Characters
Warder Martin
The kind warder
A junior warder at Reading who had charge of Gallery C, where Wilde spent his last seven weeks. Wilde was struck by 'the singular kindness and humanity' of the way he spoke to prisoners. He bought sweet biscuits for a starving child and emptied a sick prisoner's slops when a senior warder refused, both against the rules. The child innocently praised him to a senior warder, and Martin was reported and dismissed by the Prison Commissioners.
The three children
Children behind bars
Three small children Wilde saw in the central hall at Reading on the Monday before his release, just convicted and carrying their sheets to their cells. The youngest was so tiny that no prison clothes fitted him, and it was he who cried with hunger and could not eat his bread and water. When they passed Wilde's group at exercise the next day, he saw 'the greatest pity and sympathy' in the eyes of the men as they passed.
A. 2. 11 (Prince)
The prisoner driven insane
A young soldier serving six months by court-martial, whose name Wilde found out was Prince. His silly grin, crying and twitching hands marked him out at exercise and in chapel, where warders struck up his head when he buried it in his hands. Treated as shamming, he was punished again and again and finally given twenty-four lashes on the doctor's report. Wilde last saw him worse than before, and asks that experts examine his case.
The boy on remand
Terror in a cell
A small boy Wilde saw in the dimly lit cell opposite his own at Reading, spoken to by two warders who were not unkind. His face was 'like a white wedge of sheer terror', and the next morning Wilde heard him crying for his parents. He was not convicted, only on remand, and his prison socks and shoes showed that he was very poor.
The Governor of Reading
Humane but powerless
The Governor, appointed 'in July last', whom Wilde calls 'a man of gentle and humane character, greatly liked and respected by all the prisoners.' He cannot alter the rules, but he has changed the spirit in which they are carried out and raised the whole tone of prison life. Wilde does not know his views on A. 2. 11, and judges him only by the change from his harsh predecessor.