice which I then entered.

On my appearance the hall resounded with the clank of arms and the hum of voices; benches were moved noisily; and while I crossed that long chamber between two masses of people who were walled in by soldiers, I painfully felt myself the centre of attraction to all those fixed and gaping looks.

At this moment I perceived that I was without fetters, but I could not recall where or when they had been removed.

At length I reached my place at the bar, and there was a deep silence. The instant that the tumult ceased in the crowd, it ceased also in my ideas: a sudden clearness of perception came to me, and I at once understood plainly, what until then I could not discover in my confused state of mind, that _the decisive moment was come_! I was brought there to hear my _sentence_!

Explain it who can: from the manner in which this idea came to my mind, it caused me no terror! The windows were open; the air, and the sounds of the City came freely through them; the room was as light as for a wedding; the cheerful rays of the sun traced here and there the luminous forms of the windows, sometimes lengthened on the flooring, sometimes spreading on a table, sometimes broken by the angles of the walls; and from the brilliant square of each window the rays fell through the air in dancing golden beams.

The Judges at the extreme of the hall bore a satisfied appearance, probably from the anticipation of their labours being soon completed. The face of the President, softly lighted by a reflected sunbeam, had a calm and amiable expression; and a young counsel conversed almost gaily with a handsome woman who was placed near him.

The Jury alone looked wan and exhausted, but this was apparently from the fatigue of having sat up all night. Nothing in their countenances indicated men who would pass sentence of death.

Opposite to me a window stood wide open. I heard laughter in the Market for Flowers beneath; and on the sill of the window a graceful plant, illumined by sunshine, played in the breeze.

How could any sinister idea be formed amongst so many soothing sensations? Surrounded by air and sunshine, I could think of nought save freedom. Hope shone within me, as the day shone around me; and I awaited my sentence with confidence, as one daily calculates on liberty and life.

In the meantime my counsel arrived; after taking his place he leaned towards me with a smile.

“I have hopes!” said he.

“Oh, surely!” I replied in the same light tone.

“Yes,” returned he; “I know nothing as yet of the verdict, but they have doubtless acquitted you of premeditation, and then it will be only _hard labour for life_!”

“What do you mean, sir?” replied I, indignantly; “I would prefer death!”

Then the President, who had only waited for my counsel, desired me to rise. The soldiers carried arms; and, like an electric movement, all the assembly rose at the same instant. The Recorder, placed at a table below the Tribunal, read the verdict, which the Jury pronounced during my absence.

* * * * *

A sickly chill passed over my frame; I leaned against the wall to avoid falling.

“Counsel, have you anything to say why this sentence should not be passed?” demanded the President.

I felt that _I_ had much to urge, but I had not the power,--my tongue was cleaving to my mouth.

My counsel then rose. His endeavour appeared to be, to mitigate the verdict of the Jury, and to substitute the punishment of hard labour for life,--by naming which he had rendered me so indignant! This indignation must again have been powerful within me to conquer the thousand emotions which distracted my thoughts. I wished to repeat aloud what I had already said to him, but my breath failed, and I could only grasp him by the arm, crying with convulsive strength, “No!”

The Attorney-General replied against my counsel’s arguments, and I listened to him with a stupid satisfaction. The Judges then left the Court; soon returned, and the President read my sentence.

“_Condemned to death!_” cried the crowd; and as I was led away the assembly pressed on my steps with avidity, while I walked on, confused, and nearly in unconsciousness. A revolution had taken place within me. Until that sentence of Death I had felt myself breathe, palpitate, exist, like other beings. Now I felt clearly that a barrier existed between me and the world. Nothing appeared to me under the same aspect as hitherto. Those large and luminous windows, that fair sunshine, that pure sky,--all was pale and ghastly, the colour of a winding sheet. Those men, women, and children who pressed on my path seemed to me like phantoms.

At the foot of the stairs a black and dirty prison-cart was waiting; as I entered it, I looked by chance around.

“The Condemned Prisoner!” shouted the people, running towards the cart.

Through the cloud which seemed to me to interpose between me and all things, I distinguished two young girls who gazed at me with eager eyes.

“Well,” said the youngest, clapping her hands, “_it will take place in six weeks_.”

THIRD PAPER.

Condemned to death!

Well, why not? I remember once reading, “All mankind are condemned to death, with indefinite respites.” How then is my position altered?

Since my sentence was pronounced, how many are dead who calculated upon a long life! How many are gone before me, who, young, free, and in good health, had fully intended to be present at my execution! How many, between this and then, perhaps, who now walk and breathe in the fresh air any where they please, will die before me!

And then, what has life for me, that I should regret? In truth, only the dull twilight and black bread of a prison, a portion of meagre soup from the trough of the convicts; to be treated rudely,--_I_, who have been refined by education; to be brutalized by turnkeys without feeling; not to see a human being who thinks me worthy of a word, or whom I could address; incessantly to shudder at what I have done, and what may be done to me,--these are nearly the only advantages of which the executioner can deprive me!

Ah! still it is horrible.

FOURTH PAPER.

The black cart brought me here to this hideous Bicêtre Prison.