Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost YearsMaybrick, Florence Elizabeth
History
Mrs. Maybrick's Own Story: My Fifteen Lost Years
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth
Maybrick, Florence Elizabeth, 1862-1941; Trials (Murder) -- England; Women prisoners -- England
After a two hours’ drive we arrived at Walton Jail, in the suburbs of
Liverpool. I shuddered as I looked at the tall, gloomy building. A
bell was ringing, and the big iron gates swung back and allowed us to
pass in. I was received by the governor and immediately led away by
a female warder. We crossed a small courtyard and stopped at a door
which she unlocked and relocked. Then we passed down a narrow passage
to a door that led into a dark, gloomy room termed the “Reception.” A
bench ran along each side, a bare wooden table stood in the middle,
a weighing-machine by the door, with a foot measure beside it. A
female warder asked me to give up any valuables in my possession.
These consisted of a watch, two diamond rings, and a brooch. They were
entered in a book. Then I was asked to stand upon the weighing-machine,
and my weight was duly noted. These formalities completed, I was led
through a building into a cell especially set apart for sick prisoners.
The escort locked me in, and, utterly exhausted, stricken with a sense
of horror and degradation, I sank upon the stone floor, reiterating,
until consciousness left me, “Oh, my God, help me--help me!”
ALONE
When I opened my eyes I was in bed and alone. I gazed around. At the
bedside was a chair with a china cup containing milk, and a plate
of bread upon it. The cell was bare. The light struggled in dimly
through a dirty, barred window. The stillness was appalling, and I felt
benumbed--a sense of terrible oppression weighed me down. If only I
could hear once more the sound of a friendly voice! If only some one
would tell whose diabolical mind had conceived and directed suspicion
against me!
I remained in the cell three days, when my lawyer visited me. He
arranged that I was to have a room especially set apart for prisoners
awaiting trial who can afford to pay five shillings ($1.25) weekly, for
the additional comfort of a table, an arm-chair, and a wash-stand. Had
I not been able to do so I should have been consigned to an ordinary
prison cell, and my diet would have been the same as that of convicted
prisoners. Instead, my food was sent from a hotel outside. I was locked
in this room for twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four. The only time
I was permitted to leave it was for chapel in the morning and an hour’s
exercise in the afternoon in the prison yard. The stillness, unbroken
by any sound from the outside world, got on my nerves, and I wanted
to scream, if only to hear my own voice. The unnatural confinement,
without any one to speak to, was torture. The governor, the doctor, and
the chaplain, it is true, came around every morning, but their visits
were of such short duration, and so formal in their nature, that it was
impossible to derive much relief from conversation with them.
THE CORONER’S INQUEST
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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