MILBANK PEISON. (Hansard, 10 August 1846)

§ MR. T. DUNCOMBE
regretted that he should be called upon to refer again to the very painful subject of the abuses and cruelties which existed in Milbank Prison; but the fault was not his. Had the Government acceded to the Motion he formerly made, for inquiry by means of a Committee of that House, the truth would by this time have been ascertained; and any further reference to the question would have been avoided. He maintained that, on that occasion, he had made out sufficient ground for Parliamentary inquiry, and protested against the doctrine then laid down, that the Members of that House should be contented with a report furnished by parties interested. He had presented a petition from a person who had been a warder in the prison, and against whose character not a word had been breathed; and he offered to prove before a Committee the allegations contained in that petition. He made a Motion in support of Baker's Petition, and also brought forward fresh charges against the authorities of the prison; and the Government, in consequence of these new charges, sought for fresh information from the parties accused. And how was this done? They sent a copy of his speech cut out from The Times paper to those prison authorities; and they asked fresh answers to that speech; but he maintained that that speech, before being sent, ought to have been authenticated by him; for though it was in the main and substantially correct, the report of a speech was not the kind of document that ought to have been sent in such circumstances. A boy, named Nash, was stated to have been placed for twenty-one days on bread and water, instead of another individual; and these prison authorities, in their second reply, took advantage of this trifling circum- 549 stance to deny the statement altogether. On seeing the report from that person, Baker presented another petition to the House, in which he stated that the report was altogether untrue, and the truth suppressed, and reasserting the charges contained in his first petition. Thus the case became more and more complicated. Fresh matter was brought forward, and fresh replies demanded; but could any thing be more irregular or unsatisfactory than such a contest as this betwixt statements made in that House, and answers from these prison authorities in return? He had to complain that the House had not been put in possession of all the reports drawn up on this subject. A supplementary report had been promised, but not yet given to the House; and he should like to see that report of the 30th July which had been suppressed. He denied that the authorities of Milbank prison were the parties who should have been called on to report on such a matter as this; but when they were asked to do so, if they wished to get at the truth, they should have had the petitioner (Baker) before them. They had not, however; but after they had laid two reports before the Home Office, they wrote to Baker, asking him to appear and support the allegation contained in his petition. Now, he wished to know why they did not do this before they made their general report in July? In reply Baker stated, that had the information now sought by the inspectors been sought before the report was drawn up, he should willingly have given it; but that, under the circumstances, he would petition a second time the House of Commons to impugn the truth of that report. These parties asked this man, after they had made out their report, and prejudged the case, to appear and support his allegations; and he refused. It was clear that this case could not be allowed to remain as it was; and it had, in fact, now become a much graver case than when he first brought it forward. With regard to the illegal cats used, it had been said that this was the first time they were used; but the governor, in the second report, virtually admitted that to some extent his statement on that subject was correct, when he gave the account of the flogging of Bunyan and Cotterell. It was but justice to the governor to state that he said he had no vindictive feeling towards the man Bunyan, and that his was rather a case for a criminal court than for punishment in the prison. In fact, the inspectors went 550 beyond the law in the punishment of this man. His case was provided for by Act of Parliament; if brought before a court he was liable to two years' longer imprisonment; and the inspectors had no business to consider whether he ought to have two years more confinement or not. They took the case into their own hands, however, and inflicted punishment on the poor man by flogging. They had heard a great deal about flogging in the army; but it was a mere joke compared with that inflicted in this prison. A pattern of the cat had been sent to the right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State; he also had received a pattern, and he must say that a more cruel instrument never was invented than that which was used for the punishment of Bunyan and Cotterell. [The hon. Gentleman exhibited the waxed cord lash used at Milbank prison, and the lash used by the Guards, which he represented as much lighter than the former.] It was stated that seventy lashes had only been inflicted on Bunyan; but those who saw the punishment stated that a more painful and cruel punishment never took place in the army; that the blood was streaming over the waistbands of these two men. Cotterell received sixty lashes for the same description of offence as that committed by Bunyan. This man had been a soldier, and had, when in the army, received 120 lashes; but that punishment, he said, was a joke compared to what he got at Milbank. Instead of being carried to the infirmary, the man was taken to his cell. Dr. Bailey stated that his injuries did not require infirmary treatment. Anything more cruel could hardly have been. This man's back was in so dreadful a state that he could not move his arm, and for twenty-three days others were compelled to make his bed for him. If the man had died, a heavy responsibility would have fallen on the surgeons and the governor of the prison for the manner in which he had been treated. Baker, in his second petition, referred to that, and he also pointed out the manner in which the governor, in his statement, evaded the question respecting the three boys who were condemned to bread and water for seven days, for having looked into their bibles during divine service. That, the chaplain himself had admitted, was rather a severe punishment; and the governor admitted that they were sentenced to this fare for seven days. Then with respect to the suicides, it appeared that four men had 551 succeeded in committing self-destruction, and sixteen others had made the attempt, all in the short space of three years. It was remarkable that nothing of the sort had occurred during the twenty-three years preceding, during which the Penitentiary had been established, although during that period persons were confined there for from three to five years. That result the petitioner attributed to the cruel conduct of the governor. But then, said the governor, these men were only the exceptions, and they alone have committed suicide out of the tens of thousands of prisoners who have passed through the prison; and that these prisoners, being about to be transported, had a motive for doing so. He thought that this was a prison for the amelioration of the criminals who were sent there. The suicides were above the average of the whole population, although there were no facilities for self-destruction in the prison, and although the prisoners were constantly watched. He contended, then, that the very great disproportion of suicides in the prison, showed the deficiency of the regulations of the prison, or the faults of its management. He believed that these prisoners were driven to self-destruction by the treatment they received in this prison. Prisoners had over and over again stated they preferred transportation for seven years, to a year in this prison. In fact, it was clear to him that the system of punishment must be defective; it ought not to be a system of torture from day to day. Another allegation of the petitioner was, that, in consequence of the treatment of the prisoners, several of them had been removed to the hulks at Woolwich in a sick state, and that there a great proportion of them had died since. Why was this? To evade the necessity of a coroner's inquest in the event of their dying in the prison. Could anything be more disgraceful in the conduct and management of a prison? He believed the charge to be true. He had received information that three individuals had been removed from this prison to the hulks at Woolwich in a dying state, within the last month; and that it was necessary on the journey to give them brandy and water to keep soul and body together. Dr. Bailey denied this; but the fact was, that nearly 300 sick prisoners had been removed, since this time three years ago, to the hulks at Woolwich, sixty of whom were in a state unfit for removal, and forty-eight had died. These persons were carried in 552 cots to the ships, while the other convicts were at dinner, in order that no one might see them. Yet Dr. Bailey denied that persons in a sick state had been removed from Milbank to the hulks. In future, he hoped that coroners would do their duty with respect to inquests in prisons. At present they were a mere mockery, and the verdicts merely stated that the person died of such a disease—the disease, no doubt, of which he really did die; but the inquiry never went into the causes that brought on the disease. The petitioner asked for inquiry on this point, and into the removal of prisoners from Milbank, in order to prevent exposure of what was going on in that prison. Then there was a statement in the petition relative to the irregular conduct of the governor; that during the last year there were fifty-one reports against the governor for irregularity in his conduct in the prison. Why had not the inspectors reported that to the Secretary of State? for surely it was the duty of the governor of the prison to set an example to the officers under him of sobriety, regularity, and good conduct. The petitioner stated that he was prepared to prove this charge of irregularity against the governor. Now, he thought that if he had not made out a case on the former day on which he entered on this subject, he had made out a pretty good one on that occasion. He did not know what the House or the present Government might require to justify them in granting an inquiry; but he said that this prison as at present conducted was a disgrace to the country, a disgrace to the Government, and a disgrace to the persons put in authority over it. The inspectors had declared their conviction that the result of the inquiry they had made would be most satisfactory to the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey); but they added a suggestion that if he should be of opinion that any point was left unanswered, then he should, under the powers given by the 5 and 6 William IV., appoint a commission to inquire. But the fact was that no such powers of appointing a commission were given to the Secretary of State by the 5 and 6 William IV. Independently of the statute, the high officers of State had power to investigate the condition of the Queen's prisons at the pleasure of the Crown; the mode of inquiry which the parties criminated in charges of this nature dreaded ten times more than any investigation under a commission, was an inquiry be- 553 fore a Committee of the House of Commons; and he believed, that if the inquiry was conducted within the walls of the prison, the subordinates would not dare to speak the truth, as they would before a Committee of the House of Commons. Parties charged dreaded a Committee of the House of Commons. With respect to the management of Somerset House, they had had inquiries; but were not all the complaints that had given rise to those inquiries glossed over? At length, however, a Committee of the House of Commons had penetrated the walls of Somerset House, and they saw what were the results of that. So with respect to the Milbank Prison; an investigation by a Committee would, no doubt, be effectual. He would undertake to say, that if they would give him five or six Members as a Committee, he would prove the allegations of the petition, and conclude the inquiry satisfactorily in a very few days. He must say, he did hope that the Government would allow a Committee to enter on the subject. If the inquiry was to be by a commission in the prison, such was the fear of losing their situations on the part of the subordinates, that the object of the inquiry would be frustrated; but by a Committee of seven he would prove the allegations of the petition, and show that it was impossible that the present system of management could be maintained. The hon. Gentleman concluded by moving as an Amendment— To leave out from the word 'That' to the end of the Question, in order to add the words 'a Select Committee be appointed, to inquire into the treatment of Prisoners confined since October 1843, in the Milbank Prison, as well as into the conduct of the Governor and Officers thereof; and to report their opinion, with the evidence, to the House.'

MR. WILLIAMS
seconded the Motion. He hoped that the Secretary of State would not refuse the Committee, for he thought that such evidence had already been brought forward as called for inquiry; which would be much more satisfactorily conducted by a Committee of the House than by a commission. The cruelties practised in the prison drove the prisoners to suicide; and he said that no country professing Christianity ought to allow such cruelties to exist. The inspectors had not done their duty. Their appointment was new; they were a great cost to the public; they were appointed because the system before their appointment had not been satisfactory. Yet now abuses came to light 554 of a graver character than had been known before. He trusted the right hon. Baronet (Sir G. Grey) would grant a Committee; for though it was late in the Session, there was enough time to prosecute an effectual inquiry, so as to satisfy the mind of the House and of the public.

§ SIR G. GREY
was desirous, before he stated the course he meant to pursue on this occasion, to explain shortly what he had said on the former occasion respecting a supplementary report of the inspectors. He then stated that he had received a supplementary report, but he had not said that he wished for further information; what he did say was, that the inspectors wished to add something to the report, and that until that was done he could not consider it a final report. But all the alteration that was made by the inspectors was to substitute a letter dated the 3rd of August for a letter dated the 30th of July; that letter of the 3rd of August containing all that the letter of the 30th of July contained. The report, as it now stood, comprised all that was in the report of the 30th of July. He assured the House and his hon. Friend that not one portion of that report had been withdrawn; nothing relating to corporal punishment had been withheld. He had said in his place on the former occasion, that nothing should be withheld, and nothing had been withheld. With his hon. Friend, he certainly thought that it was most unseemly that these charges respecting this prison should be made and met in the House of Commons as they had been; but he might be allowed to recall to the recollection of the House how the facts stood as regarded himself. The original petition of Mr. Baker had been presented on the 15th of July; it had then been printed with the Votes, and transmitted by his predecessor in office to the inspectors of prisons, with the request that they would give the allegations a full and searching investigation. When he received the seals of office, it was impossible for him, in two or three days, to make himself acquainted with the state in which the business of the Office was, and he was not aware that this investigation had been ordered. His hon. Friend then placed on the books a notice to move for a Committee of Inquiry. He upon that called for information, and he was then told of the report of the inspectors, and he had only had a short time to make himself aware of the facts of that report before his hon. Friend made his statement to the 555 House; and he therefore asked the House then, and he did not regret doing so, to suspend their judgment till the report of the inspectors was regularly before them. He then required that the inspectors should renew their inquiry, and investigate the additional allegations that had been brought forward by his hon. Friend. They had done so; but now there came a new petition from Mr. Baker, containing allegations which were of a character that he was ready to admit, if true (though he did not admit they were true)—especially as his hon. Friend, in his place in Parliament, pledged his belief of the truth of them—rendered it indispensable that further inquiry should take place. The governor of the prison had sent him a letter, in which he stated that he was most anxious that these charges should be investigated by parties not liable to the charge of partiality; and he felt that the inspectors might be considered as not being sufficiently free from bias to be impartial, and he therefore begged that other persons might be appointed to conduct the investigation. He thought an investigation was indispensable, and without expressing an opinion whether these charges could be substantiated, he would only say that he should be very much surprised if they were substantiated. That was his impression from the information that had reached him. But he felt that inquiry was necessary, and he was desirous that a most full and searching inquiry should be instituted. For this purpose, not under the clause of the Act of Parliament to which the hon. Gentleman had referred, and in his construction of which he entirely agreed, but under the general powers exercised by the Crown, he intended to appoint a commission with powers to take evidence upon oath, and to examine in the fullest manner into the whole management of the prison, and into every charge that had been brought against the governor and the other officers of the prison—which commission would give every opportunity to Baker to substantiate his charges, and bring forward any evidence he pleased. In fact, the draught of that commission was already prepared; and he could not help thinking that such an inquiry would be much more satisfactory—the commission having the fullest powers to inquire upon oath—than an inquiry before a Committee of that House, who had no power to examine on oath, and whose inquiry, at this late pe- 556 riod of the Session, would necessarily be a very hurried one. He should at this time abstain from noticing the charges which had been made against the officers of the prison, as he wished to give no opinion upon them, except the general charge of irregularity of conduct on the part of the governor. He could only say that when first he heard these charges preferred, he felt it his duty to ask his predecessor (to whom such matters ought to have been reported if they had occurred) if he had ever heard any imputations of the kind against the governor; and Sir J. Graham told him that he had not. He then applied to the inspectors of prisons (whose duty it was to have reported such matters to the Secretary of State) if they had heard any such imputations, and they said they never had. He could only say, then, that so far from such charges having been established, the result of the inquiry which he had hitherto made was that they rested upon no solid foundation whatever. With respect to the charge that corporal punishment had been inflicted upon one of the prisoners contrary to the powers contained in the Act of Parliament, he having consulted what he considered to be competent legal authority, was assured that the Act referred to did not take away the powers invested in inspectors of prisons under the General Prisons Act of inflicting corporal punishment in a summary manner if they thought fit. At the same time, his attention having been called to the subject of corporal punishment, he had felt it his duty to address a letter to the inspectors of prisons, with a view of placing the exercise of that power, which in certain circumstances might be indispensable in that prison, under what he conceived to be better regulations. He trusted that, under these circumstances, the hon. Gentleman would be satisfied with what he proposed.

§ MR. DUNCOMBE
said, that after what the right hon. Baronet had stated, he would withdraw his Motion, trusting entirely to the right hon. Baronet to conduct the investigation in the best way he thought fit; reserving to himself, however, if the inquiry should not be carried on in a fair and open manner, the liberty to move in next Session of Parliament for a Committee of that House to inquire into the charges, as well as into the way the commission had exercised their powers.