There is nothing in the exterior of the building to indicate its real character, nor is it in any way calculated to strike terror into the mind of the beholder whose imagination, fed by early prejudices, connects the idea of a jail with gloomy precincts, drawbridges, and armed sentinels pacing before frowning gates. The jail of Reading, the chief town of the royal county of Berks, presents the very antithesis of all this. This is a gay edifice of variegated red brick and white stone, in the style called carpenter's Gothic—a rather appropriate name for the jocular mongrel performance it designates, and which is one of the most surprising hallucinations of the modern architect's mind. The building stands close by the Forbury gardens and at the back of the Catholic church. The delusion as to the character of the place is not dispelled on entering; the uninitiated stranger might, on passing the great door, still fancy himself in some free dwelling, where no abnormal impediments prevented his exit; but crossing the court, he ascends by a flight of steps to a second gate of ominous appearance, and before whose glittering steel bars the spell of liberty dissolves. Within this second gate there is another, equally formidable, which opens into a broad gallery lighted from the roof and crossed by light bridges at intervals, to which you ascend by a steep, ladder-like iron staircase. The second story is occupied by the women prisoners, the lower one by the men.
As few of our readers may have had the opportunity or the curiosity to go through an English jail, perhaps they would like to do so vicariously, as the Shah enjoyed dancing—sitting quietly in his chair, while foolish people fatigued themselves for his entertainment. We were accompanied by a young priest, whose ministry had frequently led him within the steel gates on another errand than curiosity; and, thanks to his friend's (Canon R——) introduction to the governor, we had permission to see every detail of the place. The aspect of the long galleries, with the bright-tiled flooring and white walls glancing in the flood of sunshine flowing from the roof, kept up the first impression of cheerfulness. There was nothing so far to suggest unnecessary rigor or broken spirits, still less cruelty and demoralization. All was airy and exquisitely clean. Warders in official uniforms paced leisurely up and down the corridors and galleries; and though the silence was broken only by their foot-falls and our own voices as we conversed with the warder who acted as our guide, there was no oppressive gloom in the atmosphere. The cells opened on either side of the gallery. They were each lighted by a good-sized window looking on the prison garden and protected by strong iron bars; in one corner was a complete washing apparatus, with a water-pipe over the basin; in another there was a gas-pipe. The furniture consisted of a small table, a stool, and a stretcher-bed, which is rolled up during the day. On a shelf were the prisoner's plate and mug. The Protestants are allowed the use of their Bible and the Common Prayer-Book; the Catholics have the Douay edition of the Bible and The Garden of the Soul; special good conduct is rewarded by the loan of story-books. Some of the cells were ornamented with prints from the Graphic and the Illustrated London News. A man with a good conscience and sound health might live comfortably in one of these cells.
The Reading jail is worked entirely on the isolated system, each prisoner being virtually as much alone amidst two hundred fellow-captives as if he were the only inmate. It is urged against this system that it frequently leads to madness, total solitude being the most cruel form of punishment, and the one against which the human mind is, by its very essence, least calculated to bear up. But the theory applies in its chief force to solitary confinement, where the sound of the human voice and the sight of his fellow-creature's face never intrude upon the tomblike silence of the dungeon; where complete inaction of the body feeds the despondency of the imagination dwelling on the one fixed idea of an interminable perspective of silence and solitude. In the case of short periods of incarceration, the separate system must be regarded as an immense improvement on the old gregarious one. It prevents the spread of vice, and protects the comparatively innocent subject from being utterly corrupted by the hardened sinner. In France, where the gregarious system is in full force, its effect is too plainly visible in the most deplorable results. A youth or a girl goes in a mere novice in iniquity, and, after a short sojourn in the midst of the offscourings of society, comes out utterly depraved. Nowhere is this truth more lamentably apparent than in those cases that come under the head of prison préventive, where any suspected person, on the smallest amount of evidence, is thrown into these social sloughs for weeks, nay, months sometimes, and held in hourly contact with thieves, forgers, burglars, and every species of offender. Strong indeed must be the principles, and pure the heart, that come out unshaken and unsullied from such an ordeal.
The men were at work on the day when we arrived at the jail, so we saw the penal system in full operation. The mildest form of hard labor is the oakum-picking. It is performed partly in the open air, partly in the cells, and consists of untwisting old cables, and then tearing them into loose hemp, which is used for caulking the seams of ships.
The next category was the stone-breaking. One side of a yard is walled off into separate compartments, with a railing at each end, and from these the ring of the pick-axe resounds dismally for many hours in the day. One of these cages was occupied by a lunatic, who had attempted the life of his brother. The poor fellow was only there for the day, awaiting an order for removal to some government asylum for the insane. He stood bolt upright, without leaning against the wall, with his hands hanging by his side, and his head bent downwards, the picture of melancholy and sullen despair. We noticed with satisfaction that the warder compassionately avoided passing before the poor creature's railing, and did not even speak within earshot of him.
On re-entering the house, we came into a corridor where the air was filled with a grinding noise of ominous import. On either side of us were cells, where the forced labor in its most severe aspect comes into view. Warders were walking slowly up and down, peeping at intervals into the cells through a narrow little aperture in the doors, where the prisoners were undergoing the sentence of the law. Some were grinding corn, others were turning the crankpump. The former is done by a machine which it takes all the strength of the workman's two arms to keep going. In one of these cells, the door of which was unlocked for us to examine closely, there was a lad of a little over twenty, of middle height, and with a countenance which, but for the sinister leer of the mouth, might have been called mild and almost prepossessing. We were startled to learn that this juvenile criminal had been taken up for highway robbery, with attempt to murder.
The cell opposite his was occupied by a middle-aged, broad-shouldered man, who was turning the crankpump. This is the most severe of all the forms of labor in the jail. To a superficial observer it would seem almost easy labor, so smooth is the movement of the crank as it gyrates under the clenched hands of the prisoner, his body rising and falling in rhythmic movement with the rotation of the crank he is propelling; but the strain upon the spine becomes after a while intolerable. This man was a very hardened criminal, and had just undergone seven days on bread and water in the dark cell, twenty-four lashes of the cat-o'-nine tails having proved unavailing; and he was still unsubdued. His misdemeanor in the prison was swearing at one of the warders, and threatening to break his skull against the wall; even after the fearful infliction of the dark cell, he repeated his threat to "do for him."
Coarse-matting weaving is another prison employment; it is far less laborious than either of the two preceding, yet working the heavy looms must be a great discipline to unpractised arms. One man's face in this category struck us as different from the others; it bore the unmistakable stamp of education; we found that the weaver was properly a man of a better class, and who, with half the ingenuity he had shown in getting into his present condition, might have been a well-to-do member of society.
In the lower basement there are admirably constructed baths, immersion in which is compulsory on the prisoners once a month. The dark cell above referred to is also in these lower regions. Refractory subjects are consigned to it for three, five, or seven days, as the case may be, for insubordination or idleness. It must be a very obdurate spirit indeed, one would imagine, which this awful punishment could leave unbroken. The darkness is like that of the grave, so dense that it is suffocating; and when the warder, to show how utterly every ray of light was excluded from the cell, suddenly went out, and locked the double doors upon us as we stood in the gloom, we all felt a chill of indescribable horror creep over us. The ventilation is, however, perfect, though we could not see how it was contrived.
The kitchen department is as bright and as complete in its appointments as the rest of the building. Great and desirable reforms have of late been effected in the prison fare, which a few years ago was so luxurious as to call loudly for remonstrance from all wise rulers and thoughtful men. The thief and the burglar a little time ago fared far better than the poor working-man struggling to put honest bread into his children's mouths, and infinitely better than the inmate of the workhouse. All this is happily changed, and the hospitality of the jail is now proportioned to the quality of the guests. The bread is coarse and brown, but sweet and wholesome. Each prisoner gets six ounces of it at breakfast, with a pint of gruel; eight at dinner, with a pound of potatoes; and on three days in the week three ounces of bacon; the other four he gets cheese instead; at supper, bread and gruel again. The quantity is less for a short-period man, namely, those who are condemned for a week or a fortnight; the reason being that the constitution could not resist for a lengthened period the low diet, which acts with salutary effect on the spirit for a short time. In answer to our inquiries how far the present system or any system acted as reformatory on criminals, the warder said he believed it very seldom attained that end. A man who once came to jail was pretty sure to come twice. "When a man gets the name of a jail-bird," he said, "it is all over with him; he can never hold up his head again amongst honest folk, and so he goes back to his old ways and haunts." He added that the one chance he had was to go out of the country to a place where he had no past to live down; and for this reason he observed that the Prisoners' Aid Society ought to be upheld by all humane people. It offered the only plank to the shipwrecked that was possible.
Amongst the two hundred prisoners which the jail accommodates, there happens at the present moment not to be a single Catholic. We were surprised to hear this, for we noticed more than once that the men into whose cells we entered cast a wistful look at the young priest who was with us; and when he smiled and nodded to them on turning away, their faces relaxed into a smile too. Mr. S—— told us that this was no uncommon thing; that, as a rule, the prisoners, whatever be their religion, welcome the Catholic priest with a smile, and seem thankful for the chance of speaking to him. The parson, on the contrary, they look on with suspicion, and even with aversion, frequently listening in sullen silence to his questions, and refusing to answer them. This does not betoken any dislike to the Protestant minister personally; it arises from the fact of his having a sort of official character, and being thus associated in their minds with the cruel strength of the law; whereas the priest only comes in the capacity of a helper—one who pities them, and would serve them in body and soul if he could; his errand is purely one of mercy and kindness. Our companion told us that this jail has for him many beautiful memories of grace and repentance. He has gone there frequently in the course of the winter to hear the confessions of penitents who have approached the sacraments in their little cells with sentiments of the most touching humility and sorrow. These prodigals are almost invariably Irish. "Wherever you find a Paddy, you find the faith," observed Canon R——; "and where is the spot on earth where you don't find one?" To illustrate the truth of this remark, he told us a curious anecdote, which was related to him many years ago by the priest to whom it occurred. This priest went on the mission to America, and for some years his labors lay in the wild regions of the far West. The missionary led pretty much the life of the children of the virgin forests that he traversed, and where the footprint of the white man was never seen. He rode for miles and miles through the wilderness, feeding, like the anchorites, on what he could gather by the way, and sleeping in the branches of some thick-foliaged tree, to the stem of which he tied his horse; and at daybreak he was off on his rambles again. One morning, as he was riding through a wood in search of food, he descried a little wreath of smoke curling above the trees. He made for the spot, thinking he had come on a field of labor in the shape of a little colony to be baptized; but, on approaching, he found only a solitary wigwam, at the door of which a wild woman was squatting with a brood of small children about her. The good father was exhausted with hunger, and managed, by signs and a few words of the Indian dialect, to convey this fact to the woman. She rose at once, and placed before him her frugal store. While he was doing justice to it, the lord of the wigwam returned, and great was his amazement to behold the guest whom his lady was hospitably ministering to. The priest was trying to air his small store of words, when his host, who was attired in the scanty costume of his tribe, with a plentiful crop of feathers sprouting from his head-gear, after surveying him silently for a moment, exclaimed, "Your reverence is a Catholic priest, I'll be bound, and an Irishman into the bargain!" His listener nearly capsized with astonishment. But it was neither a vision nor a delusion. The wild Indian was himself an Irishman, who, with two older companions, had come to those remote forests many years before in search of fortune in some form or other; the trio had been captured by the Indians, who put two of them to death, and only spared the youngest on account of his expertness with the bow and arrow and other kindred accomplishments which made him useful to the tribe. He learned in time to speak their language and adopt their mode of life, even to the extent of marrying a wild woman of their race. But the faith of his childhood survived amongst the vicissitudes of this strange career. He welcomed the priest with joy and the reverence of a genuine Irish heart; and before the missionary left his wigwam, he received the wife into the church, married the pair, baptized and instructed the children, and administered the sacraments to the father. Then he sallied forth once more on his life of danger and self-sacrifice, which, though it afforded many consoling and romantic episodes, never furnished such another as this. "Now," exclaimed Canon R—— triumphantly, "just tell me if such an adventure as that could happen to any two men under the sun but a pair of Irishmen!" And no one contradicted him.
But to return to the jail. We visited the church last. It was the saddest spectacle of all, though the building itself was bright and just then full of sunshine. The seats rise in the form of a steep amphitheatre, almost touching the ceiling at the last tier; and they are so contrived that each prisoner is as isolated in his own seat as if he were the only one looking up at the bare pulpit, where no crucifix, nor pitying Madonna, nor kindly angel face looks down upon him, but only the wooden box, where the preacher once a week tells him of the message of mercy, and points to the home where the Father awaits each prodigal son. There, locked up between four narrow boards that rise high above his head, the prisoner assists at the service on Sunday. So rigorously is the separate system maintained that the two men who were employed in washing the stairs and floor of the church were masked, so as not to recognize each other even in passing, while a warden stood by to prevent their exchanging a word together. The men are exercised in batches every morning from six to a quarter past seven in the prison garden—a dreary place to call by that flower-suggestive name. They wear masks, and walk at a distance of four yards from one another, holding a rope with the left hand. Such a system naturally disarms the dangers of agglomeration, and makes mutiny or concerted rebellion impossible. The strength of union is not theirs, and they are as feeble as if, instead of being two hundred against nine, the proportions were reversed. Attempts to escape are almost unknown. The reason of this may be that the inmates are never condemned to a longer term than two years, which would be trebled, both in duration and in severity, if the attempt failed; so, in face of such a risk, it would hardly be worth while to make it. We did not visit the female department, which is conducted on precisely the same principle, the only difference being the greater lenity of the enforced labor. It was painful enough to see strong men brought to just humiliation for their misdeeds; but our hearts failed us to look at women in the same position. On the whole, we left the Reading jail with our minds disabused of many illusions concerning the strong hand of the law. Its application is as humane and merciful as is compatible with the interests of justice and the professed object of legal punishment. There is nothing to demoralize or to harden a culprit whose misfortune it is to undergo a term of durance within its walls. Before, however, such punishment can be really reformatory, the whole community must be reformed on the highest Christian ideal. We must learn not to despise or unduly mistrust the weak brother who has fallen once, but to practically recognize the vital truth implied in the prayer taught us by our Master: "Lead us not into temptation;" remembering that if we have not fallen it is from no merit or strength of our own, but of the gratuitous mercy of God, whose providence has prevented us in temptation, and saved us from our own weakness; and that the measure of our preservation from evil should be the measure of our charity to the fallen. When we have all learned this, we may see our prisons reformatory as well as penitential; we doubt if we ever shall otherwise.