Punch (33.1857)

July 25, 1857.]

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

31

THE SOCIAL TREAD-MILL. No. 11.

Painful tiling is the public
dinner, but it has its object—
generally a useful and kindly
one. It is not easy to believe,
perhaps, that the almsgiving
which blows its own trumpet
in an after-dinner subscrip-
tion-list ushered in by Mb.
Toole, and read out amid the
jingling of sovereigns by a
blatant Honorary Secretary
or Treasurer, can carry much
blessing along with it; but
still, there stand our hospi-
tals, and asylums, and insti-
tutions for the relief of all
sorts of ghastly human ail-
ments with their proud in-
scription, ' Supported by Vo-
luntary Subscriptions,' and
we know how far that may
be interpreted 'kept going
by public dinners.5

" The toilers on the Social
Tread-mill, at the Freema-
sons', or the Albion, or the
London Tavern, have at least,
the consolation of knowing
tbat the machinery they set

in motion so painfully, is grinding charitable corn, or drawing water of comfort, or working
bellows of balmy air for one or another class of fellow-sufferers elsewhere. But what are
we to say of those cases where the Social Tread-mill grinds nothing—where the weary
cylinder is kept going to no end at all but vanity and vexation of spirit—where all our
' getting up-stairs' leads no whither ?

" How many times this season have the convicts of society been condemned to this most
heart-breaking form of the Mill—in the shape of rout, drum, soiree, conversazione, or whatever
we call those evening assemblages, when unhappy crowds are gathered together, without
aim, amusement, or gratification, except such miserable enjoyment as the sufferers may get
from the sight of each other's wretchedness ? Where is the social Howard to expose
the _ over-crowding, the foul air, the enforced idleness, the contagion of these drawing-room
penitentiaries ? It makes little difference whether the presiding gaoler be a duke of twenty
quarterings or a parvenu of yesterday's dunghill—whether the prison be situate in Belgravia
or in Bloomsbury. The bigger the building, as a general rule, the more painful the
punishment. Piccadilly suffers by hundreds, where Pentonville groans and gasps and
struggles by scores. The prison-fare of the one may include plovers' eggs and champagne,
where the other is content with rooks' eggs and gooseberry. The prison-dress of the West-
End may be moire-antique and Honiton, when that of the North and East is barege and
machine lace; but these are minor distinctions. In the essential features of the punishment
—and excluding number—there is not a pin's point to choose between the two.

" Let me play the benevolent part of prison-visitor, at one of these sad scenes of human
woe. The night is close and sultry. Under the open sky scarcely a breath of air is stirring.
I pass along Piccaddly painfully, though the Park with its free sward and darkling trees
stretches at one side of me, and 1 can see the stars twinkling over-head. Suddenly I am
conscious of long lines of various vehicles. One string is creeping dreardy, at a snad's pace,
towards a lighted edifice. On the other side of the road empty carriages are driving more
rapidly away from the same building. It is one of our more aristocratic prisons. The
Marquis of Cababas receives to-night. These are the vans setting down prisoners. The
others have delivered their freight.

" Let us make our way through these jingling, grinding wheels, these cursing, cringing,
hoarse, ragged link-men, this double file of street-vice, and vagabondism which has collected
before the door to see the prisoners pass in to their place of punishment,—just such a hedge
of houseless iniquity as forms about the doors of Bow Street Police Station, or the Old
Bailey, while the Central Criminal Court is sitting. Do not be afraid of the crowd and the
confusion; let us enter as Howard did, calmly confident in the nobleness of our purpose.
These men in gorgeous liveries are the turnkeys. That pompous personage, in the black
coat, white waistcoat, and breeches, is not the chaplain, as you might suppose, but the head
warder—groom of the chambers, they call him here. I have a card, and my name is
pompously announced. We are in the prison; in its outer-court or vestibule, at least, for to
penetrate its inner wards — where the prisoners are—is a difficult matter, so dense is the
crowd, so insufficient the space assigned to the unhappy criminals. They are hitched into
doorways: they are squeezed on the steps of staircases : they are lining corridors. Don't be
surprised if you feel faint. You will soon get used to the short supply of oxygen, and breathe
the vitiated atmosphere of these black holes of Piccadilly as freely as the poor prisoners
themselves. Bat you may see its effect, in the pale cheeks and dull eyes of the hardened
offenders, who spend most of their lives in such confinement. About the younger criminals
there is a febrile excitement—a bravado, which resists for a while, the depressing effects
even of carbonic acid. But the time will come when they too will be as pallid, and fishy-eyed,
and limp, and feeble, and flabby, as the old social gaol-birds who have lured them hither.

" The thermometer outside stands at 84°; what it registers in this suite of rooms I dare
not guess—probably about 106°, for every cluster of lights, every flower-stand, every
overheated piece of humanity, is giving off caloric and carbonic acid, and absorbing breathe-
able air. If the prisoners had only some work to do—were it but oakum-picking or

mat-making! But, alas, they are utterly without
occupation. There is a buzz of conversation,
it is true : such conversation as is possible in a
crowd of four bodies to a square yard on the
average; hurried greetings of old companions in
iniquity: bits of prison scandal: inquiries after
the fate of those who are missing: snatches of
what passes for wit in such societies: even a
chuckle, now and then, of that joyless laughter,
which is so profoundly melancholy. For the
most part, however, the mirth of the place stops
short at a sad stereotype smile, or grin rather,
about as like a real smde as the agonised rictus
of a badet-dancer.

" Oh, how tired all these poor souls evidently
are of always seeing each other's faces! Now
and then you may see in the countenances of two
of the younger criminals—a male and a female
convict—a sudden lighting up of genuine fellow-
feeling : a quick look and hasty flush, which tell
you that even in this sad place there are hearts
not altogether steeled against human emotion;
but the crowd bears them away from each
other: or if they meet it is but for a moment,
so many eyes are upon them, so many ears open.
With the proverbial quickness of prisoners at
communication, such a couple often manage to
interchange a wonderful amount of mutual un-
derstanding, even in this press. Attachments
occasionally grow up in this dreary prison-
house : even marriages arise out of acquaintances
formed under sentence, nay, whde the pair are
actually on the Mdl!

" But what is such an occasional assertion of
human feeling to leaven this huge fermenting
mass of selfishness, sin and sorrow—not the less
real that they hide under hardened masks, and
look out, shallow or shameless, from brassy eyes
and sit unblushingly on flushed cheeks ? Do
not let us be unjust, though. There are as many
shades of criminality here as in Pentonville or
Milbank. But there is no distinction of age or
sex; no classification of offenders ; no separation
of the hardened old sinner from the novice in
social iniquity. The innocent girl, fresh from
her first drawing-room, must work out her time
side by side with the old harridan hardened by
the sentences of twenty seasons. The cadow
guardsman, who has not yet waxed the down cm
his upper lip into the visible semblance of a
moustache, is ruthlessly condemned to associate
with the hard-featured old roue-who has stood in
the pdlory of White's bow-window every day
from three till five for the last thirty summers.
Who can wonder that the tendency of even the
young and comparatively innocent is to the same
(lead level of social hollowness, unbelief, evil
speaking, evd living, idleness and frivolity, at
which these old offenders habitually live and
move and have their being? We must re-
member, too, in charity, that of these poor pri-
soners there is a large proportion who feel the
weight of their sentence severely; who would
give anything to be released from their enforced
idleness; to exchange this aimless, objectless tod
of the tread-mill, for honest work, however hard,
under the open heaven; who pine and pray for
the end of that yearly recurring term of punish-
ment, which in prison-slang is called ' the season,'
that they may get off to the country—to the
trees and fields ; to the school-house and the
vidage; to blessed freedom from the nightly rod
of the prison van, the dady donning of the
prison dress, the stifling breath of the prison
air, the crush and crowd, and dreary flatness,
and drearier mirth of their brothers and sisters in
captivity. We little know how much good there
is striving fearfudy to expand and find expression,
even among these poor convicts ! "

Translation by a Thirsty Clerk in
Somerset house.—Semel inSanivimus omnes.—
We've ad been in to Sainsbury's once this
morning:.