in St. Giles, Drury Lane, Chick Lane, Saffron Hill, the Borough, and
Ratcliffe Highway. Others that were out of luck crowded the booths
of Covent Garden, where all slept promiscuously amongst the rotting
garbage of the stalls. During the daytime all were either actively
engaged in thieving, or were revelling in low amusements. Gambling
was a passion with them, indulged in without let or hindrance in the
open streets; and from tossing buttons there they passed on to playing
in the low publics at such games as "put," or "the rocks of Scylla,"
"bumble puppy," "tumble tumble," or "nine holes."

Still more demoralizing than the foregoing was the pernicious habit,
commonly, but happily not invariably followed, of committing these
young thieves to Newgate. Here these tyros were at once associated
with the veterans and great leaders in crime. Old house-breakers
expatiated upon their own deeds, and found eager and willing pupils
among their youthful listeners. The elder and more evilly experienced
boys soon debased and corrupted their juniors. One with twenty previous
convictions against him, who had been in Newgate as often, would have
alongside him an infant of seven or eight, sent to gaol for the first
time for stealing a hearth-broom. It was as bad or worse for the
females. Girls of twelve or thirteen were mixed up with the full-grown
felons—women who were what would be styled to-day habitual criminals,
as in the well-known case of one who had been committed thirty times to
Newgate, residing there generally nine months out of every twelve, and
who was the wardswoman or prisoner-officer, with nearly unlimited power.

The crying evils of the system had moved private philanthropy to do
something remedial. Charitable schools were started,—the forerunners
of our modern reformatories, and the nuclei of time-honoured
institutions still flourishing, and worthy of all praise. Other
well-meaning people, each with his own pet scheme, began to theorize
and propose the construction of juvenile penitentiaries, economical
imitations mostly of the great penitentiary which was now nearly
completed at Millbank. But juvenile crime still grew and flourished,
the offences were as numerous as ever, and their character was mostly
the same. The favourite pastime was that of picking pockets. Boys then
as now were especially skilful at this in a crowd; short, active
little chaps, they slipped through quickly with their booty, and passed
it on to the master who was directing the operations. Shop-lifting,
again, was much practised, the dodge being to creep along on hands
and feet to the shop fronts of haberdashers and linen-drapers, and
snatch what they could. Again, there were clever young thieves who
could "starr" a pane in a window, and so get their hands through the
glass. There were also boys convicted of highway robbery, like Joseph
Wood and Thomas Underwood, one fourteen and the other twelve, both
of whom were hanged. Another boy, barely sixteen, was executed for
setting his master's house on fire. The young incendiary was potboy at
a public-house, and having been reprimanded for neglect, vowed revenge.
Another boy was condemned for forming one of a gang of boys and girls
in a street robbery, who fell upon a man in liquor. The girls attacked
him, and the boys stripped him of all he had.

Perhaps the most astounding precocity in crime was that displayed by
a boy named Leary, who was tried and sentenced to death at thirteen
years of age for stealing a watch and chain from some chambers in the
Temple. He began at the early age of eight, and progressed regularly
from stealing apples to burglary and household robbery. He learned
the trade first from a companion at school. After exacting toll from
the tart-shops, he took to stealing bakers' loaves, then money from
shop-counters and tills, or breaking shop-windows and drawing their
contents through. He often appeared at school with several pounds in
his pocket, the proceeds of his depredations. He soon became captain
of a gang known as Leary's gang, who drove about, armed with pistols,
in a cart, watching for carriages with the trunks fastened outside,
which they could cut away. In these excursions the gang was often out
for a week or more, Leary's share of the profits amounting sometimes to
£100. Once, as the result of several robberies in and about London, he
amassed some £350, but the money was partly stolen from him by older
thieves, or he squandered it in gambling, or in the flash houses. After
committing innumerable depredations, he was captured in a gentleman's
dining-room in the act of abstracting a quantity of plate. He was
found guilty, but out of compassion committed to the Philanthropic
School, but escaped, was again caught, and eventually sentenced to
transportation for life.

The prevailing tastes of the populace were in these times low and
depraved. Their amusements were brutal, their manners and customs
disreputable, their morality at the lowest ebb. It is actually on
record that little more than a hundred years ago a man and his wife
were convicted of offering their niece, "a fine young girl, apparently
fourteen years of age," for sale at the Royal Exchange. Mr. and Mrs.
Crouch were residents of Bodmin, Cornwall, to which remote spot came
a report that maidens were very scarce in London, and that they sold
there for a good price. They accordingly travelled up to town by road,
two hundred and thirty-two miles, and on arrival hawked the poor girl
about the streets. At length they "accosted an honest captain of a
ship, who instantly made known the base proposal they had made to him."
The Crouches were arrested and tried; the man was sentenced to six
months' imprisonment in Newgate, but his wife, as having acted under
his influence, was acquitted.

Traffic in dead bodies was more actively prosecuted. The wretches who
gained the name of Resurrection men despoiled graveyards to purvey
subjects for the dissecting knife. There were dealers who traded openly
in these terrible goods, and, as has been previously described, their
agents haggled for corpses at the foot of the gallows. Sometimes the
culprits were themselves the guardians of the sacred precincts. I find
that the grave-digger of St. George's, Bloomsbury, was convicted,
with a female accomplice, of stealing a dead body, and sentenced to
imprisonment. They were also "whipped twice on their bare backs from
the end of King's Gate Street, Holborn, to Dyot Street, St. Giles,
being half a mile." There was a great development of this crime later
in the persons of Burke and Hare.

Disorderly gatherings for the prosecution of the popular sports were
of constant occurrence. The vice of gambling was openly practised in
the streets. It was also greatly fostered by the metropolitan fairs,
of which there were eighty annually, lasting from Easter to September,
when Bartholomew Fair was held. These fairs were the resort of the idle
and the profligate, and most of the desperate characters in London were
included in the crowd. Another favourite amusement was bull-baiting or
bullock-hunting. Sunday morning was generally chosen for this pastime.
A subscription was made to pay the hire of an animal from some drover
or butcher, which was forthwith driven through the most populous
parts of the town; often across church-yards when divine service was
in progress, pursued by a yelling mob, who goaded the poor brute to
madness with sharp pointed sticks, or thrust peas into its ears. When
nearly dead the poor beast rejoined its herd, and was driven on to
Smithfield market. A system of bull-baits was introduced at Westminster
by two notorious characters known as Caleb Baldwin and Hubbersfield,
otherwise Slender Billy, which attracted great crowds, and led to
drunkenness and scenes of great disorder.

Towards the close of the eighteenth century a still lower and more
debasing amusement sprang suddenly into widespread popularity. The
patronage of pugilism or prize-fighting was no doubt supposed by
many to be the glorification of the national virtues of courage and
endurance. It was also greatly due to the gradual disuse of the
practice of carrying side-arms, when it was thought that quarrels would
be fought out with fists instead of swords. Hence the "noble art of
self-defence," as it was styled magniloquently, found supporters in
every class of society. Prize-fights first became fashionable about
1788, following a great encounter between two noted pugilists, named
Richard Humphreys and Daniel Mendoza, a Jew. Sporting papers were
filled with accounts of the various fights, which peer and pickpocket
attended side by side, and which even a Royal Prince did not disdain
to honour. These professional bruisers owned many noble patrons.
Besides, the Prince of Wales, the Dukes of Clarence and York, the Duke
of Hamilton, Lords Barrymore and others, attended prize-fights and
sparring matches at theatres and public places. A well-known pugilist,
who was summoned for an assault at Covent Garden Theatre, brought
forward in his defence his intimacy with a number of noted people; the
very day on which he was charged, he pleaded that he had dined at the
Piazza Coffee House with General Gwynne, Colonel McDouel, Captains
Barkley and Hanbury, after which they had all gone to the theatre.
These aristocratic friends were, moreover, ready to be useful at a
pinch, and would bail out a pugilist in trouble, or give him their
countenance and support. At the trial of one William Ward, who had
killed a man in a fight, the pugilist was attended by his patrons in
court. The case was a bad one. Ward, on his way to see a fight in the
country, had been challenged by a drunken blacksmith, and proved to
him after a few rounds that he was no match for the trained bruiser.
The blacksmith did not like his "punishment," and tried to escape into
the bar, when his antagonist followed him, and actually beat him to
death. At the trial Ward was found guilty of manslaughter, fined one
shilling, and only sentenced to be imprisoned three months in Newgate.
Yet the judge who inflicted this light punishment condemned boxing as
an inhuman and disgraceful practice, a disgrace to any civilized nation.

To the foregoing categories of undoubted criminals must be added
another somewhat numerous class of offenders, who were so deemed by the
contemporary codes, and who now frequently found themselves relegated
to Newgate. These were days when the press had far from achieved its
present independence; when writers, chafing under restraints and
reckless of consequence, were tempted into license from sheer bravado
and opposition; when others far more innocent were brought under the
same ban of the law, and suffered imprisonment and fine for a hardly
unwarrantable freedom of speech. It is to be feared that the frequent
prosecutions instituted had often their origin in political antipathy.
While ministerial prints might libel and revile the opponents of the
governments, journals which did not spare the party in power were
humiliated and brow-beaten, difficulties were thrown in the way of
their obtaining intelligence, and if they dared to express their
opinions freely, "an information _ex officio_," as it was styled,
was issued by the Attorney-General. Prosecution followed, protracted
to the bitter end. Even what seems to us the harmless practice of
parliamentary reporting was deemed a breach of privilege; it was
tolerated, but never expressly permitted. Offending journalists were
often reprimanded at the bar of the House, and any member who felt
aggrieved at the language attributed to him was at liberty to claim
the protection of the House. When legislators and executive were so
sensitive, it was hardly likely that the great ones, the supposed salt
of the earth, should be less thin-skinned. Any kind of criticism upon
princes of the blood was looked upon as rank blasphemy; the morals of
a not blameless or too reputable aristocracy were guaranteed immunity
from attack, while the ecclesiastical hierarchy was apparently not
strong enough to vindicate its tenets or position without having
recourse to the secular arm.

As time passed, the early martyrs to freedom of speech, such men as
Prynne, Bastwick and Daniel Defoe, were followed by many victims to
similar oppression. One of the first to suffer after Defoe was the
nonjuring clergyman Lawrence Howell, who died in Newgate. He was
prosecuted about 1720 for writing a pamphlet in which he denounced
George I as a usurper. He was tried at the Old Bailey, convicted, and
sentenced to pay a fine of £500 to the king, to find sureties for an
additional sum, to be imprisoned in Newgate for three years, and during
that term to be twice whipped. He was also to be degraded and stripped
of his gown by the common executioner. Howell asked indignantly of
his judges, "Who will whip a clergyman?" "We pay no deference to your
cloth," replied the court, "because you are a disgrace to it, and have
no right to wear it." The validity of his ordination was also denied by
the court, and as Howell continued to protest, the hangman was ordered
to tear off his gown as he stood there at the Bar. The public whipping
was not inflicted, but Howell died soon afterwards in Newgate.

Next came Nathaniel Mist, who was sentenced in 1721 to stand in the
pillory, to pay a fine, and suffer imprisonment for reflecting upon
the action of George I as regards the Protestants in the Palatinate.
His paper, the _Weekly Journal_ or _Saturday's Post_, was notoriously
Jacobite in its views. Soon afterwards he came under the displeasure
of the House of Commons for instituting comparisons between the times
of the rebellion of 1715 and those which followed, and was committed
to Newgate for uttering a "false, malicious, and scandalous libel."
This interference by the House with Mist's publications in a matter
which did not concern its privileges is characterized by Hallam as
an extraordinary assumption of parliamentary power. Tom Paine, whose
rationalist writings gained him much obloquy later on, was one of
the next in point of time to feel the arm of the law. In 1724 he
was convicted of three libels on the Government, fined £100, and
imprisoned for a year. A clergyman, William Rowland, was put in the
pillory in 1729 for commenting too freely in print on two magistrates
who had failed to convict and punish prisoners charged with unnatural
crimes. Mr. Rowland was pilloried in his canonical habit, and preached
all the time to the multitude, complaining of the injustice of his
sentence, whereupon the people, amongst whom were several women, made a
collection for him.

About 1730, newspapers were especially established for purposes of
political party warfare, and each side libelled or prosecuted the
other in turn. The _Craftsman_ about this date sprang into the first
rank for wit and invective. Its editors were constantly in trouble;
the statesmen who supported it had to defend their bantling with
their swords. In 1738 the printer, Henry Haines, was sentenced to two
years' imprisonment for producing the paper. In 1759 Dr. Shebbeare was
fined, put in the pillory, and imprisoned for three years, his offence
being the publication of what was deemed a scandalous libel in his
"Sixth Letter to the English People." Four years later, John Wilkes,
M. P., started the _North Briton_, a Liberal print, in opposition to
Smollet's _Briton_, a Tory paper, which was subsidized and supported
by Lord Bute, then in power. John Wilkes was no doubt assisted by
Lord Temple and John Churchill the satirist. The _North Briton_ had
been intended to assail Lord Bute's government, but it was not until
its forty-fifth number that the dash and boldness of its contributors
attracted general attention. In this number a writer rashly accused
the king of falsehood. The matter was at once taken up; proceedings
were instituted against printer and publisher, who were arrested, as
was also Wilkes. These arrests subsequently formed the subject of
lengthy lawsuits; they were in the end declared illegal, and all three
got heavy damages. Wilkes was, however, expelled from the House, by
whose order the offending numbers of the _North Briton_ were burnt by
the common hangman. But these measures did not extinguish the _North
Briton_, which was continued as far as the two hundred and seventeenth
number, when Mr. William Bingley, a bookseller, who at that time owned
it, was committed to Newgate, and kept there a couple of years for
refusing to reply to interrogatories connected with an earlier number
of the paper. Wilkes, who had fled to France to escape imprisonment,
next fell under the displeasure of the House of Lords. The _London
Evening Post_, a paper which had already come into collision with the
Commons for presuming to publish reports of debates, committed the
seemingly venial offence of inserting a letter from Wilkes, in which he
commented rather freely upon a peer of the realm at that time British
Ambassador in Paris. The House of Lords could not touch Wilkes, but
they took proceedings against the printer for breach of privilege in
presuming to mention the name of one of its members, and fined him
£100. The precedent soon became popular, and in succeeding sessions
printers were constantly fined whenever they mentioned, even by
accident, the name of a peer.

Journalism was in these days an ill-used profession. The reign of
George III must always be remembered as a time when newspapers and
those who wrote them were at the mercy of the people in power. Grant
declares that the despotic and tyrannical treatment of the press during
the several administrations under George III had no parallel in English
history. The executive was capriciously sensitive to criticism, and
readily roused to extreme measures. No newspaper indeed was safe;
the editors of Liberal prints, or their contributors, who touched on
political subjects were at the mercy of the Attorney-General. Any
morning's issue might be made the subject of a prosecution, and every
independent writer on the wrong side went in daily dread of fine,
the pillory, or committal to Newgate. Among the early records of the
great organ which custom has long honoured with the title of the
"leading journal," are several instances of the dangers journalists
encountered. The _Daily Universal Register_, started by the first Mr.
John Walter in 1785, became the _Times_ in 1788. On the 11th July,
1789, the publisher of the paper—at that time Mr. Walter himself—was
tried and convicted of alleged libels on three royal dukes, York,
Gloucester, and Cumberland, whose joy at the recovery of the king the
_Times_ dared to characterize as insincere. The sentence decreed and
inflicted was a fine of £50, imprisonment in Newgate for one year,
and exposure on the pillory at Charing Cross. A second prosecution
followed, intended to protect, and if possible rehabilitate, the Prince
of Wales, and Mr. Walter, having been brought from Newgate for the
trial, was sentenced to a further fine of £100, and a like sum for
a libel on the Duke of Clarence. Mr. Walter remained in Newgate for
eighteen months, and was released in March, 1791, having been pardoned
at the instance of the Prince of Wales.

Nor was the law invoked in favour of these princes alone. A few years
later a foreign monarch obtained equal protection, and the editor,
printer, and publisher of the _Courier_ were fined and imprisoned for
stigmatizing the Czar of Russia as a tyrant among his own subjects, and
ridiculous to the rest of Europe. The House of Peers, including the
Bench of Bishops, continued very sensitive. In 1799 the printer of the
_Cambridge Intelligence_ was brought to the bar of the House, charged
with reflecting on the speech of the Bishop of Llandaff concerning the
union with Ireland. Lord Grenville moved that the printer should be
fined £100 and committed to Newgate; Lord Holland protested, but it was
justified by Lord Kenyon, and the motion was carried. Lord Kenyon did
not spare the unfortunates arraigned before him for libel. One Thomas
Spence, who published a pamphlet called "Spence's Restorer of Society,"
in which the abolition of private ownership of land was advocated, and
its investment in parishes for the good of the public at large, was
brought before Lord Kenyon, and sentenced by him to twelve months'
imprisonment and a fine of £50. Another peer, Lord Ellenborough, who
prosecuted Messrs. White and Hart for a libel in 1808, obtained a
conviction against them, and a sentence of three years' imprisonment.

In 1810 the House of Commons distinguished itself by a prosecution
which led to rather serious consequences. At a debate on the Walcheren
expedition, a member, Mr. Yorke, had insisted from day to day upon
the exclusion of strangers, and another, Mr. Windham, had inveighed
violently against press reporting. Upon this a question was discussed
at a debating society known as the "British Forum," as to whether Mr.
Yorke's or Mr. Windham's conduct was the greater outrage on the public
feeling. The decision was given against Mr. Yorke, and the result
announced in a placard outside. This placard was constituted a breach
of privilege, comment upon the proceedings of the House being deemed a
contravention of the Bill of Rights. A Mr. John Gale Jones confessing
himself the author of the placard, he was forthwith committed to
Newgate. Sir Francis Burdett took Jones's part, and published his
protest, signed, in Cobbett's _Weekly Register_. The House on this
ordered the Sergeant-at-arms to arrest Sir Francis and take him to
the Tower. Sir Francis resisted, and was carried off by force. A riot
occurred _en route_, the crowd attacked the escort, and the troops
fired, with fatal consequences, upon the crowd. Sir Francis appealed
to the law courts, which in the end refused to take cognizance of the
questions at issue, and he was released, returning home in triumph.
Mr. John Gale Jones claimed to be tried, and refused to leave Newgate
without it; but he was got out by a stratagem, loudly complaining
that he had been illegally imprisoned, and illegally thrust out.
Jones was sentenced in the autumn of the same year to twelve months'
imprisonment in Coldbath Fields Gaol. Another and a better known writer
found himself in Newgate about this time. In 1810 William Cobbett was
tried for animadverting too openly upon the indignity of subjecting
English soldiers to corporal punishment, for which he was sentenced
to two years' imprisonment in Newgate, and a fine of £1000. This was
not his first prosecution, but it was by far the most serious. Shorter
sentences of imprisonment were imposed on his printers and publishers,
Messrs. Hansard, Budd, and Bagshaw.

Some other notable criminals found themselves in Newgate about this
date. In 1809 it became the place of punishment for two Government
officials who were convicted of embezzlement on a large scale. The
first, Mr. Alexander Davison, was employed to purchase barrack-stores
for the Government on commission. He was intrusted with this duty
by the barrack-master general, as a person of extensive mercantile
experience, to avoid the uncertainty of trusting to contractors. Mr.
Davison was to receive a commission of two and one-half per cent.
Instead of buying in the best and cheapest markets, he became also
the seller, thus making a profit on the goods and receiving the
commission as well; or, in the words of Mr. Justice Grose, Davison,
when "receiving a stipend to check the frauds of others, and insure
the best commodities at the cheapest rate, became the tradesman and
seller of the article, and had thereby an interest to increase his own
profit, and to commit that fraud it was his duty to prevent." Davison
disgorged some £18,000 of his ill-won profits, and this was taken into
consideration in his sentence, which was limited to imprisonment in
Newgate for twenty-one months. The other delinquent was Mr. Valentine
Jones, who had been appointed commissary-general and superintendent of
forage and provisions in the West Indies in 1795. A large British force
was at that time stationed in the West Indian Islands, which entailed
vast disbursements from the public exchequer. The whole of this money
passed through the hands of Mr. Jones. His career of fraud began as
soon as he took over his duties. Mr. Higgins, a local merchant, came to
him proposing to renew contracts for the supply of the troops, but Mr.
Jones would only consent to their renewal on condition that he shared
Mr. Higgins' profits. Higgins protested, but at length yielded. Within
three years the enormous sum of £87,000 sterling was paid over to Jones
as his share in this nefarious transaction. Mr. Jones was tried at the
King's Bench and sentenced to three years' imprisonment in Newgate.

Soon afterwards a person of very high rank was committed to Newgate.
This was the Marquis of Sligo, who was convicted of enticing British
men-of-war's-men to desert, and sentenced to imprisonment, with a
fine of £5000. Lord Sligo went to Malta soon after leaving college,
and there hired a brig, the _Pylades_, intending to make a yachting
tour in the Grecian Archipelago. The admiral at Malta and other naval
officers helped Lord Sligo to fit out the _Pylades_, and he was
welcomed on board the various king's ships. From one of these several
trusty seamen were shortly afterwards missing. Their captain trusted
to Lord Sligo's honour that he had not decoyed these men, and that he
would not receive them; but at that moment the deserters were actually
on board the _Pylades_, having been enticed from the service by Lord
Sligo's servants. The _Pylades_ then went on her cruise along the
Mediterranean. Suspicion seems still to have rested on Lord Sligo, and
after leaving Palermo the _Pylades_ was chased and brought to by H. M.
S. _Active_. A boat boarded the _Pylades_, her crew was mustered and
examined, but the deserters had been securely hidden in the after hold,
and were not discovered. A little later Lord Sligo sailed for Patmos,
where some of the crew landed and were left behind; among them were the
men-of-war's-men, through whom the whole affair was brought to light.
Lord Sligo was arrested on his return to England, and tried at the
Old Bailey. The evidence was conclusive. In the course of the trial a
letter was put in from Lord Sligo, to the effect that if the business
was brought into court he should do his best to defend himself; if he
did not succeed, he had an ample fortune, and could pay the fines. No
money, however, could save him from incarceration, and in accordance
with the sentence of Sir William Scott, who was supported on the bench
by Lord Ellenborough and Mr. Baron Thompson, the Marquis of Sligo was
sent to Newgate for four months.

FOOTNOTES:

[82:1] The sobriquet of Gentleman Harry was also enjoyed by Henry
Simms, a highwayman who frequented the Lewisham and Blackheath roads.
On one occasion, when travelling into Northamptonshire on a rather
fresh horse, a gentleman who was in a post-chaise remarked to him,
"Don't ride so hard, sir, or you'll soon ride away all your estate."
"Indeed I shall not," replied Simms, "for it lies in several counties,"
and dismounting, he challenged the gentleman to stand, and robbed him
of a hundred and two guineas.

CHAPTER IV

NEWGATE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY

    Newgate still overcrowded—Description of interior—Debtors in
    Middlesex—Debtors in Newgate—Fees extorted—Garnish—Scanty
    food—Little bedding—Squalor and wretchedness prevail
    throughout—Constant quarrels and fighting—Discipline
    maintained only by prisoner wardsmen—Their tyranny and
    extortion—A new debtors' prison indispensable—Building
    of Whitecross Street—The criminal side—Indiscriminate
    association of all classes—The press-yard—Recklessness
    of the condemned—Cashman—The condemned cells—Summary of
    glaring defects in Newgate—Crimes constantly being hatched
    in Newgate—The Corporation roused to reform Newgate—Little
    accomplished.

With criminals and misdemeanants of all shades crowding perpetually
into its narrow limits, the latter state of Newgate was worse than the
first. The new gaol fell as far short of the demands made on it as did
the old. The prison population fluctuated a great deal, but it was
almost always in excess of the accommodation available, and there were
times when the place was full to overflowing. At one time there were
three hundred debtors and nine hundred criminals in Newgate, or twelve
hundred prisoners in all.

In order to realize the evils entailed by incarceration in Newgate in
these days, it is necessary to give some account of its interior as
it was occupied and appropriated in 1810. The gaol at that date was
divided into eight separate and more or less distinct departments, each
of which had its own wards and yard. These were as follows: the male
debtors' side; the female debtors' side; the chapel yard; the middle
yard; the master felons' side; the female felons' side; the state side;
and the press-yard.

The squalor and uncleanness of the debtors' side was intensified by
constant overcrowding. Prisoners were committed to it quite without
reference to its capacity. No remonstrance was attended to, no steps
taken to reduce the number of committals, and the governor was obliged
to utilize the chapel as a day and night room for them. Besides this,
although the families of debtors were no longer permitted to live with
them inside the gaol, hundreds of women and children came in every
morning to spend the day in the prison, and there was no limitation to
the numbers of visitors admitted to the debtors' side. Friends arrived
about nine in the morning, and went out at nine o'clock at night, when
as many as two hundred visitors have been observed leaving the debtors'
yards at one time. The day passed in revelry and drunkenness. Although
spirituous liquors were forbidden, wine and beer might be had in any
quantity, the only limitation being that not more than one bottle of
wine or one quart of beer could be issued at one time. No account
was taken of the amount of liquors admitted in one day, and debtors
might practically have as much as they liked, if they could only pay
for it. No attempt was made to check drunkenness, beyond the penalty
of shutting out friends from any ward in which a prisoner exceeded.
Quarrelling among the debtors was not unfrequent. Blows were struck,
and fights often ensued. For this and other acts of misconduct there
was the discipline of the refractory ward, or "strong room" on the
debtors' side. Bad cases were removed to a cell on the felons' side,
and here they were locked in solitary confinement for three days at a
time.

Order throughout the debtors' side was preserved and discipline
maintained by a system open to grave abuses, which had the prescription
of long usage, and which was never wholly rooted out for many years
to come. This was the pernicious plan of governing by prisoners, or
of setting a favoured few in authority over the many. The head of the
debtors' prison was a prisoner called the steward, who was chosen by
the whole body from six whom the keeper nominated. This steward was
practically supreme. All the allowances of food passed through his
hands; he had the control of the poor-box for chance charities, he
collected the garnish money, and distributed the weekly grant from the
prison charitable fund.

The criminal side of Newgate consisted of the six quarters or yards,
and the inmates, distinguished from the debtors, were comprised in four
classes: those awaiting trial; persons under sentence of imprisonment
for a fixed period, or until they shall have paid certain fines;
transports awaiting removal to the colonies, and capital convicts,
condemned to death and awaiting execution. At one time all of these
different categories were thrown together pell-mell, young and old,
the untried with the convicted. An imperfect attempt at classification
was, however, made in 1812, and a yard was as far as possible set
apart for the untried, or the class, with whom, under the imperious
demand for accommodation, were also associated the misdemeanants.
This was the chapel yard, with its five wards, which were calculated
to accommodate seventy prisoners, but often held many more. A further
sub-classification was attempted by separating at night those charged
with misdemeanours from those charged with felony, but all mingled
freely during the day in the yard. The sleeping accommodation in the
chapel-yard wards, and indeed throughout the prison, consisted of a
barrack bed, which was a wooden flooring on a slightly inclined plane,
with a beam running across the top to serve as a pillow. No beds were
allowed, only two rugs per prisoner. When each sleeper had the full
lateral space allotted to him, it amounted to one foot and a half on
the barrack bed; but when the ward was obliged to accommodate double
the ordinary number, as was frequently the case, the sleepers covered
the entire floor, with the exception of a passage in the middle. All
the misdemeanants, whatever their offence, were lodged in this chapel
ward. As many various and, according to our ideas, heinous crimes came
under this head, in the then existing state of the law, the man guilty
of a common assault found himself side by side with the fraudulent,
or others who had attempted abominable crimes. In this heterogeneous
society were also thrown the unfortunate journalists to whom reference
has already been made.

The middle yard, as far as its limits would permit, was appropriated
to felons and transports. The wards here were generally very crowded.
Constantly associated with these convicted felons were numbers of
juveniles, infants of tender years. There were frequently in the middle
yard seven or eight children, the youngest barely nine, the oldest
only twelve or thirteen, exposed to all the contaminating influences
of the place. Mr. Bennet mentions also the case of young men of better
stamp, clerks in city offices, and youths of good parentage, "in this
dreadful situation," who had been rescued from the hulks through the
kindness and attention of the Secretary of State. "Yet they had been
long enough," he goes on to say, "in the prison associated with the
lowest and vilest criminals, with convicts of all ages and characters,
to render it next to impossible but that, with the obliteration of all
sense of self-respect, the inevitable consequence of such a situation,
their morals must have been destroyed; . . . the lessons they were
taught in this academy, must have had a tendency to turn them into the
world hardened and accomplished in the ways of vice and crime."

Felons who could pay the price were permitted, irrespective of their
character or offences, to purchase the greater ease and comfort of the
master's side. The entrance fee was at least 13_s._ 6_d._ a head, with
half-a-crown a week more for bed and bedding, the wards being furnished
with barrack bedsteads, upon which each prisoner had the regulation
allowance of sleeping room, or about a foot and a half laterally. These
fees were in reality a substantial contribution towards the expenses of
the gaol; without them the keeper declared that he could not pay the
salaries of turnkeys and servants, nor keep the prison going at all.
Besides the gaol fees, there was "garnish" of half-a-guinea, collected
by the steward, and spent in providing coals, candles, plates, knives,
and forks; while all the occupants of this part of the prison supported
themselves; they had the ration of prison bread only, but they had no
share in the prison meat or other charities, and they or their friends
found them in food. All who could scrape together the cash seem to have
gladly availed themselves of the privilege of entering the master's
side. It was the only way to escape the horrors, the distress, penury,
and rags of the common yards. Idleness was not so universally the
rule in this part of the gaol. Artisans and others were at liberty
to work at their trades, provided they were not dangerous. Tailoring
and shoemaking were permitted, but it was deemed unsafe to allow a
carpenter or blacksmith to have his tools. All the money earned by
prisoners was at their own disposal, and was spent almost habitually in
drink and wantonness.

The best accommodation the gaol could offer was reserved for the
prisoners on the state side, from whom still higher fees were exacted,
with the same discreditable idea of swelling the revenues of the
prison. To constitute this the aristocratic quarter, unwarrantable
demands were made upon the space properly allotted to the female
felons, and no lodger was rejected, whatever his status, who offered
himself and could bring grist to the mill. The luxury of the state side
was for a long time open to all who could pay—the convicted felon, the
transport awaiting removal, the lunatic whose case was still undecided,
the misdemeanant tried or untried, the debtor who wished to avoid
the discomfort of the crowded debtors' side, the outspoken newspaper
editor, or the daring reporter of parliamentary debates. The better
class of inmate complained bitterly of this enforced companionship with
the vile, association at one time forbidden by custom, but which greed
and rapacity long made the rule. The fee for admission to the state
side, as fixed by the table of fees, was three guineas, but Mr. Newman
declared that he never took more than two. Ten and sixpence a week
more was charged as rent for a single bed; where two or more slept in
a bed the rent was seven shillings a week each. Prisoners who could
afford it sometimes paid for four beds, at the rate of twenty-eight
shillings, and so secured the luxury of a private room. A Mr. Lundy,
charged with forgery, was thus accommodated on the state side for
upwards of five years. But the keeper protested that no single prisoner
could thus monopolize space if the state side was crowded. The keeper
went still further in his efforts to make money. He continued the
ancient practice of letting out a portion of his own house, and by a
poetical fiction treated it as an annex of the state side. Mr. Davison,
sent to Newgate for embezzlement, was accommodated with a room in Mr.
Newman's house at the extravagant rental of thirty guineas per week;
Mr. Cobbett was also a lodger of Mr. Newman's; and so were any members
of the aristocracy, if they happened to be in funds.

The female felons' wards were always full to overflowing; sometimes
double the number the rooms could accommodate were crowded into them.
There was a master's side for females who could pay the usual fees, but
they associated with the rest in the one narrow yard common to all. The
tried and the untried, young and old, were herded together; sometimes
girls of thirteen, twelve, even ten or nine years of age, were exposed
to all the contagion and profligacy which prevailed in this part of
the prison. There was no separation even for the women under sentence
of death, who lived in a common and perpetually crowded ward. Only when
the order of execution came down were those about to suffer placed
apart in one of the rooms in the arcade of the middle ward.

The press-yard was the receptacle of the male condemned prisoners and
was generally crowded, like the rest of the prison. Except in murder
cases, where the execution was generally very promptly performed,
strange and inconceivable delay occurred in carrying out the extreme
sentences. Hence there was a terrible accumulation of prisoners in the
condemned cells. Once, during the long illness of George III, as many
as one hundred were there waiting the "Report," as it was called. At
another time there were fifty, one of whom had been under sentence a
couple of years. Mr. Bennet speaks of thirty-eight capital convicts
he found in the press-yard in February, 1817, five of whom had been
condemned the previous July, four in September, and twenty-nine
in October. This procrastination bred a certain callousness. Few
realizing that the dreadful fate would overtake them, dismissed the
prospect of death, and until the day was actually fixed, spent the
time in roystering, swearing, gambling, or playing at ball. Visitors
were permitted access to them without stint; unlimited drink was not
denied them provided it was obtained in regulated quantities at one
time. These capital convicts, says Mr. Bennet, "lessened the ennui
and despair of their situation by unbecoming merriment, or sought
relief in the constant application of intoxicating stimulants. I saw
Cashman[125:1] a few hours before his execution, smoking and drinking
with the utmost unconcern and indifference." Those who were thus
reckless reacted upon the penitent who knew their days were numbered,
and their gibes and jollity counteracted the ordinary's counsels or the
independent preacher's earnest prayers. For while Roman Catholics and
Dissenters were encouraged to see ministers of their own persuasion,
a number of amateurs were ever ready to give their gratuitous
ministrations to the condemned.

The prisoners in the press-yard had free access during the day to the
yard and large day room; at night they were placed in the fifteen
cells, two, three, or more together, according to the total number to
be accommodated. They were never left quite alone for fear of suicide,
and for the same reason they were searched for weapons or poisons. But
they nevertheless frequently managed to secrete the means of making
away with themselves, and thus accomplished their purpose. Convicted
murderers were kept continuously in the cells on bread and water,
in couples, from the time of sentence to that of execution, which
was about three or four days generally, from Friday to Monday, so as
to include one Sunday, on which day there was a special service for
the condemned in the prison chapel. This latter was an ordeal which
all dreaded, and many avoided by denying their faith. The condemned
occupied an open pew in the centre of the chapel, hung with black;
in front of them, upon a table, was a black coffin in full view. The
chapel was filled with a curious but callous congregation, who came to
stare at the miserable people thus publicly exposed. Well might Mr.
Bennet write that the condition of the condemned side was the most
prominent of the manifold evils in the present system of Newgate, so
discreditable to the metropolis.

The report of the Committee of the House of Commons painted so black a
picture of Newgate as then conducted, that the Corporation were roused
in very shame to undertake some kind of reform. The above-mentioned
report was ordered to be printed upon the 9th of May. Upon the 29th of
July the same year, the court of aldermen appointed a committee of its
own body, assisted by the town clerk, Mr. Dance, city surveyor, son of
the architect of Newgate, and Mr. Addison, keeper of Newgate, to make
a visitation of the gaols supposed to be the best managed, including
those of Petworth and Gloucester.[127:1]

After much anxious consideration certain improvements were introduced.
The state side ceased to exist, and the female prisoners thus regained
the space of which their quadrangle had been robbed. The privileges
of the master's side also disappeared; fees were nominally abolished,
and garnish was scotched, although not yet killed outright. A certain
number of bedsteads were provided, and there was a slight increase in
the ration of bread. But now the Corporation took alarm at the terrible
expense adequate reform would entail and hence the most crying evils
were left untouched. If a metropolitan prison were to be erected on the
same lines as the recently built prisons of Gloucester and Petworth,
with all the space not only for air and exercise, but for day rooms and
sleeping cells, it would cover some thirty acres, and cost a great deal
more than the city could possibly afford; therefore nothing was done.

FOOTNOTES:

[125:1] Cashman was the only one of the Spafields rioters (1816) who
was capitally convicted and executed. Four others who were arraigned
with him were acquitted by the jury, to the astonishment of the court.
Cashman, who had been a seaman in the Royal Navy, pleaded that he had
been to the Admiralty to claim prize-money to the value of £200 on the
day of the riot. On his way home, half drunk, he had been persuaded to
join the rioters. Cashman's unconcern lasted to the end. As he appeared
on the gallows the mob groaned and hissed the Government, and Cashman
joined in the outcry until the drop fell.

[127:1] Petworth Prison, built in 1785, and Gloucester Penitentiary,
erected in 1791, were the two first gaols established which provided a
separate sleeping cell for every prisoner.

CHAPTER V

PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS

    Absence of religious and moral instruction in Newgate a
    hundred years ago—Chaplains not always zealous—Amateur
    enthusiasts minister to the prisoners—Silas Told, his life and
    work—Wesley leads him to prison visitation—Goes to Newgate
    regularly—Attends the condemned to the gallows—Alexander
    Cruden of the "Concordance" also visits Newgate—A neglectful
    Chaplain—Private philanthropy active—Various societies
    formed—Prison schools—The female side the most disgraceful
    part of the prison—Elizabeth Fry's first visit—The
    School—The Matron—Work obtained—Rules framed—Female prison
    reformed—Newgate on exhibition.

Among the many drawbacks from which the inmates of Newgate suffered
through the eighteenth and the early part of the nineteenth centuries,
was the absence of proper religious and moral instruction. The value
of the ministrations of the ordinary, who was the official ghostly
adviser, entirely depended upon his personal qualities. Now and
again he was an earnest and devoted man, to whom the prisoners might
fully open their hearts. More often he was careless and indifferent,
satisfied to earn his salary by the slightest and most perfunctory
discharge of his sacred duties. There were ordinaries whose fame
rested rather upon their powers of digestion than polemics or pulpit
oratory. The Newgate chaplain had to say grace at city banquets, and
was sometimes called upon to eat three consecutive dinners without
rising from the table. One in particular was noted for his skill in
compounding a salad, another for his jovial companionship. But the
ordinary took life easy, and beyond conducting the services, did little
work. Only when executions were imminent was he especially busy. It
behooved him then to collect matter for his account of the previous
life and misdeeds of the condemned, and their demeanour at Tyburn;
and this, according to contemporary records, led him to get all the
information he could from the malefactors who passed through his hands.

But while the official chaplain lacked zeal or religious fervour, there
were not wanting others more earnest and enthusiastic to add their
unprofessional but devoted efforts to the half-hearted ministrations of
the ordinary of Newgate. A prominent figure in the philanthropic annals
of Newgate is that of Silas Told, who devoted many years of his life to
the spiritual needs of the prisoners. Told's career is full of peculiar
interest. He was a pious child; both father and mother were religious
folk, and brought him up carefully. According to his own memoirs,
when quite an infant he and his sister Dulcibella were wont to wander
into the woods and fields to converse about "God and happiness." Told
passed through many trials and vicissitudes in his early years. At
thirteen he went to sea as an apprentice, and suffered much ill-usage.
He made many voyages to the West Indies and to the Guinea coast, being
a horrified and unwilling witness of some of the worst phases of the
slave trade. He fell into the hands of piratical Spaniards, was cast
away on a reef, saved almost by a miracle, last of all was pressed on
board a man-of-war. Here, on board H. M. S. _Phœnix_ his religious
tendencies were strengthened by a pious captain, and presently he
married and left the sea for ever. After this he became a schoolmaster
in Essex, then a clerk and book-keeper in London. Here he came under
the influence of John Wesley, and although predisposed against the
Methodists, he was profoundly impressed by their leader's preaching.
While listening to a sermon by John Wesley on the suddenness of
conversion, Told heard another voice say to him, "This is the truth,"
and from that time forth he became a zealous Methodist.

It was Wesley who led him to prison visitation. He was at that time
schoolmaster of the Foundry school, and his call to his long and
devoted labours in Newgate were brought about in this wise. "In the
year 1744," to quote his own words, "I attended the children one
morning at the five o'clock preaching, when Mr. Wesley took his text
out of the twenty-fifth chapter of St. Matthew. When he read 'I was
sick and in prison, and ye visited me not,' I was sensible of my
negligence in never visiting the prisoners during the course of my
life, and was filled with horror of mind beyond expression. This threw
me well-nigh into a state of despondency, as I was totally unacquainted
with the measures requisite to be pursued for that purpose. However,
the gracious God, two or three days after, sent a messenger to me in
the school, who informed me of the malefactors that were under sentence
of death, and would be glad of any of our friends who could go and pray
with them. . . . In consequence, I committed my school to my trusty
usher, and went to Newgate."

After this first visit he went there regularly. He described the place
twenty-one years later, but still remembered it vividly, as "such
an emblem of the infernal pit as he never saw before." However, he
struggled bravely on, having a constant pressure upon his mind "to
stand up for God in the midst of them," and praying much for wisdom and
fortitude. He preached as often as he was permitted to both felons and
debtors. But for the first few years, when attending the malefactors,
he met with so many repulses from the keeper and ordinary, as well as
from the prisoners themselves, that he was often greatly discouraged.
"But notwithstanding I more vehemently pressed through all, becoming
the more resolute and taking no denial."

He continued his labours for many years, and in 1767 he visited the
notorious Mrs. Brownrigg, who was sentenced to be hanged for whipping
her servant-maid to death, and whom he accompanied to the gallows. His
death occurred in 1779. He lived to hear of Howard's philanthropic
exertions, and to see the introduction of some small measure of prison
reform.

While Silas Told was thus engaged, another but a more erratic and
eccentric philanthropist paid constant visits to Newgate. This
was Alexander Cruden, the well-known, painstaking compiler of the
"Concordance." For a long time he came daily to the gaol, to preach
and instruct the prisoners in the gospel, rewarding the most diligent
and attentive with money, till he found that the cash thus disbursed
was often spent in drink the moment his back was turned. Through Mr.
Cruden's solicitations a sentence of death upon a forger, Richard
Potter, was commuted to one of transportation.

More precise details of the manner in which a Newgate ordinary
interpreted his trust will be found in the evidence of the Rev.
Brownlow Forde, LL. D., before the committee of 1814. Dr. Forde took
life pretty easy. Had a prisoner sent for him, he told the committee,
he might have gone, but as they did not send, unless they were sick
and thought themselves at death's door, he confined his ministrations
to the condemned, whom he visited twice a week in the day room of
the press-yard, or daily after the order for execution had arrived.
He repudiated the notion that he had anything to do with the state
of morals of the gaol. He felt no obligation to instruct youthful
prisoners, or attend to the spiritual needs of the little children so
often thrown into Newgate. He never went to the infirmary unless sent
for, and did not consider it his duty to visit the sick, and often knew
nothing of a prisoner's illness unless he was warned to attend the
funeral. Among other reasons, he said that as the turnkeys were always
busy, there was no one to attend him. While the chaplain was thus
careless and apathetic, the services he conducted were little likely
to be edifying or decorous. The most disgraceful scenes were common
in the prison chapel. As the prisoners trooped into the galleries
they shouted and halloed to their friends in the body of the church.
Friends interchanged greetings, and "How d'ye do, Sall?" was answered
by "Gallows well, Conkey Beau," as the men recognized their female
acquaintances, and were recognized in turn. The congregation might
be pretty quiet after the chaplain had made his appearance, but more
often it was disorderly from first to last. Any disposed to behave
well were teased and laughed at by others. Unrestricted conversation
went on, accompanied by such loud yawning, laughing, or coughing as
almost impeded the service. No one in authority attempted to preserve
order; the gatesmen, themselves prisoners, might expostulate, but the
turnkeys who were present ignored any disturbance until reminded of
their duty by the chaplain. The keeper never attended service. It was
suggested to him that he might have a pew in the chapel with a private
entrance to it from his own house, but nothing came of the proposal.
It was not incumbent upon the prisoners, except those condemned to
death, to attend chapel. Sometimes it was crowded, sometimes there was
hardly a soul. In severe weather the place, in which there was no fire,
was nearly empty. It was very lofty, very cold, and the prisoners,
ill clad, did not care to shiver through the service. On "curiosity
days," those of the condemned sermon, more came, including debtors
and visitors from outside, who thronged to see the demeanour of the
wretched convicts under the painful circumstances already described.
The service must have been conducted in a very slovenly and irreverent
manner. Dr. Forde had no clerk, unless it chanced that some one in
the condemned pew knew how to read. If not, there were sometimes no
responses, and the whole service was apt to be thrown into confusion.

Dr. Forde seems to have been more in his element when taking the chair
at a public-house "free-and-easy." In the "Book for a Rainy Day," Mr.
Smith gives us an account of a visit which was paid to Dr. Forde at a
public-house in Hatton Garden. "Upon entering the club-room, we found
the Doctor most pompously seated in a superb masonic chair, under
a stately crimson canopy placed between the windows. The room was
clouded with smoke, whiffed to the ceiling, which gave me a better idea
of what I had heard of the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' than any place I
had seen. There were present at least a hundred associates of every
denomination."

It is consoling to find that while officials slumbered, private
philanthropy was active, and had been in some cases for years. Various
societies and institutions had been set on foot to assist and often
replace public justice in dealing with criminals. The Marine Society
grew out of a subscription started by Justices Fielding and Welch,
in 1756, for the purpose of clothing vagrant and friendless lads and
sending them on board the fleet. The Philanthropic Society had been
established in 1789 by certain benevolent persons to supply a home for
destitute boys and girls, and this admirable institution steadily grew
and prospered. In 1794 it moved to larger premises, and in 1817 it had
an income of £6000 a year, partly from subscriptions and legacies,
partly from the profit on labour executed by its inmates.[135:1]
In 1816 another body of well-meaning people, moved by the alarming
increase of juvenile delinquency in the metropolis, formed a society
to investigate its causes, inquire into the individual cases of boys
actually under sentence, and afford such relief upon release as might
appear deserved or likely to prevent a relapse into crime. The members
of this society drew up a list containing seven hundred names of the
friends and associates of boys in Newgate, all of whom they visited
and sought to reform. They went further, and seriously discussed the
propriety of establishing a special penitentiary for juveniles, a
scheme which was not completely carried out. Another institution was
the Refuge for the Destitute, which took in boys and girls on their
discharge from prison, to teach them trades and give them a fair
start in life. There were also the Magdalen Hospital and the Female
Penitentiary, both of which did good work amongst depraved women.

Matters had improved somewhat in Newgate after the report of the
committee in 1814, at least as regards the juveniles. A school had
been established, over which the new ordinary, Mr. Cotton, who about
this time succeeded Dr. Forde, presided, and in which he took a great
interest. The chaplain was in communication with the Philanthropic
and other institutions, and promising cases were removed to them. The
boys were kept as far as possible apart from the men, but not at first
from one another. Hence in the one long room they occupied and used
for all purposes, eating, drinking, and sleeping, the elder and more
vitiated boys were still able to exercise a baneful influence over the
young and innocent. More space became available by the removal of the
debtors to Whitecross Street, and then the boys were lodged according
to classes in four different rooms. Mr. Cotton believed that the boys
benefitted morally from the instruction and care they received. This
juvenile school was the one bright spot in the prevailing darkness of
Newgate at that particular time. Another and a still more remarkable
amelioration in the condition of the prisoners was soon to attract
universal attention. The great and good work accomplished by that noble
woman Mrs. Fry on the female side of Newgate forms an epoch in prison
history, and merits a particular description.

Bad as were the other various courts and so called "sides" in Newgate
prison, the quadrangle appropriated to the females was far worse. Its
foul and degraded condition had attracted the sympathies of Elizabeth
Fry as early as 1813. The winter had been unusually severe, and Mrs.
Fry had been induced by several Friends, particularly by William
Forster, to visit Newgate and endeavour to alleviate the sufferings
of the female prisoners. The space allotted to the women was at that
time still curtailed by the portion given over to the state side. They
were limited to two wards and two cells, an area of about one hundred
and ninety-two superficial yards in all, into which, at the time of
Mrs. Fry's visit, some three hundred women with their children were
crowded, all classes together, felon and misdemeanant, tried and
untried; the whole under the superintendence of an old man and his
son. They slept on the floor, without so much as a mat for bedding.
Many were very nearly naked, others were in rags; some desperate from
want of food, some savage from drink, foul in language, still more
recklessly depraved in their habits and behaviour. Everything was
filthy beyond description. The smell of the place was quite disgusting.
The keeper himself, Mr. Newman, was reluctant to go amongst them. He
strove hard to dissuade Mrs. Fry from entering the wards, and failing
in that, begged her at least to leave her watch in his office, assuring
her that not even his presence would prevent its being torn from her.
Mrs. Fry's own account fully endorses all this. "All I tell thee is a
faint picture of the reality; the filth, the closeness of the rooms,
the ferocious manners and expressions of the women towards each other,
and the abandoned wickedness which everything bespoke, are quite
indescribable." "One act, the account of which I received from another
quarter, marks the degree of wretchedness to which they were reduced at
that time. Two women were seen in the act of stripping a dead child for
the purpose of clothing a living one."

Mrs. Fry made other visits, for she wrote under date Feb. 16th,
1813: "Yesterday we were some hours in Newgate with the poor female
felons, attending to their outward necessities; we had been twice
previously. Before we went away dear Anna Buxton uttered a few words
in supplication, and very unexpectedly to myself I did also. I heard
weeping, and I thought they appeared much tendered. A very solemn quiet
was observed; it was a striking scene, with the poor people around in
their deplorable condition." Mrs. Fry's charity extended to the gift
of clothing, for it is recorded in her memoirs that many members of
her domestic circle had long a vivid recollection of the "green baize
garments," and their pleasure in assisting to prepare them.

Nearly four years elapsed before Elizabeth Fry resumed her visits.
Newgate and what she had seen there had no doubt made a deep impression
on her mind, but a long illness and family afflictions had prevented
her from giving her philanthropic yearnings full play. She appears to
have recommenced her visits about Christmas, 1816, and on Feb. 16th,
1817, there is an entry in her journal to the effect that she had been
"lately much occupied in forming a school in Newgate for the children
of the poor prisoners, as well as the young criminals." It was in this
way that she struck at the hearts of these poor degraded wretches,
who were only too eager to save their children from a life of crime.
"The proposal was received even by the most abandoned with tears of
joy," says Mrs. Fry. The three intervening years between 1813 and
1816 had brought no improvement in the female side. Its inmates—the
very scum of the town—were filthy in their habits and disgusting in
their persons. Mrs. Fry tells us she found the railings in the inner
yard crowded with half-naked women, struggling together for the front
situations with the most boisterous violence, and begging with the
utmost vociferation. As double gratings had now been fixed at some
distance apart to prevent close communication between prisoners and
their visitors, the women had fastened wooden spoons to the end of
long sticks, which they thrust across the space as they clamoured for
alms. Mrs. Fry says that she felt as if she were going into a den of
wild beasts, and that she well recollects quite shuddering when the
door closed upon her, and she was locked in with such a herd of novel
and desperate companions. The women, according to another eyewitness,
sat about the yard on the stones, squalid in attire, ferocious in
aspect. On this occasion a woman rushed out from the ward yelling like
a wild beast; she made the circuit of the yard, brandishing her arms
and tearing the caps or coverings from the heads of the other women.
In spite of these terrible scenes, the ladies—several Friends having
joined with Mrs. Fry—continued to give their attention to the school.
"It was in our visits to the school," she afterwards observed, when
giving evidence before the Parliamentary committee of 1818, "where
some of us attended every day, that we were witnesses of the dreadful
proceedings that went forward on the female side of the prison; the
begging, swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, dressing up in
men's clothes; the scenes are too bad to be described, so that we did
not think it suitable to admit young persons with us."

It is not strange that these miserable women should be absolutely
unsexed. They were often subjected to brutal ill-treatment even
before their arrival at Newgate. Many were brought to the prison
almost without clothes. If coming from a distance, as in the case
of transports lodged in Newgate until embarkation, they were almost
invariably ironed, and often cruelly so. One lady saw the female
prisoners from Lancaster Castle arrive, not merely handcuffed, but with
heavy irons on their legs, which had caused swelling and inflammation.
Others wore iron-hoops round their legs and arms, and were chained to
each other. On the journey these poor souls could not get up or down
from the coach without the whole of them being dragged together. A
woman travelled from Cardigan with an iron hoop round her ankle, and
fainted when it was removed. This woman's story was, that during a long
imprisonment she had worn an iron hoop round her waist, a second round
her leg above the knee, a third at the ankle, and all these connected
by chains. In the waist hoop were two bolts or fastenings, in which her
hands were confined at night when she went to bed. Her bed was only
of straw. These wretched and ill-used creatures might be forgiven if
they at times broke out into rebellion. For a long time it was the
practice with the female transports to riot previous to their departure
from Newgate, breaking windows, furniture, or whatever came in their
reach. Their outrageous conduct continued all the way from the gaol to
the water-side, whither they were conveyed in open wagons, noisy and
disorderly to the last, amidst the jeers and shouts of the assembled
crowds.

Mrs. Fry, as I have said, endeavoured first to form a school. For
this purpose an unoccupied room was set apart by the authorities.
Although looking upon her experiment as hopeless, she received cordial
support from the sheriffs, the governor, Mr. Newman, and the ordinary
of Newgate, Mr. Cotton. The prisoners selected from among themselves
a schoolmistress, Mary Connor by name, who had been committed for
stealing a watch, and "who proved eminently qualified for her task."
The school, which was for children only and young persons under
twenty-five, prospered, and by degrees the heroic band of ladies were
encouraged to greater efforts. The conduct of the prisoners, their
entreaties not to be excluded from the benefits of the school, inspired
Mrs. Fry with confidence, and she resolved to attempt the introduction
of order, industry, and religious feeling into Newgate. In April, 1817,
eleven members of the Society of Friends and another lady, the wife of
a clergyman, formed themselves into an association for the improvement
of the female prisoners in Newgate.[143:1] These devoted persons gave
themselves up entirely to their self-imposed task. With no interval of
relaxation, and with but few intermissions from the call of other and
more imperious duties, they lived among the prisoners. They arrived, in
fact, at the hour of unlocking, and spent the whole day in the prison.

The more crying needs of the Newgate female prison at that date are
indicated in a memorandum found among Mrs. Fry's papers. It was greatly
in need of room, she said. The women should be under the control and
supervision of female, and not, as heretofore, of male officers. The
number of visitors should be greatly curtailed, and all communications
between prisoners and their friends should take place at stated times,
under special rules. The prisoners should not be dependent on their
friends for food or clothing, but should have a sufficiency of both
from the authorities. Employment should be a part of their punishment,
and be provided for them by Government. They might work together in
company, but should be separated at night according to classes, under
a monitor. Religious instruction should be more closely considered.
It was to supply these needs that the committee devoted its efforts,
the ladies boldly promising that if a matron could be found who
would engage never to leave the prison day or night, they would find
employment for the prisoners and the necessary funds until the city
could be induced to meet the expense.

The matron was found, and the first prison matron appointed, an
elderly respectable woman, who proved competent, and discharged her
duties with fidelity. Mrs. Fry next sought the countenance and support
of the governor and chaplain, both of whom met her at her husband's
house to listen to her views and proposals. Mr. Cotton, the ordinary,
was not encouraging; he frankly told her that this, like many other
useful and benevolent designs for the improvement of Newgate, would
inevitably fail. Mr. Newman, however, bade her not despair; but he
afterward confessed that when he came to reflect on the subject,
and especially upon the character of the prisoners, he could not
see even the possibility of success. Both, however, promised their
warmest coöperation. Mrs. Fry next saw one of the sheriffs, asking
him to obtain a salary for the matron, and a room in the prison for
the Ladies' Committee. This sheriff, Mr. Bridges, was willing to help
her if his colleagues and the Corporation agreed, but told her that
his concurrence or that of the city would avail her but little—the
concurrence of the women themselves was indispensable; and that it was
in vain to expect such untamed and turbulent spirits would submit to
the regulations of a woman armed with no legal authority, and unable
to inflict any punishment. Nevertheless, the two sheriffs met Mrs.
Fry at Newgate one Sunday afternoon. The women, seventy in number,
were assembled, and asked whether they were prepared to submit to
the new rules. All fully and unanimously agreed to abide by them, to
the surprise of the sheriffs, who doubted their submitting to such
restraints. Upon this the sheriffs addressed the prisoners, telling
them that the scheme had official support; then turning to Mrs. Fry,
one of the two magistrates said, "Well, ladies, you see your materials."

The evidence of a gentleman who visited Newgate within a fortnight of
the adoption of the new rules may fitly be added here. He went one day
to call on Mrs. Fry at the prison, and was conducted to the women's
side. "On my approach," he says, "no loud or dissonant sounds or angry
voices indicated that I was about to enter a place which I was credibly
assured had long had for one of its titles that of 'Hell above ground.'
The court-yard into which I was admitted, instead of being peopled with
beings scarcely human, blaspheming, fighting, tearing each other's
hair, or gaming with a filthy pack of cards for the very clothes
they wore, which often did not suffice even for decency, presented
a scene where stillness and propriety reigned. I was conducted by a
decently-dressed person, the newly-appointed yards-woman, to the door
of a ward where at the head of a long table sat a lady belonging to
the Society of Friends. She was reading aloud to about sixteen women
prisoners, who were engaged in needlework around it. Each wore a
clean-looking blue apron and bib, with a ticket having a number on it
suspended from her neck by a red tape. They all rose on my entrance,
curtsied respectfully, and then at a signal given resumed their seats
and employments. Instead of a scowl, leer, or ill-suppressed laugh, I
observed upon their countenances an air of self-respect and gravity,
a sort of consciousness of their improved character, and the altered
position in which they were placed. I afterwards visited the other
wards, which were the counterparts of the first."

The efforts of the ladies, which had been at first concentrated upon
the convicted, were soon directed also upon the untried. These still
continued in a deplorable state, quarrelling and disorderly, bolder
and more reckless because they were in doubt as to their future fate.
Unhappily the same measure of success did not wait upon the attempt
on this side. Many of these women counted upon an early release, and
would not take heartily to work, although when they did they were
really and essentially improved. Nor could it be expected that the
new régime could be established without occasional insubordination
and some backsliding. The rules were sometimes broken. Spirits had
been introduced more than once; six or seven cases of drunkenness
had occurred. But the women were careful not to break out before the
ladies; if they swore, it was out of their hearing, and although they
still played cards, it was when the ladies' backs were turned. Mrs. Fry
told the Parliamentary committee how she expostulated with the women
when she found they still gambled, and how she impressed upon them,
if it were true that there were cards in the prison, that she should
consider it a proof of their regard if they would have the candour and
kindness to bring her their packs. By and by a gentle tap came at her
door as she sat alone with the matron, and a trembling woman entered
to surrender her forbidden cards; another and another followed, till
Mrs. Fry had soon five packs of cards in her possession. The culprits
fully expected reproof but Mrs. Fry assured them that their fault
was fully condoned, and, much to their surprise, rewarded them for
their spontaneous good feeling. This reform seems to have been in
the ascendant on the whole, and at the end of the first year it was
satisfactorily proved to competent judges, the past and present Lord
Mayor, the sheriffs, gaolers, and various grand juries, the ordinary,
and others, that an extraordinary change for the better had shown
itself in the conduct of the females.

The work done in Newgate soon obtained much publicity, to the undoubted
and manifest distaste of those who had accomplished it. It was first
noticed in the newspapers by the well-known Robert Owen, who adduced
it as a proof of the effects of kindness and regular habits. Prison
discipline was at this time attracting attention, and Mrs. Fry's
labours were very remarkable in this line. Very soon the female side
at Newgate became quite a show. Every one of any status in society,
every distinguished traveller, all people with high aims or deep
feelings, were constrained to visit the prison. Royalty for the first
time took an interest in the gaol. The Duke of Gloucester was among the
visitors, and was escorted round by Mrs. Fry in person. Another day she
was engaged with the Chancellor of the Exchequer; on a third with the
Home Secretary and the Speaker of the House of Commons. Still higher
and more public honour was done to this noble woman by the Marquis of
Lansdowne in the House of Lords, who in 1818, in a moving address on
the state of the English prisons, spoke in terms of the highest eulogy
of what had been effected by Mrs. Fry and other benevolent persons in
Newgate. After this, admission to view the interior of Newgate was
eagerly sought by numbers of persons whose applications could not well
be refused, in spite of the inconvenience occasioned by thus turning
a place of durance into a sentimental lounge. A more desirable and
useful result of these ministrations was the eagerness they bred in
others to imitate this noble example. Numbers of persons wrote to Mrs.
Fry from all parts of the country, seeking advice and encouragement
as to the formation of similar societies. Even magistrates appealed
to her regarding the management of their prisons. In consequence of
the numerous communications received by the Newgate Association, a
"corresponding committee" was formed to give information and send
replies. Letters came from various capitals of Europe, including St.
Petersburgh, Turin, and Amsterdam, which announced the formation of
Ladies' Societies for prison visiting.

During many years following its inauguration, the "Ladies' Association"
continued their benevolent exertions with marked and well-deserved
success. They did not confine their labours to Newgate, but were
equally active in the other metropolitan prisons. They also made the
female transports their peculiar charge, and obtained many reforms
and ameliorations in the arrangement of the convict ships, and the
provision for the women on landing at the Antipodes. That the first
brilliant successes should be long and continuously maintained could
hardly be expected. As time passed and improvements were introduced,
there was not the same room for active intervention, and it was
difficult to keep alive the early fire. The energy of the Ladies'
Committee, although undiminished, came later on to be occasionally
misapplied.

FOOTNOTES:

[135:1] The Philanthropic Society is identical with the Farm School
at Redhill, in Surrey, one of the most prosperous and best-managed
reformatory schools at the present date. Mr. William Crawfurd,
afterwards one of the first inspectors of prisons, was long an active
member of the committee during the early days of the Society.

[143:1] This was the germ of the Ladies' Committee, which existed down
to 1878.

CHAPTER VI

THE BEGINNING OF PRISON REFORM

    Prison reform generally taken up—Mr. Neild's
    visitation—Howard's great work repeated—Prison Discipline
    Society formed in 1817—Its distinguished members—The
    society animadverts upon condition of various prisons—A
    few brilliant exceptions—Newgate still a byword—Opponents
    of reform—Sydney Smith laughs at efforts of Prison
    Discipline Society—Prisoners' treatment—Scenes of horror in
    Newgate—Serious affrays in the wards—Extra and luxurious
    food admitted—Ladies' Association—No real separation of the
    sexes—The Governor, Mr. Cope, an offender in this respect—The
    press-yard the worst of all—Brutal behaviour of many of those
    sentenced to death—Criminal lunatics allowed to remain in
    Newgate—House of Commons' prisoners monopolize hospital and
    best accommodation in the gaol.

While Elizabeth Fry was engaged upon her self-imposed task in Newgate,
other earnest people, inspired doubtless by her noble example,
were stirred up to activity in the same great work. It began to be
understood that prison reform could only be compassed by continuous
and combined effort. The pleadings, however eloquent, of a single
individual were unable to more than partially remedy the widespread
and colossal evils of British prisons. Howard's energy and devotion
were rewarded by lively sympathy, but the desire to improve which
followed his exposures was short-lived, and powerless to cope with
the persistent neglect of those intrusted with prison management.
Twenty-five years later, Mr. Neild, a second Howard, and as
indefatigable and self-sacrificing, found by personal visitation that
the condition of gaols throughout the kingdom was, with a few bright
exceptions, still deplorable and disgraceful. Mr. Neild was compelled
to admit in 1812 that "the great reformation produced by Howard was
in several places merely temporary: certain prisons which had been
ameliorated under the persuasive influence of his kind advice were
relapsing into their former horrid state of privation, filthiness,
severity, or neglect; many new dungeons had aggravated the evils
against which his sagacity could not but remonstrate; the motives for a
transient amendment were becoming paralyzed, and the effect had ceased
with the cause."

It was in 1817 that a small band of philanthropists resolved to
form themselves into an association for the improvement of prison
discipline. They were hopeless of any general reform by the action
of the executive alone. They felt that private enterprise might with
advantage step in, and by the collection and diffusion of information,
and the reiteration of sound advice, greatly assist the good work. The
association was organized under the most promising auspices. A king's
son, the Duke of Gloucester, was the patron; among the vice-presidents
were many great peers of the realm, several bishops, and a number
of members of the House of Commons, including Mr. Manners Sutton,
Mr. Sturges Bourne, Sir James Mackintosh, Sir James Scarlett, and
William Wilberforce. An active committee was appointed, comprising
many names already well known, some of them destined to become famous
in the annals of philanthropy. One of the moving spirits was the
Honourable H. G. Bennet, M. P., whose vigorous protests against the
lamentable condition of Newgate have already been recorded. Mrs. Fry's
brother, Mr. Samuel Hoare, Junior, was chairman of the committee, on
which also served many noted members of the Society of Friends—Mr.
Gurney, Mr. Fry, Messrs. Forster, and Mr. T. F. Buxton, the coadjutor
of Wilberforce in the great anti-slavery struggle. Mr. Buxton had
already been associated with Mrs. Fry in the Newgate visitation, and
his attention had thus been drawn to the neglected state of English
prisons. These gentlemen formed the famous English Prison Discipline
Society and laboured strenuously and unceasingly in their efforts to
ameliorate the condition of English prisons. They found everywhere a
crying need for reform, although here and there were a few brilliant
exceptions to this cruel, callous neglect. Already, as early as
1818, a prison existed at Bury St. Edmunds which was a model for
imitation to others at that time, and which even fulfilled many of
the exacting requirements of modern days. The great principles of
classification, cleanliness, and employment were closely observed.
There were eighty-four separate sleeping-cells, and unless the gaol was
overcrowded, every inmate passed the night alone, and in comparative
comfort, with a bed and proper bedding. The prison stood on a dry, airy
situation outside the town. Prisoners on reception were treated as
they are now-a-days—bathed, dressed in prison clothes, and inspected
by the surgeon. No irons were worn except as a punishment. Personal
cleanliness was insisted upon, and all parts of the prison were kept
scrupulously clean. There was an infirmary, properly found and duly
looked after. No idleness was permitted among the inmates. Trades were
taught, or prisoners were allowed to follow their own if suitable.
There was, besides, a mill for grinding corn, somewhat similar to
a turn-spit, which prisoners turned by walking in rows. This made
exertion compulsory, and imposed hard labour as a proper punishment.
Another gaol, that of Ilchester, was also worthy of all commendation.
It exhibited all the good points of that at Bury. At Ilchester the
rule of employment had been carried further. A system not adopted
generally till nearly half a century later had already prevailed at
Ilchester. The new gaol had been in a great measure constructed by the
prisoners themselves. Masons, bricklayers, carpenters, painters had
been employed upon the buildings, and the work was pronounced excellent
by competent judges. Industrial labour had also been introduced
with satisfactory results. Blanket weaving and cloth spinning were
carried on prosperously, and all the material for prisoners' apparel
was manufactured in the gaol. There were work-rooms for wool-washing,
dyeing, carding, and spinning. The looms were constantly busy. Tailors
were always at work, and every article of clothing and bedding was made
up within the walls. There was a prison laundry too, where all the
prisoners' linen was regularly washed. The moral welfare of the inmates
was as closely looked after as the physical. There was an attentive
chaplain, a schoolmaster, and regular instruction.

Compared with the last mentioned institutions Newgate compared
unfavourably. Its evils were inherent and irremediable, and the
need for reform was imperative, yet there were those who, wedded to
ancient ideas, were intolerant of change, and they would not admit the
existence of any evils. One smug alderman, a member of the House of
Commons, sneered at the ultra philanthropy of the champions of prison
improvement. Speaking in a debate on prison matters, he declared
that "our prisoners have all that prisoners ought to have, without
gentlemen think they ought to be indulged with Turkey carpets." The
Society for the Improvement of Prison Discipline was taxed with a
desire to introduce a system tending to divest punishment of its just
and salutary terrors; an imputation which the Society indignantly and
very justly repudiated, the statement being, as they said, "refuted by
abundant evidence, and having no foundation whatever in truth."

Among those whom the Society found arrayed against it was Sydney
Smith, who, in a caustic article contributed to the "Edinburgh
Review," protested against the pampering of criminals. While fully
admitting the good intentions of the Society, he condemned their
ultra humanitarianism as misplaced. He took exceptions to various of
the proposals of the Society. He thought they tended too much toward
a system of indulgence and education in gaols. He objected to the
instruction of prisoners in reading and writing. "A poor man who
is lucky enough," he said, "to have his son committed for a felony
educates him under such a system for nothing, while the virtuous
simpleton who is on the other side of the wall is paying by the quarter
for these attainments." He was altogether against too liberal a diet;
he disapproved of industrial occupations in gaols, as not calculated
to render prisons terrible. "There should be no tea and sugar, no
assemblage of female felons around the washing-tub, nothing but beating
hemp and pulling oakum and pounding bricks—no work but what was
tedious, unusual. . . . In prisons, which are really meant to keep the
multitude in order, and to be a terror to evil-doers, there must be no
sharings of profits, no visiting of friends, no education but religious
education, no freedom of diet, no weavers' looms or carpenters'
benches. There must be a great deal of solitude, coarse food, a dress
of shame, hard, incessant, irksome, eternal labour, a planned and
regulated and unrelenting exclusion of happiness and comfort."

Undeterred by these sarcasms and misrepresentations, the Society
pursued its laudable undertaking with remarkable energy and great
singleness of purpose. After a few years of active exertion legislation
was obtained to enforce the needful change, but still Newgate continued
a bye-word. Some reforms had certainly been introduced, such as the
abolition of irons, already referred to, and the establishment of
male and female infirmaries. The regular daily visitation of the
chaplain was also insisted upon. But it was pointed out in 1823
that defective construction must always bar the way to any radical
improvement in Newgate. Without enlargement no material change in
discipline or interior economy could possibly be introduced. The chapel
still continued incommodious and insufficient; female prisoners were
still exposed to the full view of the males, the netting in front
of the gallery being perfectly useless as a screen. In 1824 Newgate
had no glass in its windows, except in the infirmary and one ward of
the chapel yard; and the panes were filled in with oiled paper, an
insufficient protection against the weather; and as the window-frames
would not shut tight, the prisoners complained much of the cold,
especially at night. In 1827 the Society was compelled to report that
"no material change had taken place in Newgate since the passing of the
prison laws of 1823-4, and that consequently the observance of their
most important provisions was habitually neglected."

And so it went on—the same old story—evil constantly in the
ascendant, the least criminal at the mercy of the most depraved. Under
the reckless contempt for regulations, the apathy of the authorities,
and the undue prominence of those who, as convicted felons, should have
been most sternly repressed, the most hardened and the oldest in vice
had the best of it, while the inexperienced beginner went to the wall.
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, who spent three years in Newgate from 1835,
said with justice that incredible scenes of horror occurred there.
It was, in his opinion, the greatest nursery of crime in London. The
days were passed in idleness, debauchery, riotous quarrelling, immoral
conversation, gambling, in direct contravention of parliamentary rules,
instruction in all nefarious processes, lively discourse upon past
criminal exploits, elaborate discussion of others to be perpetrated
after release. No provision whatever was made for the employment of
prisoners, no materials were purchased, no trade instructors appointed.
There was no school for adults; only the boys were taught anything,
and their instructor, with his assistant, were convicted prisoners.
Idle hands and unoccupied brains found in mischief the only means of
whiling away the long hours of incarceration. Gaming of all kinds,
although forbidden by the Gaol Acts, was habitually practised. This was
admitted in evidence by the turnkeys, and was proved by the appearance
of the prison tables, which bore the marks of gaming-boards deeply cut
into them. Prisoners confessed that it was a favourite occupation, the
chief games being "shoving halfpence" on the table, pitch in the hole,
cribbage, dominoes, and common tossing, at which as much as four or
five shillings would change hands in an hour.

But this was not the only amusement. Most of the wards took in the
daily papers, the most popular being the "Times," "Morning Herald,"
and "Morning Chronicle;" on Sunday the "Weekly Dispatch," "Bell's
Life," and the "Weekly Messenger." The newsman had free access to the
prison; he passed in unsearched and unexamined, and, unaccompanied by
an officer, went at once to his customers, who bought their paper and
paid for it themselves. The news-vendor was also a tobacconist, and he
had thus ample means of introducing to the prisoners the prohibited
but always much-coveted and generally procurable weed. In the same way
the wardsman laid in his stock to be retailed. Other light literature
besides the daily journals was in circulation: novels, flash songs,
play-books, such as "Jane Shore," "Grimm's German Tales," with
Cruikshank's illustrations, and publications which in these days would
have been made the subject of a criminal prosecution. One of these,
published by Stockdale, was stigmatized officially as a book of the
most disgusting nature. There was also a good supply of Bibles and
prayers, the donation of a philanthropic gentleman, Captain Brown, but
these, particularly the Bibles, bore little appearance of having been
used. Drink, in more or less unlimited quantities, was still to be had.
Spirits certainly were now excluded; but a potman, with full permission
of the sheriffs, brought in beer for sale from a neighbouring
public-house, and visited all the wards with no other escort than the
prisoner gatesman. The quantity to be issued per head was limited by
the prison regulations to one pint, but no steps were taken to prevent
any prisoner from obtaining more if he could pay for it. The beer-man
brought in as much as he pleased; he sold it without the controlling
presence of an officer. Not only did prisoners come again and again
for a "pint," but large quantities were carried off to the wards to be
drunk later in the day.

There were more varied, and at times, especially when beer had
circulated freely, more uproarious diversions. Wrestling, in which legs
were occasionally broken, was freely indulged in; also such low games
as "cobham," leap-frog, puss in the corner, and "fly the garter," for
which purpose the rugs were spread out to prevent feet slipping on the
floor. Feasting alternated with fighting. The weekly introduction of
food, to which I shall presently refer, formed the basis of luxurious
banquets, washed down by liquor and enlivened by flash songs and
thrilling long-winded descriptions of robberies and other "plants."
There was much swearing and bad language, the very worst that could be
used, from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night.
New arrivals, especially the innocent and still guileless debutant,
were tormented with rude horse-play, and assailed by the most insulting
"chaff." If any man presumed to turn in too early he was "toed," that
is to say, a string was fastened to his big toe while he was asleep,
and he was dragged from off his mat, or his bedclothes were drawn away
across the room. The ragged prisoners were very anxious to destroy the
clothes of the better dressed, and often lighted small pieces of cloth,
which they dropped smouldering into their fellow-prisoners' pockets.
Often the victim, goaded to madness, attacked his tormentors; a fight
was then certain to follow. These fights sometimes took place in the
day-time, when a ring was regularly formed, and two or three stood by
the door to watch for the officer's approach. More often they occurred
at night, and were continued to the bitter end. The prisoners in this
way administered serious punishment on one another. Black eyes and
broken noses were always to be seen.

More cruel injuries were common enough, which did not result from
honest hand-to-hand fights. The surgeon's journal contained numerous
entries of terrible wounds inflicted in a cowardly way. "A serious
accident: one of the prisoners had a hot poker run into his eye." "A
lad named Matthew White has had a wound in his eye by a bone thrown
at him, which very nearly destroyed vision." "There was a disturbance
in the transport yard yesterday evening, and the police were called
in. During the tumult a prisoner, . . . who was one of the worst of the
rioters, was bruised about the head and body." "Watkins' knee-joint
is very severely injured." "A prisoner Baxter is in the infirmary in
consequence of a severe injury to his wrist-joint." Watkins' case,
referred to above, is made the subject of another and a special report
from the surgeon. He was in the transport side, when one of his
fellows, in endeavouring to strike another prisoner with a large poker,
missed his aim, and struck Watkins' knee. . . . Violent inflammation and
extensive suppuration ensued, and for a considerable time amputation
seemed inevitable. After severe suffering prolonged for many months,
the inflammation was subdued, but the cartilage of the knee-joint was
destroyed, and he was crippled for life. On another occasion a young
man, who was being violently teased, seized a knife and stabbed his
tormentor in the back. The prisoner who used the knife was secured,
but it was the wardsman, and not the officers, to whom the report was
made, and no official inquiry or punishment followed.

Matters were at times still worse, and the rioting went on to such
dangerous lengths as to endanger the safety of the building. On one
occasion a disturbance was raised which was not quelled until windows
had been broken and forms and tables burned. The officers were obliged
to go in among the prisoners to restore order with drawn cutlasses,
but the presence and authority of the governor himself became
indispensable. The worst fights occurred on Sunday afternoons; but
nearly every night the act of locking up became, from the consequent
removal of all supervision, the signal for the commencement of obscene
talk, revelry, and violence.

Other regulations laid down by the Gaol Acts were still defied. One of
these was that prisoners should be restricted to the gaol allowance
of food; but all could still obtain as much extra, and of a luxurious
kind, as their friends chose to bring them in. Visitors were still
permitted to come with supplies on given days of the week, about the
only limitation being that the food should be cooked, and cold; hot
meat, poultry, and fish were forbidden. But the inspectors found
in the ward cupboards mince-pies and other pasties, cold joints,
hams, and so forth. Many other articles were introduced by visitors,
including money, tobacco, pipes, and snuff. From the same source came
the two or three strong files found in one ward, together with four
bradawls, several large iron spikes, screws, nails, and knives; all
of them instruments calculated to facilitate attempts to break out of
prison, and capable of becoming most dangerous weapons in the hands
of desperate and determined men. The nearly indiscriminate admission
of visitors, although restricted to certain days, continued to be
an unmixed evil. The untried might see their friends three times a
week, the convicted only once. On these occasions precautions were
supposed to be taken to exclude bad characters, yet many persons of
notoriously loose life continually obtained admittance. Women saw men
if they merely pretended to be wives; even boys were visited by their
sweethearts. Decency was, however, insured by a line of demarcation,
and visitors were kept upon each side of a separated double iron
railing. But no search was made to intercept prohibited articles at
the gate, and there was no permanent gate-keeper, which would have
greatly helped to keep out bad characters. Some idea of the difficulty
and inconvenience of these lax regulations as regards visiting, may be
gathered from the statement that as many as three hundred were often
admitted on the same day—enough to altogether upset what small show
of decorum and discipline was still preserved in the prison. Perhaps
the worst feature of the visiting system was the permission accorded to
male prisoners under the name of husbands, brothers, and sons to have
access to the female side on Sundays and Wednesdays, in order to visit
their supposed relations there.

On this female side, where the Ladies' Association still reigned
supreme, more system and a greater semblance of decorum was maintained.
But the separation of the sexes was not rigidly carried out in Newgate
as yet. We have seen that male prisoners visited their female relations
and friends on the female side. Besides this, the gatesman who prepared
the briefs had interviews with female prisoners alone while taking
their instructions; a female came alone and unaccompanied by a matron
to clean the governor's office in the male prison; male prisoners
carried coal into the female prison, when they saw and could speak or
pass letters to the female prisoners; and the men could also at any
time go for tea, coffee, and sugar to Mrs. Brown's shop, which was
inside the female gate. In the bail-dock, where most improper general
association was permitted, the female prisoners were often altogether
in the charge of male turnkeys. The governor was also personally
responsible for gross contravention of this rule of separation, and
was in the habit of drawing frequently upon the female prison for
prisoners to act as domestic servants in his own private dwelling.
Some members of the Ladies' Association observed and commented upon
the fact that a young rosy-cheeked girl had been kept by the governor
from transportation, while older women in infirm health were sent
across the seas. His excuse was that he had given the girl his promise
that she should not go, an assumption of prerogative which by no
means rested with him; but he afterwards admitted that the girl had
been recommended to him by the principal turnkey, who knew something
of her friends. This woman was really his servant, employed to help
in cleaning, and taken on whenever there was extra work to be done.
The governor had a great dislike, he said, to seeing strangers in his
house. This girl had been first engaged on account of the extra work
entailed by certain prisoners committed by the House of Commons, who
had been lodged in the governor's own house. The house at this time
was full of men and visitors; waiters came in from the taverns with
meals. Some of the prisoners had their valets, and all these were
constantly in and out of the kitchen where this female prisoner was
employed. There was revelling and roystering, as usual, with "high life
below-stairs." The governor sent down wine on festive occasions, of
which no doubt the prisoner housemaid had her share. It can hardly be
denied that the governor, in his treatment of this woman, was acting in
flagrant contravention of all rules.

Bad as were the various parts of the gaol already dealt with, there
still remained one where the general callous indifference and
mismanagement culminated in cruel and culpable neglect. The condition
of the capitally-convicted prisoners after sentence was still very
disgraceful. The side they occupied, still known as the press-yard,
consisted of two dozen rooms and fifteen cells. In these various
chambers, until just before the inspectors made their report, all
classes of the condemned, those certain to suffer, and the larger
number who were nearly certain of a reprieve, were mingled without
discrimination, the old and the young, the murderer and the child
who had broken into a dwelling. All privacy was impossible under the
circumstances. At times the numbers congregated were very great; as
many as fifty or sixty, and even a larger number, were crowded into the
press-yard. The better-disposed complained bitterly of what they had
to endure; one man declared that the language of the condemned rooms
was disgusting, that he was dying a death every day in being compelled
to associate with such characters. In the midst of the noisy and
blasphemous talk no one could pursue his meditations; and any who tried
to pray became the sport and ridicule of his brutal fellows.

Owing to the repeated entreaties of the criminals who could hardly hope
to escape the gallows, some show of classification was carried out, and
when the inspectors visited Newgate they found the three certain to
die in a day-room by themselves; in a second room were fourteen more
who had every hope of a reprieve. The whole of these seventeen had,
however, a common airing-yard, and took their exercise there at the
same time, so that men in the most awful situation, daily expecting
to be hanged, were associated continually with a number of those who
could look with certainty on a mitigation of punishment. The latter,
light-hearted and reckless, conducted themselves in the most unseemly
fashion, and with as much indifference as the inmates of the other
parts of the prison. They amused themselves after their own fashion;
played all day long at blind-man's-buff and leap-frog, or beat each
other with a knotted handkerchief, laughing and uproarious, utterly
unmindful of the companionship of men upon whom lay the shadow of an
impending shameful death. Men whose fate was uncertain, and those most
seriously inclined, complained of these annoyances, so subversive of
meditation, so disturbing to the thoughts; they suffered sickening
anxiety, and wished to be locked up alone. This indiscriminate
association lasted for months, during the whole of which time the
unhappy convicts who had but little hope of commutation were exposed to
the mockery of their reckless associates.

The lax discipline maintained in Newgate was still further deteriorated
by the presence of two other classes of prisoners who ought never
to have been inmates of such a gaol. One of these were the criminal
lunatics, who were at this time and for long previous continuously
imprisoned there. As the law stood at that particular time any two of
the justices might remove a prisoner found to be insane, either on
commitment or arraignment, to an asylum, and the Secretary of State
had the same power as regards any who became insane while undergoing
sentence. These powers were not invariably put in force, and there
were in consequence many unhappy lunatics in Newgate and other gaols,
whose proper place was the asylum. At the time the Lords' Committee
sat there were eight thus retained in Newgate, and a return in the
appendix of the Lords' report gives a total of thirty-nine lunatics
confined in various gaols, many of them guilty of murder and other
serious crimes. The inspectors in the following year, on examining the
facts, found that some of these poor creatures had been in confinement
for long periods: at Newgate and York Castle as long as five years;
at Ilchester and Morpeth for seven years; at Warwick for eight years,
at Buckingham and Hereford for eleven years, at Appleby for thirteen
years, at Anglesea for fifteen years, at Exeter for sixteen years, and
at Pembroke for no less a period than twenty-four years.

It was manifestly wrong that such persons, visited by the most dreadful
of calamities, should be detained in a common prison. Not only did
their presence tend greatly to interfere with the discipline of the
prison, but their condition was deplorable in the extreme. The lunatic
became the sport of the idle and the depraved. His cure was out of the
question; he was placed in a situation "beyond all others calculated to
confirm his malady and prolong his sufferings." The matter was still
further complicated at Newgate by the presence within the walls of
sham lunatics. Some of those included in the category had actually been
returned as sane from the asylum to which they had been sent, and there
was always some uncertainty as to who was mad and who not. Prisoners
indeed were known to boast that they had saved their necks by feigning
insanity. It was high time that the unsatisfactory state of the law
as regards the treatment of criminal lunatics should be remedied, and
not the least of the good services rendered by the new inspectors was
their inquiry into the status of these unfortunate people, and their
recommendation to improve it.

The other inmates of the prison, of an exceptional character, and
exempted from the regular discipline, such as it was, were the ten
persons committed to Newgate by the House of Commons in 1835. These
were the gentlemen concerned in the bribery case at Ipswich in that
year.

Many of the old customs once prevalent in the State Side, so properly
condemned and abolished, were revived for the convenience of these
gentlemen, whose incarceration was thus rendered as little like
imprisonment as possible. A certain number, who could afford the high
rate of a guinea per diem, fixed by the under sheriff, were lodged in
the governor's house, slept there, and had their meals provided for
them from the Sessions' House or London Coffee-House. A few others, who
could not afford a payment of more than half a guinea, were permitted
to monopolize a part of the prison infirmary, where the upper ward was
exclusively appropriated to their use. They also had their meals sent
in, and, with the food, wine almost _ad libitum_. A prisoner, one of
the wardsmen, waited on those in the infirmary; the occupants of the
governor's house had their own servants, or those of the governor. As
a rule, visitors, many of them persons of good position, came and went
all day long, and as late as nine at night; some to the infirmary,
many more to the governor's house. There were no restraints, cards and
backgammon were played, and the time passed in feasting and revelry.
Even Mr. Cope admitted that the committal of this class of prisoners to
Newgate was most inconvenient.

Enough has probably been said to give a complete picture of the
disgraceful state in which Newgate still remained in the early part of
the nineteenth century.

CHAPTER VII

INTERESTING INSTANCES

    Description of the new gallows at Newgate—"The fall
    of the leaf"—Great crowds at the Old Bailey, and as
    brutal as of old—Enormous crowd at Governor Wall's
    execution—Execution of Holloway and Haggerty—Terrible loss
    of life in the crowd—Awful levity displayed—Amelioration
    of the criminal code—Executions more rare—Capital
    punishment gradually restricted to murderers—Dissection
    of the bodies abolished—Public exhibition of bodies also
    discontinued—Exhibition of the body of Williams, who
    murdered the Marrs—Hanging in chains given up—Failures at
    executions—Culprits fight for life—Cases of Charles White, of
    Luigi Buranelli, of William Bousfield—Calcraft and his method
    of hanging—Other hangmen—The cost of a hangman.

The discontinuance of the long-practised procession to Tyburn, and the
reasons for this change have already been fully set forth. The terrible
spectacle was as demoralizing to the public, for whose admonition
it was intended, as the exposure was brutal and cruel towards the
principal actors. The decision to remove the scene of action to the
immediate front of Newgate was in the right direction, as making the
performance shorter and diminishing the area of display. But the Old
Bailey was not exclusively used; at first, and for some few years after
1784, executions took place occasionally at a distance from Newgate.
This was partly due to the survival of the old notion that the scene
of the crime ought also to witness the retribution; partly because
residents in and about the Old Bailey raised a loud protest against the
constant erection of the scaffold in their neighbourhood. As regards
the first, I find that in 1786 John Hogan, the murderer of a Mr. Odell,
an attorney who resided in Charlotte Street, Rathbone Place, was
executed on a gibbet in front of his victim's house. Lawrence Jones, a
burglar, was in 1793 ordered for execution in Hatton Garden, near the
house he had robbed; and when he evaded the sentence by suicide, his
body was exhibited in the same neighbourhood, extended upon a plank on
the top of an open cart, in his clothes, and fettered. From 1809 to
1812, Execution Dock, on the banks of the Thames, was still retained.
Here John Sutherland, commander of the British armed transport "The
Friends," suffered on the 29th June, 1809, for the murder of his
cabin-boy, whom he stabbed after much ill-usage on board the ship as
it lay in the Tagus. On the 18th December, 1812, two sailors, Charles
Palm and Sam Tilling, were hanged at the same place for the murder of
their captain, James Keith, of the trading vessel "Adventure," upon
the high seas. They were taken in a cart to the place of execution,
amidst a vast concourse of people. "Palm, as soon as he was seated in
the cart, put a quid of tobacco into his mouth, and offered another to
his companion, who refused it with indignation. . . . Some indications
of pity were offered for the fate of Tilling; for Palm, execration
alone."

But the Old Bailey gradually, and in spite of all objections urged,
monopolized the dread business of execution. The first affair of the
kind on this spot was on the 3rd of December, 1783, when, in pursuance
of an order issued by the Recorder to the sheriffs of Middlesex and
the keeper of His Majesty's gaol, Newgate, a scaffold was erected in
front of that prison for the execution of several convicts named by the
Recorder. "Ten were executed; the scaffold hung with black; and the
inhabitants of the neighbourhood, having petitioned the sheriffs to
remove the scene of execution to the old place, were told that the plan
had been well considered, and would be persevered in." The following
23rd April, it is stated that the malefactors ordered for execution on
the 18th inst. were brought out of Newgate about eight in the morning,
and suspended on a gallows of a new construction. "After hanging the
usual time they were taken down, and the machine cleared away in
half-an-hour. By practice the art is much improved, and there is no
part of the world in which villains are hanged in so neat a manner, and
with so little ceremony."

A full description of this new gallows, which was erected in front
of the debtors' door, is to be found in contemporary records. "The
criminals are not exposed to view till they mount the fatal stage.
The last part of the stage, or that next to the gaol, is enclosed by
a temporary roof, under which are placed two seats for the reception
of the sheriffs, one on each side of the stairs leading to the
scaffold. Round the north, west, and south sides are erected galleries
for the reception of officers, attendants, etc., and at the distance
of five feet from the same is fixed a strong railing all round the
scaffold to enclose a place for the constables. In the middle of this
machinery is placed a movable platform, in form of a trap-door, ten
feet long by eight wide, on the middle of which is placed the gibbet,
extending from the gaol across the Old Bailey. This movable platform
is raised six inches higher than the rest of the scaffold, and on it
the convicts stand; it is supported by two beams, which are held in
their place by bolts. The movement of the lever withdraws the bolts,
the platform falls in;" and this, being much more sudden and regular
than that of a cart drawn away, had the effect of causing immediate
death. A broadsheet dated April 24th, 1787, describing an execution on
the newly invented scaffold before the debtors' door, Newgate, says,
"The scaffold on which these miserable people suffered is a temporary
machine which was drawn out of the yard of the sessions' house by
horses; . . . it is supported by strong posts fixed into grooves made in
the street; . . . the whole is temporary, being all calculated to take
to pieces, which are preserved within the prison."

This contrivance appears to have been copied, with improvements,
from that which had been used in Dublin at a still earlier date; for
that city claims the priority in establishing the custom of hanging
criminals at the gaol itself. The Dublin "engine of death," as the
gallows are styled in the account from which the following description
is taken, consisted of an iron bar parallel to the prison wall, and
about four feet from it, but strongly affixed thereto with iron scroll
clamps. "From this bar hang several iron loops, in which the halters
are tied. Under this bar at a proper distance is a piece of flooring
or platform, projecting somewhat beyond the range of the iron bar, and
swinging upon hinges affixed to the wall. The entrance upon this floor
or leaf is from the middle window over the gate of the prison; and
this floor is supported below, while the criminals stand upon it, by
two pieces of timber, which are made to slide in and out of the prison
wall through apertures made for that purpose. When the criminals are
tied up and prepared for their fate, this floor suddenly falls down,
upon withdrawing the supporters inwards. They are both drawn at once
by a windlass, and the unhappy culprits remain suspended." This mode
of execution, it is alleged, gave rise to the old vulgar chaff, "Take
care, or you'll die at the fall of the leaf." The machinery in use in
Dublin is much the same as that employed at many gaols now-a-days. But
the fall apart and inwards of two leaves is considered superior. The
latter is the method still followed at Newgate.

The sentences inflicted in front of Newgate were not limited to
hanging. In the few years which elapsed between the establishment of
the gallows at Newgate and the abolition of the practice of burning
females for petty treason, more than one woman suffered this penalty
at the Old Bailey. One case is preserved by Catnach, that of Phœbe
Harris, who in 1788 was "barbariously" executed and afterward burned
before Newgate for coining. She is described as a well-made little
woman, something more than thirty years of age, of a pale complexion
and not disagreeable features. "When she came out of prison she
appeared languid and terrified, and trembled greatly as she advanced
to the stake, where the apparatus for the punishment she was about to
experience seemed to strike her mind with horror and consternation,
to the exclusion of all power of recollectedness in preparation for
the approaching awful moment." She walked from the debtors' door to
a stake fixed in the ground about halfway between the scaffold and
Newgate Street. She was immediately tied by the neck to an iron bolt
fixed near the top of the stake, and after praying fervently for a few
minutes, the steps on which she stood were drawn away, and she was left
suspended. A chain fastened by nails to the stake was then put round
her body by the executioner with his assistants. Two cart-loads of
faggots were piled about her, and after she had hung for half-an-hour
the fire was kindled. The flames presently burned the halter, the body
fell a few inches, and hung then by the iron chain. The fire had not
quite burned out at twelve, in nearly four hours, that is to say. A
great concourse of people attended on this melancholy occasion.

The change from Tyburn to the Old Bailey had worked no improvement as
regards the gathering together of the crowd or its demeanour. As many
spectators as ever thronged to see the dreadful show, and they were
packed into a more limited space, disporting themselves as heretofore
by brutal horseplay, coarse jests, and frantic yells. It was still the
custom to offer warm encouragement or bitter disapproval, according
to the character and antecedents of the sufferer. The highwayman,
whose exploits many in the crowd admired or emulated, was cheered
and bidden to die game; the man of better birth could hope for no
sympathy, whatever his crime. At the execution of Governor Wall, in
1802, the furious hatred of the mob was plainly apparent in their
appalling cries. His appearance on the scaffold was the signal for
three prolonged shouts from an innumerable populace, the brutal
effusion of one common sentiment. It was said that so large a crowd
had never collected since the execution of Mrs. Brownrigg, nor had the
public indignation risen so high. Pieman and ballad-monger did their
usual roaring trade amidst the dense throng. No sooner was the job
finished than half-a-dozen competitors appeared, each offering the
identical rope for sale at a shilling an inch. One was the "yeoman of
the halter," a Newgate official, the executioner's assistant, whom Mr.
J. T. Smith, who was present at the execution, describes as "a most
diabolical-looking little wretch—Jack Ketch's head man." The yeoman
was, however, undersold by his wife, "Rosy Emma, exuberant in talk and
hissing hot from Pie Corner, where she had taken her morning dose of
gin-and-bitters." A little further off, says Mr. Smith, was "a lath
of a fellow past threescore years and ten, who had just arrived from
the purlieus of Black Boy Alley, woebegone as Romeo's apothecary,
exclaiming, 'Here's the identical rope at sixpence an inch.'"

Whenever the public attention had been specially called to a particular
crime, either on account of its atrocity, the doubtfulness of the
issue, or the superior position of the perpetrator, the attendance at
the execution was certain to be tumultuous, and the conduct of the mob
disorderly. This was notably the case at the execution of Holloway
and Haggerty in 1807, an event long remembered from the fatal and
disastrous consequences which followed it. They were accused by a
confederate, who, goaded by conscience, had turned approver, of the
murder of a Mr. Steele, who kept a lavender warehouse in the city,
and who had gardens at Feltham, whither he often went to distil the
lavender, returning to London the same evening. One night he was
missing, and after a long interval his dead body was discovered,
shockingly disfigured, in a ditch. Four years passed without the
detection of the murderers, but in the beginning of 1807 one of them,
at that time just sentenced to transportation, made a full confession,
and implicated Holloway and Haggerty. They were accordingly apprehended
and brought to trial, the informer, Hanfield by name, being accepted as
king's evidence. Conviction followed mainly on his testimony; but the
two men, especially Holloway, stoutly maintained their innocence to the
last. Very great excitement prevailed in the town throughout the trial,
and this greatly increased when the verdict was known.

An enormous crowd assembled to witness the execution, amounting, it
was said, to the hitherto unparalleled number of forty thousand. By
eight o'clock not an inch of ground in front of the platform was
unoccupied. The pressure soon became so frightful that many would have
willingly escaped from the crowd; but their attempts only increased
the general confusion. Very soon women began to scream with terror;
some, especially of low stature, found it difficult to remain standing,
and several, although held up for some time by the men nearest them,
presently fell, and were at once trampled to death. Cries of Murder!
murder! were now raised, and added greatly to the horrors of the scene.
Panic became general. More women, children, and many men were borne
down, to perish beneath the feet of the rest. The most affecting and
distressing scene was at Green Arbour Lane, just opposite the debtors'
door of the prison. Here a couple of piemen had been selling their
wares; the basket of one of them, which was raised upon a four-legged
stool, was upset. The pieman stooped down to pick up his scattered
stock, and some of the mob, not seeing what had happened, stumbled over
him. No one who fell ever rose again. Among the rest was a woman with
an infant at the breast. She was killed, but in the act of falling she
forced her child into the arms of a man near her, and implored him
in God's name to save it; the man, needing all his care for his own
life, threw the child from him, and it passed along the heads of the
crowd, to be caught at last by a person who struggled with it to a cart
and deposited it there in safety. In another part of the crowd seven
persons met their death by suffocation.

In this convulsive struggle for existence people fought fiercely with
one another, and the weakest, of course the women, went under. One
cart-load of spectators having broken down, some of its occupants fell
off the vehicle, and were instantly trampled to death. This went on for
more than an hour, until the malefactors were cut down and the gallows
removed; then the mob began to thin, and the streets were cleared by
the city marshals and a number of constables. The catastrophe exceeded
the worst anticipations. Nearly one hundred dead and dying lay about;
and after all had been removed, the bodies for identification, the
wounded to hospitals, a cart-load of shoes, hats, petticoats, and
fragments of wearing apparel were picked up. St. Bartholomew's Hospital
was converted into an impromptu morgue, and all persons who had
relatives missing were admitted to identify them. Among the dead was a
sailor lad whom no one knew; he had his pockets filled with bread and
cheese, and it was generally supposed that he had come a long distance
to see the fatal show.

A tremendous crowd assembled when Bellingham was executed in 1812
for the murder of Spencer Percival, at that time prime minister; but
there were no serious accidents, beyond those caused by the goring of
a maddened, over-driven ox which forced its way through the crowd.
Precautions had been taken by the erection of barriers, and the
posting of placards at all the avenues to the Old Bailey, on which
was printed, "Beware of entering the crowd! Remember thirty poor
persons were pressed to death by the crowd when Haggerty and Holloway
were executed!" The concourse was very great, notwithstanding these
warnings. It was still greater at Fauntleroy's execution in 1824, when
no less than 100,000 persons assembled, it was said. Every window
and roof which could command a view of the horrible performance was
occupied. All the avenues and approaches, places whence nothing could
be seen of the scaffold, were blocked by persons who had overflowed
from the area in front of the gaol.

At Courvoisier's execution in 1840 it was the same, or worse. As early
as six o'clock the number assembled already exceeded that seen on
ordinary occasions; by seven o'clock the whole space was so thronged
that it was impossible to move one way or the other. Some persons
were kept for more than five hours standing against the barriers, and
many nearly fainted from exhaustion. Every window had its party of
occupants; the adjoining roofs were equally crowded. High prices were
asked and paid for front seats or good standing room. As much as £5
was given for the attic story of the Lamb's Coffee House; £2 was a
common price for a window. At the George public-house to the south of
the drop, Sir W. Watkin Wynn, Bart., hired a room for the night and
morning, which he and a large party of friends occupied before and
during the execution; in an adjoining house, that of an undertaker,
was Lord Alfred Paget, also with several friends. Those who had hired
apartments spent the night in them, keeping up their courage with
liquids and cigars. Numbers of ladies were present, although the public
feeling was much against their attendance. One well-dressed woman fell
out of a first-floor window on to the shoulders of the crowd below, but
neither she nor any one else was greatly hurt. The city authorities
had endeavoured to take all precautions against panic and excitement
among the crowd, and caused a number of stout additional barriers to be
erected in front of the scaffold, and although one of these gave way
owing to the extraordinary pressure, no serious accident occurred.

But there is little doubt that as executions became more rare they made
more impression on the public mind. Already a strong dislike to the
reckless and almost indiscriminate application of the extreme penalty
was apparent in all classes, and the mitigation of the criminal code,
for which Romilly had so strenuously laboured, was daily more and more
of an accomplished fact. In 1832 capital punishment was abolished for
forgery, except in cases of forging or altering wills or powers of
attorney to transfer stock. Nevertheless, after that date no person
was executed for this offence. In the same year capital punishment
was further restricted, and ceased to be the legal sentence for
coining, sheep or horse stealing, and stealing in a dwelling-house.
House-breaking, as distinguished from burglary, was similarly
exempted in the following year; next, the offences of returning from
transportation, stealing post-office letters, and sacrilege were no
longer punishable with death. In 1837 Lord John Russell's Acts swept
away a number of capital offences, including cutting and maiming,
rick-burning, robbery, burglary, and arson. Within two years the
number of persons sentenced to death in England had fallen from four
hundred and thirty-eight in 1837 to fifty-six in 1839. Gradually the
application of capital punishment became more and more restricted, and
was soon the penalty for murder alone. While in London, for instance,
in 1829, twenty-four persons had been executed for crimes other than
murder, from 1832 to 1844 not a single person had been executed in the
metropolis except for this the gravest crime. In 1837 the death penalty
was practically limited to murder or attempts to murder, and in 1841
this was accepted as the almost universally established rule. Seven
other crimes, however, were still capital by law, and so continued till
the passing of the Criminal Consolidation Acts of 1861.

With the amelioration of the criminal code, other cruel concomitants
of execution also disappeared. In 1832 the dissection of bodies cut
down from the gallows, which had been decreed centuries previous, was
abolished; the most recent enactment in force was that which directed
the dissection of all bodies of executed murderers, the idea being
to intensify the dread of capital punishment. That such dread was
not universal or deep-seated may be gathered from the fact that well
authenticated cases were known of criminals selling their own bodies
to surgeons for dissection. This dissection was performed for Newgate
prisoners in Surgeons' Hall, adjoining Newgate, the site of the present
Sessions' House of the Old Bailey, and the operation was witnessed by
students and a number of curious spectators. Lord Ferrers' body was
brought to Surgeons' Hall after execution in his own carriage and six;
after the post mortem had been performed, the corpse was exposed to
view in a first-floor room.

Pennant speaks of Surgeons' Hall as a handsome building, ornamented
with Ionic pilasters, and with a double flight of steps to the first
floor. Beneath is a door for the admission of the bodies of murderers
and other felons. There were other public dissecting rooms for
criminals. One was attached to Hicks' Hall, the Clerkenwell Sessions'
House, built out of monies provided by Sir Baptist Hicks, a wealthy
alderman of the reign of James I. Persons were still living in 1855 who
had witnessed dissections at Hicks' Hall, and "whom the horrid scene,
with the additional effect of some noted criminals hanging on the
walls, drove out again sick and faint, as we have heard some relate,