Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in Reformation by Arthur Griffiths

Author:Arthur Griffiths [Griffiths, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406860122
Google: 3L4GswEACAAJ
Publisher: Echo Library
Published: 2015-08-06T00:57:26+00:00

Having remained quiet for a month or more, just to lull suspicion, he was again discovered—and just in the nick of time—to be on the verge of a second evasion. The window of his cell was found to have the screws taken out, with other suspicious symptoms. Smith declared that the state of his window was the result of accident. He was removed to another cell, and Mr. Nihil himself proceeded to examine the one he had left. His hammock when unlashed revealed the state of his rug and blankets. They had been torn up into convenient strips for scaling purposes. When the prisoner was himself searched, between his stockings and the soles of his feet were pieces of flannel, and in one of them was a small piece of metal, ingeniously formed into a kind of picklock. A piece of iron, for this purpose no doubt, was missed from one side of the cell window. He was placed in the infirmary “strong room” for safety; then apart in F gallery by day, sleeping at night in a small cell below. But soon he destroyed everything in F gallery, and then he was handcuffed. His next method of disturbance was to make a violent noise by beating with his handcuffs against the door; upon which he was ordered to be removed to a dark cell, not for punishment, but to prevent disturbance. Presently a noise of loud hammering was heard in this same dark cell. The officers on duty rushed to the spot, and found that by some extraordinary contrivance Smith had possessed himself of one of the staples by which the iron work was made fast on the back of the door to the dark cell. By means of this instrument he had worked away an iron grating fixed for ventilation, and had been engaged making a hole in the wall by which he would have soon escaped. Smith was handcuffed and taken to another cell.

The governor is almost bewildered, and begs the committee to get rid of this prisoner. It would be inexpedient to place him among other prisoners, and yet that can hardly be avoided, owing to the influx of both military and other prisoners. “As to corporal punishment, he has already experienced it very severely without any beneficial effect. His knowledge of the localities, and the present unsafe condition of the prison, owing to the extensive repairs, will breed perpetual attempts, however unsuccessful, to escape,” writes the governor.

Soon afterwards Smith asked to be relieved from his handcuffs. “What’s the good of keeping them on me?” he said, “I can always get ’em off with an hour’s work.” He was told they would be fastened behind his back. “I can slip them in front; you know that,” he replied.

“I threatened, then,” says Mr. Nihil, “to fetter his arms as well as his hands, and that seemed to baffle him. To-day I held a long conversation with him, and cannot but lament that the powerful qualities he possesses should have been so greatly perverted.

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