Evening Memories

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 22, 7 June 1923, Page 7

Evening Memories

(By William O’Brien.)

CHAPTER XXlll.—(Continued.) * It is time to let the reader know something of the

occurrences which gaVe the member for Manchester’s joyous wit its chance, and tickled his admirers into “roars of laughter.” Be it borne in mind that the publication of the facts was forced upon me as the only means of refuting a gross official untruth which was uttered behind my back, and the text of which, I was not even permitted to see. As it is the last occasional! which it will be necessary to dwell upon distressing personal details, since the Manchester-cwm-Clonmel episode marked the final overthrow * of the programme of prison frightfulness divulged by Mr. Balfour at Clouds, a lengthy extract from the statement which Air. Healy took from my lips at the time in Clonmel prison wii:, one may hope, be forgiven :

•. “About eleven o’clock a.m., on the morning after my arrival in Clonmel prison, the chief warder, Gough, entered my cell, and said ‘ Come to the Doctor.’ T followed him to a wide open court, stone paved. A gentleman was standing at a high desk in this open corridor. He did not salute me, nor in any way inform me who he was. His first words were 'open your, vest..’ I was obliged to ask him Are you the prison doctor?’ He said, ‘Yes,’ and drew out his stethoscope. I opened my vest, and he placed the stethoscope to my chest on the right and left side, as well as I can remember, without asking to have my shirt opened. He next said, ‘Have you a cough?’ I said, ‘ T should be very sorry to be personally discourteous, but owing to the perversion on a former occasion of ray communications with the prison doctor in Tnllamore, ■ T. have no means of protecting myself against misrepresentation, unless to decline to make any communication as to my health, but you are at perfect liberty to examine me in every way you choose.’ He said, 'that does not matter; open your shirt; your shirt is too stiff.’ I then opened my shirt, and he examined me with another instrument—l believe a binaural stethoscope —after which he said, ‘ put out your tongue.’ I did so. He then struck me lightly on the stomach, and without another word put up his instrument. I had to ask him, l is that all?” He said, Yes,’ and I turned back to the cell with the chief warder, who had been a witness of the examination, and who, like the doctor and myself, was standing in the corridor during the examination.

“About five minutes afterwards the chief warder returned to my cell and said, ‘ We must force you to put on the prison clothes.’ I asked to sec the governor, who appeared to have been waiting outside the door, for he immediately appeared.- I said, ‘ I have to ask that a doctor shall be present during any attack upon me.’ He said, 'I cannot do that; yon have passed the doctor.’ ‘ Then,’ I said, ‘ you will have to strip me by force,’ or words to that effect. I placet! my back to the further wall of the cell ; three warders immediately rushed at me with the chief warder. The four seized mo, and a violent struggle took place between us, the governor standing by. They succeeded after a struggle in flinging me on my back on the floor, dragging my clothes away meanwhile. When I was down one man placed his knee on my chest, not, as 1 believe, brutally, but with a pressure that caused me considerable suffering. 1 heard someone, 1 think the chief warder, say ‘ Don’t hurt him.' The pressure was then relaxed, and J struggled to my feet again, and renewed the struggle, while my clothes were being torn off one by one. I was then flung a second, time on the floor, this time

* Since the above lines were penned, thirty-one years after the episodes of Manchester and Clonmel gaol, so incorrigible are the ways of England’s Chief Secretaries, precisely. the same story of senseless barbarities followed by shabby surrender in face of an unconquerable resistance, was repeated in the case of the memorable hunger strike of 85 -Sinn Fein prisoners in Mountjoy gaol, April, 1920. The description of Air. Arthur Griffith, M.P., of the prison policy of Air. Alacpherson in 1920 as an attempt “to treat all political offenders as common criminals with the threat to murder fhem if they refuse this status” is, mind mvtato, no less true of the policy of Air. Balfour a generation before. ,

oik ray face. 1 continued to struggle with all my force, while they were dragging prison clothes on me, and from the struggle and exhaustion, I became so faint that they had twice to cease, in order to give me a drink of water During this second struggle ray strength was totally exmisted. I heard the governor give the order to have my luur and beard taken off, and I remember the . first few ashes made at me with a scissors. After that I lost consciousness and when I recovered, found my mouth full of hams, and was propped up on a stool between two warders l ho still he dmy arms. The governor said, ‘ Surely you have resisted enough now; you know it has to be done.’ I that th Z’ i° U * knW ! lttl ° of me if you do not know . at the struggle is only beginning now. The instant my hands are free, I will fling these clothes off again ” ' . the Tlie ™rders having followed Alderman Hackett to the door, I instantly threw off the prison clothes. Ttfree 0 them rushed at me again, and another struggle took place. They succeeded in forcing on some of the prison clothes again, seizing and twisting my arms all the time In consequence of my resistance the chief warder told them not to mind forcing on the coat or vest this time. I again jccame so faint that they again put water on my lips, but continued to hold my arm while 1 stood leaning against the wall lor 1 considerable time. So far as 1 can estimate the scene had by this time lasted half an hour v i “The warders continued to hold me for a long time, uhen the chief warder said f Bring him along ’ and I was immediately dragged to the door in my shirtsleeves, and i mj eet naked. No intimation was given mo that I question o brought to be weighed. Up to this moment the question of weighing had never been mentioned to me Z hCI by the d °rT or by the warders and I should never vis made the slightest objection if 1 had known that that *as then object. I was dragged across a, large apace which I since learned was the main hall of the At the moment I was so stupefied, and my bad sight made mo so helpless (my spectacles having been taken from me during the struggle and not returned), that I had only the most was that I } otlon where I was being taken; my impression was that I was being dragged to a punishment cell. I said to the warders who had a hold of my arms again and again, 1 M here are yU dragging me to?’ They made no reply, but dragged me on to what I now believe was a, weighing machine, beside which the governor and doctor were standing. My gs and arms were dragged about the machine in an exceedingly painful way, and I then said As long as yon are treating me in this barbarous fashion’ 1 will submit .to nothing except by force.’ The governor said take him away.’ They apparently gave up the attempt to weigh me.

“T was then dragged, still by the arms, in the opposite, direction towards another cell, still under the impression that I was being brought to some other punishment. I was thrust into a cell in a different part of the prison, in Inch there was nothing except a stool. “The moment I was left alone I threw off the prison clothes, and retained only a shirt. They made no further attempt to force the clothes on me. . . J was left alone the entire day and evening. I remained until eight p.m. walking up and down the cell, with no covering except the shirt. The day was bitterly cold, and my teeth chattering, but I procured some warmth by lying on the floor, close to the hot-water pipes. I was unable to eat. but drank as much of. the milk as I could.. At eight o’clock, the usual hour for going to bed, a warder opened the door and. put in a plank bed, without a mattress of any kind. He ;llso brought in two single blankets and a quilt. I put one of the..blankets on the plank, and the other, with thf%> quilt, over me, and lay down> I did not sleep throughout the night. It was bitterly cold. I got my head on the hot-water pipes and utilised that as a pillow (none being supplied with the plank). About half an hour afterwards namely, about a quarter to nine a.m., as .far as I can calculate governor and chief warder entered my coll. The governor said, ‘ you will kill yourself if you go on like this.’ I said, ‘lf I am killed I will take good care it is not I who will have the responsibility.’ He said, You must know that there are prisoners who refuse to - take food, and we are obliged to force them by putting mechanical restraints on them. , ; I said, There is notv

the least fear of that in my case, as I am perfectly determined to take all the food I possibly can.’ He said, Of course, I know you would not do anything of that sort, but if the doctor thinks your life is in danger by your remaining naked all this time, lie will be obliged to order that you should be put under mechanical restraint to save you.’ I said, ‘ I am in your power, and it is, of course, perfectly within your power to put any mechanical restraint you please upon me; but I warn you that you will have tg continue it to-day, to-morrow, next week, next month; until you have me either dead or mad, or until you return my clothes.’ He said, ‘ You know it is perfectly impossible for the doctor to order your clothes to be returned.’ “They went away, and shortly afterwards the doctor entered the cell. I was under the impression from the governor’s communication to me, that he had come to order the mechanical restraints that were threatened. To my surprise, he immediately began to express his regret that I was under the impression that lie had treated me offensively. I said, unhappily the circumstances left mo 130 other conclusion, this applying as to his manner, as to the cursory nature of the examination, as to his curtness in dealing with me, and as to the extraordinary place and mode of the medical examination. He told me that he was suffering from a heavy cold himself, and that that might have accounted for his manner, and that the place was the usual place for examination 1 of the prisoners. He immediately ordered a bed. The governor asked, ‘ Will we bring the mattress?’ and he said, ‘ Oh, certainly.’ .The plank bed, with the fibre mattress, was then brought into the cell and I was allowed to lie on it. (To be continued.)