The governor is almost bewildered, and begs the committee to get rid of this prisoner. It would be inexpedient to place him among other prisoners, and yet that can hardly be avoided, owing to the influx of both military and other prisoners. “As to corporal punishment, he has already experienced it very severely without any beneficial effect. His knowledge of the localities, and the present unsafe condition of the prison, owing to the extensive repairs, will breed perpetual attempts, however unsuccessful, to escape,” writes the governor.
Soon afterwards Smith asked to be relieved from his handcuffs. “What’s the good of keeping them on me?” he said, “I can always get ’em off with an hour’s work.” He was told they would be fastened behind his back. “I can slip them in front; you know that,” he replied.
“I threatened, then,” says Mr. Nihil, “to fetter his arms as well as his hands, and that seemed to baffle him. To-day I held a long conversation with him, and cannot but lament that the powerful qualities he possesses should have been so greatly perverted. He spoke with great candour of his former courses. He exhibited an affectation of religious impressions, though he acknowledged much of the evil of his character. By and by I asked him if he wished to have the handcuffs taken off. He did, much, because they made him feel so cold.
“‘Will you promise if I take them off not to attempt to escape?’
“‘I’ll never make another promise as long as I am here. I have made one too many, and I am ashamed of myself for having broken it.’
“‘What am I to do with you? Where am I to send you?’
“‘It’s no use sending me anywhere, sir. If you let me go among the other prisoners I am satisfied; from what I know of the place, there isn’t a part from which I couldn’t escape.’”
But Pickard Smith cannot remain forever in the dark. Exercise in the open air becomes necessary, and the first time he is taken out is in a dense fog. Almost at once he eludes his officer’s observation, and, slipping off his shoes, clambers up a low projecting wall that communicates with the boundary wall of the yard, mounts it, jumps over on the other side, and runs for the infirmary staircase where he hopes to hide. Fortunately the taskmaster, coming out of the tower, catches sight of his legs disappearing through the door, and running after him captures him on the stairs. The fellow was quite incorrigible. Again he goes to the dark, again and again is he released and recommitted, till at length his health breaks down. If in the end he was tamed, it was of his own failure of strength, and not of the discipline of the place. I believe he died in the Penitentiary a year or two later, but I have been unable to find any authentic record of the fact.