Ex-Inmate Tells of Ordeal in Jail4 Feb 1950
Montreal Standard
by Margaret Stone
I went into the Protestant section of the Fullum street jail on April 2, 1949. I spent five months and four days there. I had been using drugs. They put a blue cotton dress on me and threw me into a cell. They gave me one phenobarbital pill. I was sent to jail at noon on Saturday from the police court. They wouldn't give me a smoke. I got a blanket and one pillow - no other linen. They gave me a dirty old slop pail that smelled. I lost consciousness I was very sick and I didn't remember much for five days. I asked for a glass of water when I first came to and got bawled out for it.
"You'll have to get up and wash your cell," one of the matrons said. "You'll have to take a bath too." They gave me no food. This was on Thursday. They gave me a pail and a scrub brush and put me in the cell to wash the floor. I was ill and weak and hungry but I had to wait for meal time for food. They had awakened me at about 2 pm so I had to wait until supper. I lost about 15 pounds in that cell. There was an iron bed and a soiled mattress. Later I got a sheet and a pillowcase and a clean dress. I stayed there until supper time. Then they brought my meal. It was beans. I was so weak I spilled them on my blanket. There were about 30 beans on a plate. I got two pieces of dry bread and a cup of tea, terrible tea. We were allowed a small teaspoon of sugar, like a demi-tasse spoon and dried boiled apricots about a tablespoon of them. They were mushy and not edible.
That evening I asked a matron for some water. She gave me one tin cup but when I asked for more she said,"What do you think? That's all I've got to do? Carry water for you?"
After I begged her, she gave me some in a milk bottle. I had to put my mouth to the bars to drink it. I asked for some in my cell. She said no. The lights went off at 9 pm.
On Friday I asked for a cigarette after breakfast. I got half a bowl of porridge, you couldn't see the milk and that tiny spoon of sugar. Two slices of bread with a tiny piece of butter and that tea. I lay in the cell all morning. We had chores at noon sharp. It was Friday and we got fish with a white sauce a potato, two slices of dry bread and water. A tablespoon of applesauce. The fish is made from canned stuff - 4 cans for 30 people. The white sauce is made from flour and watered milk.
Supper is at 5 pm. The most horrible soup imaginable, a table spoon of molasses, three pieces of dried bread and that tea.
I was hungry the whole time I was there. I t was awful.
Saturday's breakfast was the same stuff as Friday. A matron said, "Margaret, do you want to come out of the cell?" She's kind and motherly. Mrs. Kathleen Harvey. She helps the girls and realizes we are humans. She got someone to straighten out my cell. I was so weak. She put me into bed. In the dormitory I knitted a sweater for her son and played card with the girls. I was weak and I had no money to buy cigarettes. We're only allowed three a day anyway.
Saturday noon we had turnip soup. We call it "garbage soup." A piece of badly baked spongecake, three pieces of dried bread and water. Supper was hash. It looked like someone had chewed on it before we got it. We had the tea. It the dry bread and three biscuits with a small square of cheese.
I was having the "chuck horrors." When you are going off drugs, your stomach craves food. I begged for a piece of bread at night. They threw me a hunk of dry bread. I ate it like a piece of cake. I got this for a week. It's their drug treatment. The Sally Ann (Salvation Army) comes at 10:30 am on Sundays to sing and preach. It breaks the monotony. On alternative Sundays, the minister comes in the afternoon.
There is no work to do, nothing to read while you're in a cell. I asked to scrub floors in the kitchen on Tuesday to get an extra cup of tea. I was starving. If the girls there can give it to you, they slip you a jam sandwich, but if they get caught, they are punished by having privileges cut off.
I went down and scrubbed the floor.
I was so weak one of the girls said, "Margaret, don't kill yourself."
Tuesday, we had soup for supper and macaroni at noon. We got tomatoes twice. They came from Bordeaux.
Two girls escaped from the kitchen. They were kitchen help so there was an opening. I got in two weeks after entering Fullum. One girl working there spoke up for me. She said, "Why not take Margaret? She has a long sentence" I had been washing the walls and windows in the receiving room. I had caught parasites in the cell and had to have medicine to get rid of them.
In the kitchen I started washing dishes and peeling vegetables and sweeping the floor. I was allowed to have a tin of syrup on doctor's orders when I paid for it. Sometimes dessert was four prunes, with a little juice of a tablespoon of jam we call "perfume jam." It is so terrible. I t was red and we couldn't eat it. I preferred the dry bread.
There are four cells for mental patients and they are usually full. I was in the kitchen for a month then I asked to go upstairs to take a rest. My back was aching. Anything you want there you've got to buy it. No comb, no toothbrush or paste. One bar of soap a month and one towel a week for year face and bath too.
I cleaned out the four cells and the four downstairs. I bathed the girls and did all the personal stuff for them, like feeding them.
Downstairs is supposed to be for punishment, but they are not using it for that. They've been sending mental patients there for about two years, both Catholics and Protestants. They all go there until they are committed and passed by the doctor. Some are there for so long as two months. They are living on jail food that is rotten. They don't get any milk. There are no trained people to look after them. They keep the fresh one in straitjackets and there is no treatment for of any kind. Some are picked up on the street and it is only a miracle if their relatives can find them.
I remember a girl. She was about 30. She died on a Monday morning after she had been here in five days. Her brother brought her. He said later he never would have done it if he had known about conditions there. They put her in a straitjacket. Her stomach was flat and her ribs stuck out. She hadn't been eating and she just lay in her cell. She looked very ill to me, so I told a matron she should have a doctor. They didn't pay any attention. Then the mistress told me to take a spoon and funnel and force some milk down her throat. I had never done anything like that before. She couldn't swallow it.
Three days before she died, she frothed a the mouth. She spoke to me and lay there quietly. I took the straight jacket off and we tied her hands to the line but with straps. The doctor
No doctor came until I got after the matron again to phone. He came on the Sunday evening after a guard had decided to call. He gave her a hypo and shook his head.
"She's very weak. Her heart is bad," he said. He made no suggestion to move her. He was the prison doctor. On Monday morning he came back with a priest around 9 am. The nurse was there. The girl was all wet. The smell was terrible and the flies were everywhere.
"She's all right," the matron said when I asked to change her. She was unconscious They called her brother but he got there too late. She had died at 10. She had blue eyes and was very refined -looking with dark hair, well-built and beautiful skin.
After that, they were nicer to me. I think they were scared of me talking. Two days before the girl died, they gave her a bath. They made her walk back from the bathroom in her bare feet. I saw the sores on her body. It was awful.
They used to pull girls out of their cells by the backs of their necks or by the hair to take a bath. Four guards there are men. Sometimes, the mental patients are naked on the floor or they rip their dresses. The guards don't care. One Polish girl lay naked on the floor for two weeks. Some of them bang their heads against the brick walls. There of the male guards are very brutal. No one there had the nerve to report conditions. They were afraid and just didn't bother after they got out.
They don't pay anything for the work you do. It's the only jail in Canada where that is true. Most pay at least five cents a day. Hardly ever did we get an outing. Twenty minutes in four days, first when they feel like it. They give you no money when you get out. Just one car ticket - and only if you ask for it. I had six cents when I got out. How do they expect you to be honest that way?
Montreal Standard
by Margaret Stone
I went into the Protestant section of the Fullum street jail on April 2, 1949. I spent five months and four days there. I had been using drugs. They put a blue cotton dress on me and threw me into a cell. They gave me one phenobarbital pill. I was sent to jail at noon on Saturday from the police court. They wouldn't give me a smoke. I got a blanket and one pillow - no other linen. They gave me a dirty old slop pail that smelled. I lost consciousness I was very sick and I didn't remember much for five days. I asked for a glass of water when I first came to and got bawled out for it.
"You'll have to get up and wash your cell," one of the matrons said. "You'll have to take a bath too." They gave me no food. This was on Thursday. They gave me a pail and a scrub brush and put me in the cell to wash the floor. I was ill and weak and hungry but I had to wait for meal time for food. They had awakened me at about 2 pm so I had to wait until supper. I lost about 15 pounds in that cell. There was an iron bed and a soiled mattress. Later I got a sheet and a pillowcase and a clean dress. I stayed there until supper time. Then they brought my meal. It was beans. I was so weak I spilled them on my blanket. There were about 30 beans on a plate. I got two pieces of dry bread and a cup of tea, terrible tea. We were allowed a small teaspoon of sugar, like a demi-tasse spoon and dried boiled apricots about a tablespoon of them. They were mushy and not edible.
That evening I asked a matron for some water. She gave me one tin cup but when I asked for more she said,"What do you think? That's all I've got to do? Carry water for you?"
After I begged her, she gave me some in a milk bottle. I had to put my mouth to the bars to drink it. I asked for some in my cell. She said no. The lights went off at 9 pm.
On Friday I asked for a cigarette after breakfast. I got half a bowl of porridge, you couldn't see the milk and that tiny spoon of sugar. Two slices of bread with a tiny piece of butter and that tea. I lay in the cell all morning. We had chores at noon sharp. It was Friday and we got fish with a white sauce a potato, two slices of dry bread and water. A tablespoon of applesauce. The fish is made from canned stuff - 4 cans for 30 people. The white sauce is made from flour and watered milk.
Supper is at 5 pm. The most horrible soup imaginable, a table spoon of molasses, three pieces of dried bread and that tea.
I was hungry the whole time I was there. I t was awful.
Saturday's breakfast was the same stuff as Friday. A matron said, "Margaret, do you want to come out of the cell?" She's kind and motherly. Mrs. Kathleen Harvey. She helps the girls and realizes we are humans. She got someone to straighten out my cell. I was so weak. She put me into bed. In the dormitory I knitted a sweater for her son and played card with the girls. I was weak and I had no money to buy cigarettes. We're only allowed three a day anyway.
Saturday noon we had turnip soup. We call it "garbage soup." A piece of badly baked spongecake, three pieces of dried bread and water. Supper was hash. It looked like someone had chewed on it before we got it. We had the tea. It the dry bread and three biscuits with a small square of cheese.
I was having the "chuck horrors." When you are going off drugs, your stomach craves food. I begged for a piece of bread at night. They threw me a hunk of dry bread. I ate it like a piece of cake. I got this for a week. It's their drug treatment. The Sally Ann (Salvation Army) comes at 10:30 am on Sundays to sing and preach. It breaks the monotony. On alternative Sundays, the minister comes in the afternoon.
There is no work to do, nothing to read while you're in a cell. I asked to scrub floors in the kitchen on Tuesday to get an extra cup of tea. I was starving. If the girls there can give it to you, they slip you a jam sandwich, but if they get caught, they are punished by having privileges cut off.
I went down and scrubbed the floor.
I was so weak one of the girls said, "Margaret, don't kill yourself."
Tuesday, we had soup for supper and macaroni at noon. We got tomatoes twice. They came from Bordeaux.
Two girls escaped from the kitchen. They were kitchen help so there was an opening. I got in two weeks after entering Fullum. One girl working there spoke up for me. She said, "Why not take Margaret? She has a long sentence" I had been washing the walls and windows in the receiving room. I had caught parasites in the cell and had to have medicine to get rid of them.
In the kitchen I started washing dishes and peeling vegetables and sweeping the floor. I was allowed to have a tin of syrup on doctor's orders when I paid for it. Sometimes dessert was four prunes, with a little juice of a tablespoon of jam we call "perfume jam." It is so terrible. I t was red and we couldn't eat it. I preferred the dry bread.
There are four cells for mental patients and they are usually full. I was in the kitchen for a month then I asked to go upstairs to take a rest. My back was aching. Anything you want there you've got to buy it. No comb, no toothbrush or paste. One bar of soap a month and one towel a week for year face and bath too.
I cleaned out the four cells and the four downstairs. I bathed the girls and did all the personal stuff for them, like feeding them.
Downstairs is supposed to be for punishment, but they are not using it for that. They've been sending mental patients there for about two years, both Catholics and Protestants. They all go there until they are committed and passed by the doctor. Some are there for so long as two months. They are living on jail food that is rotten. They don't get any milk. There are no trained people to look after them. They keep the fresh one in straitjackets and there is no treatment for of any kind. Some are picked up on the street and it is only a miracle if their relatives can find them.
I remember a girl. She was about 30. She died on a Monday morning after she had been here in five days. Her brother brought her. He said later he never would have done it if he had known about conditions there. They put her in a straitjacket. Her stomach was flat and her ribs stuck out. She hadn't been eating and she just lay in her cell. She looked very ill to me, so I told a matron she should have a doctor. They didn't pay any attention. Then the mistress told me to take a spoon and funnel and force some milk down her throat. I had never done anything like that before. She couldn't swallow it.
Three days before she died, she frothed a the mouth. She spoke to me and lay there quietly. I took the straight jacket off and we tied her hands to the line but with straps. The doctor
No doctor came until I got after the matron again to phone. He came on the Sunday evening after a guard had decided to call. He gave her a hypo and shook his head.
"She's very weak. Her heart is bad," he said. He made no suggestion to move her. He was the prison doctor. On Monday morning he came back with a priest around 9 am. The nurse was there. The girl was all wet. The smell was terrible and the flies were everywhere.
"She's all right," the matron said when I asked to change her. She was unconscious They called her brother but he got there too late. She had died at 10. She had blue eyes and was very refined -looking with dark hair, well-built and beautiful skin.
After that, they were nicer to me. I think they were scared of me talking. Two days before the girl died, they gave her a bath. They made her walk back from the bathroom in her bare feet. I saw the sores on her body. It was awful.
They used to pull girls out of their cells by the backs of their necks or by the hair to take a bath. Four guards there are men. Sometimes, the mental patients are naked on the floor or they rip their dresses. The guards don't care. One Polish girl lay naked on the floor for two weeks. Some of them bang their heads against the brick walls. There of the male guards are very brutal. No one there had the nerve to report conditions. They were afraid and just didn't bother after they got out.
They don't pay anything for the work you do. It's the only jail in Canada where that is true. Most pay at least five cents a day. Hardly ever did we get an outing. Twenty minutes in four days, first when they feel like it. They give you no money when you get out. Just one car ticket - and only if you ask for it. I had six cents when I got out. How do they expect you to be honest that way?
Kristian, I'd like to read more of this. Do you have any more?
ReplyDeleteThat was the entire article as published. So no more of that.
ReplyDeleteI have an article from around that time based on an interview with the woman who ran the jail. She agrees that the place is - was anyway - in bad shape and that a better facility was desperately required.
I wonder if there was as much rampant lesbianism in the jails of the 50s as there exists today.
ReplyDeleteVery sad but unfortunately, doesn't sound very much different than the way things are run today.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what ever happened to Margaret Stone.
I'm fascinated by the fact that there was a "Protestant" section of the jail!
ReplyDeleteI suppose that means there was a "Catholic" section as well.
Kinda like our separate schools in Quebec -- Protestant and Catholic -- which didn't change until a constitutional amendment around 1996 transformed them into English and French schools instead.