The History and Romance of Crime 21

The History and Romance of Crime 21

Except when he had taken them out to gloat over them, these priceless

gems never saw the light. He took the most painful care of them. They

were lodged in an inner apartment, to reach which it was necessary to

pass through the Duke’s study and bedroom. There were electric wires

communicating with many bells to give warning of the approach of

any unauthorised person; other bells were attached to the triggers

of revolvers to fire them off automatically at any intruder. It was

the Duke’s craze, not altogether unfounded, that thieves were always

aiming at him. He thought that all the world wanted to rob him. At

his particular request two police officers watched constantly over

him, seldom letting him out of their sight, and keeping a careful eye

upon his treasure house. The fact that the Duke of Brunswick’s house

was full of rich booty was known to every depredator in Europe, and a

thousand plans were devised to break in and rifle it. At last England

acquired the questionable credit of overcoming all obstacles, and

carrying off the Duke’s diamonds.

 

In 1863 the Duke had an English valet, a very confidential personage

named Shaw, a native of Newcastle-on-Tyne. He had got the place in

the ordinary way through a registry office, supported by first-class

references, all forged; he proved himself to be a very excellent

servant, quiet, attentive, much liked by both his master and his

fellows. He was really the agent and confederate of a gang of thieves

who had especially selected him for the job they had in view. It was

his business to become familiar with the safe and its surroundings,

taking the first opportunity to “lift” its contents when he could do

so without danger to himself. The safe stood in a receptacle behind an

iron door in the wall at the head of the Duke’s bed, and a silk curtain

hung in front of this door, which was secured with special locks.

These might be picked some day, but in behind was the great safe with

its alarm bells and automatic batteries of firearms. There was infinite

danger in interfering with these. Only the practised hand of some one

in the secret of the machinery would dare to risk it. Shaw was patient

and bided his time.

 

One day (December 17, 1863) the Duke sent for a working jeweller he

employed, meaning to have certain changes made in the setting of some

of his stones. In anticipation he opened the inner safe and, contrary

to his custom, left it open. This did not escape Shaw, who was in

attendance, but he hoped little from it until he saw his royal master,

wearied of waiting for the jeweller, go out without relocking his safe.

The Duke was satisfied to secure the external door at the head of the

bed.

 

This was Shaw’s opportunity. He had a picklock, and soon used it with

good effect on this the first obstacle. There was no second or inner

defence, and the safe door being ajar the machinery did not work. He

was, in fact, master of the situation, and with all haste made the most

of it. The Duke’s treasures lay at his mercy, jewel-cases, diamond

stars, bags of gold. He soon filled his pockets and hurried out, being

careful to close the outer door and pull the curtain across, hoping

that the abstraction might not be immediately observed. Having packed

a small valise with a few effects he told a fellow-servant to take up

his service with the Duke, on the ground that he was unwell, and then

slipped out of the house.

 

The theft was, however, quickly discovered, and the French police were

put on the alert. Shaw immediately betrayed himself by addressing an

anonymous letter to a royal personage in London, in which the writer

offered to restore to their rightful owners, the English royal family,

certain jewels wrongfully detained by the Duke of Brunswick, on

receiving a reward of 100,000 francs. This letter was at once handed

over to the authorities in Scotland Yard, who passed it on to Paris.

A postscript was added to the letter, stating that the writer would

meet any messenger sent with the money at Boulogne. Acting at once on

this clue, the French detectives hastened to Boulogne, and, visiting

every hotel, soon found a young man answering the description, who

was arrested and taken back to Paris. The diamonds were found in his

possession. This Shaw, a tall, very thin young man, with a pale,

intelligent face, and very bold, prominent eyes, was soon recognised

by the police as a professional thief of English extraction, who

had worked much abroad, and was indeed a cosmopolitan rogue, having

committed many great robberies in the capitals of Europe, generally by

the same means. He was sentenced to twenty years (_travaux forcés_),

although the Duke, dreading the publicity of the Assize court, would

not appear to prosecute.

 

The prison known as La Santé was situated in the rue de la Santé close

to the Boulevard Arago, upon the left bank of the Seine. Founded and

completed in the palmiest days of the French Empire, it was the newest

and certainly long the best prison in Paris. Enthusiastic Frenchmen

have, indeed, declared that it was the best and most beautiful building

of the kind in Europe, but the statement is rather far-fetched.

Coming twenty years later than Mazas, it was a marked advance upon

that penitentiary, which it resembled in many respects. It consisted

of two distinct divisions, or “sides,” and the inmates of each were

subjected to different systems of imprisonment. In one, unbroken

cellular confinement was the rule, in the other, prisoners occupied

separate sleeping cells at night, but took their food and exercise,

and worked together during the day. The former régime was applied to

all sentenced for the first time, the latter to _récidivistes_, or

habitual offenders, who fell into trouble again and again. The cellular

division, that first reached when the threshold of the prison, with

its sleepy gatekeepers and punctilious _greffier_, was passed, was

cleaner and tidier than Mazas as I saw it, and altogether better kept.

There were the same radiating wings, extending like the spokes of a

wheel round a central nave, the _rond point_; in which was the same

glass house or observatory, with an altar on top, towards which all

the cell doors, as to their Mecca, religiously turned for the Mass.

The cells were warmed and ventilated by an arrangement of hot water

pipes and fresh air flues, just as is seen in every modern prison since

the days of Sir Joshua Jebb. The cells at La Santé were spacious and

fairly clean; their furniture and fittings of more modern design than

those of Mazas. The hammock was replaced by an iron bedstead, the table

was a flap, fastened on hinges to the wall, and a three-legged stool

replaced the rush-bottomed chair chained by the leg. The floor was

boarded, not paved with bricks, and no small pains were taken to polish

the oak planks, which were rubbed vigorously till they shone like

parquetry. All parts of the cells were not so entirely above reproach,

and a severely critical eye would detect a certain want of neatness in

the interior economy of many. Here and there rubbish was suffered to

accumulate and lie untouched. Upon a shelf in one cell was a quantity

of broken bread; in another several clay pipes and a half empty wine

carafe; the walls of a third, occupied by a prison bookbinder, were

hung with scraps of tawdry decoration, crucifixes, hearts, monograms

shaped out of the gold leaf and colored paper which he used in his

trade. Prisoners were permitted, too, to deface their cells with

impunity by scribbling on the notice boards and writing on the walls.

Remarks upon the articles supplied from the canteen appeared upon

the price list. __EXPRESSION__s of regret, vows of vengeance, even, were

recorded upon the boards of rules. The prison almanac, prepared by the

good chaplain for the special behoof of prisoners, with appropriate

texts and maxims, served really as a calendar, such as school boys

keep, to mark off the days as they slowly dragged along towards release.

 

Behind and beyond the cellular quarter of the prison was the

“associated” prison, consisting of two spacious quadrangles, in which

were the exercising yards and the lavatories, while around it were

arrayed the ateliers, or workshops, and the dining halls. Upon an upper

floor were the sleeping cells, each containing a bedstead, and nothing

more, each lighted by means of a large barred opening above the cell

doors, through which shone the light of gas lamps in the corridors.

The crowded ateliers of La Santé, instinct with busy life, were an

interesting and instructive sight, and from them a fairly good idea

could be obtained of the peculiar conditions under which prison labor

is utilised in France. This is everywhere accomplished through the

intervention of a contractor or employer from outside, who provides

tools, materials and instructors, and takes in return half the earnings

of the prisoners. The other half, known as the _pécule_, goes to the

prisoner himself, and this is again sub-divided into the _pécule

disponible_ and the _pécule reservé_, the former of which can be drawn

upon and expended by the prisoner in adding to his creature comforts

whilst incarcerated; the latter, accumulating from day to day, to be

handed over to him upon his release to provide means of support during

those early days of freedom, when a man is hesitating between honesty

and the temptation to relapse into fresh crime.

 

The contract system appears open to many grave objections; for

instance, that it introduces “lay” or outside influences, erecting in

the prison a second authority, to which prisoners look for praise or

blame rather than to the constituted chiefs of the place. At times a

certain antagonism might arise between the two; the one looks naturally

to profits, the other to maintenance of effective discipline, and where

the first was affected, the latter would no doubt sensibly suffer. As

an instance of this may be quoted the case of prisoners sentenced to

very short terms, who, if they are not already acquainted with some

trade, do absolutely nothing at all whilst in prison. To teach them a

_metier_ would be to waste time and materials, and there is in France

no “penal labor,”--as it is commonly understood in England,--no sharp,

correctional employment, such as the treadwheel, stone breaking, or

oakum picking, the execution of which requires no special previous

knowledge or skill. As a matter of fact, therefore, prison has but few

horrors for the offender committed for less than a week, except in the

temporary loss of liberty; and in all that relates to physical comfort,

indeed, in food, shelter and clothing, he is often far better off

inside than out. His confinement may be irksome and monotonous, time

may hang rather heavily on his hands; still he manages to get pretty

comfortably through his days, lounging lazily about the refectories,

or ranging up and down in the exercising yards, pipe in mouth, and

gossiping with any one he meets.

 

These idlers, it must be confessed, were, at La Santé, the exception

and not the rule. There was no little stir and bustle in the workrooms;

the occupations were many and varied; the prisoners were industrious

and often exhibited no mean skill. Parisians are naturally a

quick-witted and nimble-fingered race, whose talents, when in durance,

prison contractors know well how to turn to the best account. At

La Santé we found tailors at work upon clothes for the slop shops,

shoemakers and cobblers making excellent slippers and shoes. Here a

cabinet-maker completed a drawing-room chair; there, by his side, an

upholsterer covered another in damask or silk. Long rows of prisoners,

seated upon benches, manufactured feather brushes for dusting

furniture, or dolls and children’s toys, or paper boxes for bonbons

and patent medicines, or frills of the same material for the cooks and

confectioners. Some were staining and coloring sheets of paper for the

bookbinders, to be subsequently varnished and polished; others, in

large numbers, were employed upon the manufacture of papier-mâché boot

buttons through all the various stages of inserting the eyelet holes

in rows upon the pasteboard, stamping out the buttons, trimming them,

hardening them and varnishing them. A certain air of contentment, if

not of actual good humor, was visible on every side. Prisoners met my

eye, and did not immediately hang their heads and look down. Silence

was the general rule, but they talked _sotto voce_ to one another, and

to me if I cared to address them. One man, proud of his English, told

me of “another English gentleman,” who recently came to La Santé. “As

a visitor?” “Oh, no, as a _detenu_ (prisoner).” Others, if I appeared

interested in the work in hand, would explain all its intricacies, and

return my salutation with the bow of a finished courtier when I took

leave. All the while the warders in charge exercised an easy-going

surveillance, and were evidently neither hard taskmasters nor severe disciplinarians.