PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE
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PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE, LONDON
| ALLY WITHOUT PERMISSION OF THE
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also making use of the following improper remark to a Superintendent, viz. ;---' You are paid to talk.'"
15. For this the Visiting Justice (Mr. Fitzherbert Alleyne) sentenced him to be flogged; and he accordingly received twenty-four lashes.
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16. From the evidence of the warders it appears the prisoner "complained of being ill," and the following entry was made by the Visiting Justice on the record of the proceedings:-
"Convict No. 19, Gang B,' being asked if he had anything to say, saith:-I am in the habit of wearing flannels, and I have worn them out, and the Governor has refused to allow me to apply to my friends to supply me with new ones.""
17. Unfortunately a new Medical Officer had just taken charge of the prison in place of Dr. Clarke, who left Barbados three days before, and on the morning of the 23rd he expressed the opinion that there was nothing the matter with No. 19. This physician, however, was not examined by the Visiting Justice, and no inquiry was made about the prisoner's want of flannel.
18. Having been flogged on the 27th of September, this prisoner was in hospital, from the wounds in his back, until the 19th of October, when he was struck off the sick list. It was on the 11th of October, whilst under medical treatment, that the prisoner received, by the order of the new physician, the flannel which he had in vain applied to the keeper of the prison for, and to the Visiting Justice, before being flogged.
19. Your Lordship may be surprised that a prisoner should have been on the sick list from September 27th to October 19th as the result of one flogging. In this case, however, the man had been already flogged this year. Furthermore, the floggings in Barbados are so severe that, on the 15th of March, 1875, Mr. Price, the Keeper of Glendairy Prison, wrote officially to the Colonial Secretary that they are “revolting in the extreme to witness."
20. In the same letter the Keeper of the prison says:-
"As an instance of the severe effects of the punishment, convict Clements was fogged on the 13th ultimo, and he was not discharged from the sick list until the 4th instant."
21. On examining the doctor's book I find that this man Clements had a relapse towards the end of March, and was on the sick list till the 19th of April. On the 16th of August he is again in hospital for fever and ague with palpitation, and is not dis. charged till the 16th of September. There are other cases, however, far worse than Clement's.
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22. Dr. Thomas, the President of the Council, tells me that the same officer, Mr. Price (who was formerly a soldier), reported to him that the Barbados floggings are more cfuel than the severest floggings that he formerly saw in the army. Rev. Mr. Greaves, the chaplain to the prisons, has made the following memorandum of one case which accidentally came under his notice:-
"On one occasion I saw a prisoner at Glendairy a day or two after he had received a flogging. I do not remember the number of stripes he had received. He was without clothing to his waist. Between his shoulders, about the size and shape of a small plate, was a dreadfully lacerated patch, from which the blows seemed to radiate star-fashion. The man was under medical treatment, his back being dressed apparently with some kind of ointment which had been smeared over it. There was no doubt left on my mind that the instrument used in the infliction of this punishment must have been a most formid- able one; and that the man's back would bear traces of it to his dying day."
Sir,
I have, &c..
(Signed) J. POPE HENNESSY.
Inclosure 1 in No. 11.
Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the Death of Henry Hurdle, Prisoner, in the Town Hall Gaol.
Bridgetown, August 20, 1875.
I HAVE the honour to forward herewith, for the information of his Excellency the Administrator, the Report of the Commissioners appointed to inquire into the death of Hurdle in the Town Hall Gaol.
Annexed thereto will be found the proceedings taken in this matter.
Fredk. Watts, Esq.,
Acting Colonial Secretary.
I have, &c.
(Signed) J. SEALY, Chairman.
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We, the undersigned Commissioners appointed by his Excellency the Administrator; to inquire into the circumstances of the death in the Town Hall Gaol, on the 26th of July last, of a prisoner named Henry Hurdle, having finished our investigation, have the honour to make the following Report:-
1. By the tops of our commission we are specially charged with the task of furnishing answers to the following questions:
2. First, "Whether you concur in the opinion of the Coroner's jury that Hurdle's death was accelerated by the absence of medical treatment, and suitable nourish- ment, and if you concur who has been to blame with reference to this death."
3. Second, "Whether you consider the hospital (at the Town Hall Gaol) fit for the reception of such patients suffering from tubercular and other serious diseases.'
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4. This constitutes the duty which we were individually asked, and undertook to perform. We are now, however, further invited "to find out the number of persons who have been admitted into the General Hospital after leaving the Town Hall Prison, the diseases from which they suffered and the result, and to say whether those diseases were caused or aggravated by residence in the Town Hall Gaol."
5. We think it best, for reasons to be presently stated, to confine ourselves in the present inquiry to the points originally proposed to us, and involved in the questions above stated.
6. The first of these is to be answered by direct reference to the facts of the case; the second involves merely the expression of an opinion as to the fitness of a particular building for the purpose to which it is applied.
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7. As to the first. We find, to begin with, that the prisoner. Hurdle was a man of advanced years, of spare habit, and of delicate, if not sickly, appearance. He was convicted and sent to prison for twelve months at the August Assizes in 1874, and was immediately put to hard labour on the tread-mill. On the 20th of the same mouth (August), he sustained an injury to the instep through stepping on the wheel, and went to hospital in consequence, where he remained three months-and-a-half, having been dismissed on the 3rd December. From the 3rd December, 1874, to the 8th February, 1875, he continued at hard labour chiefly at the pier-head, with the exception of one day` in January, when he remained in, complaining of indisposition, which being deemed slight, he was sent out on the following morning. On the 8th of February he returned to hospital, and from that date to the 5th July last, a period of very nearly five months, he continued under medical supervision, by which term is meant, that he occupied a room with others in the hospital at night, and during the day was employed in comparatively light work about the yard, so as to be close at hand for inspection by the Medical Officer at the time of his regular visits. During this time his food consisted of the ordinary prison fare. His disorder during these five months appears to have been sores on the feet.. On the 5th July he was dismissed as cured. On the 22nd July he was again admitted with that illness, which proved his last.
8. We think it proved by the evidence that the 22nd of July, and not any previous day, was that on which Hurdle last reported himself sick, and was admitted to hospital. The 22nd happened to be one of the regular days for the Medical Officer's visit, which was made between eight and nine o'clock in the morning, consequently Hurdle was seen by the doctor within an hour or two after he complained of illness. Having been seen he was permitted to remain in hospital, but no treatment of any kind, whether in respect of medicine or diet, was ordered for or bestowed upon him, and on the morning of July 26 he died.
9. It is admitted by the Medical Officer that he saw the prisoner on July 22 about half past eight o'clock in the morning that the man did not at that time appear to him ill --that he might have had then the inflammation of the lung which caused his death, but he made no complaint referring to his chest, and displayed no symptoms that attracted attention to that part, consequently he (the doctor) did not examine the prisoner's lungs, and that had he done so he must have discovered the disease from which the prisoner was suffering. He thought, however, that the malady was trifling, being in a measure thrown off his guard by the fact that the prisoner was a weakly man, almost always complaining, and therefore he permitted him to go back to hospital without giving any particular direc- tions with regard to him.
10. This admission reveals the error whith was the cause of all the subsequent neglect,
11. It is but too evident, we regret to be compelled to say, that Hurdle, although an inmate of the hospital during his illness, which lasted from the morning of the 22nd to the morning of the 26th, received absolutely nono of that care and attention which is usually
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