Prisoners -- Biography; Prisoners' writings, English; Prisons -- Great Britain
On a Friday morning I was unexpectedly called before the governor, and
informed that my license had arrived. I was asked certain particulars
in reference to my future intentions and address. I was next measured
for a shoe, the only decent and honest article of clothing I ever
received in prison; tried on a suit of clothes, and had my portrait
taken. On the Saturday morning I was weighed and measured, and taken
before the chaplain to receive a few formal words of parting advice. On
the following Monday I was again taken before the governor to hear my
license read. On Tuesday morning I was removed to Millbank Prison, and
lodged there for the night, in a cell along with two other prisoners
going to liberty like myself. We slept on narrow dirty mattresses, laid
on the floor, so close as to be touching each other. One of my new
companions had been nearly four years in the lunatic asylum at
Fisherton, and had recovered. The other was a young professional thief,
belonging to London, whose mind was just on the verge of insanity,
through long confinement in separate cells. To sleep on the floor of a
dusty cell, between two such companions, was not quite so comfortable
as a bed in the Hotel Meurice, at Paris, where I had spent my last free
night. Every moment that divided me from the hour of my liberation now
seemed magnified into days. Wednesday morning at last dawned upon me. I
was taken out and placed before a regiment of policemen, who each
scrutinized me, and that done I received my license. With feelings of
inexpressible thankfulness and gratitude to God I heard the heavy
prison doors close behind me, and once more I inhaled the sweet free
air of Heaven!
Tears streamed down my cheeks as I trudged along the streets, in my
shabby clothes and with my deal crutch. I felt a new punishment
creeping over me, even whilst the glorious sun of freedom was shedding
its welcome rays on my dishonoured head.
With nineteen shillings and threepence in my pocket, but with my
reputation lost, my health ruined, alone and a cripple, whom no
"Prisoners' Aid Society" would assist, I was expected to begin anew the
battle of life!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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