Today being Sunday, a day of rest and gladness when even prisoners do not work, I visited the central gaol of Vienna. Permission is not often granted; in order to obtain it, it was necessary to gain the consent of the President of the Austrian Republic. My object in going was to see for myself to what extent starvation is making criminals out of children and so adding one more grim touch, by destroying characters as well as bodies, to the monstrous sum of Europe's child tragedy.
Before the war the Viennese were among the most happy and law-abiding of citizens. What famine can accomplish in the manufacture of criminals was illustrated by what I saw on this visit.
It was a sunny day with a sky of intensest blue. The snow and slush of Saturday had frozen over, so that the streets gleamed brilliantly in white and steel-gray patches. About the Ring, which encirles the old royal palace, crowds were promenading in the worn finery of pre-war days. There was almost a breath of hope—an unwonted alertness.
We drew up before a frowning pile of buildings, the windows of which are heavily grated, before whose entrances men with rifles stood on guard. We were immediately conducted to the office of the prison-director; he had something to say to us. He was a very humane man and most eager to impress us with his humanity. He had sent for us to warn us that we were about to encounter sights which would probably shock us. Since the war the crime-wave had been on the increase in all countries—especially in those which were most hungry. People seemed to be losing their faculty for distinguishing between mine and thine. This was the case in Austria, with the consequence that the supply of gaols could not cope with the demand of the criminals. All the gaols were overcrowded. This one was. Cells which had been built to hold one prisoner, now contained four; those built to hold nine contained as many as thirty. Of course the sanitary accommodations were insufficient. He did not want us to believe that what we were about to see was typical of Austrian efficiency. We should discover that only one prisoner out of four had a bed; that their personal linen was changed only once a month and that the cells were verminous. We should also discover that the greater part of the prisoners had not been brought to trial—many of them had been awaiting their trial three months. These lamentable conditions had produced frequent riots, which had only been quelled by flooding the cells to the depth of a yard. Still worse, children were displaying an increasing tendency to theft. Of course, that might be due to starvation. In pre-war days they had been dealt with in juvenile-court, but now all children of fourteen and up had to be herded with adults. There were so many of them. That was the trouble. Under the circumstances what else could be done? He bade us good-bye with a courtly politeness. His last words were a petition that we would not be shocked. But we were.
And who would not he? Two-thirds of the crimes which had brought these three thousand unfortunates to this pass, fathers, mothers and children, had been stealings incited by hunger. There was one ward of mothers who had stolen to preserve their little ones and were again expecting to become mothers. They were among the very few of the prisoners who were segregated. They sat on the edge of cots in their grated cells, dismally weeping, wondering no doubt what was happening to the children they had left. Mary, refused admittance to the inn at Bethlehem, has stood in men's minds as the acme of maternal tragedy; but her neglect does not compare with the callous usage of these Viennese, captive mothers. And yet, as the director had said, economic conditions being what they were, what else could you do with them? You couldn't let them go on filching merely because they were mothers.
Among the prisoners we found a great many ex-soldiers. There was one, a strapping chap, who had had all the military decorations he had won tatooed upon his breast. They were plain for everyone to behold as he had only a shirt that was torn. Round his neck was tatooed the Iron Cross and below it, in a long line, all the service medals, starting with the 1914. When he marched away six years ago, how well would he have fought could he have guessed that this would be his reward?
In one cell for six men, into which twenty-six had been crowded, we stumbled on a pathetic piece of vanity. The door was unlocked so quickly that the prisoners were taken unaware. We discovered a man of sixty, with what looked like a terrible wound across his mouth, all bandaged. I turned away to speak to a stunted boy, who looked about fourteen, to ask him why he was there. He had been arrested for housebreaking because he was hungry. He wasn't fourteen; he was nearly twenty. When I glanced back to the prisoner with the wounded mouth, I found myself face to face with a replica of Hindenburg. The bandage which he had been wearing had been hastily removed. It was a moustache-preserver, with elastics which went behind his ears to keep the contraption in place. Out of all his fallen fortunes, the vermin and the vice, he had salved this petty piece of conceit to heal his wounded pride. And he had cause; he probably possesses the most fiercely up-pointing moustaches in Austria.
Cell after cell was locked and unlocked, giving us instant glimpses of hell. It was famine that had worked this evil; nine-tenths of these people would have remained good but for that. The atmosphere was so putrid that one's throat became sore. We lit cigarettes to conquer the stench. Outside the sun was shining and the sky was dazzling.
This was the day of rest. What did they do with it? Nothing. They sat dolefully in sullen, uncomplaining apathy, brooding and brooding. They had no books, no way of entertaining themselves, save in rare cases where the Society of Friends had visited them. The Society of Friends is the only institution which does anything for the prisons of Austria. One wondered what stories those walls could tell of what happened after nightfall. It was in the darkness the warder informed us that vermin were most voracious—they crept out. But other things besides vermin creep out in the hours of darkness—evil thoughts, bred of idleness, taking shape in evil acts. Of all this the boys and girls of fourteen and over are witnesses and at last partakers. The sin which has put them in gaol is not theirs, but society's—their hunger. Yet the price they pay is that they leave those walls as moral degenerates. Civilization by its callousness toward these children is running up a heavy score—a score which will one day come up for settlement and which the world, willingly or unwillingly, will have to join in paying. The bill will consist of a leprous taint which will travel in men's bodies down the ages; a legacy of disease and idiocy.
The memory of the horror stings one's eyes and gags one's throat with its foulness. It stirs one's mind to an insanity of anger at the smug complacency of the more fortunate world which contrives excuses for withholding its help. What have these fathers and mothers done to be in gaol?
Their children were dying; it was noble of them to steal. And the little child prisoners, why should they be here? During most of their lives, beginning with the war, they have known nothing but cold and privation. They were taught by necessity to pilfer—which is scarcely a sufficient reason for killing their souls. And please remember that this gaol in Vienna is only a sample of the gaols of all the stricken countries.
The key turned in the lock and the narrow studded door was swung wide, revealing a narrow cell of no more than the dimensions of a double bed. It contained two occupants. One was a woman of the bestial type, almost wholly animal. Her feet were bare, her hair hung matted upon her forehead. Her features were swollen and debased. There was no infamy of uncleanness and violence of which she was not capable. Probably she, too, had her excuses. On the other side of the cell, smiling with wistful expectancy, stood a pretty child. She had black curling hair, a complexion of most delicate rose and coyly-lidded Irish eyes. She leant against the wall, small-boned and frail, confidently surveying us. She was nearly fifteen. This was her second term. She had already served a previous sentence of eighteen months. What for? Stealing. Starvation. No, we hadn't come to release her—only to gaze at her. But she had thought we were Americans! Her eyes filled and her lip drooped. The door swung to; it clanged pitilessly. She ran forward with a pleading gesture; then the sight of her was shut out. Her hope was gone. We had consigned her to her hell. And she might have been your daughter or mine.