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
} 3 ounces (cooked), with its
} own liquor, flavored with ½
Monday. Mutton } ounce onions, and thickened
Tuesday. Beef } with bread and potatoes left
Wednesday. Mutton } on previous days, 1/8 ounce
Friday. Beef } of flour, and for every 100
} convicts, ¾ ounce of pepper.
} ¾ pound potatoes. Bread.
Saturday. 1 pint soup, containing 6 ounces of shins of beef
(uncooked), 1 ounce pearl barley, 3 ounces of fresh vegetables,
including onions, and for every 100 convicts, ¾ ounce pepper. ¾
pound potatoes. Bread.
Thursday. ¾ pound pudding, containing 1 ounce 2 drachms water. ¾ pound
potatoes. Bread.
Supper
1 pint gruel, containing 2 ounces oatmeal, ¾ ounce molasses, 2 ounces
milk. Bread.
Bread per convict per week, 118 ounces.
Bread per convict each week-day, 16 ounces.
Bread per convict each Sunday, 22 ounces.
Salt per convict per day, ½ ounce.[2]
VISITORS TO THE KITCHEN
During the four years I worked in the kitchen I saw many people. The
Duke of Connaught, Sir Evelyn Wood and his staff, Lord Alverston, Sir
Edward du Cane, the late Lord Rothschild, and Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise,
besides judges, magistrates, authors, philanthropists and others of an
inquiring turn of mind, who had obtained the necessary permit to make
the tour of the prison under the escort of the governor or one or two
of his satellites. These ladies and gentlemen expressed the most varied
and sometimes startling opinions. I recollect on one occasion, when
some visitors happened to be inspecting the kitchen during the dishing
up of the hospital patients’ dinner, one old gentleman of the party was
quite scandalized at the sight of a juicy mutton-chop and a tempting
milk pudding. He expostulated in such a way that the governor hastened
to explain that it was not the ordinary prison diet, but was intended
for a very sick woman. Even then this old gentleman was not satisfied,
and stalked out, audibly grumbling about people living on the fat of
the land and getting a better dinner than he did. I firmly believe that
he left the prison under the impression that its inmates lived like
pampered gourmets, and that he no longer marveled there were so many
criminals when they were fed on such luxuries.
THE “HOMELIKE” CELL
On another occasion a benevolent-looking old lady, having given
everything and everybody as minute an inspection as was possible,
expressed herself as being charmed, remarking:
“Everything is so nice and homelike!”
I have often wondered what that good lady’s home was like.
A little philosophy is useful, a saving grace, even in prison; but
people have such different ways of expressing sympathy. A visitor, who
I have no doubt intended to be sympathetic, noticing the letter “L” on
my arm, inquired:
“How long a time have you to do?”
“I have just completed ten years,” was my reply.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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