II.—­In Gaol

Under Governor Hawes the separate and silent system flourished in ——­ gaol, and the local justices entirely approved the system.  In the view of Hawes and the justices severe punishment of mind and body was the essential object of a gaol.

Now Tom Robinson had not been in gaol these four years, and though he had heard much of the changes in gaol treatment, they had not yet come home to him.  When, therefore, instead of being greeted with the boisterous acclamations of other spirits as bad as himself, he was ushered into a cell white as driven snow, and his duties explained to him, the heavy penalty he was under should a speck of dirt ever be discovered on the walls or floor, Thomas looked blank and had a misgiving.  To his dismay he found that the silent cellular system was even carried out in the chapel, where each prisoner had a sort of sentry-box to himself, and that the hour’s promenade for exercise conversation was equally impossible.

The turnkeys were surly and forbidding, and the hours dragged wearily to this active-minded prisoner.  Robinson was driven to appeal to the governor to put him on hard labour.

“We’ll choose the time for that,” said the governor, with a knowing smile.  “You’ll be worse before you are better, my man.”

On the tenth day Robinson tried to exchange a word with a prisoner in chapel, and for this he was taken to the black-hole.

Now Robinson was a man of rare capacity, full of talent and the courage and energy that show in action, but not rich in the fortitude that bears much.  When they took him out of the black-hole, after six hours’ confinement, he was observed to be white as a sheet, and to tremble violently all over.

The day after this the doctor reported No. 19—­this was Robinson—­to be sinking, and on this Hawes put him to garden work.  The man’s life and reason were saved by that little bit of labour.  Then for a day or two he was employed in washing the corridors, and in making brushes; after that, came the crank.  This was a machine consisting of a vertical post with an iron handle, and it was worked as villagers draw a bucket up from a well.

“Eighteen hundred revolutions per hour, and two hours before dinner,” was the order given to No. 19, a touch of fever a few days later made it impossible for him to get through his task, and Hawes brutally had the unfortunate prisoner placed in the jacket.

This horrible form of torture consisted of a stout waistcoat, with a rough-edged collar.  Robinson knew resistance was useless.  He was jammed in the jacket, pinned tight to the collar, and throttled in the collar.  Weakened by fever, he succumbed sooner than the torturers had calculated upon, and a few minutes later No. 19 would have been a corpse if he had not been released.

Water was dashed over him, and then Hawes shouted:  “I never was beat by a prisoner yet, and I never will be,” and had him put back again.  Every time he fainted, water was thrown over him.