Dartmoor
WITH the sentences pronounced at the Court House in Princetown we hope that an end has come to all sensational news of the mutiny in His Majesty's Prison on Dartmoor. It has been a grim business in a grim setting, and we cannot be too grateful to Mr. Justice Finlay for the way in which he conducted the trial. It was orderly and dignified, and yet the prisoners, who were naturally willing to seize a rare chance of posing as heroes in their misguided way or as victims, had a quite unusual freedom in the dock and plainly understood that in spite of a proper sternness at the right moments, Lord Finlay allowed many a point to be stretched in their favour. In the presenting of their case they had not merely a " square deal," but a generous one. They had no less from the Press and the public. The British people are prone to an incurable senti- mentalism about the " under-dog," the man against whom the dice seem to be loaded in his conflict with authority. Let us hope that this is a queer but honest product of Christian charity. Yet the virtue of charity is never the worse for a little hardheadedness aiding warmth of heart. To suggest that convicted criminals should carry on their conflict against prison authorities 'on equal terms would be so patently absurd that the absurdity should put an end to sentimentalism. The reality of charity and the vanity of sentimentalism are distinguished in the sudden cooling of the senti- mentalist's sympathy when he learns the prisoner's record. At Princetown among the twenty-one convicted prisoners one or two had disgusting records of sexual crimes, which may indicate that Society needed protection from them at the hands of doctors rather than of the police. Others were shown to have been what could be called, with more justice than is common in the use of the phrase, " enemies of society," men who fear neither God nor man, men who have held the lives and property of their fellows cheap, who have lived by violence or cunning, and never desired to contribute anything to the moral or material good of the world. Whether the fault lies in original sin or with their parents or with the law, we cannot discuss here. But they are men from whom, unless they are reclaimed, their fellow citizens need protection. Some are " incorrigibles " in the common phrase, though that is a term never allowed by those whose supreme faith in divine mercy survives the knowledge even of these worst records. Many of these men are about thirty years old, and probably lacked all discipline as boys at home during the War, perhaps keen, even attractive, spirited young dare-devils us children, certainly not of the congenitally feeble- minded criminal type. Nor were they of the class of old gaol-bird, whose chief desire in prison is to keep quiet and get his " time " done. They arc a product of this century, and the Home Secretary has shown that his Office is anxious to find the right means of protecting society without vindictive treatment of the criminal.
The Counsel for the defence was astute enough through- out the trial to try to draw the jury into sympathy with the prisoners by emphasizing any faults to be found in the prison system or in the men personally concerned in administering it, the Governor, warders, &c., and no one could complain of this so long as the Judge would insist on fair play. The evidence brought up very forcibly questions that are as old'as the hills, but to which we hope that the Home Office will give new and urgent attention. No one will question in these democratic days the propriety of experiments made in allowing the private soldier to carry the Field Marshal's baton in his knapsack, or in
making possible the promotion of a man from the lower ranks of prison service to the very top. But let it 'be admitted that not one in a hundred such men is inherently likely to succeed in such violent promotion to duties on a plane entirely new to him : and if experiments fail, let failure be admitted, and let the lesson learned be put into practice. This is a lesson which is being learned just now, as it happens, in Scotland Yard. There it has been the common practice, not the experiment, for men to rise from the ranks of the police to very high posts. These posts have grown steadily in importance, in responsibility and in temptations. Just before Lord Byng's appointment it was revealed how in the Metro- politan police a man could rise by merit and then be overwhelmed by temptations which enabled him to make illicitly thousands of pounds, to lose his own soul, and go to prison. These modern conditions have, we believe, convinced Lord Byng and now Lord Trenchard, too, that these responsible posts can no longer always be held by men promoted from the ranks, but that there will have to be men of a different type attracted into the police service, forming a kind of small Officers' Corps to be drawn upon for appointment to new posts or to present posts transformed. Some such scheme will need consideration also throughout the Provinces.
The lot of a prison warder is obviously a less happy one than that of the policeman. It might attract an exceptional man with a missionary spirit, but we have not heard of that idealism ; the most that we can hope for is that a man like Mr. Alexander Paterson should infect a warder here and there with a little of his own spirit. Gaols do not offer an environment into which a man wants to take his wife and family. The man himself has a life of continuously disagreeable, sordid and often dangerous surroundings. It must be difficult to keep up a high standard of self-respect. How many do ? Imagine the life of a warder. Of course, all standards of treatment of prisoners have steadily improved in humanity ; of course, there are always prisoners who only need humane treatment to reclaim them, and so on. But still the warder is bound to come across the so-called incorrigibles, bru- talized men, whose hand is against every man and particularly against his warder for the time being. He has got to deal with men who must be treated sternly, men whose past habits of violence must be met with at any rate a show of force. Is it to be wondered at that such a man ceases to discriminate and assumes before long an attitude of " toughness " towards all who are under his charge ? He sees constantly the worst of human life. He is horribly conscious that he is regarded as the natural enemy of his charges. How many of us could stand that life without either losing spirit or becoming callous ? The prison warder needs experience to become efficient. The time that brings experience brings the temptation to callousness. The faults of warders were seized upon and made the most of at Princetown, and the men who had the best reason to know the extreme danger which they were in had little sympathy. They are not as a body ever likely to find much public sympathy. The Home Office is not careless in this sphere of its administration, but we hope that the evidence, fair or unfair, given at Princetown will spur the Department to go on improving the lot of warders by changes of scene, changes of work, and any other means known to them, by which the warders may, for their own sakes and for the sake of their charges, be saved from the deadly temptation to become callous towards the unhappy beings for whom they have so great a responsibility..
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