All this will fairly account for any extra fussiness on the part of the committee. Doubtful of the zeal and energy of those to whom they confided the details of management, they were continually stepping in to make up for any shortcomings by their own activity. But the direct consequence of this interference was to shake the authority of the ostensible heads. Moreover, to make the more sure that nothing should be neglected, and no irregularity overlooked, the committee encouraged, or at least their most prominent member did, all sorts of talebearing, and a system of espionage that must have been destructive of all good feeling among the inmates of the prison. Mr. Pitt, when examined by the Select Committee, said, “Mr. Holford has mentioned to me: ‘I hear so and so; such and such an abuse appears to be going forward; but I shall get some further information.’ I always turned a deaf ear to these observations, thinking it an erroneous system, and that it was not likely to contribute to the good of the establishment.” He thought that if the committee members were so ready to lend a willing ear to such communications, it operated as an encouragement to talebearing; the consequences of which certainly appeared to have been disputes, cabals, or intrigues. Mr. Shearman remarks at some length on the same subject: “I certainly did think there was a very painful system going on in the prison against officers, ... by what I might term ‘spyism.’ I have no doubt it all arose from the purest motives, thinking it was the best way to conduct the establishment, setting up one person to look after another.” The master manufacturer and the steward in this way took the opportunity of vilifying the governor; and there is no doubt the matron, Mrs. Chambers, fell a victim to this practice. She was the victim of insinuation, and the evil reports of busybodies who personally disliked her.
It is easy to imagine the condition of Millbank then. A small colony apart from the great world; living more than as neighbours, as one family almost—but not happily—under the same roof. The officials, nearly all of them of mature age, having grown-up children, young ladies and young gentlemen, always about the place, and that place from its peculiar conditions, like a ship at sea, shut off from the public, and concentrated on what was going on within its walls. Gossip, of course, prevalent—even malicious; constant observation of one another, jealousies, quarrels, inevitable when authority was divided between three people, the governor, chaplain, and matron, and it was not clearly made out which was the most worthy; subordinates ever on the look-out to make capital of the differences of their betters, and alive to the fact that they were certain of a hearing when they chose to carry any slanderous tale, or make any underhand complaint. For there, outside the prison, was the active and all-powerful committee, ever ready to listen, and anxious to get information. One of the witnesses before the committee of 1823 stated, “From the earliest period certainly the active members of the Superintending Committee gave great encouragement to receive any information from the subordinate officers, I believe with the view of putting the prison in its best possible state; that encouragement was caught with avidity by a great many, simply for the purpose of cultivating the good opinion of those gentlemen conducting it; and I am induced to think that in many instances their zeal overstepped perhaps the strict line of truth; for I must say that during the whole period I was there, there was a continual complaint, one officer against another, and a system that was quite unpleasant in an establishment of that nature.”