Gaol

“ Finally, the chiefs actually feed the soldiery who watch them!
The gaol is a wretched little building, containing a little room, and three cells, on each side of a central passage; it is surrounded by a fence of corrugated iron, and shows, over the top of that, only a gable end with the inscription O le Fale Puipui. It is on the edge of the mangrove swamp, and is reached by a sort of causeway of turf. When we drew near, we saw the gates standing open and a prodigious crowd outside—I mean prodigious for Apia, perhaps a hundred and fifty people. ”

“ In the gaol yard the pirates sat upon a bench in the sunshine, and one smoked a long pipe, and one brooded upon his irons. Gold rings were in their ears, and their black hair fell from beneath colored handkerchiefs twisted turbanwise around their brows. The gaoler watched them, standing in his doorway, and his children, at play beneath a tree, built with sticks a mimic scaffold, and hanged thereon a broken puppet. There was a shady road leading through a wood to Queen's Creek and the Capitol Landing, and down this road went Haward. ”

“ All the vegetables and condiments are produced by the convicts in the large garden attached to the gaol.
It is said that no convict has ever gotten away altogether, but that those who manage to escape occasionally are always recaptured. As the gaol is situated in a large desert, tracking the runaways is comparatively easy. ”

“ Johnson that "the man in gaol has more room, better food, and commonly better company than the man in the ship, and is in safety," and felt we would rather be in gaol on shore, for then we should be in no risk of being killed at any moment by our own people, our cells would have been larger than our cabins, and our food possibly not much worse, and our gaol would at least have been stationary and not rolling about, though it must be confessed the Wolf was a good sea boat. ”

“ For several years also a few lunatics were located in the gaol, where for want of proper facilities they were a source of annoyance; but when the Lunatic Asylum was opened, they were removed to more suitable quarters. One amusing incident connected with lunatic life in gaol may not be deemed out of place in this sketch. One insane man, ordinarily a happy-souled being, but who, like many other insane persons, could show method in his madness, was peremptorily told by an officer to clean his (the officer's) long boots, and to "do them well." ”

“ Cases of frostbite became very numerous, and many a time I had to lop off a man's feet or hands the flesh of which was simply rotting on the bones. Rations too were getting scarce, and as there was not enough food for every one the prisoners in the gaol were the first to suffer. The interior of that Erzeroum gaol was a sight not soon to be forgotten. [337] Crowded together in a state of indescribable filth, the prisoners fought with the ferocity of wild beasts for the few handfuls of raw grain that the guard threw to them occasionally. ”

“ The beginning of trouble, for one who has not paid the gaol fine, is to be beaten with a straw mat to the front of the gaol god, and if the money or the promise of it is not given, he is beaten unmercifully with a club. Next, the poor novice is tied up in an attitude like the ling kuan idol, a fierce, overawing attitude ”

“ The gaol was the halfway-house to the scaffold or the gallows for turbulent or short-sighted persons who espoused the losing side; it was the starting-place for that painful pilgrimage to the pillory or whipping-post which was too frequently the punishment for rashly uttered libels and philippics against constituted power. Newgate, again, was on the high road to Smithfield; in times of intolerance and fierce religious dissensions numbers of devoted martyrs went thence to suffer for conscience’ sake at the stake. ”

“ The greatest mortality must [Pg 375] have been, according to Stow, in 1414, when the gaolers of Newgate and Ludgate died, and sixty-four prisoners in Newgate [784] .
More than a century after, in 1522, there occurred the first of a series of gaol-fever tragedies, which were well calculated to produce the effect ascribed by Aristotle to scenic tragedy, provided only the workings of cause and effect had been more apparent. The first of these historical Black Assizes occurred on the occasion of the gaol delivery at the Castle of Cambridge in Lent, 1522. ”

“ Wright admission. The gaoler tried to interrupt it. I wrote to a magistrate, he to the gaoler saying he saw no impropriety in it, but left it to the gaoler. The fellow yielded after saying, 'It was not to be a precedent'. He would not let her write her name to me in the office of the gaol, she had to go back to town to do so; I don't believe you yet when you say he was civil to you. He is the greatest ruffian I ever saw in any kind of office. There is war and rumor of war in the gaol just now. This is session week, and I am about to make a report to the magistrates against the gaoler. ”

“ In writing a little tragedy, The Gaol Gate, I made the scenario in three lines, "He is an informer; he is dead; he is hanged." I wrote that play very quickly. ”

“ Mr. Oxenton, the Gaoler, who keeps an Inn opposite to the Prison, went into the Gaol about four a Clock in the Morning, as was his Custom, attended by three Men, to see if all was safe, and, having lock'd the outward Door, sent one of his Men down to the Dungeon, where the four Felons had found means to disengage themselves from the Pillar and Chain to which they had been lock'd down, and one of them, viz. Bacon-Face, had got off both his Hand-Cuffs and Fetters; on opening the Door, they disabled the Man and all rush'd out ”

“ My friend the Shikarry delights to clothe himself in the coarse fabrics manufactured in gaol, which, when properly patched and decorated with pockets, have undoubtedly a certain wild-wood appearance.
As the hunter does not happen to be a Bheel with the privileges of nakedness conferred by a brown skin, this is perhaps the only practical alternative. If he went out to shoot in evening clothes, a crush hat, and a hansom cab, the chances are that he would make an example of himself and come to some untimely end. What would the Apollo Bundar say? What would the Bengali Baboo say? ”

“ The marvel is that the institution has existed so long without any very serious thing occurring, especially in the desperate days of '61–3. But, of course, no gaoler in his senses would place known dangerous men, or even doubtful men, in circumstances so favourable to themselves. Of late years the danger has been very much reduced by the removal of the double tiers of bunks, and the erection of iron gratings with locks. Still, as a gaol the building is extremely defective and inconvenient ”

“ The troopers, when they do make a capture of the culprits, bring them in on chains, to the police quarters. By the Warden, through a tame boy as interpreter, they are tried, and either acquitted and sent back to their country or sentenced to a turn of imprisonment and handed over to the gaoler. In gaol they have a remarkably good time, fed upon beef, bread, jam, and water, and made to do useful work, such as drawing and carrying water, making roads, etc. ”

“ I informed the House that I had travelled and seen 38 out of the 42 gaols in the Lent [80] circuit, besides others, as Bristol, Ely, Litchfield, &c.: that those I had not seen in the circuit, in a few days I should set out to visit them: that I released a person out of Norwich City gaol, who had been confined five weeks for the gaoler's fee of 13s. 4d.: that at Launceston the keeper, deputy keeper, and ten out of eleven prisoners, lay ill of the gaol distemper; at Monmouth, last Wednesday se'night, the keeper lay dangerously ill, and three of the prisoners were ill ”

“ At length the gaoler, having armed himself with a prayer against ghosts, undid the door, crossing himself devoutly, and exorcising the devil, who he imagined was making a disturbance in the empty gaol. But upon a nearer examination of the sorcery, he recognized his runaway prisoner, the cut-purse, and Curlypate at the same instant saluted his old friend the gaoler of Leignitz. It was now evident that Number-Nip had taken the advantage of his nap to expedite him unperceived to his old lodgings: ‘So, Mr. ”

“ The Gaolāns appear to be an inferior class of Gaolis in Berār. The Golkars of Chānda may be derived from the Telugu Golars or graziers, with a probable [19] admixture of Gond blood. They are described as wild-looking people scattered about in the most thickly forested tracts of the District, where they graze and tend cattle. Rāwat, a corruption of Rājpūtra or a princeling, is the name borne by the Ahīr caste in Chhattīsgarh; while Gahra is their designation in the Uriya country. The Mahākul Ahīrs are a small group found in the Jashpur State, and said to belong to the Nāndvansi division. ”

“ That night the empty corridors Were full of forms of Fear, And up and down the iron town Stole feet we could not hear, And through the bars that hide the stars White faces seemed to peer. He lay as one who lies and dreams In a pleasant meadow-land, The watcher watched him as he slept, And could not understand How one could sleep so sweet a sleep With a hangman close at hand? But there is no sleep when men must weep Who never yet have wept: So we—the fool, the fraud, the knave— That endless vigil kept, And through each brain on hands of pain Another's terror crept. ”

“ After having traced the Gaul for so long in the field, we love to follow him into his cabin—to observe his appearance, his pursuits, his habits—to mark the manly figure, the fair complexion, the flowing yellow locks, the glittering helmet surmounted with the antlers of the stag, the buckler covered with all the colours of the rainbow, the polished cuirass flashing back the rays of the morning sun, the heavy sabre hanging from the gold-bespangled belt, the precious necklace, the rich armlets, the bright and variegated hues of the martial sagum or mantle, of the noble Gaulish warrior. ”

“ I never saw sad men who looked With such a wistful eye Upon that little tent of blue We prisoners called the sky, And at every careless cloud that passed In happy freedom by. But there were those amongst us all Who walked with downcast head, And knew that, had each got his due, They should have died instead: He had but killed a thing that lived Whilst they had killed the dead. For he who sins a second time Wakes a dead soul to pain, And draws it from its spotted shroud, And makes it bleed again, And makes it bleed great gouts of blood And makes it bleed in vain! ”

“ And on my brow I feel the damp and dreadful dews of night and death.
Your eyes are like fantastic moons that shiver in some stagnant lake,
Your tongue is like a scarlet snake that dances to fantastic tunes,
Your pulse makes poisonous melodies, and your black throat is like the hole
Left by some torch or burning coal on Saracenic tapestries. ”

“ Immediately after Riowag entered the grotto, the priestess and her two assistant hags rushed out. With streaming hair, haggard looks, and hands raised heavenward they cried:
"The hour has come—the sun is setting—night approaches—death, death to the Gaul! He struck the Terrible Eagle—death, death to the Gaul! Bind him fast. We shall consult the subterranean gods in the magic water in which he is to boil!"
"Yes—death!" cried the Franks rushing upon me and binding me fast again. "He shall die under a prolonged agony! Death to the dog of a Gaul!"
"We are the priestesses of the sacrifice!" ”

“ Thou shalt not die: no asps of Egypt creep
Close at thy heels to taint the delicate air;
No sullen-blooming poppies stain thy hair,
Those scarlet heralds of eternal sleep.
Lily of love, pure and inviolate!
Tower of ivory! red rose of fire!
Thou hast come down our darkness to illume:
For we, close-caught in the wide nets of Fate,
Wearied with waiting for the World’s Desire,
Aimlessly wandered in the House of gloom,
Aimlessly sought some slumberous anodyne
For wasted lives, for lingering wretchedness,
Till we beheld thy re-arisen shrine,
And the white glory of thy loveliness. ”

“ Which turn a boy’s gold hair to withered grey,
The dread desire of death it never knew,
Or how all folk that they were born must rue.
For we to death with pipe and dancing go,
Nor would we pass the ivory gate again,
As some sad river wearied of its flow
Through the dull plains, the haunts of common men,
Leaps lover-like into the terrible sea!
And counts it gain to die so gloriously. ”

“ Queen Venus with the shepherd at her side,
Her warm soft body like the briar rose
Which would be white yet blushes at its pride,
Laughs low for love, till jealous Salmacis
Peers through the myrtle-leaves and sighs for pain of lonely bliss.
There never does that dreary north-wind blow
Which leaves our English forests bleak and bare,
Nor ever falls the swift white-feathered snow,
Nor ever doth the red-toothed lightning dare
To wake them in the silver-fretted night
When we lie weeping for some sweet sad sin, some dead delight. ”

“ Burns like a grey and flickering candle-flame
Beneath the noonday splendour of the sun
Of new Italia! for the night is done,
The night of dark oppression, and the day
Hath dawned in passionate splendour: far away
The Austrian hounds are hunted from the land,
Beyond those ice-crowned citadels which stand
Girdling the plain of royal Lombardy,
From the far West unto the Eastern sea. ”

“ The brackish water that we drink Creeps with a loathsome slime, And the bitter bread they weigh in scales Is full of chalk and lime, And Sleep will not lie down, but walks Wild-eyed and cries to Time. ”