Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison Part 32

CHAPTER XLIII.

A BATTERED HULK STRANDED ON A Sh.o.r.e TO WHICH NO TIDE RETURNS.

I am glad to say that during the almost lifetime I pa.s.sed at Chatham there were only a scant half dozen Americans who came down to keep me company. One, Stoneman by name, interested me. He was a man of great nerve and quick apprehension, and very truthful, therefore I found his stories of his adventures most interesting, besides the fact that his history was another proof of the truth that wrongdoing never pays.

Stoneman was of good parentage, and had entered the army in 1861, making a good record up to and including the battle of Gettysburg. There, owing to a quarrel with his captain, he deserted, and became a bounty jumper, making a large amount of money, but when the war ended, finding his occupation gone, he entered upon a life of crime, starting out first as a very successful express robber. The last robbery he engaged in in that line was on the New Haven road near Norwalk. His share amounted to some thousands, but he was literally bowled out, and by a singular circ.u.mstance. One of his confederates by the name of Riley had been arrested, and was confined at Norwalk. He engaged as counsel for his chum a well-known criminal lawyer of New York by the name of Stuart, and arranged with him to go up to Norwalk to see Riley the following day.

Although Stoneman had plenty of money, he told Stuart he had none, but Riley had. Then he gave Riley's wife $2,500, and told her to be present at the interview between the lawyer and her husband. At the interview Riley told him he would give him $2,500 if he cleared him or $1,000 if he got him off with a sentence of two years or less. Stuart was hungry as a shark to finger the money, and writing out a receipt for the full amount inserted the conditions agreed upon. Putting the money in his pocket he started back to New York with Mrs. Riley. Stoneman was on the train waiting for them, and as soon as they started he joined them. It happened the train was crowded, and they had to stand. It seems some pickpocket saw Stuart pull out the money, and determined to get it from him. On the arrival of the train in New York he succeeded in doing so.

Stoneman had hurried out of the station, and, of course, knew nothing of the loss. So soon as Stuart discovered his loss he blamed him for it, and, being in a fury, he flew to Police Headquarters, secured the services of a friendly detective, and, going to the hotel that he knew Stoneman frequented, had him arrested on a charge of robbing him. The end of it all was that Stuart and the detectives got all his money, and then, knowing him to be a daring man, one that would neither forget nor fear to avenge his wrong, to get him out of the way they betrayed him to the Connecticut police as one of the express robbers. He was sent to Norwalk to stand his trial, was convicted and sentenced to five years, and sent to Weathersfield. Being a good mechanic, he was put in the blacksmith shop, and there, with an eye to the future, he did what is frequently done by professional gentlemen in our prisons, made a complete and most finely tempered set of burglar tools. They were too bulky to be smuggled out by friendly warders, so he secreted them in the shop where he worked and ruled. Many of the prisoners in Weathersfield are expert workmen, and from the machine shops there a high cla.s.s of work is turned out. Among other workshops, there is one for the manufacture of silver-plated ware. Stoneman had made chums with one of the prisoners who held a confidential position in the silverware manufactory. As Stoneman's sentence was the first to expire, he gave him points, and it was plotted between them that the prison itself should be burglarized by Stoneman on a certain night after his release. The confidential man was to leave the way clear to the safe where the silver bars used in the business were stored. He in due time was liberated, with the customary injunctions from the warden and officers "not to come back any more." He did come back, but in a way entirely unantic.i.p.ated by them.

He, of course, knew the whole routine of the place, the stations of the guards, and that the wall after 8 p.m. was left entirely unguarded. The second night after his liberation found him beneath the wall with no other implements than a light ladder of the right height. In a minute he was on top, had pulled his ladder up and lowered it inside.

Once inside, every inch of the place was familiar to him, and he had a clear field. The shops, although inside of the boundary walls, were quite separate from the main building, where the men, closely guarded, were confined. He entered the familiar room where he so long had worked, and easily placed his hands on his (to him) precious kit of tools, and carried his jimmies, wedges, sledges, bits, braces, drills, etc., to the wall, and then landed them safe outside. Then he returned and entered the room where the plunder he sought lay. Thanks to his friend, the way was easy, and his art was not required to secure it. There were 600 ounces in silver bars, a pretty good load in avoirdupois, but he only made one journey of it, mounted the wall and speedily was over.

Stoneman was a long-headed fellow. He had taken, without the owner's leave, one of the many boats on the banks of the near-by river. He carried his plunder and tools down to the boat, and pulled across the river, two miles down, to where quite a stream empties into the Connecticut. He pulled some distance up it; then putting everything into bags he sank them in the creek. Then drifting back into the Connecticut River again he threw his ladder over and turned the boat adrift. At 7 o'clock the next morning he was in New York.

In due time, in the idiom of the professionals, he "raised his plant,"

and the burglar's kit manufactured in the Connecticut State Prison did what Stoneman considered yeoman service. With all his art and cunning, justice would not be cajoled by him, but weighed him in her balance, to a good purpose too. His success in his particular line was great, but he paid dearly for it all. Many times he escaped detection, but not always.

Not to escape, but to be brought to the bar, means a fearful gap in the life of a criminal. He was, as I say, famous in certain circles for his success in his lawless course, yet in the twenty years between 1865 and 1886 he pa.s.sed sixteen years in captivity. In that year he went to England with a confederate, and a few hours later in London they s.n.a.t.c.hed a parcel of money from a bank messenger in Lombard street. Both were caught in the act, and sentenced at the Old Bailey to twenty years each. To-day Stoneman is toiling under brutal task-masters, and it is all but certain he will perish at his task, friendless, alone, unpitied.

Better so even, for should he ever be freed it will not be until the twentieth century is well on its way to the have beens of time, then only to find himself a battered hulk stranded on a sh.o.r.e from which the tide has ebbed forever.

CHAPTER XLIV.

I FIND THE FENIANS WITH ME IN THE TOILS.

I had, of course, for many years heard much of the Fenian prisoners in the English prisons, particularly Sergeant McCarty and William O'Brien.

Soon after my arrival at Chatham I was placed in the same party with them. We were all three strongly drawn together, but were shy of being the first to speak. Of course, it was strictly against the rules to talk, but as a matter of fact the prisoners find many opportunities for talking, particularly if they do their work. The officers are reported and fined if their men fall behind in their task, so if a man is any way backward in working the officer keeps his weather eye open, and reports him for any infraction of the rules.

One day, soon after they were put in my party, I gave O'Brien a hand in fixing his run. We spoke a few words. The ice was broken; we soon became fast friends, and our friends.h.i.+p remained unbroken until their happy release some years after. They were fine, manly fellows, and I in time came to have a warm affection for them.

McCarty had for nearly twenty years been a sergeant in the English army.

He had come out of the Indian mutiny with a splendid record, and had been recommended for a commission. But while wearing the British uniform, his heart was warm for Ireland and her cause, so when, in 1867, his battery being then stationed in Dublin, he was informed many devoted adherents to the Fenian cause had determined to try and seize Dublin, with a view of starting a wide revolt against English domination, perilous as it was, he cast his lot in with them, and speedily found sufficient adherents in his own field battery to seize it and bring it into action against the English. The plan miscarried. Sergeant McCarty, along with many others, was arrested and tried for treason; as a matter of course was speedily convicted, and sentenced to be hanged, drawn and quartered. This sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life.

O'Brien was an enthusiastic youngster of 17, and an ardent patriot. He had enlisted in a regiment then stationed in Ireland for no other reason than to familiarize himself in military affairs, also to win over recruits to the Fenian cause, and when the revolt began to be in a position to seize arms. The result of it all, so far as my two friends were concerned--they found themselves by my side in the great Chatham s.h.i.+p basin loading trucks with mud and clay, and that upon a diet of black bread and potatoes. The cars, or trucks, held four tons, there were three men to a truck, and the task was nineteen trucks a day, and between the urging of officers, frightened themselves for fear the task might not be done, and the mud and starvation, it was despairing work.

The punishments were not only severe, but were dealt out with a liberal hand. The men, as a rule, were willing to work, but between weakness, brought on by perpetual hunger, and the misery of the incessant bullying of the officers, some few suicided every year, but many more did worse to themselves; that is, the poor fellows, seeing nothing but misery before them, would when the trucks were being s.h.i.+fted on the rail deliberately thrust an arm or leg under the wheels and have it taken off. No less than twenty-two did this in 1874. Of course, the object was to get out of the mud. When once a man's leg or arm was off he would no longer be able to handle a shovel, and would necessarily be placed in an inside or cripples party and set to work picking oak.u.m or breaking stones, with the result that, being free from severe toil and sheltered from the storms, they would not be so hungry. Then, again, they could more easily escape being reported, and that meant much.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CONDEMNED TO BE HANGED.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: WEIGHING OFFICE, BANK OF ENGLAND.]

There was never anything but black bread for breakfast and supper, save only one pint of gruel with the bread for breakfast. For dinner every day we got a pound of boiled potatoes and five ounces of black bread; three days a week five ounces of meat--that is, fifteen ounces a week for a man toiling hard in the keen sea air. We were always on the verge of starvation; our sufferings were terrible. In our hunger there was no vile refuse we would not devour greedily if opportunity occurred.

O'Brien was a slight, delicate fellow, quite unfitted for the hards.h.i.+ps and toil he was subjected to, but he was a high-spirited, brave youngster, and his spirit carried him through, while many a man better fitted physically to endure the toil gave in and died, or became utterly broken down, and would be sent away to an invalid station a physical wreck. McCarty and I used to do extra work so as to s.h.i.+eld O'Brien, and so long as our trucks were filled on time the officer made no complaint.

The prisoners were certainly very good to each other, and usually did all in their power to help and cheer up the weaker men.

In 1877 my two friends were liberated. I was glad to see them go, but I missed them sadly. But McCarty had suffered too much. He only survived his liberation a few days, dying in Dublin, to the grief of all Ireland.

O'Brien started a tobacco store in Dublin, where he still is.

I knew all of the dynamiters--Curtin, Daily, Dr. Gallagher, Eagan, etc.

However misguided, yet they meant to serve their country, and dearly have they paid for their zeal. I pitied poor Gallagher. The strain on his spirit was too great. He soon broke down, and his dejected, forlorn looks, his stooping shoulders and listless walk made me and all think his days were numbered; but he had immense vitality and still lived when I was liberated; but he was truly a pitiable object, and if he is ever to live to breathe the air a free man then his friends must secure a speedy release, for he is slowly sinking into his grave.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RETROSPECTIONS.]

CHAPTER XLV.

IN MOOD AS LONELY, IN PLIGHT AS DESPERATE AS HIS.

I have related how, the Sunday after my sentence, in my despair I took the little Bible off the shelf. The other books I had at Chatham besides the Bible were a dictionary and "The Life of the Prophet Jeremiah."

Once, soon after my arrival in Chatham, I took the Jeremiah down from the shelf, but speedily put it back and made a vow never to take it down again; and I never did. It remained in view on the little shelf for nineteen years, while I sat there watching it rot away. The dictionary is a good book, but grows tiresome at times. As for the Bible, there is no discount on that. For fourteen years I was a careful student of its sacred pages. Every Sunday of that fourteen years, from 12 o'clock until 2, I used to walk the stone floor of my cell preaching a sermon with no audience but my dictionary and "The Life of the Prophet Jeremiah." I at first began my Bible studies and my sermons as a means to occupy my thoughts and keep my mind bright. It saved my life and reason. I need hardly say that I became tolerably familiar with the book, and I had the great advantage of studying the Bible without a commentary.

I thought in my enthusiasm I should never tire of the Bible, but after ten or twelve years I began to grow weary of it, and grew very hungry for other mental food. I wanted a Shakespeare, for with him to keep me company I could no longer be in the desolation of solitude. At last I determined to get my friends to try for me. I had learned the Bible almost by heart; the smallest incidents in the life of the Prophet Jeremiah were much more familiar to me than the history of the civil war, and Anathoth took on proportions which made it as real as New York and far more important. The desperate efforts I had made to keep myself from falling into the condition of so many I had seen drooping to idiocy and death were, I felt, successful, and any occupation which kept alive the intellect could not but be beneficial. I was hungry, starving for mental food. Never had books appeared so attractive, never was kingdom so cheerfully offered for a horse as I would have offered mine for an octavo. My friends had written for me to the Government, but with no success. At last they had interested the American Minister in London, who promised to write to the Home Secretary for me, but a year had slipped by and I had heard nothing.

Jeremiah continued with me, and it seemed he was to remain with me to the end. But a change was coming.

Can I ever forget the day it happened! Can I ever cease to remember the delight, the incredulity, the astonishment of that happy day! I had come in at night hungry, cold, wet and miserable. I made my way a little depressed to my cell. As I was about to step across the threshold I saw a book lying on my little wooden bed. Amazed and astonished, I hesitated to enter. Small as such a circ.u.mstance appears, the very sight of the book brought on a weakness. I feared to pick it up, a horrible dread seized me that it might be a new Bible, and I was unwilling to risk another disappointment. The footprint on the sand was not more suggestive nor more awe-inspiring to Robinson Crusoe than the appearance of that book was to me. In mood as lonely, in plight as desperate as his, there lay before me a sight as unlooked for and, as it seemed, as full of meaning as the footprint was to Robinson.

At last I pulled myself together, determined to end the suspense and know what was before me. I picked up the book, and who can understand the delight, the joy, the rapture even, with which I read on the t.i.tle page, "The Works of William Shakespeare." In an instant I became a new man. If ever one human being felt grat.i.tude to another I felt it at that moment for the American Minister. To him I owed it that henceforth a new light was to stream through the fluted gla.s.s of my window, that henceforth a new world was opened up for me to live in, and the world seemed lighter to me. Many a month and year afterward my cell was filled and my heart cheered by the mult.i.tude of friends the divine William provided for me.

About the time I received my Shakespeare another piece of happy fortune befell me. A smallpox scare was existing outside, and all hands in the prison were ordered to be vaccinated. When the doctor came around a few days afterward to examine the effects of the operation he found my arm so swollen that he directed me to be taken to the hospital.

For twenty-five days I had full opportunity to learn what the girl in d.i.c.kens' "Little Dorritt" meant when she called the hospital an "'eavenly" place. It was the first time I had ever been admitted, and the change from the horrible mud hole to the rest and comfort of a cell in the hospital was indeed almost "'eavenly." With nothing to do but to read my Shakespeare, the cravings of hunger for the first time since my imprisonment satisfied, I was tempted to believe--I did partly believe--that the world had few positions pleasanter than mine.

G.o.dliness with contentment is undoubtedly great gain. Contentment alone without the G.o.dliness is no poor thing, and was I not content? Few, indeed, of all the thousands who have toiled in that torturing prison house have ever been or are likely ever to be so content as I was.

How true it is that happiness is altogether relative, and that it is divided much more evenly among men than we are willing to believe! A mere respite from an intolerable position, a single book to keep the mind from cracking, transformed gloom and misery into light and at least comparative happiness.

After a time I began to watch the effects of the unnatural life upon others. They arrived full of resolution, buoyed often by hopes which they were soon destined to find delusive. The short-time men, those with seven or ten year sentences, could face the prospect hopefully. To them the day would come when the prison gate must swing back and the path to the world be open once more. But no such hope cheers the long-timers, the men with twenty years and life, who quickly learn how great the proportion is of their number who find relief only in the box smeared with black which incloses what is left of them in the grave. Every day I used to see the effects on them of hunger and torment of mind. The first part visibly affected was the neck. The flesh shrinks, disappears and leaves what look like two artificial props to support the head. As time wears on the erect posture grows bent; instead of standing up straight the knees bulge outward as though unable to support the body's weight, and the man drags himself along in a kind of despondent shuffle. Another year or two and his shoulders are bent forward. He carries his arms habitually before him now, he has grown moody, seldom speaks to any one, nor answers if spoken to. In the general deterioration of the body the mind keeps equal step; and so unfailing is the effect that even warders wait to see it, and remark to each other that so and so is "going off."

When the sufferer begins to carry his arms in front every one understands that the end is coming. The projecting head, the sunken eye, the fixed, expressionless features are merely the outward exponents of the hopeless, sullen brooding within. Sometimes the man merely keeps on in that way, wasting more and more, body and mind, every day, until at last he drops and is carried into the infirmary to come out no more.

Truly I was looking on life from the seamy side.

Before my own experience had taught me I used to think at times when such a subject ever came into my mind at all: "What must be the thoughts and antic.i.p.ations of a man condemned to separation from other men, to lead an unnatural life under the strained and artificial conditions of prison?" The change is so violent, it comes so suddenly, the unknown possibilities are so terrible, the sufferings naturally implied are so inevitable, that had any one gifted with a knowledge of futurity shown me that such experience was to be mine I would have thought it utterly impossible that such horrors could be withstood by ordinary strength.

The delights of pleasure are seldom equal to the antic.i.p.ation of them, and it is probable that the pain of suffering is more unbearable in the shrinking expectation than when affliction actually opens her furnace door and commands us to enter. Perhaps there is a compensation of some kind in nature, a provision to deaden feeling when a death stroke falls--some merciful dispensation by which we fail to realize or to understand in its exactness the meaning of the stroke which is crus.h.i.+ng us.

The man rescued from drowning or from asphyxiation has felt no pain. The animal that falls beneath the rush and the murderous claws of a beast of prey seems to fall into a torpor-like indifference, under the influence of which he meets with no great suffering the death his captor brings him. Probably all great suffering comes accompanied with a reserve of strength or with a power of resistance which may even spring from weakness, but which invests the sufferer with courage, and perhaps, too, with hope, to meet it. [Transcriber's note: words are missing here on the original] but the pitiless application of a discipline designed with consummate skill to find out all the weak points of a man's inner armor and to inflict the utmost possible suffering upon him, I used to ask myself if it could be possible that I was really the man upon whom so hideous a fate had fallen.