this will fairly account for any extra fussiness on the part of the committee. Doubtful of the zeal and energy of those to whom they confided the details of management, they were continually stepping in to make up for any shortcomings by their own activity. But the direct consequence of this interference was to shake the authority of the ostensible heads. Moreover, to make the more sure that nothing should be neglected, and no irregularity overlooked, the committee encouraged, or at least their most prominent member did, all sorts of talebearing, and a system of espionage that must have been destructive of all good feeling among the inmates of the prison. Mr. Pitt, when examined by the Select Committee, said, “Mr. Holford has mentioned to me: ‘I hear so and so; such and such an abuse appears to be going forward; but I shall get some further information.’ I always turned a deaf ear to these observations, thinking it an erroneous system, and that it was not likely to contribute to the good of the establishment.” He thought that if the committee members were so ready to lend a willing ear to such communications, it operated as an encouragement to talebearing; the consequences of which certainly appeared to have been disputes, cabals, or intrigues. Mr. Shearman remarks at some length on the same subject: “I certainly did think there was a very painful system going on in the prison against officers, ... by what I might term ‘spyism.’ I have no doubt it all arose from the purest motives, thinking it was the best way to conduct the establishment, setting up one person to look after another.” The master manufacturer and the steward in this way took the opportunity of vilifying the governor; and there is no doubt the matron, Mrs. Chambers, fell a victim to this practice. She was the victim of insinuation, and the evil reports of busybodies who personally disliked her.
It is easy to imagine the condition of Millbank then. A small colony apart from the great world; living more than as neighbours, as one family almost—but not happily—under the same roof. The officials, nearly all of them of mature age, having grown-up children, young ladies and young gentlemen, always about the place, and that place from its peculiar conditions, like a ship at sea, shut off from the public, and concentrated on what was going on within its walls. Gossip, of course, prevalent—even malicious; constant observation of one another, jealousies, quarrels, inevitable when authority was divided between three people, the governor, chaplain, and matron, and it was not clearly made out which was the most worthy; subordinates ever on the look-out to make capital of the differences of their betters, and alive to the fact that they were certain of a hearing when they chose to carry any slanderous tale, or make any underhand complaint. For there, outside the prison, was the active and all-powerful committee, ever ready to listen, and anxious to get information. One of the witnesses before the committee of 1823 stated, “From the earliest period certainly the active members of the Superintending Committee gave great encouragement to receive any information from the subordinate officers, I believe with the view of putting the prison in its best possible state; that encouragement was caught with avidity by a great many, simply for the purpose of cultivating the good opinion of those gentlemen conducting it; and I am induced to think that in many instances their zeal overstepped perhaps the strict line of truth; for I must say that during the whole period I was there, there was a continual complaint, one officer against another, and a system that was quite unpleasant in an establishment of that nature.”
Of a truth the life inside the Penitentiary must have been rather irksome to more people than those confined there against their will.
CHAPTER III
THE GREAT EPIDEMIC
Failure threatens the great experiment—General sickness of the Prisoners—Virulent disorder attacks them—The result of too high feeding and ill-chosen dietary—Disease succumbs to treatment—Majority transferred to hospital ships at Woolwich—Very imperfect discipline maintained—Conduct of prisoners often outrageous—Sent by Act of Parliament to the Hulks as ordinary Convicts.
The internal organization of Millbank, which has been detailed in the last chapter, is described at some length in a Blue Book, bearing date July, 1823. But though Millbank was then, so to speak, on its trial, and its value, in return for the enormous cost of its erection, closely questioned, it is probable that its management would not have demanded a Parliamentary inquiry but for one serious mishap which brought matters to a crisis. Of a sudden the whole of the inmates of the prison began to pine and fall away. A virulent disorder broke out, and threatened the lives of all in the place. Alarm and misgiving in such a case soon spread; and all at once the public began to fear that Millbank was altogether a huge mistake. Here was a building upon which half a million had been spent, and now, when barely completed, it proved uninhabitable! Money cast wholesale into a deadly swamp, and all the fine talk of reformation and punishment to give way to coroners’ inquests and deaths by a strange disease. No wonder there was a cry for investigation. Then, as on many subsequent occasions, it became evident Millbank was fulfilling one of the conditions laid down as of primary importance in the choice of site. Howard had said that the Penitentiary House must be built near the metropolis, so as to insure constant supervision and inspection. Millbank is ten minutes’ walk from Westminster, and from the first has been the subject of continual inquiry and legislation. The tons of Blue Books and dozens of Acts of Parliament which it has called into existence will be sufficient proof of this. It was, however, a public undertaking, carried out in the full blaze of daylight, and hence it attracted more than ordinary attention. What might have passed unnoticed in a far-off shire, was in London magnified to proportions almost absurd. This must explain state interference, which now-a-days may seem quite unnecessary, and will account for giving a national importance to matters oftentimes in themselves really trivial.
But this first sickness in the Penitentiary was sufficiently serious to arrest attention, and call for description in detail.
In the autumn of 1822, the physicians appointed to report on the subject state that the general health of the prisoners in Millbank began visibly to decline. They became pale and languid, thin and feeble; those employed in tasks calling for bodily exertion could not execute the same amount of work as before, those at the mill ground less corn, those at the pump brought up less water, the laundry-women often fainted at their work, and the regular routine of the place was only accomplished by constantly changing the hands engaged. Throughout the winter this was the general condition of the prisoners. The breaking down of health was shown by such symptoms as lassitude, dejection of spirits, paleness of countenance, rejection of food, and occasional faintings. Yet, with all this depression of general health, there were no manifest signs of specific disease; the numbers in hospital were not in excess of previous winters, and their maladies were such as were commonly incident to cold weather. But in January, 1823, scurvy—unmistakable sea scurvy—made its appearance, and was then recognized as such, and in its true form, for the first time by the medical superintendent, though the prisoners themselves declared it was visible among them as early as the previous November. Being anxious to prevent alarm, either in the Penitentiary itself or in the neighbourhood, the medical officer rather suppressed the fact of the existence of the disease; and this, with a certain tendency to make light of it, led to the omission of many precautions. But there it was, plainly evident; first, by the usual sponginess of the gums, then by “ecchymosed” blotches on the legs, which were observed in March to be pretty general among the prisoners.
Upon this point, the physicians called in remarked that the scurvy spots were at their first appearance peculiarly apt to escape discovery, unless the attention be particularly directed towards them, and that they often existed for a long time entirely unnoticed by the patient himself. And now with the scurvy came dysentery, and diarrhœa, of the peculiar kind that is usually associated with the scorbutic disease. In all cases, the same constitutional derangement was observable, the outward marks of which were a sallow
