Frederick Richard Falkiner

“ The evidence as to tobacco trafficking almost provokes a smile, Introduced by connivance of warders bribed by outside friends, it is a standing burning question, leading to the dismissal of warders and remittals to bread and water, and a search system of fiercer minuteness than any foreign customs practise: one would almost think that narcotic was as perilous as dynamite, yet the contraband goes on. At Lusk the men may buy tobacco with their gratuities. ”

“ Speaking of the conduct of warders generally towards prisoners in the close prisons, one of the governors said they were not cruel as a rule, but that the difficulty is to get them to regard convicts as human beings at all. An iron rule has no sanction but itself and always tempts its subjects to evade it when they may; and so men at Spike will talk corruptly when they can, who at Lusk would be abashed by the public opinion of the place. ”

“ Note—The evidence at the Commission discloses an absence of any uniform principle in the selection of warders. In some places trade warders supervise the labour, in others the warders must not interfere; many are old soldiers, many are country lads; some take deep interest in the works, others none or little, but as a convict witness said (Q. 6,342) are only waiting to get off to the guard room. Might not the superintendent of work see that the warders should have or should acquire sufficient knowledge to supervise work, and result fees might be allowed for successful trade instruction. ”

“ At the present moment I am executing a very large amount of beautiful carved stone-work for the Duke of Connaught's new palace at Bagshot; every bit of stone is being dressed by convicts. It has been perfectly marvellous to see the desire which has been shown by well-disposed convicts who have been employed in the work, to complete their education in stone-dressing, so as to fit themselves for obtaining employment of a superior kind when discharged. ”

“ Thus their lives are divided between the time passed in prison and the time passed in the streets, as those of other men, by day and night, or town or country, till all prison terrors are completely gone—alas! not alone from them, but from their kinsfolk and acquaintance—gone for ever all family shame at the prison stain, even from the women-kind and the children ”

“ In England, where, under the very able administration of Sir E. E. DuCane and his colleagues, these aggregate results have been reached, the large standing number of convicts (never less than 8,000 men) , the imperial public works, and superior industrial development of the country permit experiments hitherto not possible here; yet, even in England, prison labour is subject to conditions which, greatly detracting from its economic value, are scarce consistent with that individuality in prison training to which I aspire. ”

“ That the warder in charge of a party should be a discipline officer only. If the officer was competent and was permitted to direct the entire work of the party, it could be in many cases a very considerable advantage. ... But I have understood that warders have been fined for giving detailed directions about the work. ... We have a foreman of works who supervises the outdoor men, and may give instructions to the individual warders; but until the foreman comes round again, a warder cannot send a man off like a freeman to tell the foreman he is wanted. ”

“ The remains of the people convicted in the famine year, were in the prisons when I got into the service: these were strong and healthy countrymen. Now the people we get are the dregs of the towns, a different class of men altogether."
Mr. Hay, Governor of Spike Island, speaking of the convicts there, says:—
"They are a very different class from what they were when I went to Spike Island: they are now of the habitual criminal class from the large towns—Dublin, Belfast, Cork, and Limerick, a very bad class indeed." ”

“ A certain number of warders are apportioned to so many prisoners, according to a rule laid down by the Home Office—say a warder to fifteen men when building a house; building an outside wall the warder can supervise the men, but inside the house, in putting in doors, there must be a warder in each room where a prisoner is to look after him; if in building a lock wants mending in the next room, they send a man to mend the lock, but a warder must go with him ”

“ We have no Irish society for aid of male prisoners on discharge.
In London the Royal Society for the Assistance of Discharged Prisoners began in 1857, and up to 1881 had dealt with 12,538 male and female ticket-of-leave convicts. The Queen is patron, the Duke of Westminster, president, and the vice-presidents and committee, comprising members of both Houses, and some cabinet ministers, include many of the chief prison authorities, and their subscription-revenue is about £1,000 a year. The convicts' gratuities are paid to this Society and by them laid out for their benefit. ”

“ Remember the instances I have cited in which the experiment has been tried—ten years in the reformatories and six convictions since; penal servitude on a lad's third conviction, and a second five years' penal servitude since, followed by the Prison's Office circular to me in January recommending a third more lengthened imprisonment then. It is plain that habitues in street crime cannot maintain reform in the streets. ”

“ Would not this tend to facilitate the acquisition of labour skill, and might not the gangs be thus made susceptible of subformation and portability according to the exigencies of the work, and so made to fit in with or supplement free labour in tidal works or otherwise? At least it would not be necessary that the whole gang should stand still as we have seen, because no one could be trusted to take a message to the absent foreman.
Sir W. Crofton very strikingly exemplifies what response even convicts can make when feelings higher than fear are enlisted. ”

“ Those who even rightly contemplate existing evils from their own point are at times too prone to dictate changes, the carrying out of which lies outside their own sphere and responsibility, and then to brand as official obstruction the hesitation of the responsible departments to accept their methods. ”

“ The urban habituals are, as we have seen, those we have chief need to deal with, and there may be great danger in condemning them to a pessimist isolation.
And here I refer to a fact of seemingly very high significance. The prisoners abruptly removed to Lusk Intermediate Prison are per saltum and at once freed from the severe and silent discipline of Spike, and with no restraint as to speech, and few as to liberty, are allowed free intercourse with each other and the agricultural warders who instruct them ”

“ Otherwise it is open to the criticism, that whilst it certainly tends to render the difficulties of labour organization more complex, it affords no sure guarantee against corruption, as the first convicted urban prisoners have nothing to learn and everything to teach in the vocabularies of vice; moreover in withdrawing the better from the evil influences of the bad, it withdraws the worse from the good influences of the better, and so tends to make them worse. ”

“ Reclamation of lands, public works, farm labour, buildings, carpentry, and smith work are therefore most suitable; and the more domestic industries—tailoring, shoemaking, and house service—the least so. ”

“ This phenonemon cannot be wholly explained away by saying they are picked prisoners near the term of their sentences and working for their gratuities; they are the very persons for whom before removal the most rigid discipline is theoretically held essential, and many of these, as a matter of fact, relapse when remitted to the streets. The fuller and deeper reason lies in this, that they are here subjected to higher influences than fear; hope enters the daily life, and, treated more as human beings, they begin to be more human. ”

“ If these men were professed thieves, I believe there is a tradition of decency and religion in our meanest tenement quarters which would refuse them toleration, and the evil might be isolated and suppressed. ”

“ The most hopeful of them must take their place below the lowest of their reputable acquaintances, to be looked upon askance by these, but welcome at fifty street corners if they will join their degraded pot companions there—despised and suspected even by these, if they dare to struggle on in decency. ”

“ The potentialities for organization given by the Act are almost unlimited. Any existing prison may be closed by order of the Lord-Lieutenant, new prisons may be built, and all prisoners, irrespective of their place of sentence, may be confined in any prison the government may select. ”

“ Wood, the Admiralty Civil Engineer, superintending the convict labour there, told the Commission he was then providing 30,000,000 for the War Department at Aldershot, adding that their clay excavations had turned out a gold mine. At Chatham dockyard the convicts have constructed one half the factory basin, nearly all the fitting-out basin, all the locks, a sea-wall, and embankment; they have made all the bricks themselves—the convicts managing the four machines from which they had made five millions each. ”

“ Saving special aptitudes, and prisoners already tradesmen, the selected industries should be those for which previous good character is least essential, in which there is least danger from trade jealousy outside, and for which hands are most welcomed in the Colonies and United States. ”

“ Then, in the separate confinement prisons at Pentonville, hammocks are made for the navy and bags for the post office; and at Brixton, boots, shoes, and clothes are made for the police and prison departments of Her Majesty's government. As to the adaptability of the convicts, we have the very high authority of Mr. Bernays, for sixteen years the Admiralty Civil Engineer at Portland, and of Mr. Wood, for fourteen years in the same position at Portsmouth. The former (in Q. 7,203) says:—
"As a rule, convicts are men of superior intelligence. ”

“ Turning to Ireland, Capt. Barlow, Vice-Chairman of our present Prison Board, speaking of Irish convicts, says in Q. 9,658-60:—
"There are very few indeed against whom no previous convictions have been recorded, chiefly agrarian offenders or manslaughter cases." ”

“ Gibson and Miss Pomfrey, the Lady Superintendents of Woking and Winchester convict refuges, give similar evidence as to the deterioration of female criminals—the latter lady assenting to Lord Kiniberley's summary of her evidence in Q 7,439: "That in the prisons we are gradually getting down to the residuum, as it were, of the criminal population." ”

“ We all know the salutary results of the prefect system in these, by which a couple of trustworthy lads in each form officer the rest, and thus a self-working disciplinary system, quite apart from the government of the masters, operates amongst the boys inter se and effectuates a public opinion which no master rule could enforce. ”

“ I cannot here exhaust the grounds or the qualifications of the four axioms which follow—well if we were sure of their practical resolution as of their intrinsic soundness as general rules.
1. Each city prisoner sentenced for a year or more, should be secured an industrial training suited to his capabilities, with a view to obtaining employment when discharged. ”

“ Then there is a superabundance of men in one place belonging to one division, and a deficiency in another division. You cannot take the men from one place and put them into the other then and there. In the one place you have a great deal more labour than you want, and in the other you have less than you can profitably employ." And in Q. 7,235: "Your convicts are a standing number in the summer months ”

“ Fagan, one of the Directors of Convict Prisons, having charge as such of Millbank, Wormwood-Scrubs, Brixton, and Portsmouth, and who had been for four years connected with convict service in Australia, says in Q. 8,872:—
"The present class of criminals have materially fallen off in strength and robustness. I think we get the waste of all the large towns and of London particularly."
Both physically and morally he considers them a lower class of men. Mr. Clifton, Governor of Portland, says in Q. 2,315-16:—
"The physique has totally changed ”