Prisoners -- Biography; Prisoners' writings, English; Prisons -- Great Britain
It is very natural, and in a sense, laudable, that these latter should
seek by such means as are available to them to prevent the occurrence
of any such calamity. Hence, civil quiet ruffians, like the prisoner I
have referred to, are encouraged. They are an article with which they
have little trouble, and out of which they can make both profit and
capital.
My own case was somewhat different. Once out of prison I was not likely
to return; neither was I of the "sort" prison officials are accustomed
to manage. Moreover, my eyes were open, and my future was not quite so
certainly in their hands as to warrant them in feeling secure that what
I saw might not hereafter be described for the information of others.
The difficulties I experienced in gaining even the slightest concession
were great, and contrast strangely with the case I have mentioned. A
few months previous to my discharge from hospital, I gave in my name in
the usual manner as being desirous to speak with the visiting director.
I may here explain that there are four directors of convict prisons in
England. One of them had the manners and the reputation of a gentleman;
two of them may indeed have been men of ability, but their deportment
to the convicts was certainly not calculated to give them any more
exalted ideas than they already possessed of the civility and good
manners obtaining amongst those above them; the fourth was the beau
ideal of a bully, and his influence on the convict the statistics of
the prison will show to have been baneful in the extreme.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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