TEE PRISON CHAPLAIN.*
IN his preface to this book, the author very needlessly disclaims the character of a professional writer, for no professional could have BO wasted materials of so much interest. Mx. Clay was anxious, it appears, to write an historical sketch of the penal system of Great Britain, and also a memoir of his father, John Clay, the prison chaplain of Preston. Revolving the two designs, he at last hit on the bright idea of combining them, grafting the succulent "memoir" as it were on the more acid "history." The result, as any profes- sional would have warned Mr. Clay, is a very conspicuous failure. The book is big, desultory, and purposeless to a degree which is all the more annoying because its author has something to say, and a natural capacity for saying it well. He writes forcibly, with a quaint humour peeping between the lines, and abhors sentiment almost as much as sin, a quality which, in a writer on penal discipline, is as wholesome as it is infrequent. His subjects are each of them good. The author has had singular opportunities for studying prison "systems," feels obviously a personal interest in their merits, and might, had that been his sole purpose, have written a good, though not an original, account of modern punitive discipline. • Of ancient prisons—prisons older than the Stuarts—he neither knows nor says anything. His father, on the other hand, was a man of real mark, a weak man who did strong man's work marvellously well ; a Christian philanthropist who hated Calvinism; a self-denying, God-fearing priest, whose life was given up to the wretched, and who acted in charades ; in many respects a character in these days hard to find, well worthy minute description and study. His biographer gives us it all, but after a fashion which, as it has had few precedents, so we sincerely hope it will find few imitators. Such a medley of clerical details and tiresome reports, personal anecdotes and chapters on parliamentary history, we never remember to have seen. The bits of "memoir" are stuck here and there in the "history" like cloves on a ham, stories are inserted at random, facts are left without a link to connect them, sketches of character are placed so far apart that the reader loses the sequence, and wonders, half bewildered, why on earth John Clay should turn up again just there. The effect of the whole is that of a huge essay on crime, with allusions to Mr. Clay, which, we take it, is the very worst form a biography can assume. To review such a work is as difficult as to readit, and we shall confine ourselves to its best part —the history of John Clay. The Rev. John Clay was born in 1796, in Liverpool, the son of an anchpr-smith—then a lucrative trade—and was as a lad pronounced hopelessly dull. A contest with a younger brother brought out some latent ability ; and great perseverance gave him a good knowledge of modern languages, a slight acquaintance with music, and a great fancy for painting and critical discussions on painters. But lie was unlucky ; and two attempts to learn business were frustrated by the failure of the firms which employed him. The advice of a friend in Preston, who respected him, induced him to take holy orders, and the influence of other friends induced a bishop to pass a young man who had never been at college, and had not an hereditary living. Five days before his ordination, the Assistant-Chaplaincy of Prestos was offered him, and he commenced the labour of his life. The posi- tion was one he did not desire, and he only accepted it as an opening for a maintenance ; but he had some qualities which fitted him curiously for the post. A tireless athlete, he could face any amount of work. 'A. temper naturally sweet enabled him to put up with years of rebuffs and opposition, while his home pursuits, painting and music, though not we imagine pursued with any great skill, kept him from the curse of prisonwork, the fretting despondency which hope- less evil creates in a sympathizing mind. He had, too, a quality not often found in a character like his, which, unless his biographer has misled us, was one slightly womanish, sanguine to feebleness, slightly, though not ungracefully, vain ; content with half culture and imper- fect results, and rather quick to perceive than wise for analysis: He had an iron perseverance, a perseverance no disappointment, or failure, or weariness, not even the terrible tedium of thirty-five years spent in a round of duty in one prison, could daunt or diminish. Add to this, that 'the man really loved his patients; that; strange as such facts may seem to Calvinists when told of a man who went to the opera, he had an utter love of holiness—a love which his deep human sympathy made patent to every prisoner he tried to console, and we may understand why a man so appointed and so qualified succeeded so well. He was not a Howard, or a Clarkson, not a stern man at all, or one of those whom the world picks up for worship. But to us there is something very beautiful in the half-cultured clergyman, who, fond of his flute and his pencil, delightina in small jokes—very small, indeed, some of them are—and quite alien in by the convicts admi- ration of an altar-piece painted by himself, still laboured day after day for a third of a century, visiting prisoners for six hours, preach- ing, reporting, furnishing facts, toiling like a slave in the face of his superiors' annoyance to win pardon for an innocent man, in all ways the sleeplessly faithful servant of those who had nothing to give in
return save the blessing which God hears. We do not know a nobler instance of fidelity. The man for years was dependent for his bread
on the Prestun justices. He defied them all round over and over again in the interest of the convicts, worried them with demands for expenditure, gave them long reports, lecturing them in the face • The Prison Chaplain : a Memoir of the Rev. John Clay, B.D., late Chaplain at the Preston Gaol. By his Son, the Rev. Walter Lowe Clay, ILA. mammal sad Co. or all England, and finally extorted something like a moral autocracy. He was dependent for comfort on the governors, and he fought them for years ; purged the women's ward in defiance of one, and gave true religious instruction in the teeth of the other, and in both cases without apparently making an earnest foe. He did his duty at all events, whatever we may think of his views, and the opinions of such a man on the subject he had studied for thirty-five years are deserving at least of reverent discussion. When he became in 1826 sole chaplain, Preston gaol was some- thing like most other gaols—a small hell, where foul-mouthed ruffians fought and lied among villanous stenches in wards which the turnkeys allowed to be filled with crime, the whole supervised by a good- humoured unjust bon vivant, who had been a butler, and whose one qualification was dislike of cruelty. Mr. Clay's first effort was to create a school. He first induced the prisoners to teach each other; then opened a Sunday school, which, to his own surprise, was eagerly attended, and then induced the justices to appoint a resident schoolmaster. Then he pressed for a matron, and secured one— though the office had previonsly been unknown, and though the governor resisted bitterly a change which "embarrassed his house- bold arrangements." This worthy was dismissed as being too lenient to poachers, and an old sailor, a Captain Anthony, appointed in his place—an honest prejudiced man, who never concealed his contempt for religious instruction, and fought against every concession, even of soap and water. Still Mr. Clay lield.on, though sick of a want of discipline which spoiled his most successful endeavours, and gradually built up an exceptional authority. One by one the prisoners were won, and with them the class from which they sprang. This influence was not gained by ready credulity or yielding com- plaisance. On the contrary, the chaplain not only told them that they were a vile crew, but for years while the disorder lasted refused to admit them to the sacrament. When a prisoner dreamed about bibles to be given him, he was dryly told the chaplain did not believe in dreams, and Mr. Clay never accepted a convict's story without corroborative evidence. But he never saw an injustice done without instant interference, searched eagerly for means of doing a kindness, toiled hard, at extreme risk and discomfort, to mitigate a sentence too heavy for the offence, and once or twice risked his position by efforts to release an innocent man. Gradually there grew up in his mind a conviction that without individual separation nothing permanent could be effected, and from that time his whole efforts were directed to this end. With a marvellous patience and industry lie collected volumes of facts and incidents, manured the magisterial mind, tried little experiments on soldiers and men condemned to solitary confinement for a month, and, after a struggle of twenty-one years, the new system was fairly started. By this time, too, his influence had extended throughout England. His annual. reports were the only painstaking reports sent in, and were quoted far and wide. The justices murmured at first that "their own servant" should dare to criticize them; but at length became proud of his celebrity, and voted money for his reports with reasonably good grace, and as these latter consisted almost entirely of sifted and resifted facts, they obtained a confidence which enabled Mr. Clay to exercise direct power over prison dis- cipline. From this time he added the investigation of penal discipline as a whole to his other studies. He worked at his clerical duties six hours a day, the time being wholly expended in personal efforts for the improvement of prisoners individually, then procured statements, bio- graphies and information from convicts and, outsiders, read all re- ports, all Blue-books and works bearing on his life's labour, and wrote reports which, though over-burdened with detail, loaded, as it were, with the richness ot his knowledge, exercised a powerful in- fluence on opinion. His object was simply to spread the use of the separate system, divested of its cruelty by association in the school and in the chapel, and by incessant visits from himself. Mere soli- tude Mr. Clay distrusted as likely to produce as much evil as good. All he wished was so much of solitude as would forbid the contaminat- ing intercourse of prisoners with each other. He always asserted reform to be the object of punishment as well as prevention, and though utterly opposed to making a prison pleasant, he consistently affirmed that no man was utterly without hope, or utterly deaf to kindness : "To the charge of being sanguine he would angrily plead guilty. Sanguine!' was his usual reply, why, of course, I am sanguine. 1 should have no business to be the chaplain of a gaol if I wasn't sanguine; and I sin sure of this, that a firm, obstinate, enthusiastic belief in the possibility of saving even the worst of the poor fellows committed to his charge, is a prison chaplain's most necessary qualification. I wonder what some of the knowing gentlemen, who criticize my simplicity, would make of it, if they had to minister in this place. It would be barren work, I think, going from cell to cell to let the prisoners know how 'cute and wide awake you were yourself, and what hypocritical scoundrels you thought them. It is hard enough, I can tell you, working in such a place, hoping against hope; and our gratitude, therefore, is not very profound to the kind monitors who think us a pack of fools for our pains.'" The result of his work, tested by every test which an honest man— who held that to alter the bearing of a fact was to write a lie—could apply, was simply this : one half of the prisoners who passed under the Chaplain's hands were more or less reformed men, and the number of recommittals diminished seventy-five per cent. Not one case of in- sanity resulted from the System so pursued, and many prisoners, re- ceived in a morbid state of excitability, were calmed and dismissed in their right minds. Thus cheered, Mr. Clay worked on for nine years more, spreading his special knowledge everywhere, consulted and trusted by ministers of state, and all manner of philanthropists, who pressed on him incessantly work which bowed him down, but from which he never shrunk. It is unpleasant to read that when at last, utterly worn out, he longed for some easier duty, no helping and was extended to save one who had served the state so long. There was no Government living for the friend of the convict. He died on the 21st November, 1858, killed by work and a harassing asthma which the work made almost incurable, leaving behind him a reputation second to none among the working philanthropists whose toil keeps us from retrogression. We have said little of Clay's opinions, for they are well known, and it is his work rather than his writing which creates so pleasant an impression of faithfulness and success. II is opinions seem to us somewhat chaotic. Thus, though not an extreme teetotaller on prin- ciple, he regarded drunkenness as the source of almost all crime, and detested the Beer Acts, which produced a crop of small beerhouses. i Yet he acknowledges that beer s an antidote to gin. He makes a great deal of "literary garbage" as a source of crime, though the works he names are not bought by the criminal class, but acknowledges the ignorance—utter savage ignorance—of the great mass of criminals, men who thought "righteousness" meant cursing, and did not know the Lord's Prayer. Literary garbage, whatever its offences, does not influence those who cannot read. His notion, too, of the influence of art, betrays a quaintly unconscious credulity. Mr. Clay says, in his notes : " Good Friday, March 29th, 1850.—The altar-piece (his own work), repre- senting our Lord's Crucifixion, having been put into its proper situation yester- day, was seen (for the first time) by the prisoners to-day. It appeared to me that there was a more complete hush and solemnity pervading the chapel than usual, and in this opinion the governor and officers generally concur.'—Journal. " 19th April, 1852.-1 visited S— (an ignorant, excitable, and unusually depraved pm isomer) again to-day, hoping to confirm his good resolutions. I told him, that, being obliged to leave home for a few days, I must obtain his promise of good conduct until my return. He said, "Will there be no chapel, then, while you're away?" I told him that the chapel service would still be performed, and asked him why he was anxious about it? Did lie find the service, and espe- cially the singing, soothing to him ? He said, "No, it's not that, but I like to see that picture. Oh! it makes ma fairly tremble when I look at it, and think of what Ile has done for us all." Here' under Providence, another avenue to his better nature seemed opened to me. I trust that I may be enabled to avail myself of it for the poor fellow's temporal and eternal interests.' "
Was it the clergyman or the artist who was so sensitive to this form of influence ?
To understand Mr. Clay fully, it may be worth while to contrast him with a model felon-tamer, Captain Elam Lynds, Governor of Auburn. The extract is long, but it contains a perfect photograph of a very singular man, and displays fully the power which the author has wasted by unworkmanlike use of his excellent materials :
"To break down and crush the prisoner's mind and will was the avowed principle on which he worked. When his gangs were thoroughly tamed, he de- clared bars and bolts, high walls, and cheraux-de-frise, were almost unnecessary; constant vigilance, aided by a cow-hide and a rifle, were amply sufficient to repress revolt and prevent escapes. Assuming, as a fundamental axiom, that every rogue is a coward, from this he logically deduced his system. He himself unhesitatingly acted on his theory. On being warned once that a certain pri- soner meant to murder him, he sent for him to his bedroom, handed him a razor, made the dumb-founiled wretch shave him on the spot, and when the operation was meekly concluded, abused the man as a coward for sparing his windpipe. He impressed his own character on the whole system that he elaborated. The con- victs slept in separate cells, but worked and took their meals in common. Not only was absolute silence enforced, but even for a dumb sign or a wandering glance, instant punishment was inflicted. No word was ever spoken ; every want was expressed, every order given by signal. The vigilance was terribly keen. In the workroom an officer sat on a raised seat incessantly watching, and the walls all round were pierced with spy-holes: the convict knew that his slightest movement might be marked by unseen eyes. At night, warders with mocassined feet stole noiselessly along the galleries, listening. The compulsory dumbness was all enforced by one single instrument, the cow-hide. Without authority either from governor or magistrate, the lowest felon-driver on the establishment might condemn aprisoner to a flogging, and execute his own sentence on the spot. The necessity for reporting the alleged offence and punishment, was the only check on his powtr."
This man failed utterly, where Mr. Clay, whom be would have re garded as a kind-hearted imbecile, SO fully succeeded.
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