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
The facts are as follows: I was working in the kitchen, when a prisoner
upset some boiling water on my foot. I thought it best not to speak of
it, and did not, therefore, mention it to any one. My foot, however,
became inflamed and caused me great pain, and the prisoner in question,
noticing that I limped, inquired what the matter was. I told her that
the coarse wool of my stocking was irritating the blister on my foot.
Thereupon she offered to give me some wool of a finer quality with
which to knit a more comfortable pair. I was not aware at the time that
this was not permitted, nor that the wool was stolen. When it neared
her turn to be searched, having a lot of this worsted concealed in
her bed, she made the excuse of indisposition in order to return to
her cell and get rid of it. While there she transferred it from her
cell to mine, its neighbor, the doors of the cells being open during
working-time.
[Illustration: BARONESS VON ROQUES, The mother of Mrs. Maybrick.]
When the time came to search my cell, the wool was, of course, found,
and I was at once reported. The warder took me to the penal ward, and
I was shut in a cell, in which the light came but dimly through a
perforated sheet of iron. This was at eight A.M. At ten o’clock I was
brought before the governor for examination and judgment. I stated that
the wool did not belong to me and that I was ignorant as to how it got
into my cell. The governor took the officer’s deposition to the effect
that it was found in my cell, and reasoned that I must, therefore,
have knowledge of the article. I was taken back to the punishment cell
and left there for eight hours. When the officer opened the door to
read to me the governor’s judgment, I was found in a dead faint on the
floor. With some difficulty I was restored to consciousness and was
then removed to the hospital. When I had sufficiently recovered from
the shock, I was allowed to return to my own cell in the hall to do my
punishment. I was degraded for a month to a lower stage, with a loss of
twenty-six marks, and had six days added to my original sentence.
Had this offense occurred under the more enlightened system that
obtains at Aylesbury Prison at the present time, I should have been
forgiven, as it was a first offense under this particular rule. The
governor at Woking was a just and humane man, and he was not a little
troubled to reconcile the fact of my being in possession of this
worsted, when I had no means of access to the tailor shop or of coming
in contact with any of the workers there who alone had the handling
of it. Of course, I could not explain that the worsted had been passed
into the kitchen by one of the tailoresses, who came every morning to
fetch hot water for use in the tailor-room, and who was a friend of the
prisoner who put it in my cell.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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