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This book is a tremendously interesting historical account of a very specific place and time - the Norman Cross prison for French prisoners of war taken in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.
“There are in those prisons some men, if they deserve that name, who possess money, with which they purchase at the daily market whatever is allowed to enter, and with those articles they purchase of some unfortunate and unthinking Fellow-prisoner, his Rations of Bread for several days together, and frequently both Bread and Beef for a month, which he, the merchant, seizes upon daily, and sells it out again to some other unfortunate being, on the same usurious terms; allowing the former one halfpennyworth of potatoes daily to keep him alive; not contented with this more than savage barbarity he purchases next his clothes, and bedding, and sees the miserable man lie naked on the planks, unless he will consent to allow him one halfpenny a night to lie in his own hammock, and which he makes him pay by a further Deprivation of his rations when his original debt is paid.” - Captain Woodriff, letter to M. Otto, early 1800
“You see, my dear Sir, since our selection of the invalids, and the benefit of warm weather, we have had but one death this ten days. If another batch of those vagabonds, who by their bad conduct defy all the benefits the Benevolence of this country bestows upon them, were to be sent away in September next, we might expect great benefit from it in the winter, for to a certainty all these blackguards will die in the winter. Compare sixty a week with one in ten days.” - Pencilled note by surgeon at Norman Cross, early 1800
The author of this book describes the latter note as being evidence of the bad character of the prisoners!
The accounts of the prison marquetry out of straws intrigued me - a craft that the prisoners practiced and sold. They used straw dyed with beautiful colours to create a range of objects, such as these examples photographed in black and white.
And here's a creepy example of the prisoners' craft:
This thing is made out of animal bone. The figures work mechanically. A lady turns a wheel, a child moves forward, a soldier and a lady waltz, a mother tosses her baby, and the lady on the left prepares some tea. All made out of bones boiled down from the prisoners' rations!
Additionally, there's an exciting story recounted of an escape from Pembroke Prison. Two brave Pembroke lasses try a daring rescue of twenty-five prisoners!( Read more... )
“There are in those prisons some men, if they deserve that name, who possess money, with which they purchase at the daily market whatever is allowed to enter, and with those articles they purchase of some unfortunate and unthinking Fellow-prisoner, his Rations of Bread for several days together, and frequently both Bread and Beef for a month, which he, the merchant, seizes upon daily, and sells it out again to some other unfortunate being, on the same usurious terms; allowing the former one halfpennyworth of potatoes daily to keep him alive; not contented with this more than savage barbarity he purchases next his clothes, and bedding, and sees the miserable man lie naked on the planks, unless he will consent to allow him one halfpenny a night to lie in his own hammock, and which he makes him pay by a further Deprivation of his rations when his original debt is paid.” - Captain Woodriff, letter to M. Otto, early 1800
“You see, my dear Sir, since our selection of the invalids, and the benefit of warm weather, we have had but one death this ten days. If another batch of those vagabonds, who by their bad conduct defy all the benefits the Benevolence of this country bestows upon them, were to be sent away in September next, we might expect great benefit from it in the winter, for to a certainty all these blackguards will die in the winter. Compare sixty a week with one in ten days.” - Pencilled note by surgeon at Norman Cross, early 1800
The author of this book describes the latter note as being evidence of the bad character of the prisoners!
The accounts of the prison marquetry out of straws intrigued me - a craft that the prisoners practiced and sold. They used straw dyed with beautiful colours to create a range of objects, such as these examples photographed in black and white.
And here's a creepy example of the prisoners' craft:
This thing is made out of animal bone. The figures work mechanically. A lady turns a wheel, a child moves forward, a soldier and a lady waltz, a mother tosses her baby, and the lady on the left prepares some tea. All made out of bones boiled down from the prisoners' rations!
Additionally, there's an exciting story recounted of an escape from Pembroke Prison. Two brave Pembroke lasses try a daring rescue of twenty-five prisoners!( Read more... )
