by Barrie Jones
Chapter V recounts Henry’s completion of his prison sentence at Dartmoor Prison, approximately three months short of his three-year sentence, and his first experience of London.
The Dark Side of Convict Life (Being the Account of the Career of Harry Williams, a Merthyr Man). Merthyr Express, 26th February 1910, page 11.
Chapter V
The liberation of a convict is looked forward to far more than that of a local prisoner. In the first place, the governor has no power to release him until the preliminaries are gone into, as all his papers, records and so on are sent up to the Home Secretary three full months before his release; and then, and not until then, will he be allowed to grow his hair, or, what is called, “going into orders.” Then he has to be photographed, and all the minute marks on his body are taken, and also his fingerprints, with head measurements. He is also measured for his clothes and boots, and finally he is called up by the governor concerning his future prospects. The Government allows so much for each convict’ skit, which consists of one suit of clothes, one pair of boots or shoes, two pairs of woollen socks, two handkerchiefs; two collars, two over-shirts, one hat, and a penny comb; but they are not worth much. Convicts, as a rule, do not wear these prison made clothes very long; they get rid of them as soon as possible, as nearly everyone knows the prison cut, particularly the flannels. I have known a convict to be liberated in those clothes, and only a week later, brought back to “serve his ticket” for a breach of the rules, and wearing quite a different suit altogether.
My journey from Dartmoor to Pentonville was a rather pleasant one, and a great deal happier I felt coming from than going to. I had still seven days yet to serve at Pentonville, and that short period seemed to me as long as the whole sentence; indeed, I must confess that the night previous to my discharge was to me rather a restless one, for I lay awake reckoning each stroke of the prison clock. A convict does not think much of his sentence while serving it, but when he is within his last three month’s time drags. The lag says: “It is the longest part of my lagging.” It is then he begins to feel the punishment of along sentence. I can well remember a convict at Dartmoor asking me how long I was doing, and when told it was three years, he replied: “That is only a sleep.” Naturally it was only a sleep to him, for he wore upon his arm the letter L, which told that he was serving a life sentence. I have nothing to say about Pentonville Prison, as I was not long enough there to experience anything approaching person treatment; it being the first time I had ever been in a London prison, or London itself. I wish to let my readers know what I went to London for, and that was, to join a Prisoner’ Aid Society. It was not that I had no home to go to, for I had as good a home as any man, but I did not wish to go back home, as I had too many friends who were always ready to treat me with another “lagging,” if I gave them the least chance. Between nine and ten o’clock on the morning of my discharge I was given an old temporary suit of clothes at the prison, and I was taken in a cab to the well-known Saint Giles’ Christian Mission, where I was supplied with a new suit of common black diagonal, and a pair of boots, as I refused clothes made at Dartmoor. Those clothes were paid for by the Government to the Society, the former allowing two pounds two and sixpence for a convicts’ rig-out, and I was entitled to a balance of over a sovereign, as the clothes and boots could be obtained at any clothiers for a little over a sovereign.
I had an interview with the founder of this establishment, and asked him to give me the promised assistance, but he said: “You haven’t sufficient money to start with,” and he could do nothing for me. This is a Prisoners’ Aid Society, and he had a few loafers there who had the cockney impudence (and that Is impudence seldom heard in Wales) to ask me to stand them a drink. I was having none of it, and as Welshmen are looked upon by that class of people as “mugs,” I up and asked them if they thought they had a shark. I told them that I was a Welshman, but nearly all Welshmen could speak English, too, so in the end I was advised to go home, as London was not the place for me. I replied: “No, you are right; I think I had better go home.” Thus, I left Paddington on the 19th of July 1898, for Merthyr, where I was received with open arms by my mother and sisters.
To be continued…..