I was in Prison. By F. Brocklehurst. (T. Fisher Unwin.)—
Councillor Frederick Brocklehurst, of Manchester, who writes this volume containing his experiences as a short-time
prisoner, regards himself as a " martyr." Having been charged before Mr. Headlam at the Manchester City Police Court " with the offence of addressing the people on social and labour questions in a secluded part of Boggart Clough," and so with "infringing an arbitrary rule of a City Council Committee," he was sentenced to pay 45 and costs or a month's imprisonment. Principle compelled him to accept the second alternative, and so he was confined in Strangeways Jail from June 19th, 1897, to July 18th of the same year. He now publishes in book form certain articles giving his experiences as a short-time prisoner which he contributed to a Manchester evening paper, his object being to promote the cause of prison reform. Councillor Brocklehurst must know that it is open to any one to say to him that he might have avoided the physical and literary privations—he places not a little stress on the latter —of which he complains had he paid a fine or not brought him- self within the clutch of the law at all. On the other hand, it has always, at least since Howard's day, been the rule to prevent positive cruelty from being a portion of the treatment of a prisoner ; and Mr. Brocklehurst has a right to show, if he can, that the inflexibility of prison discipline at the present day is such as to involve cruelty. He may not find many to sympathise with him because the Governor of the prison would not allow him to read Shakespeare. But on questions of diet and clothing he is quite entitled to be heard. Speaking of the food given to a prisoner during a month, he says :—" In that period he has in solid food 26 lb. 11 oz. of bread, 3 lb. of potatoes, and 2 lb. 4 oz. of suet pudding. Of liquid nourishment (save the word) he gets 104 pints of stirabout,' 44 pints of soup, and 21 pints of skilly (i.e., boiled meal and water). Beyond these things he receives absolutely nothing." Is this sufficient for a prisoner ? The question is one for a medical expert. In fact, the bulk of Mr. Brocklehurst's book is for Parliament and for medical experts.
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