Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1893-12-23
PRISON LIFE IN ENGLAND.
Iron Discipline Universally the Rule
and Disorder Of Any Kind Almost
Unknown.

Iron Discipline Universally the Rule
and Disorder Of Any Kind Almost
Unknown.
A comparison Of the rules of an American
prison with those of an English prison,
made by the Boston Herald shows that the
American prisoner has many more comforts
and liberties. A man in an English prison
Is almost as dead to the outer world as he
would be in his tomb. Nothing in the way
of food or reading matter can be sent in to
him by his friends. He is never permitted
to see a newspaper or magazine. He can
write and receive letters only at long in
tervals, and from the time he enters the
prison until he leaves 1t he is not permitted
to speak unless he is addressed by a prison
officer.
A prisoner sentenced for a term Of three
years or less may see a visitor once In three
months in the presence of a prison officer.
and he may write one letter. To men whose
terms are longer such privileges are granted
less frequently. For the first month the
prisoners bed consists of nothing but a
broad board like a table top. three or four
inches above the floor Of the cell. He has
no mattress and the bed clothing consists
of a rug, a blanket, pillow and two coarse
sheets. At the end of a month, II he has
earned a sufficient number of good conduct
marks, he has a mattress three nights q
week. Later he has mattress five nights
a week, and at a still later stage, II his
conduct has been unexceptionable, he may
have a mattress every night, He has also
in his cell a bucket, a water can. a tin
washbowl, a towel. a soap dish,a salt cellar,
a wooden spoon and a tin plate. He never
has a knife or a fork, and he has nothing
to eat requiring the use Of these imple-
ments. He must get up at o'clock. and
bros u 70 Cf 10 otrerht to, of J. 10
eats every meal in his cell. In the first
stage of his Imprisonment he has only bread
and water for breakfast and for dinner a
pint and a half Of .'stirabout," a gruel-like
mixture of oatmeal and Indian meal. In
the fourth and best stage of his imprison-
ment he has a pint of porridge with his
bread for breakfast. and a better dinner.
but even the fourth-stage bill of fare Is
never changed throughout the year. There
are no holiday dinners nor an extra dish on
Sundays, as in some of our American pris-
ons.
Not all the prisons have workshops at
tached to them, and where there is no work.
shop a man who has a labor sentence must
go on a treadmill for two hours and a half
in the morning and for two hours and
three-quarters in the afternoon. In some
prisons there Is a worse kind of labor than
even the treadmill. 1t consists of turning
a heavily-weighted crank, which serves no
purpose whatever except to record the num-
Der of it's own revolutions. A days labor
y
In other prisons the prisoners are set to
pumping water. As this serves some pur-
pose ii il not SO depressing as the crank
movement. The entire system of discipline
in English prisons is military in it's rigidity,
and 1t Is never relaxed. There are no dem
onstrations' of discomfort, of delight or of
contempt on the part of the prisoners; pan
demonium is never reproduced, as it is in
prisons in some of the states; the hooting
and whistling, the yelling and "cat-callng''
in which American prisoners sometimes in
dulge are never even remotely initiated in
an English prison. The English convict is
not by nature more respectful or orderly
than the American convict, but he knows
that disobedence will be immediatel pun
ished; he knows that the statutes of pa ria-
ment have framed the conditions under
which he is to serve out his sentence and
that the power and the system of the pris-
on are such that he must obey the rules or
suffer the consequences. Escapes from
English prisons are rare that they as
sumo the character of marvels.