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                            The History and
                              Romance of
                                 Crime

                        FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
                          TO THE PRESENT DAY

                       [Illustration: colophon]

                          THE GROLIER SOCIETY
                                LONDON




[Illustration: _The Chapel at Newgate_]




                         Chronicles of Newgate

                      FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
                           TO ITS DEMOLITION
                         A SKETCH OF THE TOWER

                                 _by_

                        MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS

             _Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_

                              _Author of
                  "The Mysteries of Police and Crime"
                "Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._

                            In Two Volumes

                               Volume II

                          THE GROLIER SOCIETY




  EDITION NATIONALE

  Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.

  NUMBER 307




INTRODUCTION


The gaol of Newgate may be taken as the type of all the early prisons,
the physical expression of manifold neglect and mismanagement from the
thirteenth century down to our own times. The case of all prisoners in
England was desperate, their sufferings heartrending, their treatment
an indelible disgrace to a nation claiming to be civilized. The place
of durance was sometimes underground, a dungeon, or subterranean
cellar, into which the prisoners were lowered, to fight with rats for
the meagre pittance of food thrown to them through a trap-door. These
terrible _oubliettes_ were too often damp and noisome, half a foot
deep in water, or with an open sewer running through the centre of
the floor. They had no chimneys, no fire-place, no barrack beds; the
wretched inmates huddled together for warmth upon heaps of filthy rags
or bundles of rotten straw reeking with foul exhalations. There was
not the slightest attempt at ventilation, as we understand the word.
The windows, when they existed, were seldom if ever opened, nor the
doors; the spaces within the prison walls were generally too limited to
allow of daily exercise, and the prisoners were thus kept continuously
under lock and key. Water, another necessary of life, was doled out in
the scantiest quantities, too small for proper ablutions or cleansing
purposes, and hardly sufficient to assuage thirst. John Howard, the
great philanthropist, tells us of one prison where the daily allowance
of water was only three pints per head, and even this was dependent
upon the good will of the keepers, who brought it or not, as they felt
disposed. At another prison, water could only be had on payment, the
price being a halfpenny for three gallons.

The rations of food were equally meagre. In some prisons almost nothing
was given; in others, the prisoners subsisted on water-soup—"bread
boiled in mere water." The poor debtors were the worst off. For the
felon, thief, murderer, or highwayman there was a grant either in
money or in kind—a pennyworth of bread per diem, or a shilling's
worth per week, or a certain weight of bread: but the debtors, who
formed three-fourths of the permanent prison population, and whose
liabilities on an average did not exceed ten or fifteen pounds a piece,
were almost starved to death. The bequests of charitable people,
especially intended for their support, were devoted to other uses;
creditors seldom if ever paid the "groat," or fourpence per diem for
the subsistence of their imprisoned debtors required by the Act. Any
alms collected within the prison by direct mendicancy were commonly
intercepted by the ruffians who ruled the roost. When gaolers applied
to the magistrates for food for the debtors the answer was, "Let them
work or starve;" yet work was forbidden, lest the tools they used might
fall into the hands of criminal prisoners, and furnish means of escape.
At Exeter the prisoners were marched about the city soliciting charity
in the streets. One Christmas-tide, so Howard says, the person who
conducted them broke open the alms-box and absconded with the contents.
The debtors' ward in this gaol was called the "shew," because the
debtors begged by letting down a _shoe_ from the window.

Prison buildings were mostly inconvenient, ill-planned, and but little
adapted for the purposes of incarceration. Many of them were ancient
strongholds—the gate of some fortified city, the keep or castle or
embattled residence of a great personage. Some lords, spiritual and
temporal, with peculiar powers in their own districts, once had their
prisons, so to speak, under their own roof. Their prisons lingered long
after the power lapsed, and in Howard's time many of the worst prisons
were the private property of individuals, who protected the keepers,
their lessees, and pocketed the gains wrung from the wretched lodgers.
The Duke of Portland was the proprietor of Chesterfield gaol, which
consisted of one room with a cellar under it. For this accommodation,
and the privilege it conferred upon him of demanding gaol fees, the
keeper paid the Duke an annual rent of eighteen guineas. "The cellar,"
Howard says, "had not been cleaned for months, nor the prison door
opened for several weeks." Another disgraceful prison was that owned
by the Bishop of Ely. One bishop had been compelled to rebuild it in
part fourteen years before Howard's visit, but it was still bad. It had
been so insecure that the keeper resorted to a most cruel contrivance
in order to ensure safe custody. Prisoners were chained down upon their
backs upon a floor, across which were several iron bars, with an iron
collar with spikes about their necks, and a heavy iron bar over their
legs. This barbarous treatment formed the subject of a special petition
to the king, supported by a drawing, "with which His Majesty was much
affected, and gave immediate orders for a proper inquiry and redress."

Loading prisoners with irons was very generally practised, although its
legality was questioned even then. Lord Coke gave his opinion against
the oppression. Bracton affirmed that a sentence condemning a man to
be confined in irons was illegal, and in "Blackstone Commentaries" is
this passage: "The law will not justify jailers in fettering a prisoner
unless when he is unruly, or has attempted an escape." In 1728 the
judges reprimanded the warders of the Fleet prison, and declared that
a jailer could not answer the ironing of a man before he was found
guilty of a crime. When a keeper pleaded necessity for safe custody to
Lord Chief Justice King, the judge bade him "build higher his prison
walls." As Buxton observes, the neglect of this legal precaution was no
excuse for the infliction of an illegal punishment. Prisoners should
not suffer because authorities neglect their duty. "Very rarely is a
man ironed for his own misdeeds, but frequently for those of others;
traditional irons on his person are cheaper than additional elevation
to the walls. Thus we cover our own negligence by increased severity to
our captives."

The irons were so heavy that walking and even lying down to sleep was
difficult and painful. In some county gaols women did not escape this
severity, Howard tells us, but London was more humane. In the London
prisons the custom of ironing even the untried males was long and
firmly established. An interesting letter is extant from John Wilkes,
dated 1771, the year of his shrievalty to the keeper of Newgate, Mr.
Akerman. This letter expresses satisfaction with his general conduct,
and admits his humanity to the unhappy persons under his care. But
Wilkes takes strong exceptions to the practice of keeping the prisoners
in irons at the time of arraignment and trial, which he conceives to be
alike repugnant to the laws of England and humanity.

"Every person at so critical a moment ought to be without any bodily
pain or restraint, that the mind may be perfectly free to deliberate on
its most interesting and awful concerns, in so alarming a situation.
It is cruelty to aggravate the feelings of the unhappy in such a state
of distraction, and injustice to deprive them of any means for the
defence of supposed innocence by calling off the attention by bodily
torture at the great moment when the full exertion of every faculty is
most wanting. No man in England ought to be obliged to plead while in
chains; we therefore are determined to abolish the present illegal and
inhuman practice, and we direct you to take off the irons before any
prisoner is sent to the bar either for arraignment or trial."

Avarice was no doubt a primary cause of the ill-treatment of prisoners,
and heavy fees were exacted to obtain "easement" or "choice" of irons.
This idea of turning gaols to profit underlaid the whole system of
prison management. The gaolers bought or rented their places, and
they had to recoup themselves as best they could. A pernicious vested
interest was thus established, which even the legislature acknowledged.
The sale of strong drink within the prison, and the existence of a
prison tap or bar, were recognized and regulated by law. Drunkenness in
consequence prevailed in all prisons, fostered by the evil practice of
claiming garnish, which did not disappear till well on into the past
century. Another universal method of grinding money out of all who
came within the grip of the law was the extortion of gaol fees. It was
the enormity of demanding such payment from innocent men, acquitted
after a fair trial, who in default were hauled back to prison, that
first moved Howard to inquire into the custom at various prisons.
As early as 1732 the Corporation of London had promulgated an order
that all prisoners acquitted at the Old Bailey should be released
without fees. But when Howard visited Newgate forty years later, Mr.
Akerman the keeper showed him a table of fees "which was given him
for his direction when he commenced keeper." The sums demanded varied
from 8_s._ 10_d._ for a debtor's discharge, to 18_s._ 10_d._ for a
felon's, and £3 6_s._ 8_d._ for a bailable warrant. The exactions for
fees, whether for innocent or guilty, tried or untried, was pretty
general throughout the kingdom, although Howard found a few prisons
where there were none. Even in his suggestions for the improvement of
gaols, although recommending the abolition of fees and the substitution
of a regular salary to the gaoler, he was evidently doubtful of
securing so great a reform, for he expresses a hope that if fees were
not altogether abolished they may at least be reduced. However, the
philanthropist found a welcome support from Mr. Popham, M. P. for
Taunton, who in 1773 brought in a bill abolishing gaolers' fees, and
substituting for them fixed salaries payable out of the county rates,
which bill passed into law the following year in an amended form. This
Act provided that acquitted prisoners should be immediately set at
large in open court. Yet the law was openly evaded by the clerks of
assize and clerks of the peace, who declared that their fees were not
cancelled by the Act, and who endeavoured to indemnify themselves by
demanding a fee from the gaoler for a certificate of acquittal. In one
case at Durham, Judge Gould at the assizes in 1775 fined the keeper
£50 for detaining acquitted prisoners under this demand of the clerk
of assize, but the fine was remitted on explanation. Still another
pretence often put forward for detaining acquitted prisoners until
after the judge had left the town was, that other indictments might be
laid against them; or yet again, prisoners were taken back to prison to
have their irons knocked off, irons with which, as free, unconvicted
men, they were manacled illegally and unjustly.

Perhaps the most hideous and terrible of all evils was the disgraceful
and almost indiscriminate overcrowding of the gaols. It was immediate
parent of gaol fever. The rarity of gaol deliveries was a proximate
cause of the overcrowding.

The expense of entertaining the judges was alleged as an excuse for
not holding assizes more than once a year; but at some places—Hull,
for instance—there had been only one gaol delivery in seven years,
although, according to Howard, it had latterly been reduced to three.
Often in the lapse of time principal witnesses died, and there was
an acquittal with a failure of justice. Nor was it only the accused
and unconvicted who lingered out their lives in gaol, but numbers of
perfectly innocent folk helped to crowd the narrow limits of the
prison-house. Either the mistaken leniency, or more probably the
absolutely callous indifference of gaol-rulers, suffered debtors to
surround themselves with their families, pure women and tender children
brought thus into continuous intercourse with felons and murderers, and
doomed to lose their moral sense in the demoralizing atmosphere. The
prison population was daily increased by a host of visitors, improper
characters, friends and associates of thieves, who had free access to
all parts of the gaol. In every filthy, unventilated cell-chamber the
number of occupants was constantly excessive. The air space for each
was often less than 150 cubic feet, and this air was never changed. Of
one room, with its beds in tiers, its windows looking only into a dark
entry, its fireplace used for the cooking of food for forty persons,
it was said that the man who planned it could not well have contrived
a place of the same dimensions more effectually calculated to destroy
his fellow-creatures. The loathsome corruption that festered unchecked
or unalleviated within the prison houses was never revealed until
John Howard began his self-sacrificing visitations, and it is to the
pages of his "State of Prisons" that we must refer for full details,
some of which would be incredible were they not vouched for on the
unimpeachable testimony of the great philanthropist.




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                     PAGE
        INTRODUCTION                             5

     I. THE GAOL FEVER                          19

    II. THE REBUILDING OF NEWGATE               37

   III. CELEBRATED CRIMES AND CRIMINALS         53

    IV. NEWGATE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY      116

     V. PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS                  128

    VI. THE BEGINNING OF PRISON REFORM         150

   VII. INTERESTING INSTANCES                  171

  VIII. NEWGATE NOTORIETIES                    193

    IX. LATER RECORDS                          251

     X. THE TOWER OF LONDON                    297




List of Illustrations


  NEWGATE CHAPEL                         _Frontispiece_

  COMPTER, GILTSPUR ST., LONDON               _Page_  31

  THIEVING LANE (BOW STREET)                     "    78

  THE GREAT COURT OF THE TOWER, LONDON           "   297




  CHRONICLES OF
  NEWGATE




CHAPTER I

THE GAOL FEVER

    The gaol fever the visible exponent of foul state of
    gaols—Neither sufficient light, air or space—Meagre
    rations—Its ravages—Extends from prisons to court-houses—To
    villages—Into the army and the fleet—The Black
    Assize—The sickness of the House at the King's Bench
    prison—The gaol fever in the 17th century—Its outbreaks
    in the 18th—The Taunton Assize—Originated in Newgate
    in 1750—Extends to Old Bailey with deadly results—The
    Corporation alarmed—Seek to provide a remedy—Enquiry
    into the sanitary condition of Newgate—Statistics of
    deaths—No regular doctor at Newgate—Mr. Akerman's
    brave and judicious conduct at a fire in prison—The
    sexes intermixed—Debauchery—Gaming—Drunkenness—Moral
    contamination—Criminals willingly took military service to
    escape confinement in Newgate.


The gaol fever or distemper, which originated in Newgate in 1750,
was the natural product of unsanitary conditions. This fell epidemic
exercised strange terrors by the mystery which once surrounded it;
but this has now been dispelled by the search-light of modern medical
science. All authorities are agreed that it was nothing but that typhus
fever, which inevitably goes hand in hand with the herding and packing
together of human beings, whether in prisons, workhouses, hospitals, or
densely-populated quarters of a town. The disease is likely to crop up
"wherever men and women live together in places small in proportion to
their numbers, with neglect of cleanliness and ventilation, surrounded
by offensive effluvia, without proper exercise, and scantily supplied
with food." It is easy to understand that the poison would be generated
in gaol establishments such as Newgate; still more, that prisoners
would be saturated with it so as to infect even healthy persons whom
they approached. This is precisely what happened, and it is through the
ravages committed by the disorder beyond the prison walls that we learn
the most. The decimation it caused within the gaol might have passed
unnoticed, but the many authentic cases of the terrible mortality it
occasioned elsewhere forced it upon the attention of the chronicler. It
made the administration of the law a service of real danger, while its
fatal effects can be traced far beyond the limits of the court-house.
Prisoners carried home the contagion to the bosoms of their families,
whence the disease spread into town or village. They took it on board
ship, and imported it into our fleets. "The first English fleet sent
to America lost by it above 2,000 men; . . . the seeds of infection were
carried from the guardships into the squadrons; and the mortality
thence occasioned was greater than by all other diseases or means of
death put together." It was the same with the army: regiments and
garrisons were infected by comrades who brought the fever from the
gaol; sometimes the escorts returning with deserters temporarily lodged
in prison also sickened and died.

The earliest mention of a gaol distemper is that quoted by Howard from
Stowe, under date 1414, when "the gaolers of Newgate and Ludgate died,
and prisoners in Newgate to the number of sixty-four." In "Wood's
History of Oxford" there is a record of a contagious fever which broke
out at the assize of Cambridge in 1521. The justices, gentlemen,
bailiffs, and others "resorting thither took such an infection that
many of them died, and almost all that were present fell desperately
sick, and narrowly escaped with their lives." After this comes the
Black Assize at Oxford in 1577, when, Holinshed says, "there arose
amidst the people such a dampe that almost all were smouldered, very
few escaping . . . the jurors presently dying, and shortly after Sir
Robert Bell, Lord Chief Baron." To this account we may add that of
"Baker's Chronicle," which states that all present died within forty
hours, the Lord Chief Baron, the sheriff, and three hundred more.
The contagion spread into the city of Oxford, and thence into the
neighbourhood, where there were many more deaths. Stowe has another
reference to the fever about this date, and tells us that in the
King's Bench Prison, in the six years preceding the year 1579, a
hundred died of a certain contagion called "the sickness of the house."
Another outbreak occurred at Exeter, 1586, on the occasion of holding
the city assizes, when "a sudden and strange sickness," which had
appeared first among the prisoners in the gaol, was dispersed at their
trial through the audience in court, "whereof more died than escaped,"
and of those that succumbed, some were constables, some reeves, some
tithing men or jurors. No wonder that Lord Bacon, in writing on the
subject, should characterize "the smell of the jail the most pernicious
infection, next to the plague. When prisoners have been long and close
and nastily kept, whereof we have had in our time experience twice or
thrice, both judges that sat upon the trial, and numbers of those that
attended the business or were present, sickened upon it and died."

The gaol distemper is but sparingly mentioned throughout the
seventeenth century, but as the conditions were precisely the same,
it is pretty certain that the disease existed then, as before and
after. But in the first half of the eighteenth century we have detailed
accounts of three serious and fatal outbreaks. The first was at the
Lent Assizes held in Taunton in 1730, "when," Howard says, "some
prisoners who were brought thither from the Ilchester gaol infected the
court; and Lord Chief Baron Pengelly, Sir James Shepherd, sergeant,
John Pigott, Esq., sheriff, and some hundreds besides, died of the
gaol distemper." The second case occurred also in the west country,
at Launceston, where "a fever which took its rise in the prisons was
disseminated far and near by the county assizes, occasioned the death
of numbers, and foiled frequently the best advice." It is described
as a contagious, putrid, and very pestilential fever, attended
with tremblings, twitchings, restlessness, delirium, with, in some
instances, early frenzy and lethargy; while the victims broke out often
into livid pustules and purple spots. The third case of gaol fever
was in London in 1750, and it undoubtedly had its origin in Newgate.
At the May Sessions at the Old Bailey there was a more than usually
heavy calendar, and the court was excessively crowded. The prisoners
awaiting trial numbered a hundred, and these were mostly lodged in two
rooms fourteen feet by seven, and only seven feet in height; but some,
and no doubt all in turn, were put into the bail dock; many had long
lain close confined in the pestiferous wards of Newgate. The court
itself was of limited dimensions, being barely thirty feet square, and
in direct communication with the bail dock and rooms beyond, whence
an open window, at the farther end of the room, carried a draught
poisoned with infection towards the judges' bench. Of these four, viz.,
Sir Samuel Pennant, the Lord Mayor, Sir Thomas Abney and Baron Clark,
the judges, and Sir Daniel Lambert, alderman, were seized with the
distemper, and speedily died; others, to the number of forty, were also
attacked and succumbed. Among them were some of the under-sheriffs,
several members of the bar and of the jury; while in others of lesser
note the disease showed itself more tardily, but they also eventually
succumbed. Indeed, with the exception of two or three, none of
those attacked escaped. The symptoms were the same as these already
described, including the delirium and the spots on the skin.

The Corporation of London, moved thereto by a letter from the Lord
Chief Justice, and not unnaturally alarmed themselves at the ravages of
a pestilence which spared neither Lord Mayor nor aldermen, set about
inquiring into its origin. A committee was appointed for this purpose
in October, 1750, five months after the last outbreak, and their
instructions were to ascertain "the best means for procuring in Newgate
such a purity of air as might prevent the rise of those infectious
distempers." . . . The committee consulted the Rev. Dr. Hales and Dr.
Pringle, F. R. S., and the latter subsequently published a paper in the
"Transactions of the Philosophical Society," containing much curious
information concerning the disease. The remedy suggested by Dr. Hales,
and eventually approved of by the committee, was to further try the
ventilator which some time previously had been placed upon the top of
Newgate. Nothing less than the reconstruction on an extended plan of
the prison, which was acknowledged to be too small for its average
population, would have really sufficed, but this, although mooted,
had not yet taken practical shape. The existing ventilator was in
the nature of a main trunk or shaft, into which other air-pipes led
from various parts of the prison. But these were neither numerous nor
effective, while there was no process of extraction or of obtaining
an updraught. To effect this a machine was erected upon the leads
of Newgate with large arms like those of a windmill. Nevertheless,
throughout the execution of the work and afterwards the air of Newgate
continued pestiferous and fatal to all who breathed it.

The gaol fever or its germs must indeed have been constantly present in
Newgate. The more crowded the prison the more sickly it was. The worst
seasons were the middle of winter or the middle of summer, or when the
weather was damp and wet. The place was seldom without some illness or
other; but in one year, according to Mr. Akerman, about sixteen died in
one month from the gaol distemper. Mr. Akerman declared that the fever
was all over the gaol, and that in ten years he had buried eight or
ten of his servants. He also gave a return to the Commons' committee,
which showed that eighty-three prisoners had died between 1758 and
1765, besides several wives who had come to visit their husbands, and
a number of children born in the gaol. This statement was supported by
the evidence of the coroner for Middlesex, Mr. Beach, who went even
further, and made out that one hundred and thirty-two had died between
1755 and 1765, or forty-nine more in the two additional years. In 1763
the deaths had been twenty-eight, all of them of contagion, according
to Mr. Beach, who was also of opinion that a large percentage of all
the deaths which had occurred were due to the gaol fever.

Twenty years later, when Howard was visiting prisons, he heard it
constantly affirmed by county gaolers that the gaol distemper was
brought into their prisons by those removed under Habeas Corpus from
Newgate. In May, 1763, I find an inquisition was held in the new gaol,
Southwark, upon the body of Henry Vincent, one of five prisoners
removed there from Newgate. It then appeared that the Southwark
prisoners had been healthy till those from Newgate arrived, all five
being infected. About this date too, according to the coroner for
Middlesex, there were several deaths in the new gaol, of prisoners
brought from Newgate who had caught the fever in that prison. This same
coroner had taken eleven "inquisitions" at Newgate in a couple of days,
all of whom he thought had died of the gaol distemper. He was also made
ill himself by going to Newgate. Again in 1772 there was a new alarm
of epidemic. In the sessions of the preceding year there had been an
outbreak of malignant distemper, of which several had died. An attempt
was made to remodel the ventilator, and other precautions were taken.
Among the latter was a plan to convey the fumes of vinegar through
pipes into the Sessions' House while the courts were sitting. At this
date there was no regular medical officer in attendance on the Newgate
prisoners, although an apothecary was paid something for visiting
occasionally. Howard expresses his opinion strongly on the want. "To
this capital prison," he says, "the magistrates would, in my humble
opinion, do well to appoint a physician, a surgeon, and an apothecary."
The new prison and the last, built by Dance, was just then in process
of erection, and was intended to embody all requirements in prison
construction. But Howard was dissatisfied with it. Although it would
avoid many inconveniences of the old gaol, yet it had some manifest
errors. "It is too late," he goes on, "to point out particulars. All I
say is, that without more than ordinary care, the prisoners in it will
be in great danger of gaol fever."

William Smith, M. D., who, from a charitable desire to afford medical
assistance to the sick, inspected and reported in 1776 upon the
sanitary conditions of all the London prisons, had not a better opinion
of the new Newgate than had Howard. The gaol had now a regular medical
attendant, but "it was filled with nasty ragged inhabitants, swarming
with vermin, though Mr. Akerman the keeper is extremely humane in
keeping the place as wholesome as possible. The new prison is built
upon the old principle of a great number being crowded together into
one ward, with a yard for them to assemble in in the day, and a tap
where they may get drink when they please and have the money to pay."
Dr. Smith states that he had no fault to find with the wards, which
were large, airy, high, and as clean as could well be expected where
such a motley crew are lodged. But he condemns the prison, on which so
much had been already spent, and which still required an immense sum to
finish it. Its site was, he thought, altogether faulty. "The situation
of a gaol should be high and dry in an open field, and at a distance
from the town, the building spacious, to obviate the bad effects of a
putrid accumulation of infectious air, and extended in breadth rather
than height. The wards should have many divisions to keep the prisoners
from associating." Dr. Smith found that the numbers who sickened and
died of breathing the impure and corrupted air were much greater than
was imagined. Hence, he says, the absolute necessity for a sufficiency
of fresh air, "the earth was made for us all, why should so small a
portion of it be denied to those unhappy creatures, while so many large
parts lay waste and uncultivated?"

Another person, well entitled to speak from his own knowledge and
practical experience, declared that the new gaol contrasted very
favourably with the old. This was Mr. Akerman the keeper, who was
the friend of Johnson and Boswell, and whom Dr. Smith and others
call extremely humane. But Mr. Akerman, in giving evidence before a
committee of the House of Commons in 1779, while urging that few were
unhealthy in the new prison, admitted that he had often observed a
dejection of spirits among the prisoners in Newgate which had the
effect of disease, and that many had died broken-hearted. Mr. Akerman
clearly did his best to alleviate the sufferings of those in his
charge. For the poor convicted prisoner, unable to add by private means
or the gifts of friends to the meagre allowance of the penny loaf
per diem, which was often fraudulently under weight, the kind keeper
provided soup out of his own pocket, made of the coarse meat commonly
called clods and stickings.

Mr. Akerman had many good friends. He was an intimate acquaintance of
Mr. James Boswell, their friendship no doubt having originated in some
civility shown to Dr. Johnson's biographer at one of the executions
which it was Boswell's craze to attend. Boswell cannot speak too highly
of Mr. Akerman. After describing the Lord George Gordon Riots, he says,
"I should think myself very much to blame did I here neglect to do
justice to my esteemed friend Mr. Akerman, keeper of Newgate, who long
discharged a very important trust with an uniform intrepid firmness,
and at the same time a tenderness and a liberal charity, which entitles
him to be recorded with distinguished honour." He goes on to describe
in detail an incident which certainly proves Mr. Akerman's presence of
mind and capacity as a gaol governor. The story has been often quoted,
but it is so closely connected with the chronicles of Newgate that its
recital cannot be deemed inappropriate here. "Many years ago a fire
broke out in the brick part, which was built as an addition to the
old gaol of Newgate. The prisoners were in consternation and tumult,
calling out, 'We shall be burnt! we shall be burnt! down with the gate!
down with the gate!' Mr. Akerman hastened to them, showed himself at
the gate, and after some confused vociferations of 'Hear him! hear
him!' having obtained silent attention, he calmly told them that the
gate must not go down; that they were under his care, and that they
should not be permitted to escape; but that he could assure them they
need not be afraid of being burnt, for that the fire was not in the
prison properly so called, which was strongly built with stone; and
that if they would engage to be quiet he himself would come to them
and conduct them to the further end of the building, and would not
go out till they gave him leave. To this proposal they agreed; upon
which Mr. Akerman, having first made them fall back from the gate,
went in, and with a determined resolution ordered the outer turnkey
upon no account to open the gate, even though the prisoners (though
he trusted they would not) should break their word and by force bring
himself to order it. 'Never mind me,' he said, 'should that happen.'
The prisoners peaceably followed him while he conducted them through
passages of which he had the keys to the extremity of the gaol which
was most distant from the fire. Having by this very judicious conduct
fully satisfied them that there was no immediate risk, if any at all,
he then addressed them thus: 'Gentlemen, you are now convinced that I
told you true. I have no doubt that the engines will soon extinguish
the fire; if they should not, a sufficient guard will come, and you
shall be all taken out and lodged in the compters. I assure you, upon
my word and honour, that I have not a farthing insured. I have left my
house that I might take care of you. I will keep my promise and stay
with you if you insist upon it; but if you will allow me to go out and
look after my family and property I shall be obliged to you.' Struck
with his behaviour, they called out, 'Master Akerman, you have done
bravely; it was very kind in you; by all means go and take care of your
own concerns.' He did so accordingly, while they remained and were all
preserved." Akerman received still higher praise for this, which was
generally admitted to be courageous conduct. Dr. Johnson, according to
Boswell, had been heard to relate the substance of the foregoing story
"with high praise, in which he was joined by Mr. Edmund Burke." Johnson
also touched upon Akerman's kindness to his prisoners, and "pronounced
this eulogy upon his character. He who has long had constantly in
his view the worst of mankind, and is yet eminent for the humanity of
his disposition, must have had it originally in a great degree, and
continued to cultivate it very carefully."

[Illustration: _Compter, Giltspur Street, London_]

Another tribute to Akerman's worth comes from a less distinguished
but probably not less genuine source. In the letters of the wretched
Hackman (who killed Miss Reay) he speaks in terms of warm eulogy of
this humane gaoler. "Let me pay a small tribute of praise," he says.
"How often have you and I complained of familiarity's blunting the edge
of every sense on which she lays her hand? . . . what then is the praise
of that gaoler who, in the midst of misery, crimes, and death, sets
familiarity at defiance and still preserves the feelings of a man? The
author of the 'Life of Savage' gives celebrity to the Bristol gaoler,
by whose humanity the latter part of that strange man's life was
rendered more comfortable. Shall no one give celebrity to the present
keeper of Newgate? Mr. Akerman marks every day of his existence by more
than one such deed as this. Know, ye rich and powerful, ye who might
save hundreds of your fellow creatures from starving by the sweepings
of your tables, know that among the various feelings of almost every
wretch who quits Newgate for Tyburn, a concern neither last nor least
is that which he feels upon leaving the gaol of which this man is the
keeper."

Life in Newgate, with its debauchery and foul discomfort, the nastiness
and squalor of its surroundings, the ever-present infectious
sickness, and the utter absence of all cleanliness, or efforts at
sanitation, must have been terrible. Evil practices went on without
let or hindrance inside its walls. There is clear evidence to show
that the sexes were intermixed during the daytime. The occupants of
the various wards had free intercourse with each other: they had a
reciprocal conversation, exchanged visits, and assisted each other with
such accommodation as the extension of their wretched circumstances
permitted. Dinner was at two in the afternoon, and when prisoners
possessed any variety or novelty in food, they were ready to trade or
barter with it among themselves. After dinner the rest of the day and
night was spent at "cards, draughts, fox and geese," or, as gambling
was not interdicted, at games of chance, which led to numerous frauds
and quarrels. Rapid moral deterioration was inevitable in this criminal
sty. The prison was still and long continued a school of depravity,
to which came tyros, some already viciously inclined, some still
innocent, to be quickly taught all manner of iniquity, and to graduate
and take honours in crime. It is on record that daring robberies were
concocted in Newgate between felons incarcerated and others at large,
who came and went as they pleased. The gaol was the receptacle for
smuggled or stolen goods; false money was coined in the dark recesses
of its gloomy wards and passed out into circulation. Such work was the
natural employment of otherwise unoccupied brains and idle hands.
Thefts inside the gaol were of common occurrence. The prisoners picked
the pockets of visitors whenever they had the chance, or robbed one
another. There is a brief account of Newgate about this period in
the "Memoirs of Casanova," who saw the interior of the prison while
awaiting bail for an assault. Casanova was committed in ball dress, and
was received with hisses, which increased to furious abuse when they
found he did not answer their questions, being ignorant of English. He
felt as if he was in one of the most horrible circles of Dante's hell.
He saw, "Des figures fauves, des regards de vipères, des sinistres
sourires tous les caractères de l'envie de la rage, du desespoir;
c'était un spectacle epouvantable."

It was not strange that the inmates of Newgate should hold this
miserable life of theirs pretty cheap, and be ready to risk it in any
way to compass enlargement from gaol. Newgate was always constantly
drawn upon by those who wanted men for any desperate enterprise. In
the early days of inoculation, soon after it had been introduced
from the East by Lady Mary Wortly Montague, and when it was still
styled engrafting, the process was first tried upon seven condemned
prisoners, with a certain success. Again, a reprieve was granted to
another convict under sentence of death, on condition that he permit
an experiment to be performed on his ear. The process, which was the
invention of a Mr. Charles Elden, was intended to cure deafness by
cutting the tympanum. Sometimes a convicted criminal was allowed to
choose between a year's imprisonment in Newgate or taking service under
the Crown. There are also many entries in the State Papers of prisoners
pardoned to join His Majesty's forces. Not that these very questionable
recruits were willingly accepted. I find on 13th May, 1767, in reply
to a letter forwarding a list of convicts so pardoned, a protest from
the Secretary of War, who says that commanding officers are very much
averse to accepting the services of these gaol-birds, and have often
solicited him not to send them out to their regiments. The practice
was the more objectionable as at that time the term of service for
free volunteers was for life, while the ex-convicts only joined the
colours for a limited period. The point was not pressed therefore in
its entirety, but the concession made, that these convicts should be
enlarged for special service on the west coast of Africa. It was argued
that "considering the unhealthiness of the climate, His Majesty is
desirous that the troops stationed there should be recruited rather
with such men as must look upon that duty as a mitigation of their
sentences than with deserving volunteers." But to this again objections
were raised by the agent to the troops at Senegal, who pointed out
the extreme danger to life and property of sending nineteen sturdy
cut-throats armed and accoutred to reside within the walls of a feeble
place, having a total garrison of sixty men, adding that, "should
this embarkation of thieves take place he would be glad to insure his
property at seventy-five per cent."




CHAPTER II

THE REBUILDING OF NEWGATE

    In 1762 Press-yard destroyed by fire—Two prisoners burnt to
    death—It is decided to rebuild—Lord Mayor Beckford lays
    first stone in 1770—The new gaol is gutted in the Lord George
    Gordon riots—Origin of these riots—Lord George, at head
    of procession, presents petition to House of Commons—Mob
    attracted to Newgate—The gaoler, Mr. Akerman, summoned
    to surrender, and release his prisoners—Rioters storm
    Newgate—Sack Governor's house—Rioters, headed by Dennis the
    hangman, rush in and set inmates free—Other gaols attacked and
    burnt—The military called out—Lord George arrested, lodged
    in the Tower, and tried for high treason, but acquitted, and
    sentenced to fines and imprisonment in Newgate—Dies in Newgate
    of gaol fever, 1793.


In 1757 the residents in the immediate neighbourhood of Newgate raised
their protest against the gaol, and petitioned the Corporation,
"setting forth their apprehensions from their vicinity to Newgate,
and from the stenches proceeding therefrom, of being subject to an
infectious disease called the gaol distemper." Upon receipt of this
petition, the Common Council appointed a fresh committee, and the
various allegations were gone into seriatim. They next surveyed the
gaol itself and the surrounding premises, examined the site with
a view to rebuilding, and had plans prepared with estimates and
specifications as to cost of ground and construction. The projected
design embraced a series of quadrangles, one for the debtors and
another for the felons, with an area for each. The probable expense
for the work which the committee were of the opinion was greatly
needed would amount to about £40,000, for which sum "they did resolve
to petition Parliament for a grant." This petition was, however,
never presented. Mr. Alderman Dickens, having spoken privately to the
Chancellor of the Exchequer on the subject, was informed that no public
money would be forthcoming, and the project again fell through.

It did not entirely drop notwithstanding. To the credit of the
Corporation it must be stated, that many attempts were made to grapple
with the difficulties of ways and means. Application was made to
Parliament more than once for power to raise money for the work by some
proportionable tax on the city and county, but always without avail.
Parties differed as to the manner in which funds should be obtained,
yet all were agreed upon the "immediate necessity for converting this
seat of misery and disease, this dangerous source of contagion, into
a secure and wholesome place of confinement." The matter became more
urgent, the occasion more opportune, when that part of the prison
styled the press-yard was destroyed by fire in 1762.

Some account of this fire may be inserted here. It broke out in the
middle of the night at the back of the staircase in the press-yard,
and in a few hours consumed all the apartments in that place, and
greatly damaged the chapel. Other adjoining premises, particularly
that of a stocking-trimmer in Phœnix Court, were greatly injured
by the fire. Worst of all, two prisoners perished in the flames. One
was Captain Ogle, who had been tried for murdering the cook of the
Vine Tavern, near Dover St., Piccadilly, but had been found insane on
arraignment, and had accordingly been detained in prison "during His
Majesty's pleasure." There was no Broadmoor asylum in those days for
criminal lunatics and Newgate was a poor substitute for the palatial
establishment now standing among the Berkshire pine woods. The fire
was supposed to have originated in Captain Ogle's room. Beneath it
was one occupied by Thomas Smith, a horse-dealer, committed to prison
on suspicion of stealing corn from Alderman Masters. Smith's wife
the night before the conflagration had carried him the whole of his
effects, amounting to some five or six hundred pounds in notes and bank
bills. When the fire was raging Smith was heard to cry out for help. He
was seen also to put his arm through the iron grating, which, however,
was so excessively hot that it set his shirt on fire. About this time
it is supposed that he threw out his pocket-book containing the notes;
it was caught and the valuables saved. A few minutes later the floor
fell in, and both Captain Ogle and Smith were buried in the ruins.
The fire had burnt so fiercely and so fast that no one could go to the
assistance of either of these unfortunates. About four o'clock in the
morning the Lord Mayor and sheriffs arrived upon the scene, and took an
active part in the steps taken to check the fire and provide for the
safety of the prisoners. By six o'clock, there being an abundance of
water handy, the flames had greatly abated, but the fire continued to
burn till two in the afternoon, and ended by the fall of a party wall
which happily did no great damage. This was no doubt the fire at which
Mr. Akerman behaved with such intrepidity, and which has already been
described.

After the fire it was admitted that the proper time had arrived for
"putting in execution the plan of rebuilding this inconvenient gaol,
which was thought of some time ago." Once more a committee of the
Common Council was appointed, and once more the question of site was
considered, with the result that the locality of the existing prison
was decided upon as the most suitable and convenient. The first stone
of the new gaol was laid on the 31st May, 1770, by the Lord Mayor,
William Beckford, Esquire, the founder of that family.

Within a year or two of its completion, the new Newgate had to pass
through an ordeal which nearly ended its existence. Its boasted
strength as a place of durance was boldly set at naught, and almost
for the first and last time in this country this gaol, with others in
the metropolis, was sacked and its imprisoned inmates set free. The
occasion grew out of the so-called Lord George Gordon Riots in 1780.
These well-known disturbances had their origin in the relaxation of
the penal laws against the Roman Catholics. Such concessions raised
fanatical passion to fever pitch. Ignorance and intolerance went hand
in hand, and the malcontents, belonging mainly to the lowest strata
of society, found a champion in a weak-minded and misguided cadet of
the ducal house of Gordon. Lord George Gordon, who was a member of the
House of Commons, showed signs of eccentricity soon after he took his
seat, but it was at first more ridiculous than mischievous. Lord George
became more dangerously meddlesome when the anti-Catholic agitation
began. It was to him that the Protestant association looked for
countenance and support, and when Lord North at his instance refused to
present a petition from that society to Parliament, Lord George Gordon
promised to do so in person, provided it was backed by a multitude not
less than twenty thousand strong.

This led to the great gathering in St. George's Fields on the 2nd
June, 1780, when thousands organized themselves into three columns,
and proceeded to the House of Commons across the three bridges,
Westminster, Blackfriars, and London Bridge. Lord George headed the
Westminster procession, and all three concentrated at St. Stephen's
between two and three in the afternoon. There the mob filled every
avenue and approach; crowds overflowed the lobbies, and would have
pushed into the body of the House. Lord George went ahead with
the monster petition, which bore some hundred and twenty thousand
signatures or "marks," and which the Commons by a negative vote of 192
to 6 refused to receive. After this the rioters, at the instigation
of their leader, hastened _en masse_ to destroy the chapels of the
foreign ambassadors. This was followed by other outrages. While some of
their number attacked and rifled the dwellings of persons especially
obnoxious to them, others set fire to public buildings, and ransacked
the taverns. The military had been called out early in the day, and had
made many arrests. As the prisoners were taken to Newgate, the fury of
the populace was attracted to this gaol, and a large force, computed
at quite two-thirds of the rioters, proceeded thither, determined to
force open its gates. This mob was composed of the lowest scum of the
town, roughs brutal and utterly reckless, having a natural loathing
for prisons, their keepers, and all the machinery of the law. Many
already knew, and but too well, the inside of Newgate, many dreaded to
return there, either as lodgers or travellers bound on the fatal road
to Tyburn. One wild fierce desire was uppermost with all, one thought
possessed their minds to the exclusion of all others—to destroy the
hateful prison-house and raze it to the ground.

On arriving at the Old Bailey in front of the stone façade, as grim
and solid as that of any fortress, the mob halted and demanded the
gaoler, Mr. Akerman, who appeared at a window, some say on the roof,
of his house, which forms the centre of the line of buildings facing
Newgate Street. When he appeared the mob called on him to release their
confederates and surrender the place unconditionally. Mr. Akerman
distinctly and without hesitation refused, and then, dreading what
was coming, he made the best of his way to the sheriffs, in order
to know their pleasure. As the front of the prison was beset by the
densely-packed riotous assemblage, Mr. Akerman probably made use of
the side wicket and passage which leads direct from Newgate into the
Sessions' House. The magistrates seemed to have been in doubt how to
act, and for some time did nothing. "Their timidity and negligence,"
says Boswell, helped the almost incredible exertions of the mob. And
he is of opinion, that had proper aid been given to Mr. Akerman, the
sacking of Newgate would certainly have been prevented. While the
magistrates hesitated the mob were furiously active; excited to frenzy,
they tried to beat down the gate with sledge-hammers, and vainly
sought to make some impression on the massive walls. A portion of the
assailants forced their way into the governor's house, and laying
hands upon his furniture, with all other combustibles, dragged them
out and made a great pile in front of the obdurate door, which still
resisted force. The heap of wood, having been anointed with rosin and
turpentine, was kindled, and soon fanned into a mighty blaze. The door,
heavily barred and bolted, and strongly bound with iron, did not ignite
quite readily, but presently it took fire and burned steadily, though
slowly. Meanwhile the rioters fed the flames with fresh fuel, and
snatching burning brands from the fire, cast them on to the roof and
over the external wall into the wards and yards within. The prisoners
inside, who had heard without fully understanding the din, and saw the
flames without knowing whether they promised deliverance or foreboded
a dreadful death, suffered the keenest mental torture, and added their
agonized shouts to the general uproar.

Through all this tumult and destruction the law was paralyzed. After
much delay the sheriff sent a party of constables to the gaolers'
assistance. But they came too late, and easily fell into a trap. The
rioters suffered them to pass until they were entirely encircled, then
attacked them with great fury, disarmed them, took their staves, and
quickly converted them at the fire into blazing brands, which they
threw about to extend the flames. "It is scarcely to be credited,"
says a narrator, "with what celerity a gaol which to a common observer
appeared to be built with nothing that would burn, was destroyed by
the flames. So efficient were the means employed, that the work of
destruction was very rapid. Stones two or three tons in weight,
to which the doors of the cells were fastened, were raised by that
resistless species of crow known to housebreakers by the name of the
pig's foot. Such was the violence of the fire, that the great iron bars
and windows were eaten through and the adjacent stones vitrified. Nor
is it less astonishing that from a prison thus in flames a miserable
crew of felons in irons and a company of confined debtors, to the
number in the whole of more than three hundred, could all be liberated
as it were by magic, amidst flames and fire-brands, without the loss of
a single life. . . . But it is not at all to be wondered that by a body
of execrable villains thus let loose upon the public, the house of that
worthy and active magistrate, Sir John Fielding, should be the first
marked for vengeance." In the same way, even before the destruction
of Newgate, the house of Justice Hyde, whose activity the rioters
resented, had also been stripped of its furniture, which was burnt in
front of the door.

Crabbe's account written at the time to a friend is graphic, and
contains several new details—"How Akerman, the governor, escaped,"
he says, "or where he is gone, I know not; but just at the time I
speak of they set fire to his house, broke in, and threw every piece
of furniture they could find into the street, firing them also in an
instant. The engines came, but they were only suffered to preserve
the private houses near the prison. As I was standing near the spot,
there approached another body of men—I suppose five hundred—and
Lord George Gordon, in a coach drawn by the mob, towards Alderman
Bull's, bowing as he passed along. He is a lively-looking young man in
appearance and nothing more, though just now the popular hero. By eight
o'clock Akerman's house was in flames. I went close to it, and never
saw anything so dreadful. The prison was, as I have said, a remarkably
strong building; but, determined to force it, they broke the gates
with crows and other instruments, and climbed up outside of the cell
part, which joins the two great wings of the building where the felons
were confined; and I stood where I plainly saw their operations; they
broke the roof, tore away the rafters, and having got ladders, they
descended. Not Orpheus himself had more courage or better luck. Flames
all around them, and a body of soldiers expected, yet they laughed at
all opposition. The prisoners escaped. I stood and saw about twelve
women and eight men ascend from their confinement to the open air, and
they were conducted through the streets in their chains. Three of these
were to be hanged on Friday (two days later).

"You have no conception of the frenzy of the multitude. This now being
done, and Akerman's house now a mere shell of brick-work, they kept a
store of flame for other purposes. It became red-hot, and the doors and
windows appeared like the entrance to so many volcanoes. With some
difficulty they then fired the debtors' prison, broke the doors, and
they too all made their escape. Tired of the scene, I went home, and
returned again at eleven o'clock at night. I met large bodies of horse
and foot soldiers coming to guard the Bank and some houses of Roman
Catholics near it. Newgate was at this time open to all; any one might
get in, and what was never the case before, any one might get out. I
did both, for the people were now chiefly lookers-on. The mischief was
done, and the doers of it gone to another part of the town. . . . But
I must not omit what struck me most: about ten or twelve of the mob
getting to the top of the debtors' prison whilst it was burning, to
halloo, they appeared rolled in black smoke mixed with sudden bursts of
fire—like Milton's infernals, who were as familiar with flames as with
each other."

It should be added here that the excesses of the rioters did not end
with the burning of Newgate; they did other mischief. Five other
prisons, the new prison, Clerkenwell, the Fleet, the King's Bench, the
Borough Clink in Tooley Street, and the new Bridewell, were attacked,
their inmates released, and the buildings set on fire. At one time the
town was convulsed with terror at a report that the rioters intended
to open the gates of Bedlam, and let loose gangs of raving lunatics to
range recklessly about. They made an attempt upon the Bank of England,
but were repulsed with loss by John Wilkes and the soldiers on guard.
At one time during the night as many as thirty-six incendiary fires
were ablaze. The troops had been called upon to support the civil
power, and had acted with vigour. There was fighting in nearly all
the streets, constant firing. At times the soldiers charged with the
bayonet. The streets ran with blood. In all, before tranquillity was
restored, nearly five hundred persons had been killed and wounded, and
to this long bill of mortality must be added the fifty-nine capitally
convicted under the special commission appointed to try the rioters.

It was in many cases cruel kindness to set the prisoners free. Numbers
of the debtors of the King's Bench were loth to leave their place of
confinement, for they had no friends and nowhere else to go. Of the
three hundred released so unexpectedly from Newgate, some returned
on their own accord a few days later and gave themselves up. It is
said that many others were drawn back by an irresistible attraction,
and were actually found loitering about the open wards of the prison.
Fifty were thus retaken within the walls the day after the fire, and
others kept dropping by twos and threes to examine their old haunts
and see for themselves what was going on. Some were found trying to
rekindle the fire; some merely prowled about the place, "being often
found asleep in the ruins, or sitting talking there, or even eating and
drinking, as in a choice retreat."

The ringleader and prime mover, Lord George Gordon, was arrested on
the evening of the 9th, and conveyed to the Tower. His trial did not
come on till the following February at the King's Bench, where he was
indicted for high treason. He was charged with levying war against
the majesty of the king; "not having the fear of God before his eyes,
but being moved and seduced by the instigation of the devil; . . . that
he unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously did compass, imagine,
and intend to raise and levy war, insurrection, and rebellion," and
assembled with some five hundred more, "armed and arrayed in a warlike
manner, with colours flying, and with swords, clubs, bludgeons, staves
and other weapons," in the liberty of Westminster. It was proved in
evidence that Lord George directed the Associated Protestants to meet
him at Westminster in their best clothes, and with blue cockades in
their hats, and said he should wear one himself. He was also heard to
declare that the king had broken his coronation oath, and to exhort
the mob to continue steadfast in so good and glorious a cause. For the
defence it was urged that Lord George Gordon had desired nothing but to
compass by all legal means the repeal of the Act of Toleration; that he
had no other view than the Protestant interest, and had always demeaned
himself in the most loyal manner. He had hoped that the great gathering
would be all peaceable; that the mob "should not so much as take
sticks in their hands," should abstain from all violence, surrender
at once any one riotously disposed; in a word, should exhibit the true
Protestant spirit, and if struck should turn the other cheek. Mr.
Erskine, Lord George's counsel, after pointing out that his client had
suffered already a long and rigorous imprisonment, his great youth, his
illustrious lineage and zeal in parliament for the constitution of his
country, urged that the evidence and the whole tenor of the prisoner's
conduct repelled the belief of traitorous purpose. The jury retired for
half an hour, and then brought in a verdict of not guilty.

Lord George, unhappily, could not keep out of trouble, although
naturally of mild disposition. He was an excitable, rather weak-minded
man, easily carried away by his enthusiasm on particular points. Six
years later he espoused, with customary warmth and want of judgment,
the case of other prisoners in Newgate, and published a pamphlet
purporting to be a petition from them presented to himself, praying him
to "interfere and secure their liberties by preventing their being sent
to Botany Bay. Prisoners labouring under severe sentences cried out
from their dungeons for redress. Some were about to suffer execution
without righteousness, others to be sent off to a barbarous country."
"The records of justice have been falsified," the pamphlet went on to
say, "and the laws profanely altered by men like ourselves. The bloody
laws against us have been enforced, under a normal administration, by
mere whitened walls, men who possess only the show of justice, and who
condemned us to death contrary to law."

That this silly production should be made the subject of a criminal
information for libel, rather justifies the belief that an exaggerated
importance was given to Lord George's vagaries, both by the Government
and his own relations and friends. No doubt he was a thorn in the side
of his family, but the ministry could well have afforded to treat him
and his utterances with contempt. He was, however, indicted at the
King's Bench for publishing the petition, which he had actually himself
written, with a view to raise a tumult among the prisoners within
Newgate, or cause a disturbance by exciting the compassion of those
without.

The case against him was very clearly made out, and as his offence
consisted of two parts, Lord George Gordon was subjected to two
different sentences. For the first, the publication of the "prisoners'
petition," the judge awarded him three years' imprisonment in Newgate.
For the second offence, being "trespasses, contempts, and misdemeanours
against the royal consort of his most Christian Majesty," the sentence
was a fine of £500, with a further imprisonment in Newgate at the
termination of the other three; and in addition he was required to give
security for fourteen years for his good behaviour, himself in £10,000,
and two sureties of £2500 each.

Lord George Gordon remained in Newgate till his death, from
gaol-fever, in 1793. He made two or three ineffectual attempts to put
in his bail, but they were objected to as insufficient. It was thought
to the last that the government and his friends sought pretences to
keep him in confinement and out of mischief. His somewhat premature
death must have been a relief to them. But it can hardly be denied
that hard measure was meted out to him, and if he escaped too easily
at his first trial, he was too heavily punished at the second. It
is impossible to absolve him from responsibility for the outrages
committed by the rioters in 1780, although he was doubtless shocked
at their excesses. Lord George could not have foreseen the terrible
consequences which would follow his rash agitation, and little knew
how dangerous were the elements of disturbance he unchained. But it
can hardly be denied that he meant well. Had he lived a century later,
he would probably have found a more legitimate outlet for his peculiar
tendencies, and would have figured as an ardent philanthropist and
platform orator, instead of as a criminal in the dock.

The damages which Newgate sustained at this time were repaired at a
cost of about twenty thousand pounds.




CHAPTER III

CELEBRATED CRIMES AND CRIMINALS

    State of crime on opening new gaol—Newgate full—Executions
    very numerous—Ruthless penal code—Forgery punished
    with death—The first forgery of Bank of England
    notes—Gibson—Bolland—The two Perreaus—Dr. Dodd—Charles
    Price, _alias_ Old Patch—Clipping still largely
    practised—John Clarke hanged for it—Also William Guest, a
    clerk in Bank of England—His elaborate apparatus for filing
    guineas—Coining—Forty or fifty private mints for making
    counterfeits—Offences against life and property—Streets
    unsafe—High roads infested by robbers—No regular
    police—Daring Robberies at lévees—The Duke of Beaufort robbed
    by Gentleman Harry—George Barrington, the gentleman thief,
    frequents Ranelagh, the Palace, the Opera House—Highwaymen
    put down by the horse patrol—"Long firm" swindlers—Female
    Sharpers—Elizabeth Grieve and others pretend to sell
    places under the Crown—Other forms of swindling—Juvenile
    depravity—A girl for sale—Prize-fighting—Early martyrs to
    freedom of speech—Prynne, Bastwick and Daniel Defoe—The Press
    oppressed—The "North Briton"—Wilkes—William Cobbett in
    Newgate—Also the Marquis of Sligo.


In the years immediately following the erection of the new gaol,
crime was once more greatly in the ascendant. After the peace which
gave independence to the United States, the country was overrun with
discharged soldiers and sailors. The majority were in dire poverty, and
took to depredation almost as a matter of course. The calendars were
particularly heavy. At this date there were forty-nine persons lying in
Newgate under sentence of death, one hundred and eighty under sentence
of transportation, and prisoners of other categories, making the total
prison population up to nearly six hundred souls.

Speaking of those times, Mr. Townshend, a veteran Bow Street runner, in
his evidence before a Parliamentary Committee in 1816, declared that
in the years 1781-7 as many as twelve, sixteen, or twenty were hanged
at one execution; twice he saw forty hanged at one time. In 1783 there
were twenty at two consecutive executions. He had known, he said, as
many as two hundred and twenty tried at one sessions. He had himself
obtained convictions of from thirteen to twenty-five for returning from
transportation. Upon the same authority we are told that in 1783 the
Secretary of State advised the King to punish with all severity. The
enormity of the offences was so great, says Mr. Townshend, and "plunder
had got to such an alarming pitch," that a letter was circulated among
judges and recorders then sitting, to the effect that His Majesty would
dispense with the recorders' reports, and that the worst criminals
should be picked out and at once ordered for execution.

The penal code was at this period still ruthlessly severe in England.
There were some two hundred capital felonies upon the statute book.
Almost any member of parliament eager to do his share in legislation
could "create a capital felony." A story is told of Edmund Burke,
that he was leaving his house one day in a hurry, when a messenger
called him back on a matter which would not detain him a minute:
"Only a felony without benefit of clergy." Burke also told Sir
James Mackintosh, that although scarcely entitled to ask a favour
of the ministry, he thought he had influence enough to create a
capital felony. It is true that of the two hundred, not more than
five-and-twenty sorts of felonies actually entailed execution. It is
also true that some of the most outrageous and ridiculous reasons
for its infliction had disappeared. It was no longer death to take a
falcon's egg from the nest, nor was it a hanging matter to be thrice
guilty of exporting live sheep. But a man's life was still appraised
at five shillings. Stealing from the person, or in a dwelling, or in
a shop, or on a navigable river, to that amount, was punished with
death. "I think it not right nor justice," wrote Sir Thomas More in
1516, "that the loss of money should cause the loss of man's life;
for mine opinion is that all the goods in the world are not able
to countervail man's life." Three hundred years was still to pass
before the strenuous efforts of Sir Samuel Romilly bore fruit in the
amelioration of the penal code. In 1810 he carried a bill through
the House of Commons, which was, however, rejected by the Lords, to
abolish capital punishment for stealing to the amount of five shillings
in a shop. His most bitter opponents were the great lawyers of the
times, Lords Ellenborough, Eldon, and others, Lords Chancellors and
Lords Chief Justice, who opposed dangerous innovations, and viewed
with dismay any attempt "to alter laws which a century had proved to
be necessary." Lord Eldon on this occasion said that he was firmly
convinced of the wisdom of the principles and practice of the criminal
code. Romilly did not live to see the triumph of his philanthropic
endeavours. He failed to procure the repeal of the cruel laws against
which he raised his voice, but he stopped the hateful legislation which
multiplied capital felonies year by year, and his illustrious example
found many imitators. Within a few years milder and more humane ideas
very generally prevailed. In 1837 the number of offences to which the
extreme penalty could be applied was only seven, and in that year only
eight persons were executed, all of them for murders of an atrocious
character.

Forgery, at the period of which I am now treating, was an offence
especially repugnant to the law. No one guilty of it could hope to
escape the gallows. The punishment was so certain, that as milder
principles gained ground, many benevolent persons gladly withdrew from
prosecution where they could. Instances were known in which bankers
and other opulent people compromised with the delinquent rather
than be responsible for taking away a fellow-creature's life. The
prosecutor would sometimes pretend his pockets had been picked of the
forged instrument, or he destroyed it, or refused to produce it. An
important witness sometimes kept out of the way. Persons have gone so
far as to meet forged bills of exchange, and to a large amount. In one
case it was pretty certain they would not have advanced the money had
the punishment been short of death, because the culprit had already
behaved disgracefully, and they had no desire he should escape a lesser
retribution. Prosecutors have forfeited their recognizances sooner than
appear, and have even, when duly sworn, withheld a portion of their
testimony.

But at the time of which I am now writing the law generally took
its course. In the years between 1805 and 1818 there had been two
hundred and seven executions for forgery; more than for either murder,
burglary, or robbery from the person. It may be remarked here that the
Bank of England was by far the most bitter and implacable as regards
prosecutions for forgery. Of the above-mentioned executions for this
crime, no less than seventy-two were the victims of proceedings
instituted by the Bank of England. Forgeries upon this great monetary
corporation had been much more frequent since the stoppage of specie
payments, which had been decreed by the Parliament in 1797 to save
the Bank from collapse. Alarms of invasion had produced such a
run upon it, that on one particular day little more than a million
in cash or bullion remained in the cellars, which had already been
drained of specie for foreign subsidies and subventions. Following the
cessation of cash payments to redeem its paper in circulation, the
Bank had commenced the issue of notes to the value of less than five
pounds, and it was soon found that these, especially the one-pound
notes, were repeatedly forged. In the eight years preceding 1797 but
few prosecutions had been instituted by the Bank; but in the eight
years which followed there were one hundred and forty-six convictions
for the offence. At last, about 1818, a strong and general feeling
of dissatisfaction grew rife against these prosecutions. The crime
had continued steadily to increase, in spite of the awful penalties
conviction entailed. It was proved, moreover, that note forgery was
easily accomplished. Detection, too, was most difficult. The public
were unable to distinguish between the good and bad notes. Bank
officials were themselves often deceived, and cases were known where
the clerks had refused payment of the genuine article. Juries began
to decline to convict on the evidence of inspectors and clerks,
unless substantiated by the revelation of the private mark, a highly
inconvenient practice, which the Bank itself naturally discountenanced.
Efforts were made to improve the quality of the note, so as to defy
imitation; but this could not well be done at the price, and, as the
only effective remedy, specie payments were resumed, and the one-pound
note withdrawn from circulation. But execution for forgery continued
to be the law for many more years. Fauntleroy suffered for it in 1824;
Joseph Hunton, the Quaker linen-draper, in 1828; and Maynard, the last,
in the following year.

I am, however, anticipating somewhat, and must retrace my steps, and
indicate briefly one or two of the early forgers who passed through
Newgate and suffered for the crime. The first case I find recorded is
that of Richard Vaughan, a linen-draper of Stafford, who was committed
to Newgate in March, 1758, for counterfeiting Bank of England notes.
He employed several artists to engrave the notes in various parts, one
of whom informed against him. The value of the note he himself added.
Twenty which he had thus filled up he had deposited in the hands of a
young lady to whom he was paying his addresses, as a guarantee of his
wealth. Vaughan no doubt suffered, although I see no record of the fact
in the Newgate Calendar.

Mr. Gibson's was a curious case. He was a prisoner in Newgate for
eighteen months between conviction and execution, the jury having found
a special verdict, subject to the determination of the twelve judges.
As Gibson remained so long in gaol, it was the general opinion that no
further notice would be taken of the case. The prisoner himself must
have been buoyed up with this hope, as he petitioned repeatedly for
judgment. He had been sentenced in Sept. 1766, and in 1768, at Hilary
Term, the judges decided that his crime came within the meaning of the
law. Gibson had been a solicitor's clerk, who gave so much satisfaction
that he was taken into partnership. The firm was doing a large
business, and among other large affairs was intrusted with a Chancery
case, respecting an estate for which an _ad interim_ receiver had
been appointed. Gibson's way of life was immoral and extravagant. He
had urgent need of funds, and in an evil hour he forged the signature
of the Accountant-General to the Court of Chancery, and so obtained
possession of some of the rents of the above-mentioned estate. The
fraud was presently discovered; Gibson was arrested, and eventually,
as already stated, condemned. "After sentence," says the Calendar,
"his behaviour was in every way becoming his awful situation; . . . he
appeared rational, serious, and devout. His behaviour was so pious,
so resigned, and in all respects so admirably adapted to his unhappy
situation, that the tears of the commiserating multitude accompanied
his last ejaculation. He was carried to execution in a mourning coach,"
an especial honour reserved for malefactors of aristocratic antecedents
and gentle birth.

James Bolland, who was executed in 1772, deserved and certainly
obtained less sympathy. Bolland long filled the post of a sheriff's
officer, and as such became the lessee of a spunging-house, where
he practised boundless extortion. He was a man of profligate life,
whose means never equalled his extravagant self-indulgence, and he was
put to all manner of shifts to get money. More than once he arrested
debtors, was paid all claims in full, and appropriated the money to
his own use, yet escaped due retribution for his fraud. He employed
bullies, spies, and indigent attorneys to second his efforts, some
of whom were arrested and convicted of other crimes with the clothes
Bolland provided for them still on their backs. His character was so
infamous, that when he purchased the situation of upper city marshal
for £2,400, the court of aldermen would not approve of the appointment.
He tried also to succeed to a vacancy as Sergeant-at-mace, and met with
the same objection. The deposit-money paid over in both these affairs
was attached by his sureties, and he was driven to great necessities
for funds. When called upon to redeem a note of hand he had given, he
pleaded that he was short of cash, and offered another man's bill,
which, however, was refused unless endorsed. Bolland then proceeded to
endorse it with his own name, but it was declared unnegotiable, owing
to the villainous character he bore. Whereupon Bolland erased all the
letters after the capital, and substituted the letters "anks," the name
of Banks being that of a respectable victualler of Rathbone Place, in
a large way of trade. When the bill became due, Banks repudiated his
signature, and Bolland, who sought too late to meet it and hush up the
affair, was arrested for the forgery. He was tried and executed in due
course.

The case of the twin brothers Perreau in 1776 was long the talk of the
town. It evoked much public sympathy, as they were deemed to be the
dupes of a certain Mrs. Rudd, who lived with Daniel Perreau, and passed
as his wife. Daniel was a man of reputed good means, with a house in
Harley Street, which he kept up well. His brother, Robert Perreau, was
a surgeon enjoying a large practice, and residing in Golden Square.
The forged deed was a bond for £7,500, purporting to be signed by
William Adair, a well-known agent. Daniel Perreau handed this to Robert
Drummond Perreau, who carried it to the Bank, where its validity
was questioned, and the brothers, with Mrs. Rudd, were arrested on
suspicion of forgery. Daniel on his trial solemnly declared that he had
received the instrument from Mrs. Rudd; Robert's defence was that he
had no notion the document was forged. Both were, however, convicted
of knowingly uttering the counterfeit bond. It was, however, found
impossible to prove Mrs. Rudd's complicity in the transaction, and she
was acquitted. The general feeling was, however, so strong that she was
the guilty person, that the unfortunate Perreaus became a centre of
interest. Strenuous efforts were made to obtain a reprieve for them.
Robert Perreau's wife went in deep mourning, accompanied by her three
children, to sue on their knees for pardon from the queen. Seventy-two
leading bankers and merchants signed a petition in his favour, which
was presented to the king two days before the execution: but all to no
purpose. Both of the brothers suffered the extreme penalty at Tyburn
on the 17th January, 1776, before an enormous multitude estimated at
30,000. They asserted their innocence to the last.

In the following year a clergyman, who had at one time achieved
some eminence, also fell a victim to the vindictive laws regarding
forgery. Dr. Dodd was the son of a clergyman. He had been a wrangler
at Cambridge, and was early known as a litterateur of some repute.
While still on his promotion, and leading a gay life in London, he
made a foolish marriage, and united himself to the daughter of one
of Sir John Dolben's servants, a young lady largely endowed with
personal attractions, but certainly deficient in birth and fortune.
This sobered him, and he took orders in the year that his "Beauties of
Shakespeare" was published. He became a zealous curate at West Ham;
thence he went to St. James', Garlick Hill, and took an active part
in London church and charitable work. He was one of the promoters of
the Magdalen Hospital, also of the Humane Society, and in 1763, twelve
years after ordination, he was appointed chaplain in ordinary to the
King. About the same time he was presented to a prebend's stall in
Brecon Cathedral, and was recommended to Lord Chesterfield as tutor
to his son. He hoped to succeed to the rectory of West Ham, but being
disappointed he now came to London, and launched out into extravagance.
He had a town house, and a country house at Ealing, and he exchanged
his chariot for a coach. Having won a prize of £1,000 in a lottery, he
became interested in two proprietary chapels, but could not make them
pay. But just then he was presented with a living, that of Hockliffe,
in Bedfordshire, which he held with the vicarage of Chalgrove, and his
means were still ample. They were not sufficient, however, for his
expenditure, and in an evil moment he attempted to obtain the valuable
cure of St. George's, Hanover Square, by back-stair influence. The
living was in the gift of the Crown, and Dodd was so ill-advised as
to write to a great lady at Court, offering her £3,000 if he were
presented. The letter was forthwith passed on to the Lord Chancellor,
and the King, George III, hearing what had happened, ordered Dr. Dodd's
name to be struck off the list of his chaplains. The story was made
public, and Dodd was satirized in the press and on the stage.

Dodd was now greatly encumbered by debts, from which the presentation
to a third living, that of Winge, in Buckinghamshire, could not relieve
him. He was in such straits that, according to his biographer, "he
descended so low as to become the editor of a newspaper," and he tried
to obtain relief in bankruptcy, but failed. At length, so sorely
pressed was he by creditors that he resolved to do a dishonest deed.
He forged the name of his old pupil, now Lord Chesterfield, who had
since become his patron, to a bond for £4,200. He applied to certain
usurers, in the name of a young nobleman who was seeking an advance.
The business was refused by many, because Dr. Dodd declared that they
could not be present at the execution of the bond. A Mr. Robertson
proved more obliging, and to him Dr. Dodd, in due course, handed a bond
for £4,200 executed by Lord Chesterfield, and witnessed by himself. A
second witness being necessary, Mr. Robertson signed his name beneath
Dr. Dodd's. The bond was no sooner presented for payment, and referred
to Lord Chesterfield, than it was repudiated. Robertson was forthwith
arrested, and soon afterwards Dr. Dodd. The latter at once, in the hope
of saving himself, returned $3,000; he gave a cheque upon his bankers
for £700, a bill of sale on his furniture worth £400 more, and the
whole sum was made up by another hundred from the brokers. Nevertheless
Dr. Dodd was taken before the Lord Mayor and charged with the forgery.
Lord Chesterfield would not stir a finger to help his old tutor,
although the poor wretch had made full restitution. Dr. Dodd, when
arraigned, declared that he had no intention to defraud, that he had
only executed the bond as a temporary resource to meet some pressing
claims. The jury after consulting only five minutes found him guilty,
and he was regularly sentenced to death. Still greater exertions
were made to obtain a reprieve for Dr. Dodd than in the case of the
Perreaus. The newspapers were filled with letters pleading for him.
All classes of people strove to help him; the parish officers went in
mourning from house to house, asking subscriptions to get up a petition
to the King, and this petition, when eventually drafted, filled
twenty-three skins of parchment. Petitions from Dodd and his wife,
both drawn up by Dr. Johnson, were laid before the King and Queen.
Even the Lord Mayor and Common Council went in a body to St. James's
Palace to beg mercy from the King. As, however, clemency had been
denied to the Perreaus, it was deemed unadvisable to extend it to Dr.
Dodd. The concourse at his execution, which took place at Tyburn, was
immense. It has been stated erroneously that Dr. Dodd preached his own
funeral sermon. He only delivered an address to his fellow-prisoners
in the prison chapel by the permission of Mr. Villette, the ordinary.
The text he chose was Psalm 51:3, "I acknowledge my faults; and my
sin is ever before me." It was delivered some three weeks before the
Doctor's execution, and subsequently printed. It is a curious fact that
among other published works of Dr. Dodd, is a sermon on the injustice
of capital punishments. He was, however, himself the chief witness
against a highwayman, who was hanged for stopping him. Among other
spectators at the execution of Dr. Dodd was the Rev. James Hackman,
who afterwards murdered Miss Reay.

It is said that a scheme was devised to procure Dodd's escape from
Newgate. He was treated with much consideration by Mr. Akerman, allowed
to have books, papers, and a reading-desk. Food and other necessaries
were brought him from outside by a female servant daily. This woman
was found to bear a striking resemblance to the Doctor, which was the
more marked when she was dressed up in a wig and gown. She was asked if
she would coöperate in a scheme for taking the Doctor's place in gaol,
and consented. It was arranged that on a certain day, Dr. Dodd's irons
having been previously filed, he was to change clothes with the woman.
She was to seat herself at the reading-desk while Dr. Dodd, carrying a
bundle under his arm, coolly walked out of the prison. The plan would
probably have succeeded, but Dodd would not be a party to it. He was
so buoyed up with the hope of reprieve that he would not risk the
misconstruction which would have been placed upon the attempt to escape
had it failed. In his own profession Dr. Dodd was not very highly
esteemed. Dr. Newton, Bishop of Bristol, is said to have observed that
Dodd deserved pity, because he was hanged for the least crime he had
committed.

One of the most notorious depredators in this line, whose operations
long eluded detection, was Charles Price, commonly called Old Patch.
He forged bank-notes wholesale. His plans were laid with the utmost
astuteness, and he took extraordinary precautions to avoid discovery.
He did everything for himself; made his own paper, with the proper
water-mark, engraved his own plates, and manufactured his own ink. His
method of negotiating the forged notes was most artful. He had three
homes; at one he was Price, properly married, at a second he lived
under another name with a woman who helped him in his schemes, at a
third he did the actual business of passing his notes. This business
was always effected in disguise; none of his agents or instruments saw
him except in disguise, and when his work was over he put it off to
return home. One favourite personation of his was that of an infirm
old man, wearing a long black camlet cloak, with a broad cape fastened
up close to his chin. With this he wore a big, broad-brimmed slouch
hat, and often green spectacles or a green shade. Sometimes his mouth
was covered up with red flannel, or his corpulent legs and gouty
feet were swathed in flannel. His natural appearance as Price was a
compact middle-aged man, inclined to stoutness, erect, active, and not
bad-looking, with a beaky nose, keen gray eyes, and a nutcracker chin.
His schemes were very ingenious. On one occasion he pretended, in one
disguise, to expose a swindler (himself in another disguise), whom a
respectable city merchant inveigled into his house in order to give
him up to the police. The swindler proposed to buy himself off for
£500; the offer was accepted, the money paid by a thousand-pound note,
for which the swindler got change. The note, of course, was forged. He
victimized numbers of tradesmen. Disguised as an old man, he passed six
forged fifty-pound notes on a grocer, and then as Price backed up his
victim in an action brought against the bank which refused payment of
the counterfeits. But his cleverest coup was that organized against the
lottery offices. Having in one of his disguises engaged a boy to serve
him, he sent the lad, dressed in livery, round the town to buy lottery
tickets, paying for them in large (forged) notes, for which change was
always required. By these means hundreds and hundreds of pounds were
obtained upon the counterfeits. The boy was presently arrested, and a
clever plot was laid to nab the old man his master, but Price by his
vigilance outwitted the police. Another of his dodges was to hire boys
to take forged notes to the Bank, receive the tickets from the teller,
and carry them back to him. He forthwith altered the figures, passed
them on by the same messenger to the Bank cashier, and obtained payment
for the larger amount.

These wholesale forgeries produced something like consternation at
the Bank. It was supposed that they were executed by a large gang,
well organized and with numerous ramifications, although Price, as I
have said, really worked single-handed. The notes poured in day after
day, and still no clue was obtained as to the culprits. The Bow Street
officials were hopelessly at fault. "Old Patch" was advertised for,
described in his various garbs. It was now discovered that he had a
female accomplice. This was a Mrs. Poultney, alias Hickeringill, his
wife's aunt, a tall, rather genteel woman of thirty, with a downcast
look, thin face and person, light hair, and pitted with the small-pox.
Fate at last unexpectedly overtook Old Patch. One of many endorsements
upon a forged note was traced to a pawnbroker, who remembered to have
had the note from one Powel. The runners suspected that Powel was
Price, and that he was a member of Old Patch's gang. A watch was set
at the pawnbroker's, and the next time Powel called he was arrested,
identified as Price, searched, and found to have upon his person a
large number of notes, with a quantity of white tissue-paper, which
he declared he had bought to make into air-balloons for his children.
Price was committed to prison, and a close inquiry made into his
antecedents. He was found to be the man who had decoyed Foote the actor
into a partnership in a brewery and decamped with the profits, leaving
Foote to pay liabilities to the extent of £500. Then, he had started
an illicit still, and had been arrested and sent to Newgate till he
had paid a fine of £1,600. He was released through the intercession of
Lord Lyttleton and Foote, and forgiven the fine. He next set up as a
fraudulent lottery office keeper, and bolted with a big prize. After
this he elaborated his system of forgery, which ended in the way I have
said. Price was alert and cunning to the last. One of his first acts
was to pass out a clandestine letter to Mrs. Poultney, briefly telling
her to destroy everything. This she effected by burning the whole of
his disguises in the kitchen fire, on the pretence that the clothes
were infected by the plague. The engraving press was disposed of; the
copper plates heated red-hot, then smashed into pieces and thrown with
the water-mark wires on to a neighbouring dust-heap, where they were
subsequently discovered. Price attempted to deny his identity, but
to no purpose, and when he saw the grip of the law tightening upon
him, he committed suicide to avoid the extreme penalty. He was found
hanging behind the door of his cell, suspended from two hat-screws,
strengthened by gimlets. Price's depredations, it was said, amounted
to £200,000; but how he disposed of his ill-gotten gains, seeing that
he always lived obscurely, and neither gambled nor drank, remained an
inscrutable secret to the last.

Persons of respectable station, sometimes, succumbed to special
temptations. William Guest was the son of a clergyman living at
Worcester, who had sufficient interest to get him a clerkship in
the Bank of England. The constant handling of piles of gold was too
much for Guest's integrity, and he presently resolved to turn his
opportunities to account. Taking a house in Broad Street Buildings,
he devoted the upper part of it to his nefarious trade. He abstracted
guineas from his drawer in the Bank, carried them home, filed them,
then remilled them in a machine he had designed for the purpose,
and returned them—now light weight—to the Bank. The filings he
converted into ingots and disposed of to the trade. No suspicion of his
malpractices transpiring, he was in due course advanced to the post
of teller. But a fellow-teller having observed him one day picking
out new guineas from a bag, watched him, and found that he did this
constantly. On another occasion he was seen to pay away guineas some of
which, on examination, proved to have been recently filed. They were
weighed, and found short weight. To test Mr. Guest still further, his
money-bags were opened one night after hours, and the contents counted
and examined. The number was short, and several guineas found which
appeared to have been recently filed, and which on weighing proved to
be light.

A descent was forthwith made upon Guest's house, and in the upper rooms
the whole apparatus for filing was laid bare. In a nest of drawers were
found vice, files, the milling machine, two bags of gold filings, and
a hundred guineas. A flap in front of the nest of drawers could be let
down, and inside was a skin fastened to the back of the flap, with a
hole in it to button on to the waistcoat, and equip the workman after
the method of jewellers. More evidence was soon forthcoming against
Guest. His fellow-teller had seen him in possession of a substantial
bar of gold; jewellers and others swore to having bought ingots from
him, and an assayer at Guest's trial deposed to their being of the same
standard as the guinea coinage. His guilt was clearly made out to the
jury, and he was sentenced to death. A petition signed by a number of
influential persons was forwarded to the Crown, praying for mercy, but
it was decided that the law must take its course. As his crime amounted
to high treason, he went to Tyburn on a sledge, but he suffered no
other penalty than hanging.

The flagitious trade of coining was in a most flourishing condition
during the last decades of the eighteenth and the early part of the
nineteenth centuries. The condition of the national coinage was at this
time far from creditable to the Mint. A great part of both the silver
and copper money in circulation was much worn and defaced. Imitation
thus became much easier than with coins comparatively fresh and new.
Hence the nefarious practice multiplied exceedingly. There were as
many as forty or fifty private mints constantly at work, either in
London or in the principal country towns. The process was rapid, not
too laborious, and extremely profitable. A couple of hands could turn
out in a week base silver coins worth nominally two or three hundred
pounds. The wages of a good workman were as much as a couple of guineas
a day. Much capital was invested by large dealers in the trade, who
must have made enormous sums. One admitted that his transactions in
seven years amounted to the production of £200,000 in counterfeit
half-crowns and other silver coins. So systematic was the traffic,
that orders for town and country were regularly executed by the
various manufacturers. Boxes and parcels of base coin were despatched
every morning by coach and wagon to all parts of the kingdom, like
any other goods. The trade extended to foreign countries. The law,
until it was rectified, did not provide any method of punishment for
the counterfeiting of foreign money, and French louis-d'or, Spanish
dollars, German florins, and Turkish sequins were shipped abroad in
great quantities. The Indian possessions even did not escape, and a
manufactory of spurious gold or silver pagodas was at one time most
active in London, whence they were exported to the East. The number of
persons employed in London as capitalists and agents for distribution
alone amounted to one hundred and twenty at one time; and besides
there was a strong force of skilful handicraftsmen, backed up by a
whole army of "utterers" or "smashers," constantly busy in passing the
base money into the currency. The latter comprised hawkers, peddlers,
market-women, hackney-coach drivers, all of whom attended the markets
held by the dealers in the manufactured article, and bought wholesale
to distribute retail by various devices, more particularly in giving
change. They obtained the goods at an advantage of about one hundred
per cent. When the base money lost its veneer, the dealers were ready
to repurchase it in gross, and after a repetition of the treatment,
issue it afresh at the old rates.

Gold coins were not so much counterfeited as silver and copper, but
there were many bad guineas in circulation. The most dexterous method
of coining them was by mixing a certain amount of alloy with the pure
metal. They were the proper weight, and had some semblance of the true
ring, but their intrinsic value was not more than thirteen or fourteen
shillings, perhaps only eight or nine. The fabrication was, however,
limited by the expense and the nicety required in the process. To
counterfeit silver was a simpler operation. Of base silver money there
were five kinds; viz., flats, plated goods, plain goods, castings,
and "fig" things. The _flats_ were cut out of prepared flattened
plates composed of silver and blanched copper. When cut out the coins
were turned in a lathe, stamped in a press with the proper die, and
subjected to rubbing with various materials, including aquafortis to
bring the silver to the surface, sand-paper, cork, cream of tartar, and
last of all blacking to give the appearance of age. _Plated goods_ were
prepared from copper; the coins cut the proper size and plated, the
stamping being done afterwards. As these coins were very like silver,
they generally evaded detection. _Plain goods_ consisted of copper
blanks the size of a shilling, turned out from a lathe, then given
the colour and lustre of metal buttons, after which they were rubbed
with cream of tartar and blacking. _Castings_, as the word implies,
were coins made of blanched copper, cast in moulds of the proper die;
they were then silvered and treated like the rest. It was very common
to give this class of base money a crooked appearance, by which means
they seemed genuine, and got into circulation without suspicion. The
"_figs_" or _fig things_, were the lowest and meanest class, and were
confined chiefly to sixpences. Copper counterfeit money was principally
of two kinds, stamped and plain, made out of base metal; the profit
on them being about a hundred per cent. They were mostly halfpennies;
but farthings were also largely manufactured, the material being real
copper, but the fraud consisted in their being of light weight, and
very thin.

The prosecutions for coining were very numerous. The register of the
solicitor to the Mint recorded as many as six hundred and fifty in a
period of seven years. The offence of uttering, till a recent date,
constituted petty treason, and met with the usual penalties. These,
in the case of female offenders, included hanging and burning at a
stake. The last woman who suffered in this way was burned before the
debtors' door, in front of Newgate, in 1788, having previously been
strangled. In the following year, as has been already stated, the law
was passed, which abolished the practice of burning women convicted of
petty treason, and thereafter persons guilty of only selling or dealing
in base money were more leniently dealt with. The offence was long only
a misdemeanour, carrying with it a sentence of imprisonment for a year
and a day, which the culprit passed not unpleasantly in Newgate, while
his friends or relations kept the business going outside, and supplied
him regularly with ample funds.

There was as yet little security for life and property in town or
country. The streets of London were still unsafe; high roads and
bye roads leading to it were still infested by highway robbers.
The protection afforded to the public by the police continued very
inefficient. It was still limited to parochial effort; the watchmen
were appointed by the vestries, and received a bare pittance,—twelve
and sixpence a week in summer, seventeen and sixpence in winter,—which
they often eked out by taking bribes from the women of the town, or by
a share in a burglar's "swag," to whose doings they were conveniently
blind. These watchmen were generally middle-aged, often old and feeble
men, who were appointed either from charitable motives, to give them
employment, or save them from being inmates of the workhouse and a
burthen to the parish. Their hours of duty were long, from night-fall
to sunrise, during which, when so disposed, they patrolled the
streets, calling the hour, the only check on their vigilance being
the occasional rounds of the parish beadle, who visited the watchmen
on their various beats. In spite of this the watchmen were often
invisible; not to be found when most wanted, and even when present,
powerless to arrest or make head against disorderly or evilly-disposed
persons.

Besides the watchmen there were the parish constables, nominated by
the court of burgesses, or court leet. The obligation of serving in
the office of constable might fall upon any householder in turn, but
he was at liberty to escape it by buying a substitute or purchasing
a "Tyburn ticket," exempting from service. The parish constables
were concerned with pursuit rather than prevention, with crime after
rather than before the fact. In this duty they were assisted by the
police constables, although there was no love lost between the two
classes of officer. The police constables are most familiar to us
under the name of "Bow Street runners," but they were attached to all
the police offices, and not to Bow Street alone. They were nominated
from Whitehall by the Secretary of State, the minister now best known
as the Home Secretary. The duties of the "runners" were mainly those
of detection and pursuit, in which they were engaged in London and in
the country, at home and abroad. Individuals or public bodies applied
to Bow Street, or some other office, for the services of a runner.
These officers took charge of poaching cases, of murders, burglaries,
or highway robberies. Some were constantly on duty at the court, as
depredations were frequently committed in the royal palaces, or the
royal family were "teased by lunatics." The runners were remunerated
by a regular salary of a guinea a week; but special services might be
recognized by a share in the private reward offered, or, in case of
conviction, by a portion of the public parliamentary reward of £40,
which might be granted by the bench.

[Illustration: _Thieving Lane_

(_View of southern end of Thieving Lane, now Bow Street_)

    Felons were conveyed through this lane to the gate-house which
    stood at the end of Tothill Street. In close proximity to the
    prison, it was a resort of thieves, from which it took its
    unenviable name.]

The policy of making these grants was considered questionable. It
tended to tempt officers of justice "to forswear themselves for the
lucre of the reward," and the thirst for "blood-money," as it was
called, was aggravated till it led many to sell the lives of their
fellow-creatures for gain. There were numerous cases of this. Jonathan
Wild was one of the most notorious of the dishonest thief-takers.
In 1755 several scoundrels of the same ilk were convicted of having
obtained the conviction of innocent people, simply to pocket the
reward. Their offence did not come under penal statute, so they were
merely exposed in the pillory, where, however, the mob pelted one to
death and nearly killed another. Again, in 1816, a police officer named
Vaughan was guilty of inciting to crime, in order to betray his victims
and receive the blood-money. On the other hand, when conviction was
doubtful the offender enjoyed long immunity from arrest. Officers would
not arrest him until he "weighed his weight," as the saying was, or
until they were certain of securing the £40 reward. Another form of
remuneration was the bestowal on conviction of a "Tyburn ticket;" in
other words, of an exemption from service in parish offices. This the
officer sold for what it would bring, the price varying in different
parishes from £12 to £40.

It was not to be wondered at that a weak and inadequate police force,
backed up by such uncertain and injudicious incentives to activity,
should generally come off second-best in its struggles with the
hydra-headed criminality of the day. Robberies and burglaries were
committed almost under the eyes of the police. It was calculated
that the value of the property stolen in the city in one month of
1808 amounted to £15,000, and none of the parties were ever known or
apprehended, although sought after night and day. Such cases as the
following were of frequent occurrence: "Seven ruffians, about eight
o'clock at night knocked at the door of Mrs. Abercrombie in Charlotte
Street, Rathbone Place, calling out 'Post!' and upon its being opened,
rushed in and took her jewels and fifty or sixty guineas in money,
with all the clothes and linen they could get. The neighbourhood was
alarmed, and a great crowd assembled, but the robbers sallied forth,
and with swords drawn and pistols presented, threatened destruction
to any who opposed them. The mob tamely suffered them to escape with
their booty without making any resistance." The officers of justice
were openly defied. There were streets, such as Duck Lane, Gravel Lane,
or Cock Lane, in which it was unsafe for any one to venture without an
escort of five or six of his fellows, as the ruffians would cut him to
pieces if he were alone.

Still more dastardly were the wanton outrages perpetrated upon
unprotected females, often in broad daylight, and in the public
streets. These at one time increased to an alarming extent. Ladies were
attacked and wounded without warning, and apparently without cause.
The injuries were often most serious. On one occasion a young lady was
stabbed in the face by means of an instrument concealed in a bouquet of
flowers which a ruffian had begged her to smell. When consternation was
greatest, however, it was reported that the cowardly assailant was in
custody. He proved to be one Renwick Williams, now generally remembered
as "the monster." The assault for which he was arrested was made in St.
James's Street, about midnight, upon a young lady, Miss Porter, who
was returning from a ball to her father's house. Renwick struck at her
with a knife, and wounded her badly through her clothes, accompanying
the blow with the grossest language. The villain at the time escaped,
but Miss Porter recognized him six months later in St. James's Park. He
was followed by a Mr. Coleman to his quarters at No. 52, Jermyn Street,
and brought to Miss Porter's house. The young lady, crying "That is the
wretch!" fainted away at the sight of him. The prisoner indignantly
repudiated that he was "the monster" who was advertised for, but he
was indicted at the Old Bailey, and the jury found him guilty without
hesitation. His sentence was two years' imprisonment in Newgate, and he
was bound over in £400 to be of good behaviour.

Gentlemen, some of the highest station, going or returning from court,
were often the victims of the depredations committed in the royal
precincts. In 1792 a gang of thieves dressed in court suits smuggled
themselves into a drawing-room of St. James's Palace, and tried to
hustle and rob the Prince of Wales. The Duke of Beaufort, returning
from a levee, had his "George," pendant to his ribbon of the Garter,
stolen from him in the yard of St. James's Palace. The order was set
with brilliants, worth a very large sum of money. The duke called out
to his servants, who came up and seized a gentlemanly man dressed
in black standing near. The "George" was found in this gentleman's
pocket. He proved to be one Henry Sterne, commonly called Gentleman
Harry,[82:1] who, being of good address and genteel appearance,
easily got admission to the best company, upon whom he levied his
contributions.

George Barrington, the notorious pickpocket, also found it to his
advantage to attend levees and drawing-rooms. Barrington, or Waldron,
which was his real name, began crime early. When one of a strolling
company in Ireland, he recruited the empty theatrical treasury and
supplemented meagre receipts by stealing watches and purses, the
proceeds being divided among the rest of the actors. He found thieving
so much more profitable than acting that he abandoned the latter in
favour of the former profession, and set up as a gentleman pickpocket.
Having worked Dublin well, his native land became too hot to hold him,
and he came to London. At Ranelagh one night he relieved both the Duke
of Leinster and Sir William Draper of considerable sums. He visited
also the principal watering places, including Bath, but London was his
favourite hunting-ground. Disguised as a clergyman, he went to court on
drawing-room days, and picked pockets or removed stars and decorations
from the breasts of their wearers. At Covent Garden Theatre one night
he stole a gold snuff-box set with brilliants, and worth £30,000,
belonging to Prince Orloff, of which there had been much talk, and
which, with other celebrated jewels, Barrington had long coveted. The
Russian prince felt the thief's hand in his pocket, and immediately
seized Barrington by the throat, on which the latter slipped back
the snuff-box. But Barrington was arrested and committed for trial,
escaping this time because Prince Orloff would not prosecute. He was,
however, again arrested for picking a pocket in Drury Lane Theatre, and
sentenced to three years' hard labour on board the hulks in the Thames.

From this he was released prematurely through the good offices of a
gentleman who pitied him, only to be reimprisoned, but in Newgate,
not the hulks, for fresh robberies at the Opera House, Pantheon, and
other places of public resort. Once more released, he betook himself
to his old evil courses, and having narrowly escaped capture in
London, wandered through the northern counties in various disguises,
till he was at length taken at Newcastle-on-Tyne. Another narrow
escape followed, through the absence of a material witness; but
he was finally arrested for picking a pocket on Epsom Downs, and
sentenced to seven years' transportation. He made an affecting speech
at his trial, urging, in extenuation of his offence, that he had
never had a fair chance of earning an honest livelihood. He may have
been sincere, and he certainly took the first opportunity offered to
prove it. On the voyage out to New South Wales there was a mutiny
on board the convict ship, which would have been successful but for
Barrington's aid on the side of authority. He held the passage to the
quarter-deck single-handed, and kept the mob of convicts at bay with
a marline-spike, till the captain and crew were able to get arms and
finally suppress the revolt. As a reward for his conduct, Barrington
was appointed to a position of trust, in charge of other prisoners at
Paramatta. Within a year or two he was advanced to the more onerous
and responsible post of chief constable, and was complimented by the
governor of the colony for his faithful performance of the duty. He
fell away in health, however, and retiring eventually upon a small
pension, died before he was fifty years of age.

The gentlemen of the highway continued to harass and rob all
travellers. All the roads were infested. Two or three would be heard of
every morning; some on Hounslow Heath, some on Finchley Common, some on
Wimbledon Common, some on the Romford Road. Townshend, the Bow Street
runner, declared that on arriving at the office of a morning people
came in one after the other to give information of such robberies.
"Messrs. Mellish, Bosanquet, and Pole, merchants of the city," says a
contemporary chronicle, "were stopped by three highwaymen on Hounslow
Heath. After robbing them, without resistance, of their money and
their watches, one of the robbers wantonly fired into the chaise and
mortally wounded Mr. Mellish." The first successful effort made to
put down this levying of blackmail upon the king's highway was the
establishment of the police horse patrol in 1805. It was organized
by the direction of the chief magistrate at Bow Street, then Sir
Nathaniel Conant, and under the immediate orders of a conductor, Mr.
Day. This force consisted of mounted constables, who every night
regularly patrolled all the roads leading into the metropolis. They
worked singly between two stations, each starting at a fixed time from
each end, halting midway to communicate, then returning. The patrol
acted on any information received _en route_, making themselves known
as they rode along to all persons riding horses or in carriages, by
calling out in a loud tone "Bow Street Patrol." They arrested all known
offenders whom they met with, and were fully armed for their own and
the public protection. The members of this excellent force were paid
eight-and-twenty shillings a week, with turnpike tolls and forage for
their horses, which, however, they were obliged to groom and take care
of. Marked and immediate results were obtained from the establishment
of this patrol. Highway robbery ceased almost entirely, and in the rare
cases which occurred before it quite died out, the guilty parties were
invariably apprehended.

There was as yet no very marked diminution in the number of executions,
but other forms of punishment were growing into favour. Already
transportation beyond the seas had become a fixed system. Since the
settlement of New South Wales as a penal colony in 1780, convicts were
sent out regularly, and in increasingly large batches. The period
between conviction and embarkation was spent in Newgate, thus adding
largely to its criminal population, with disastrous consequences to the
health and convenience of the place. Besides these, the most heinous
criminals, there were other lesser offenders, for whom various terms
of imprisonment was deemed a proper and sufficient penalty. Hence
gaols were growing much more crowded, and Newgate more especially, as
will presently be apparent from a brief review of some of the types
of persons who became lodgers in Newgate, not temporarily, as in the
case of all who passed quickly from the condemned cells to the gallows,
but who remained there for longer periods, whether awaiting removal as
transports, or working out a sentence of imprisonment in the course of
law.

As London, increasing in size and life, became more complex, chances
multiplied for rogues and sharpers, who tried with chicane and
stratagem to prey upon society. Swindling was carried out more
systematically and upon a wider scale than in the days of Jenny Diver
or the sham German Princess. A woman named Robinson was arrested in
1801, who, under the pretence of being a rich heiress, had obtained
goods fraudulently from tradesmen to the value of £20,000. Again, some
years later, a gang resembling somewhat the "long firms" of modern days
carried on a fictitious trade, and obtained goods from city merchants
worth £50,000. There were many varieties of the professional swindler
in those days. Some did business under the guise of licensed and
outwardly respectable pawnbrokers, who _sub rosâ_ were traffickers in
stolen goods. Others roamed the country as hawkers, general dealers,
and peddlers, distributing exciseable articles which had been smuggled
into the country, carrying on fraudulent raffles, purchasing stolen
horses in one county and disposing of them in another. The "duffer"
went from door to door in the town, offering for sale smuggled tobacco,
muslins, or other stuffs, and, if occasion served, passing forged notes
or bad money as small change.

Where the swindler possessed such qualifications as a pleasing manner
and a gentlemanly address, with a small capital to start with, he flew
at higher game. Alexander Day, alias Marmaduke Davenport, Esq., was
one of the first of a long line of impostors who made a great show,
in a fine house in a fashionable neighbourhood, with sham footmen in
smart liveries, and a grand carriage and pair. The latter he got in
on approval, taking care while he used them to be driven to the Duke
of Montague's and other aristocratic mansions. In the carriage too he
called on numbers of tradesmen and gave large orders for goods: yards
of Spanish point-lace, a gold "equipage" or dinner-service, silks in
long pieces, table and other linen enough to furnish several houses.
By clever excuses he postponed payment, or made off with the property
by a second door. Among other things ordered was a gold chain for his
squirrel, which already wore a silver one. The goldsmith recognized the
silver chain as one he had recently sold to a lady, and his suspicions
were aroused. On reference to her she denounced Day as a swindler, who
had cheated her out of a large sum of money. Day was forthwith arrested
and sent to Newgate. At his trial he declared that he meant to pay for
everything he had ordered, that he owned an estate in Durham worth
£1,200 a year, but that it was heavily mortgaged. The case occupied
some time, but in the end Day was sentenced to two years' imprisonment
in Newgate, to stand twice in the pillory, find security for his good
behaviour, and pay a fine of £200.

The cleverest swindles were often effected by the softer sex. Female
sharpers infested all places of public resort. They dressed in the
best clothes, and personating ladies of the highest fashion, attended
entertainments and masquerades; they even succeeded in gaining
admission to St. James's Palace, where they got into the general
circle and pilfered right and left. One woman, the wife of a notorious
Chevalier d'Industrie, was known to have been at court at the birthday
of King George III. Her costume was in irreproachably good taste; her
husband attended her in the garb of a dignitary of the Church. Between
them they managed to levy contributions to the extent of £1,700, and
made off before these thefts were discovered or suspected.

A notable female sharper was Elizabeth Harriet Grieve, whose line of
business was to pretend that she possessed great influence at court,
and promise preferment. She gave out that she was highly connected:
Lord North was her first cousin, the Duke of Grafton her second; she
was nearly related to Lady Fitz-Roy, and most intimate with Lord
Guildford and other peers. In those days places were shamelessly bought
and sold, and tradesmen retiring from business, or others who had
amassed a little property, invested their savings in a situation under
the Crown. When the law at length laid hands on the "Hon." Elizabeth
Harriet, as she styled herself, a great number of cases were brought
against her. A coach-carver, whose trade was declining, had paid her
£36 to obtain him a place as clerk in the Victualling Office. Another
man gave her £30 down, with a conditional bond for £250, to get the
place of a "coast" or "tide"-waiter. Both were defrauded. There were
many more proved against her, and she was eventually sentenced to
transportation.

She was only one of many who followed the same trade. David James
Dignum was convicted in 1777 of pretending to sell places under
Government, and sentenced to hard labour on the Thames. Dignum's was
a barefaced kind of imposition. He went the length of handing his
victims, in exchange for the fees, which were never less than a
hundred guineas, a stamped parchment duly signed by the head of the
public department, with seals properly attached. In one case he got
£1,000 for pretending to secure a person the office of "writer of the
'London Gazette.'" Of course the signatures to these instruments were
forged, and the seals had been removed from some legal warrant. When
the time came for Dignum's departure for the hulks, he resolved to go
to Woolwich in state, and travelled down in a post-chaise, accompanied
by his <DW64> servant. But on reaching the ballast lighter on which
Dignum was to work, his valet was refused admittance, and the convict
was at once put to the duty of the wheelbarrow. He made a desperate
effort to get off by forging a cheque on Drummonds, which he got others
to cash. They were arrested, but their innocence was clearly shown.
Dignum had hoped to be brought up to London for examination. He had
thought to change his lot, to exchange the hulks for Newgate, even at
the risk of winding up at Tyburn. But in this he was foiled, as the
authorities thought it best to institute no prosecution, but leave him
to work out his time at the hulks.

That the dishonest and evilly-disposed should thus try to turn the
malversation of public patronage to their own advantage was not
strange. The traffic in places long flourished unchecked in a corrupt
age, and almost under the very eyes of careless, not to say culpable,
administrators. The evil practice culminated in the now nearly
forgotten case of Mrs. Mary Ann Clarke, who undoubtedly profited
liberally by her pernicious influence over the Duke of York when
commander-in-chief of the army. The scandal was brought prominently
before the public by Colonel Wardle, M. P., who charged her with
carrying on a traffic in military commissions, not only with the
knowledge, but the participation, of the Duke of York. A long inquiry
followed, at which extraordinary disclosures were made. Mrs. Clarke was
proved to have disposed of both military and ecclesiastical patronage.
She gave her own footman a pair of colours, and procured for an Irish
clergyman the honour of preaching before the King. Her brokership
extended to any department of state, and her lists of applicants
included numbers of persons in the best classes of society. The Duke of
York was exonerated from the charge of deriving any pecuniary benefit
from this disgraceful traffic; but it was clear that he was cognizant
of Mrs. Clarke's proceedings, and that he knowingly permitted her to
barter his patronage for filthy lucre. Mrs. Clarke was examined in
person at the bar of the house. In the end a vote acquitted the duke of
personal corruption, and the matter was allowed to drop. But a little
later Colonel Wardle was sued by an upholsterer for furniture supplied
at his order to Mrs. Clarke, and the disinterestedness of the colonel's
exposure began to be questioned. In 1814 Mrs. Clarke was sentenced to
nine months' imprisonment for a libel on the Irish Chancellor of the
Exchequer.

A clever scheme of deception which went very near success was that
perpetrated by Robert Jaques. Jaques filled the post of "clerk of
the papers" to the warden of the Fleet, a place which he had himself
solicited, on the plea that he was a man of experience, able to guard
the warden against the tricks incident to his trust. Jaques admitted
that his own antecedents were none of the best, that he had been
frequently in gaol, but he pleaded that men like himself, who had been
guilty of the worst offences, had afterwards become the best officers.
No sooner was Jaques appointed than he began to mature a plot against
his employer. The warden of the Fleet by his office became responsible
for the debt of any prisoner in his custody who might escape. Jaques
at once cast about for some one whom he might through a third party
cause to be arrested, brought to the Fleet on a sham action, and whom
he would assist to escape. The third party's business would then be to
sue the warden for the amount of the evaded debt. Jaques applied to a
friend, Mr. Tronson, who had been a servant, an apothecary, a perfumer,
and a quack doctor. Tronson found him one Shanley, a needy Irishman,
short of stature and of fair complexion, altogether a person who might
well be disguised as a woman. Jaques next arranged that a friend should
get a warrant against Shanley for £450. Upon this, Shanley, who was
easily found, being a dressy young gentleman, fond of blue and gold,
was arrested and carried to a spunging-house. While there a second writ
was served upon Shanley for £850, at the suit of another friend of
Jaques. Shanley was next transferred to the Fleet on a Habeas, applied
for by a fictitious attorney. The very next Sunday, Jaques gave a
dinner-party, at which his wife, a brother, Mr. John Jaques, and his
wife, with some of the parties to the suits, and of course Shanley,
were present. Later in the day Shanley exchanged clothes with Mrs.
John Jaques, and, personating her, walked out of the prison. It was at
a time when an under-turnkey was on duty at the gate, and he let the
disguised prisoner pass without question. By-and-by Mrs. Jaques got
back her clothes, and also left. Shanley had meanwhile proceeded post
haste to Dover, and so reached the continent.

As soon as the escape was discovered, suspicion fell on Jaques's
friends, who were openly taxed with connivance. The matter looked worse
for them when they laid claim to the money considered forfeited by
the disappearance of the debtor, and the law stepped in to prosecute
inquiry. The head turnkey, tracking Shanley to Calais, went in pursuit.
At the same time a correspondence which was in progress between the
conspirators on either side of the Channel was intercepted by order of
the Secretary of State, and the letters handed over to the warden's
solicitors. From these the whole plot was discovered, and the guilt
of the parties rendered the more sure by the confession of Shanley.
Jaques was arrested, tried, and convicted at the Old Bailey, receiving
the sentence of three years' imprisonment, with one public exposure
on the pillory at the Royal Exchange. A curious accident, however,
helped to obtain the premature release of Jaques from Newgate. A Sir
James Saunderson having been robbed of a large sum in cash and notes,
portion of the stolen property was brought into Newgate by some of the
thieves, who were arrested on another charge. The notes were intrusted
to Jaques, who pretended he could raise money on them. Instead of this,
he gave immediate notice to their rightful owner that he had them in
his possession. Jaques afterwards petitioned Sir James Saunderson to
interest himself in his behalf, and through this gentleman's good
offices he escaped the exposure upon the pillory, and was eventually
pardoned.

A peculiar feature in the criminal records of the early part of the
last century was the general increase in juvenile depravity. This was
remarked and commented upon by all concerned in the administration of
justice: magistrates of all categories, police officers, gaolers, and
philanthropists. It was borne out, moreover, by the statistics of the
times. There were in the various London prisons, in the year 1816,
three thousand inmates under twenty years of age. Nearly half of
this number were under seventeen, and a thousand of these alone were
convicted of felony. Many of those sent to prison were indeed of tender
years. Some were barely nine or ten. Children began to steal when they
could scarcely crawl. Cases were known of infants of barely six charged
in the courts with crimes. This deplorable depravity was attributable
to various causes: to the profligacy prevailing in the parish schools;
the cruel and culpable neglect of parents who deserted their offspring,
leaving them in a state of utter destitution, or were guilty of the
no less disgraceful wickedness of using them as instruments for their
nefarious designs; the artfulness of astute villains—prototypes of
old Fagin—who trained the youthful idea, in their own devious ways.
The last-named was a fruitful source of juvenile crime. Children were
long permitted to commit small thefts with impunity. The offence
would have been death to those who used them as catspaws; for them
capital punishment was humanely nearly impossible; moreover, the
police officers ignored them till they "weighed their weight," or
had been guilty of a forty-pound crime. The education in iniquity
continued steadily. They went from bad to worse, and ere long became
regular inmates of "flash houses," where both sexes mixed freely with
vicious companions of their own age, and the most daring enjoyed the
hero-worship of their fellows. When thus assembled, they formed
themselves into distinct parties or gangs, each choosing one of their
number as captain, and dividing themselves into reliefs to work certain
districts, one by day and by night. When they had "collared their
swag," they returned to divide their plunder, having gained sometimes
as much as three or four hundred pounds. A list, prepared about this
date, of these horrible dens showed that there were two hundred of
them, frequented by six thousand boys and girls, who lived solely in
this way, or were the associates of thieves. These haunts were situated
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
<DW19>s 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,
and with pale and terrified features, to get a breath of air." The
dissection of executed criminals was abolished soon after the discovery
of the crime of burking, with the idea that ignominy would no longer
attach to an operation which ceased to be compulsory for the most
degraded beings; and that executors or persons having lawful possession
of the bodies of people who had died friendless, would voluntarily
surrender them for the advancement of medical science.

Another brutal practice had nearly disappeared about the time of the
abolition of dissection. This was the public exhibition of the body,
as was done in the case of Mrs. Phipoe, the murderess, who was executed
in front of Newgate in 1798, and her body publicly exhibited in a place
built for the purpose in the Old Bailey. About this time we find that
the bodies of two murderers, Clench and Mackay, "were publicly exposed
in a stable in Little Bridge Street, near Apothecaries' Hall, Surgeons'
Hall being let to the lieutenancy of the county for the accommodation
of the militia." In 1811 Williams, who murdered the Marrs in Ratcliffe
Highway, having committed suicide in gaol to escape hanging, it was
determined that a public exhibition should be made of the body through
the neighbourhood which had been the scene of the monster's crimes.
A long procession was formed, headed by constables, who cleared the
way with their staves. Then came the newly-formed horse patrol, with
drawn cutlasses, parish officers, peace officers, the high constable of
the county of Middlesex on horseback, and then the body of Williams,
"extended at full length on an inclined platform erected on the cart,
about four feet high at the head, and gradually sloping towards the
horse, giving a full view of the body, which was dressed in blue
trousers and a blue-and-white striped waistcoat, but without a coat,
as when found in the cell. On the left side of the head the fatal
mall, and on the right the ripping chisel, with which the murders had
been committed, were exposed to view. The countenance of Williams was
ghastly in the extreme, and the whole had an appearance too horrible
for description." The procession traversed Ratcliffe twice, halting
for a quarter of an hour in front of the victims' dwelling, and was
accompanied throughout by "an immense concourse of persons, eager
to get a sight of the murderer's remains. . . . All the shops in the
neighbourhood were shut, and the windows and tops of the houses were
crowded with spectators."

Hanging in chains upon the gibbet which had served for the execution,
or on another specially erected on some commanding spot, had fallen
into disuse by 1832. But there was an attempt to revive it at that
date, when the act for dispensing with the dissection of criminals
was passed. A clause was inserted to the effect that "the bodies of
all prisoners convicted of murder should either be hung in chains, or
buried under the gallows on which they had been executed, . . .
according to the discretion of the court before whom the prisoners
might be tried." The revival of this barbarous practice caused
much indignation in certain quarters, but it was actually tried in
two provincial towns, Leicester and Durham. At the first-named the
exhibition nearly created a tumult, and the body was taken down and
buried, but not before the greatest scandal had been caused by the
unseemly proceedings of the crowd that flocked to see the sight. A sort
of fair was held, gaming-tables were set up, cards were played under
the gibbet, to the disturbance of the public peace and the annoyance
of all decent people. At Jarrow Stake, where the Durham murderer's body
was exposed, there were similar scenes, mingled with compassion for the
culprit's family, and a subscription was set on foot for them then and
there at the foot of the gibbet. Later on, after dark, some friends of
the deceased stole the body and buried it in the sand, and this was the
end of hanging in chains. After this a law was passed which prescribed
that the bodies of all executed murderers should be buried within the
walls of the gaol.

Although these objectionable practices had disappeared, there were
still many shocking incidents at executions, owing to the bungling and
unskilful way in which the operation was performed. The rope still
broke sometimes, although it was not often that the horrid scene at
Jersey at the beginning of the century was repeated. There the hangman
added his weight to that of the suspended culprit, and having first
pulled him sideways, then got upon his shoulders, so that the rope
broke. "To the great surprise of all who witnessed this dreadful scene,
the poor criminal rose straight upon his feet, with the hangman on his
shoulders, and immediately loosened the rope with his fingers." After
this the sheriffs sent for another rope, but the spectators interfered,
and the man was carried back to gaol. The whole case was referred to
the king, and the poor wretch, whose crime had been a military one, was
eventually pardoned. A somewhat similar event happened at Chester not
long afterwards; the ropes by which two offenders were turned off broke
a few inches from their necks. They were taken back to gaol, and were
again brought out in the afternoon, by which time fresh and stronger
ropes had been procured, and the sentence was properly and completely
carried out. Other cases might be quoted, especially that of William
Snow, _alias_ Sketch, who slipped from the gallows at Exeter and fell
to the ground. He soon rose to his feet, and, hearing the sorrowful
exclamations of the populace, coolly said, "Good people, do not be
hurried; I am not, I can wait."

Similar cases were not wanting as regards the executions before
Newgate. Others were not less horrible, although there was no failure
of apparatus. Sometimes the condemned man made a hard fight for life.
When Charles White was executed in 1823 for arson, he arranged a
handkerchief in such a way that the executioner found a difficulty in
pinioning his hands. White managed to keep his wrists asunder, and
continued to struggle with the officials for some time. Eventually he
was pinioned with a cord in the usual manner. On the scaffold he made
a violent attempt to loosen his bonds, and succeeded in getting his
hands free. Then with a strong effort he pushed off the white cap, and
tried to liberate his neck from the halter, which by this time had been
adjusted. The hangman summoned assistance, and with help tied the cap
over White's face with a handkerchief. The miserable wretch during the
whole of this time was struggling with the most determined violence,
to the great horror of the spectators. Still he resisted, and having
got from the falling drop to the firm part of the platform, he nearly
succeeded in tearing the handkerchief from his eyes. However, the
ceremony went forward, and when the signal was given the drop sank.
The wretched man did not fall with it, but jumped on to the platform,
and seizing the rope with his hands, tried to avoid strangulation. The
spectacle was horrible; the convict was half on the platform, half
hanging, and the convulsions of his body were appalling. The crowd
vociferously yelled their disapproval, and at length the executioner
forced the struggling criminal from the platform, so that the rope
sustained his whole weight. His face was visible to the whole crowd,
and was fearful to behold. Even now his sufferings were not at an end,
and his death was not compassed until the executioner terminated his
sufferings by hanging on to his legs.

When Luigi Buranelli was executed in 1855, through the improper
adjustment of the rope his sufferings were prolonged for five minutes;
"his chest heaved, and it was evident that his struggle was a fearful
one." A worse case still was that of William Bousfield, who, when
awaiting execution for murder, about the same date, had attempted
to throw himself upon the fire in his condemned cell. He was in
consequence so weak when brought out for execution, that he had to be
carried by four men, two supporting his body and two his legs. His
wretched, abject condition, seated in a chair under the drop, was such
as almost to unnerve the executioner Calcraft, who had been further
upset by a letter threatening to shoot him when he appeared to perform
his task. Calcraft, the moment he had adjusted the cap and rope, ran
down the steps, drew the bolt, and disappeared. "For a second or two
the body hung motionless, then, with a strength that astonished the
attendant officials, Bousfield slowly drew himself up, and rested with
his feet on the right side of the drop. One of the turnkeys rushed
forward and pushed him off. Again the wretched creature succeeded
in obtaining foothold, but this time on the left side of the drop."
Calcraft was forced to return, and he once more pushed Bousfield off,
who for the fourth time regained his foothold. Again he was repelled,
this time Calcraft adding his weight to the body, and the strangulation
was completed.

It was stated in evidence before the Commission on Capital Punishment
in 1864, that Calcraft's method of hanging was very rough, much the
same as if he had been hanging a dog. Calcraft, of whom mention has
just been made, was by trade a lady's shoemaker, and before he took to
hanging he was employed as a watchman at Reid's brewery in Liquorpond
Street. He was at first engaged as assistant to the executioner Tom
Cheshire, but in due course rose to be chief. He was always known as
a mild-mannered man of simple tastes, much given to angling in the
New River, and a devoted rabbit fancier. He was well known in the
neighbourhood where he resided, and the street gamins cried "Jack
Ketch" as he went along the street. While Calcraft was in office other
aspirants to fame appeared in the field. One was Askern, who had been
a convicted prisoner at York, but who consented to act as hangman
when Calcraft was otherwise engaged and no other functionary could be
obtained. It was not always easy to hire a hangman. There is still
extant a curious petition presented to the Treasury by Ralph Griffith,
Esq., high sheriff of Flintshire, which sets forth that the petitioner
had been at great expense by sending clerks and agents to Liverpool and
Shrewsbury to hire an executioner. The man to be hanged belonged to
Wales, and no Welshman would do the job. Travelling expenses of these
agents cost £15, and another £10 were spent in the hire of a Shropshire
man, who deserted, and was pursued, but without success. Another man
was hired, himself a convict, whose fees for self and wife were twelve
guineas. Then came the cost of the gallows, £4. 12_s._; and finally
the funeral, cart, coffin, and other petty expenses, amounting to £7.
10_s._, making nearly £50 as the total expense.




CHAPTER VIII

NEWGATE NOTORIETIES

    Diminution in certain kinds of crime—Fewer street
    robberies—Corresponding increase in cases of fraud, forgeries,
    jewel and bullion robberies—Great commercial frauds—Offences
    against the person confined to murder and manslaughter—The
    Cato Street conspiracy—Thistlewood's history—Discovery of
    the plot—The conspirators' plan and its overthrow—Their
    trial and execution at the Old Bailey—Attacks on the
    sovereign—Oxford fires at Queen Victoria—Celebrated
    frauds and forgeries—Fauntleroy—The last execution for
    forgery—Joseph Hunton the Quaker—Sir Robert Peel's bill
    to amend forgery laws—The Forgery Act—Latest cases of
    abduction—Edward Gibbon Wakefield and Miss Turner—The most
    remarkable murders of the epoch—Thurtell, Hunt, and Probert
    kill Mr. Weare—Burke and Hall—Their imitators, Bishop and
    Williams, in London—Greenacre and Mrs. Gale murder Hannah
    Brown—Horrible means of disposing of the corpse—Detection,
    trial, and sentence—Courvoisier murders his master—An
    epidemic of murder.


The record of crime has been brought down to the second decade of the
last century. Some space should be devoted to criminal occurrences
of a more recent date, only premising that as accounts become more
voluminous I shall be compelled to deal with fewer cases, taking in
preference those which are typical and invested with peculiar interest.
It is somewhat remarkable that a marked change soon comes over
the Calendar. Certain crimes, those against the person especially,
diminished gradually. They became less easy or remunerative. Police
protection was better and more effective; the streets of London were
well lighted, the suburbs were more populous and regularly patrolled.
People, moreover, were getting into the habit of carrying but little
cash about them, and no valuables but their watches or personal
jewelry. Street robberies offered fewer inducements to depredators,
and evil-doers were compelled to adopt other methods of preying upon
their fellows. This led to a rapid and marked increase in all kinds
of fraud; and prominent in the criminal annals of Newgate in these
later years will be found numerous remarkable instances of this class
of offence—forgeries committed systematically, and for long periods,
as in the case of Fauntleroy, to cover enormous defalcations; the
fabrication of deeds, wills, and false securities for the purpose
of misappropriating funds or feloniously obtaining cash; thefts of
bullion, bank-notes, specie, and gold-dust, planned with consummate
ingenuity, eluding the keenest vigilance, and carried out with reckless
daring; jewel-boxes cleverly stolen under the very noses of owners
or care-takers. As time passed, the extraordinary extension of all
commercial operations led to many entirely novel and often gigantic
financial frauds. The credulity of investors, the unscrupulous
dishonesty of bankers, the slackness of supervision over wholly
irresponsible agents, produced many terrible monetary catastrophes, and
lodged men like Cole, Robson, and Redpath in Newgate.

While the varying conditions of social life thus brought about many
changes in the character of offences against property, those against
the person became more and more limited to the most heinous, or those
which menaced or destroyed life. There was no increase in murder or
manslaughter; the number of such crimes remained proportionate to the
population. Nor did the methods by which they were perpetrated greatly
vary from those in times past. The causes also continued much the same.
Passion, revenge, cupidity, sudden ebullitions of homicidal rage, the
cold-blooded, calculating atrocity born of self-interest, were still
the irresistible incentives to kill. The brutal ferocity of the wild
beast once aroused, the same means, the same weapons were employed to
do the dreadful deed, the same and happily often futile precautions
taken to conceal the crime. Pegsworth, and Greenacre, and Daniel Good
merely reproduced types that had gone before, and that have since
reappeared. Esther Hibner was as inhuman in her ill-usage of the parish
apprentice whom she killed as Martha Brownrigg had been. Thurtell
and Hunt followed in the footsteps of Billings, Wood, and Catherine
Hayes. Courvoisier might have lived a century earlier. Hocker was found
upon the scene of his crime, irresistibly attracted thither, as was
Theodore Gardelle. Now and again there seemed to be a recurrence of a
murder epidemic, as there had been before; as in the year 1849, a year
memorable for the Rush murders at Norwich, the Gleeson Wilson murder
at Liverpool, that of the Mannings in London, and of many more. Men
like Mobbs, the miscreant known as "General Haynau" on account of his
blood-thirstiness, still murdered their wives; or struck in blind rage
like Cannon the chimney-sweeper, who savagely killed the policeman.

But at various dates treason distinct and tangible still came to the
front: direct attempts to levy war against the State. The well-known
Cato Street conspiracy, which grew out of disturbed social conditions
after the last French war, amidst general distress, and when the people
were beginning to agitate for a larger share of political power, was
among the earliest, and to some extent the most desperate, of these.
Its ringleaders, Thistlewood and the rest, were after capture honoured
by committal as State prisoners to the Tower, but they came one and
all to Newgate for trial at the Old Bailey, and remained there after
conviction till they were hanged. Later on, the Chartists agitated
persistently for the concessions embraced in the so-called People's
Charter, many of which are, by more legitimate efforts, engrafted upon
the Constitution. But the Chartists sought their ends by riot and
rebellion, and gained only imprisonment for their pains. Some five
hundred in all were arrested, but only three of these were lodged in
Newgate.

The Cato Street conspiracy would have been simply ridiculous but for
the recklessness of the desperadoes who planned it. That some thirty
or more needy men should hope to revolutionize England is a sufficient
proof of the absurdity of their attempt. But they proceeded in all
seriousness, and would have shrunk from no outrage or atrocity in
furtherance of their foolhardy enterprise. The massacre of the whole
of the Cabinet Ministers at one stroke was to be followed by an attack
upon "the old man and the old woman," as they styled the Mansion House
and the Bank of England. At the former the "Provisional Government"
was to be established, which under Thistlewood as dictator was to rule
the nation by first handing over its capital to fire and pillage.
This Thistlewood had seen many vicissitudes throughout his strange,
adventurous career. The son of a respectable Lincolnshire farmer, he
became a militia officer, and married a woman with £10,000, in which,
however, she had only a life interest. She died early, and Thistlewood,
left to his own resources, followed the profession of arms, first in
the British service, and then in that of the French revolutionary
Government. It was during this period that he was said to have imbibed
his revolutionary ideas. Returning to England, he found himself rich
in a small landed property, which he presently sold to a man who
became bankrupt before he had paid over the purchase money. After this
he tried farming, but failed. He married again and came to London,
where he soon became notorious as a reckless gambler and a politician
holding the most extreme views. In this way he formed the acquaintance
of Watson and others, with whom he was arraigned for treasonable
practices, and imprisoned. On his release he sent a challenge to Lord
Sidmouth, the Home Secretary, and was again arrested and imprisoned. On
his second release, goaded by his fancied wrongs, he began to plot a
dark and dreadful revenge, and thus the conspiracy in which he was the
prime mover took shape, and came to a head.

The Government obtained early and full information of the nefarious
scheme. One of the conspirators, by name Edwards, made a voluntary
confession to Sir Herbert Taylor one morning at Windsor; after which
Thistlewood and his accomplices were closely watched, and measures
taken to arrest them when their plans were so far developed that no
doubt could remain as to their guilt. The day appointed for the murder
and rising actually arrived before the authorities interfered. It
was the day on which Lord Harrowby was to entertain his colleagues
at dinner in Grosvenor Square. The occasion was considered excellent
by the conspirators for disposal of the whole Cabinet at one blow,
and it was arranged that one of their number should knock at Lord
Harrowby's door on the pretence of leaving a parcel, and that when
it was opened the whole band should rush in. While a few secured the
servants, the rest were to fall upon Lord Harrowby and his guests.
Hand-grenades were to be thrown into the dining-room, and during
the noise and confusion the assassination of the ministers was to
be completed, the heads of Lord Castlereagh and Lord Sidmouth being
carried away in a bag. Lord Harrowby's dinner-party was postponed,
but the conspirators knew nothing of it, and those who watched his
house were further encouraged in their mistake by the arrival of
many carriages, bound, as it happened, to the Archbishop of York's.
Meanwhile the main body remained at their headquarters, a ruined
stable in Cato Street, Edgeware Road, completing their dispositions
for assuming supreme power after the blow had been struck. Here they
were surprised by the police, headed by a magistrate, and supported by
a strong detachment of Her Majesty's Guards. The police were the first
to arrive on the spot, the Guards having entered the street at the
wrong end. The conspirators were in a loft, approached by a ladder and
a trap-door, access through which could only be obtained one by one.
The first constable who entered Thistlewood ran through the body with a
sword, but others quickly followed, the lights were extinguished, and
a desperate conflict ensued. The Guards, headed by Lord Frederick Fitz
Clarence, now reinforced the police, and the conspirators gave way.
Nine of the latter were captured, with all the war material, cutlasses,
pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition. Thistlewood and fourteen more
succeeded for the moment in making their escape, but most of them were
subsequently taken. Thistlewood was discovered next morning in a mean
house in White Street, Moorfields. He was in bed with his breeches on
(in the pockets of which were found a number of cartridges), the black
belt he had worn at Cato Street, and a military sash.

The trial of the conspirators came on some six weeks later, at the
Old Bailey. Thistlewood made a long and rambling defence, the chief
features of which were abuse of Lord Sidmouth, and the vilification
of the informer Edwards. Several of the other prisoners took the same
line as regards Edwards, and there seems to have been good reason for
supposing that he was a greater villain than any of those arraigned.
He had been in a state of abject misery, and when he first joined
"the reformers," as the Cato Street conspirators called themselves,
he had neither a bed to lie upon nor a coat to his back. His sudden
access to means unlimited was no doubt due to the profitable _rôle_ he
soon adopted of Government informer and spy, and it is pretty certain
that for some time he served both sides; on the one inveigling silly
enthusiasts to join in the plot, and denouncing them on the other.
The employment of Edwards, and the manner in which the conspirators
were allowed to commit themselves further and further before the law
was set in motion against them, were not altogether creditable to the
Government. It was asserted, not without foundation, at these trials,
that Edwards repeatedly incited the associates he was betraying to
commit outrage, to set fire to houses, and throw hand-grenades into
the carriages of ministers; that he was, to use Thistlewood's words,
"a contriver, instigator, and entrapper." The Government were probably
not proud of their agent, for Edwards, after the conviction had been
assured, went abroad to enjoy, it was said, an ample pension, so long
as he did not return to England.

Five of the conspirators, Thistlewood, Ings, Brunt, Davidson, and
Tidd, were sentenced to death, and suffered in the usual way in front
of Newgate, with the additional penalty of decapitation, as traitors,
after they had been hanged. A crowd as great as any known collected
in the Old Bailey to see the ceremony, about which there were some
peculiar features worth recording. The reckless demeanour of all
the convicts except Davidson was most marked. Thistlewood and Ings
sucked oranges on the scaffold; they with Brunt and Tidd scorned the
ordinary's ministrations, but Ings said he hoped God would be more
merciful to him than men had been. Ings was especially defiant. He
sought to cheer Davidson, who seemed affected, crying out, "Come, old
cock-of-wax, it will soon be over." As the executioner fastened the
noose, he nodded to a friend he saw in the crowd; and catching sight
of the coffins ranged around the gallows, he smiled at the show with
contemptuous indifference. He roared out snatches of a song about Death
or Liberty, and just before he was turned off, yelled out three cheers
to the populace whom he faced.

Attacks upon the sovereign were not uncommon after the accession of
the young Queen Victoria to the English throne in 1838. It was a form
of high treason not unknown in earlier reigns. In 1786 a mad woman,
Margaret Nicholson, tried to stab George III as he was alighting
from his carriage at the gate of St. James's Palace. She was seized
before she could do any mischief, and eventually lodged in Bethlehem
Hospital, where she died after forty years' detention, at the advanced
age of one hundred. Again, a soldier, by name Hatfield, who had been
wounded in the head, and discharged from the army for unsoundness of
mind in 1800, fired a pistol at George III from the pit of Drury Lane
theatre. William IV was also the victim of a murderous outrage on Ascot
racecourse in 1832, when John Collins, "a person in the garb of a
sailor, of wretched appearance, and having a wooden leg," threw a stone
at the king, which hit him on the forehead, but did no serious injury.
Collins, when charged, pleaded that he had lost his leg in action, that
he had petitioned without success for a pension, and that, as he was
starving, he had resolved on this desperate deed, feeling, as he said,
that he might as well be shot or hanged as remain in such a state. He
was eventually sentenced to death, but the plea of lunacy was allowed,
and he was confined for life.

None of the foregoing attempts were, however, so dastardly or
determined as that made by Oxford upon Queen Victoria two years after
she ascended the throne. The cowardly crime was probably encouraged
by the fearless and confiding manner in which the Queen, secure as
it seemed in the affections of her loyal people, freely appeared
in public. Oxford, who was only nineteen at the time his offence
was committed, had been born at Birmingham, but he came as a lad to
London, and took service as a pot-boy to a publican. From this he
was promoted to barman, and as such had charge of the business in
various public-houses. He left his last situation in April, 1840,
and established himself in lodgings in Lambeth, after which he
devoted himself to pistol practice in shooting-galleries, sometimes
in Leicester Square, sometimes in the Strand, or the West End. His
acquaintances often asked his object in this, but he kept his own
counsel till the 10th of June. On that day Oxford was on the watch
at Buckingham Palace. He saw Prince Albert return there from a visit
to Woolwich, and then passed on to Constitution Hill, there to wait
until four o'clock in the afternoon, the time at which the Queen and
Prince Consort usually took an afternoon drive. About six o'clock, the
royal carriage, a low open vehicle drawn by four horses, ridden by
postilions, left the palace. Oxford, who had been pacing backwards and
forwards with his hands under the lapels of his coat, saw the carriage
approach. He was on the right or north side of the road. Prince Albert
occupied the same side of the carriage, the Queen the left. As the
carriage came up to him Oxford turned, put his hand into his breast,
drew a pistol, and fired at the Queen.

The shot missed, and as the carriage passed on, Oxford drew a second
pistol and fired again. The Queen saw this second movement, and stooped
to avoid the shot; the Prince too rose to shield her with his person.
Again, providentially, the bullet went wide of the mark, and the royal
party drove back to Clarence House, the Queen being anxious to give the
first news of the outrage and of her safety to her mother, the Duchess
of Kent. Meanwhile the pistol-shots had attracted the attention of the
bystanders, of whom there was a fair collection, as usual, waiting to
see the Queen pass. Oxford was seized by a person named Lowe, who was
at first mistaken for the assailant. But Oxford at once assumed the
responsibility for his crime, saying, "It was I. I did it. I'll give
myself up. There is no occasion to use violence. I will go with you."
He was taken into custody, and removed first to a police cell, thence
committed to Newgate, after he had been examined before the Privy
Council. Oxford expressed little anxiety or concern. He asked more
than once whether the Queen was hurt, and acknowledged that the pistols
were loaded with ball.

A craze for notoriety, to be achieved at any cost, was the one
absorbing idea in young Oxford's disordered brain. After his arrest
he thought only of the excitement his attempt had raised, nothing of
its atrocity, or of the fatal consequences which might have ensued.
When brought to trial he hardly realized his position, but gazed with
complacency around the crowded court, and eagerly inquired what persons
of distinction were present. He smiled continually, and when the
indictment was read, burst into loud and discordant fits of laughter.
These antics may have been assumed to bear out the plea of insanity set
up in his defence, but that there was madness in his family, and that
he himself was of unsound mind, could not be well denied. His father,
it was proved, had been at times quite mad; and Oxford's mental state
might be inferred from his own proceedings and demeanour in court. The
whole of the evidence pointed so strongly towards insanity, that the
jury brought in a verdict of acquittal on that ground, and Oxford was
ordered to be detained during Her Majesty's pleasure. He went from
Newgate first to Bethlehem, from which he was removed to Broadmoor on
the opening of the great criminal lunatic asylum at that place. He was
released from Broadmoor in 1878, and went abroad.

Referring again to the increase of bank forgeries, at one session
of the Old Bailey, in 1821, no less than thirty-five true bills were
found for passing forged notes. But there were other notorious cases of
forgery. That of Fauntleroy the banker, in 1824, caused much excitement
at the time on account of the magnitude of the fraud, and the seeming
probity of the culprit. Mr. Fauntleroy was a member of a banking firm,
which his father had established in conjunction with a gentleman of
the name of Marsh, and others. He had entered the house as clerk in
1800; in 1807, when only twenty-two years of age, he succeeded to his
father's share in the business. According to Fauntleroy's own case,
he found at once that the firm was heavily involved, through advances
made to various builders, and that it could only maintain its credit by
wholesale discounting. Its embarrassments were greatly increased by the
bankruptcy of two of its clients in the building trade, and the bank
became liable for a sum of £170,000. New liabilities were incurred to
the extent of £100,000 by more failures, and in 1819, by the death of
one of the partners, a large sum in cash had to be withdrawn from the
bank to pay his heirs. "During these numerous and trying difficulties,"
says Mr. Fauntleroy, "the house was nearly without resources, and the
whole burthen of management falling on me, . . . I sought resources
where I could;" in other words, he forged powers of attorney and
proceeded to realize securities lodged in his bank under various
names. Among the prisoner's private papers, one was found giving full
details of the stock he had feloniously sold out, the sum amounting
to some £170,000, with a declaration in his own handwriting to the
following effect: "In order to keep up the credit of our house, I have
forged powers of attorney for the above sums and parties, and sold out
to the amount here stated, and without the knowledge of my partners.
I kept up the payments of the dividends, but made no entries of such
payments in my books. The bank began first to refuse our acceptances,
and to destroy the credit of our house; the bank shall smart for it."

Many stories were in circulation at the time of Fauntleroy's trial
with regard to his forgeries. It was said that he had by means of
them sold out so large an amount of stock, that he paid £16,000 a
year in dividends to escape detection. Once he ran a narrow risk
of being found out. A lady in the country, who had £13,000 in the
stocks, desired her London agent to sell them out. He went to the
bank, and found that no stocks stood in her name. He called at once
upon Fauntleroy, his client's banker, for an explanation, and was
told by Mr. Fauntleroy that the lady had desired _him_ to sell out,
"which I have done," added the fraudulent banker, "and here are the
proceeds," whereupon he produced exchequer bills to the amount. Nothing
more was heard of the affair, although the lady declared that she had
never instructed Fauntleroy to sell. On another occasion the banker
forged a gentleman's name while the latter was sitting with him in his
private room, and took the instrument out to a clerk with the ink not
dry. It must be added that the Bank of England, on discovering the
forgeries, replaced the stock in the names of the original holders,
who might otherwise have been completely ruined. A newspaper report of
the time describes Fauntleroy "as a well-made man of middle stature.
His hair, though gray, was thick, and lay smooth over his forehead.
His countenance had an expression of most subdued resignation. The
impression which his appearance altogether was calculated to make was
that of the profoundest commiseration."

The crime, long carried on without detection, was first discovered in
1820, when it was found that a sum of $10,000, standing in the name of
three trustees, of whom Fauntleroy was one, had been sold out under a
forged power of attorney. Further investigations brought other similar
frauds to light, and fixed the whole sum misappropriated at £170,000,
the first forgery dating back to 1814. A run upon the bank immediately
followed, which was only met by a suspension of payment and the closing
of its doors. Meanwhile public gossip was busy with Fauntleroy's name,
and it was openly stated in the press and in conversation that the
proceeds of these frauds had been squandered in dissipation, gambling,
and debauchery. Fauntleroy was scouted as a licentious libertine, a
deep and determined gamester, a spendthrift whose extravagance knew no
bounds. It was said that the dinners he gave were of the most sumptuous
and _recherché_ description. The story goes that one of his most
intimate friends, who attended him to the scaffold, entreated him, as
on the brink of the grave, and unable to take anything out of the world
with him, to reveal the secret of where some wonderful curaçoa was
obtained, for which Fauntleroy's cellar was famous. The veil was lifted
from his private life, and he was accused of persistent immorality. In
his defence he sought to rebut these charges, which indeed were never
clearly made out, and it is pretty certain that his own account of
the causes which led him into dishonesty was substantially true. He
called many witnesses, seventeen in all, to speak of him as they had
found him; and these, all respectable city merchants and business men,
declared that they had hitherto formed a high opinion of his honour,
integrity, and goodness of disposition, deeming him the last person
capable of a dishonourable action.

These arguments availed little with the jury, who after a short
deliberation found Fauntleroy guilty, and he was sentenced to death.
Every endeavour was used, however, to obtain a commutation of sentence.
His case was twice argued before the judges on points of law, but
the result in both cases was unfavourable. Appeals were made to the
Home Secretary, and all possible political interest brought to bear,
but without success. Fauntleroy meanwhile lay in Newgate, not herded
with other condemned prisoners, as the custom was, but in a separate
chamber, that belonging to one of the warders of the gaol. I find in
the chaplain's journal, under date 1824, various entries relative
to this prisoner. "Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. My application for books
for him not having been granted, I had no prayer-book to give him."
"Visited Mr. Fauntleroy. The sheriffs have very kindly permitted him
to remain in the turnkey's room where he was originally placed; nor
can I omit expressing a hope that this may prove the beginning of a
better system of confinement, and that every description of persons who
may be unfortunately under sentence of death will no longer be herded
indiscriminately together." The kindliness of the city authorities to
Fauntleroy was not limited to the assignment of a separate place of
durance.

A very curious and, in its way, amusing circumstance in connection with
this case was the offer of a certain Italian, Edmund Angelini, to take
Fauntleroy's place. Angelini wrote to the Lord Mayor to this effect,
urging that Fauntleroy was a father, a citizen: "His life is useful,
mine a burthen, to the State." He was summoned to the Mansion House,
where he repeated his request, crying, "Accordez moi cette grâce," with
much urgency. There were doubts of his sanity. He wrote afterwards to
the effect that the moment he had offered himself, an unknown assassin
came to aim a blow at him. "Let this monster give his name; I am ready
to fight him. I am still determined to put myself in the place of Mr.
Fauntleroy. If the law of this country can receive such a sacrifice, my
death will render to heaven an innocent man, and to earth a repentant
sinner."

The concourse in front of Newgate was enormous at Fauntleroy's
execution, but much sympathy was evinced for this unfortunate victim
to human weakness and ruthless laws. A report was, moreover, widely
circulated, and the impression long prevailed, that he actually
escaped death. It was said that strangulation had been prevented
by the insertion of a silver tube in his wind-pipe, and that after
hanging for the regulated time he was taken down and easily restored
to consciousness. Afterwards, according to the common rumour, he went
abroad and lived there for many years; but the story is not only wholly
unsubstantiated, but there is good evidence to show that the body after
execution was handed over to his friends and interred privately.

Some years were still to elapse before capital punishment ceased to
be the penalty for forgery, and in the interval several persons were
sentenced and suffered death for this crime. There were two notable
capital convictions for forgery in 1828. One was that of Captain
Montgomery, who assumed the aliases of Colonel Wallace and Colonel
Morgan. His offence was uttering forged notes, and there was strong
suspicion that he had long subsisted entirely by this fraud. The
act for which he was taken into custody was the payment of a forged
ten-pound note for half-a-dozen silver spoons. Montgomery was an adept
at forgery. He had gone wrong early. Although born of respectable
parents, and gazetted to a commission in the army, he soon left the
service and betook himself to dishonest ways. His first forgery was the
marvellous imitation of the signature of the Hon. Mr. Neville, M. P.,
who wrote an extremely cramped and curious hand. He was not prosecuted
for this fraud on account of the respectability of his family, and
soon after this escape he came to London, where he practised as a
professional swindler and cheat. For a long time justice did not
overtake him for any criminal offence, but he was frequently in Newgate
and in the King's Bench for debt. After three years' confinement
in the latter prison he passed himself off as his brother, Colonel
Montgomery, a distinguished officer, and would have married an heiress
had not the imposture been discovered in time. He then took to forging
bank-notes, and was arrested as I have described above. Montgomery was
duly sentenced to death, but he preferred suicide to the gallows. After
sentence his demeanour was serious yet firm. The night previous to that
fixed for his execution he wrote several letters, one of them being to
Edward Gibbon Wakefield, a fellow-prisoner, and listened attentively to
the ordinary, who read him the well-known address written and delivered
by Dr. Dodd previous to his own execution for forgery. But next morning
he was found dead in his cell. In one corner after much search a phial
was found labelled "Prussic acid," which it was asserted he had been
in the habit of carrying about his person ever since he had taken to
passing forged notes, as an "antidote against disgrace." This phial
he had managed to retain in his possession in spite of the frequent
searches to which he was subjected in Newgate.

The second conviction for forgery in 1828 was that of the Quaker
Joseph Hunton, a man previously of the highest repute in the city of
London. He had prospered in early life, was a slop-seller on a large
scale at Bury St. Edmunds, and a sugar-baker in the metropolis. He
married a lady also belonging to the Society of Friends, who brought
him a large fortune, which, together with his own money, he put into
a city firm, that of Dickson and Company. Soon after he became deeply
involved in Stock Exchange speculations, and losing heavily, to meet
the claims upon him he put out a number of forged bills of exchange
or acceptances, to which the signature of one Wilkins of Abingdon was
found to be forged. Hunton tried to fly the country on the detection
of the fraud, but was arrested at Plymouth just as he was on the point
of leaving England in the New York packet. He had gone on board in
his Quaker dress, but when captured was found in a light-green frock,
a pair of light-gray pantaloons, a black stock and a foraging cap.
Hunton was put upon his trial at the Old Bailey, and in due course
sentenced to death. His defence was that the forged acceptances would
have been met on coming to maturity, and that he had no real desire to
defraud. Hunton accepted his sentence with great resignation, although
he protested against the inhumanity of the laws which condemned him
to death. On entering Newgate he said, "I wish after this day to
have communication with nobody; let me take leave of my wife, and
family, and friends. I have already suffered an execution; my heart
has undergone that horrible penalty." He was, however, visited by and
received his wife, and several members of the Society of Friends. Two
elders of the meeting sat up with him in the press-yard the whole of
the night previous to execution, and a third, Mr. Sparks Moline, came
to attend him to the scaffold. He met his death with unshaken firmness,
only entreating that a certain blue handkerchief, to which he seemed
fondly attached, should be used to bandage his eyes, which request was
readily granted.

Hunton's execution no doubt aroused public attention to the cruelty
and futility of the capital law against forgery. A society which had
already been started against capital punishment devoted its efforts
first to a mitigation of the forgery statute, but could not immediately
accomplish much. In 1829 the gallows claimed two more victims for this
offence. One was Richard Gifford, a well-educated youth who had been
at Christ's Hospital, and afterwards in the National Debt Office.
Unfortunately he took to drink, lost his appointment, and fell from
bad to worse. Suddenly, after reaching the lowest depths, he emerged,
and was found by his friends living in comfort in the Waterloo Road.
His funds, which he pretended came to him with a rich wife, were
really the proceeds of frauds upon the Bank of England. He forged the
names of people who held stock on the Bank books, and got the value
of the stock; he also forged dividend receipts and got the dividends.
He was only six-and-twenty when he was hanged. The other and the last
criminal executed for forgery in England was one Maynard, who was
convicted of a fraud upon the Custom House. In conjunction with two
others, one of whom was a clerk in the Custom House, and had access to
the official records, he forged a warrant for £1,973, and was paid the
money by the comptroller general. Maynard was convicted of uttering the
forged document, Jones of being an accessory; the third prisoner was
acquitted. Maynard was the only one who suffered death.

This execution was on the last day of the year 1829. In the following
session Sir Robert Peel brought in a bill to consolidate the acts
relating to forgery. Upon the third reading of this bill Sir James
Macintosh moved as an amendment that capital punishment should be
abolished for all crimes of forgery, except the forgery of wills and
powers of attorney. This amendment was strongly supported outside the
House, and a petition in favour of its passing was presented, signed by
more than a thousand members of banking firms. Macintosh's amendment
was carried in the Commons, but the new law did not pass the Lords, who
re-enacted the capital penalty. Still no sentence of death was carried
out for the offence, and in 1832 the Attorney-General introduced a
bill to entirely abolish capital punishment for forgery. It passed the
Commons, but opposition was again encountered in the Lords. This time
they sent the bill back, re-enacting only the two penalties for will
forging and the forging of powers of attorney; in other words, they
had advanced in 1832 to the point at which the Lower House had arrived
in 1830. There were at the moment in Newgate six convicts sentenced to
death for forging wills. The question was whether the Government would
dare to take their lives at the bidding of the House of Lords, and in
defiance of the vote of the assembly which more accurately represented
public opinion. It was indeed announced that their fate was sealed; but
Mr. Joseph Hume pressed the Government hard, and obtained an assurance
that the men should not be executed. The new Forgery Act with the
Lords' amendment passed into law, but the latter proved perfectly
harmless, and no person ever after suffered death for any variety of
this crime.

One of the last instances of a crime which in time past had invariably
been visited with the death penalty,[217:1] and which was of a
distinctly fraudulent nature should be noted here. The abduction of
Miss Turner by the brothers Wakefield bore a strong resemblance to the
carrying off and forcible marrying of heiresses as already described in
a previous chapter. Miss Turner was a school-girl of barely fifteen,
only child of a gentleman of large property in Cheshire, of which
county he was actually high sheriff at the time of his daughter's
abduction. The elder brother, Edward Gibbon Wakefield, the prime mover
in the abduction, was a barrister not exactly briefless, but without
a large practice. He had, it was said, a good private income, and
was already a widower with two children at the time he committed the
offence for which he was subsequently tried. He had eloped with his
first wife from school. While on a visit to Macclesfield he heard by
chance of Miss Turner, and that she would inherit all her father's
possessions. He thereupon conceived an idea of carrying her off and
marrying her willy nilly at Gretna Green. The two brothers started
at once for Liverpool, where Miss Turner was at school with a Mrs.
Daulby. At Manchester, _en route_, a travelling carriage was purchased,
which was driven up to Mrs. Daulby's door at eight in the morning, and
a servant hurriedly alighted from it, bearing a letter for Miss Turner.
This purported to be from the medical attendant of Mr. Turner, written
at Shrigley, Mr. Turner's place of residence; and it stated that Mrs.
Turner had been stricken with paralysis. She was not in immediate
danger, but she wished to see her daughter, "as it was possible she
might soon become incapable of recognizing any one." Miss Turner,
greatly agitated, accompanied the messenger who had brought this news,
a disguised servant of Wakefield's, who had plausibly explained that
he had only recently been engaged at Shrigley. The road taken was viâ
Manchester, where the servant said a Dr. Hull was to be picked up to go
on with them to Shrigley.

At Manchester, however, the carriage stopped at the Albion Hotel.
Miss Turner was shown into a private room, where Mr. Wakefield soon
presented himself. Miss Turner, not knowing him, would have left the
room, but he said he came from her father, and she remained. Wakefield,
in reply to her inquiries, satisfied her that her mother was well,
and that the real reason for summoning her from school was the state
of her father's affairs. Mr. Turner was on the verge of bankruptcy.
He was at that moment at Kendal, and wished her to join him there at
once. Miss Turner consented to go on, and they travelled night and
day towards the north. But at Kendal there was no Mr. Turner, and, to
allay Miss Turner's growing anxiety, Wakefield found it necessary to
become more explicit regarding her father's affairs. He now pretended
that Mr. Turner was also on his way to the border, pursued by sheriffs'
officers. The fact was, Wakefield went on to say, an uncle of his had
advanced Mr. Turner £60,000, which had temporarily staved off ruin.
But another bank had since failed, and nothing could save Mr. Turner
but the transfer of some property to Miss Turner, and its settlement
on her, so that it might become the exclusive property of her husband,
"whoever he might be." Wakefield added that it had been suggested
he should marry Miss Turner, but that he had laughed at the idea.
Wakefield's uncle took the matter more seriously, and declared that
unless the marriage came off Mr. Turner must be sold up. Miss Turner,
thus pressed, consented to go on to Gretna Green. Passing through
Carlisle, she was told that Mr. Turner was in the town, but could
not show himself. Nothing could release him from his trouble but the
arrival of the marriage certificate from Gretna Green. Filial affection
rose superior to all scruples, and Miss Turner, having crossed the
border, was married to Wakefield by the blacksmith in the usual way.
Returning to Carlisle, she now heard that her father had been set
free, and had gone home to Shrigley, whither they were to follow him.
They set out, but at Leeds Wakefield found himself called suddenly to
Paris; the other brother was accordingly sent on a pretended mission
to Shrigley to bring Mr. Turner on to London, whither Wakefield and
Miss Turner also proceeded. On arrival, Wakefield pretended that
they had missed Mr. Turner, and must follow him over to France. The
strangely-married couple thereupon pressed on to Dover, and crossed
over to Calais.

The fact of the abduction did not transpire for some days. Then Mrs.
Daulby learned that Miss Turner had not arrived at Shrigley, but that
she had gone to Manchester. Friends went in pursuit and traced her to
Huddersfield and further north. The terror and dismay of her parents
were soon intensified by the receipt of a letter from Wakefield, at
Carlisle, announcing the marriage. Mr. Turner at once set off for
London, where he sought the assistance of the police, and presently
ascertained that Wakefield had gone to the Continent with his
involuntary bride. An uncle of Miss Wakefield's, accompanied by his
solicitor and a Bow Street runner, at once went in pursuit. Meanwhile,
a second letter turned up from Wakefield at Calais, in which he assured
Mrs. Turner that Miss Turner was fondly attached to him, and went on to
say, "I do assure you, madam, that it shall be the anxious endeavour of
my life to promote her happiness by every means in my power." The game,
however, was nearly up. Miss Turner was met by her uncle on Calais
pier as she was walking with Wakefield. The uncle claimed her. The
husband resisted. M. le Maire was appealed to, and decided to leave it
to the young lady, who at once abandoned Wakefield. As he still urged
his rights over his wife, Miss Turner cried out in protest, "No, no, I
am not his wife; he carried me away by fraud and stratagem, and forced
me to accompany him to Gretna Green. . . . By the same forcible means I
was compelled to quit England, and to trust myself to the protection
of this person, whom I never saw until I was taken from Liverpool, and
never want to see again." On this Wakefield gave in. He surrendered the
bride who had never been a wife, and she returned to England with her
friends, while Wakefield went on alone to Paris.

Mr. William Wakefield was arrested at Dover, conveyed to Chester,
and committed to Lancaster Gaol for trial at the next assizes, when
indictments were preferred against both brothers "for having carried
away Ellen Turner, spinster, then a maid and heir apparent unto her
father, for the sake of the lucre of her substance; and for having
afterwards unlawfully and against her will married the said Ellen
Turner." They were tried in March of the following year, Edward
Wakefield having apparently given himself up, and found guilty,
remaining in Lancaster Gaol for a couple of months, when they were
brought up to the court of King's Bench for judgment. The prosecution
pressed for a severe penalty. Edward Wakefield pleaded that his trial
had already cost him £3,000. Mr. Justice Bayley, in summing up, spoke
severely of the gross deception practised upon an innocent girl, and
sentenced the brothers each to three years' imprisonment, William
Wakefield in Lancaster Gaol, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield in Newgate,
which sentences were duly enforced. The marriage was annulled by an
Act of Parliament, although Wakefield petitioned against it, and was
brought from Newgate, at his own request, to oppose the second reading
of the bill. He also wrote and published a pamphlet from the gaol to
show that Miss Turner had been a consenting party to the marriage, and
was really his wife. Neither his address nor his pamphlet availed much,
for the bill for the divorce passed both Houses.

Having brought down the record of great frauds and forgeries to the
third and fourth decades of the nineteenth century some account must be
given of the more remarkable murders during that period.

No murder has created greater sensation and horror throughout England
than that of Mr. Weare by Thurtell, Hunt and Probert. The principal
actor was tried and executed at Hertford, but Probert, who turned
King's evidence and materially assisted conviction, was tried at
the Old Bailey the following year for horse-stealing, and hanged
in front of Newgate. The murder was still fresh in the memory of
the populace, and Probert was all but lynched on his way to gaol.
According to his statement, when sentenced to death, he had been driven
to horse-stealing by the execration which had pursued him after the
murder. Every door had been closed against him, every hope of future
support blasted. "Since the calamitous event that happened at Hertford,
I have been a lost man." The event which he styles calamitous we may
well characterize as one of the most deliberately atrocious murders
on record. Thurtell was a gambler, and Weare had won a good deal of
money from him. Weare was supposed to carry a "private bank" about
with him in a pocket in his under waistcoat. To obtain possession of
this, Thurtell with his two associates resolved to kill him. The victim
was invited to visit Probert's cottage in the country near Elstree.
Thurtell drove him down in a gig, "to be killed as he travelled," in
Thurtell's own words. The others followed, and on overtaking Thurtell,
found he had done the job alone in a retired part of the road known
as Gill's Hill Lane. The murderer explained that he had first fired a
pistol at Weare's head, but the shot glanced off his cheek. Then he
attacked the other's throat with a penknife, and last of all drove
the pistol barrel into his forehead. After the murder the villains
divided the spoil, and went on to Probert's cottage, and supped off
pork-chops brought down on purpose. During the night they sought to
dispose of the body by throwing it into a pond, but two days later
had to throw it into another pond. Meanwhile the discovery of pistol
and knife spattered with human blood and brains raised the alarm, and
suspicion fell upon the three murderers, who were arrested. The crime
was brought home to Thurtell by the confession of Hunt, one of his
accomplices, who took the police to the pond, where the remains of
the unfortunate Mr. Weare were discovered, sunk in a sack weighted by
stones. Probert was then admitted as a witness, and the case was fully
proved against Thurtell, who was hanged in front of Hertford Gaol.
Hunt, in consideration of the information he had given, escaped death,
and was sentenced to transportation for life.

Widespread horror and indignation was evoked throughout the kingdom
by the discovery of the series of atrocious murders perpetrated in
Edinburgh by the miscreants Burke and Hare, the first of whom has added
to the British language a synonym for illegal suppression. The crimes
of these inhuman purveyors to medical science do not fall within the
limits of this work. But Burke and Hare had their imitators further
south, and of these Bishop and Williams, who were guilty of many
peculiar atrocities, ended their murderous careers in front of the
debtors' door at Newgate. Bishop, whose real name was Head, married a
half-sister of Williams'. Williams was a professional resurrectionist,
or body-snatcher, a trade almost openly countenanced when "subjects"
for the anatomy schools were only to be got by rifling graves, or
worse. Bishop was a carpenter, but having been suddenly thrown out
of work, he joined his brother-in-law in his line of business. After
a little Bishop got weary of the dangers and fatigues of exhumation,
and proposed to Williams that instead of disinterring they should
murder their subjects. Bishop confessed that he was moved to this
by the example of Burke and Hare. They pursued their terrible trade
for five years without scruple and without detection. Eventually the
law overtook them, but almost by accident. They presented themselves
about noon one day at the dissecting room of King's College Hospital,
accompanied by a third man, an avowed "snatcher" and _habitué_ of the
"Fortune of War," a public-house in Smithfield frequented openly by men
of this awful profession. This man, May, asked the porter at King's
College if "he wanted anything?" the euphemism for offering a body.
The porter asked what he had got, and the answer was, a male subject.
Reference was made to Mr. Partridge, the demonstrator in anatomy,
and after some haggling they agreed on a price, and in the afternoon
the snatchers brought a hamper which contained a body in a sack. The
porter received it, but from its freshness became suspicious of foul
play. Mr. Partridge was sent for, and he with some of the students soon
decided that the corpse had not died a natural death. The snatchers
were detained, the police sent for, and arrest followed as a matter of
course.

An inquest was held on the body, which was identified as that of an
Italian boy, Carlo Ferrari, who made a living by exhibiting white mice
about the streets, and the jury returned a verdict of wilful murder
against persons unknown, expressing a strong opinion that Bishop,
Williams, and May had been concerned in the transaction. Meanwhile,
a search had been made at Nova Scotia Gardens, Bethnal Green, where
Bishop and Williams lived. At first nothing peculiar was found; but at
a second search the back-garden ground was dug up, and in one corner,
at some depth, a bundle of clothes were unearthed, which, with a hairy
cap, were known to be what Ferrari had worn when last seen. In another
portion of the garden more clothing, partly male and partly female, was
discovered, plainly pointing to the perpetration of other crimes. These
facts were represented before the police magistrate who examined Bishop
and his fellows, and further incriminating evidence adduced, to the
effect that the prisoners had bartered for a coach to carry "a stiff
'un;" they had also been seen to leave their cottage, carrying out a
sack with something heavy inside. On this they were fully committed to
Newgate for trial. This trial came off in due course at the Central
Criminal Court, where the prisoners were charged on two counts, one
that of the murder of the Italian boy, the other that of a boy unknown.
The evidence from first to last was circumstantial, but the jury,
after a short deliberation, did not hesitate to bring in a verdict of
guilty, and all three were condemned to death.

Shortly before the day fixed for execution, Bishop made a full
confession, the bulk of which bore the impress of truth, although
it included statements that were improbable and unsubstantiated. He
asserted that the victim was a Lincolnshire lad, and not an Italian
boy, although the latter was fully proved. According to the confession,
death had been inflicted by drowning in a well, whereas the medical
evidence all pointed to violence. It was, however, pretty clear that
this victim, like preceding ones, had been lured to Nova Scotia
Gardens, and there drugged with a large dose of laudanum. While they
were in a state of insensibility the murder was committed. Bishop's
confession was endorsed by Williams, and the immediate result was the
respite of May. A very painful scene occurred in Newgate when the news
of his escape from death was imparted to May. He fainted, and the
warrant of mercy nearly proved his death-blow. The other two looked
on at his agitation with an indifference amounting to apathy. The
execution took place a week or two later, in the presence of such a
crowd as had not been seen near Newgate for years.

The murder of Hannah Brown is still fresh in the minds of Londoners,
although half a century has passed since it was committed. The horror
with which Greenacre's crime struck the town was unparalleled
since the time when Catherine Hayes slew her husband. There were
many features of resemblance in these crimes. The decapitation and
dismemberment, the bestowal of the remains in various parts of the
town, the preservation of the head in spirits of wine, in the hope
that the features might some day be recognized, were alike in both.
The murder in both cases was long a profound mystery. In this which
I am now describing, a bricklayer found a human trunk near some new
buildings in the Edgeware Road one morning in the last week of 1836.
The inquest on these remains, which medical examination showed to be
those of a female, returned a verdict of wilful murder against some
person unknown. Early in January, 1837, the lockman of "Ben Jonson
lock," in Stepney Fields, found a human head jammed into the lock
gates. Closer investigation proved that it belonged to the trunk
already discovered as mentioned above. A further discovery was made
in an osier bed near Cold Harbour Lane, Camberwell, where a workman
found a bundle containing two human legs, in a drain. These were the
missing members of the same mutilated trunk, and there was now evidence
sufficient to establish conclusively that the woman thus collected
piecemeal had been barbarously done to death. But the affair still
remained a profound mystery. No light was thrown upon it till, towards
the end of March, a Mr. Gay of Goodge Street came to view the head,
and immediately recognized it as that of a widowed sister, Hannah
Brown, who had been missing since the previous Christmas Day.

The murdered individual was thus identified. The next step was to
ascertain where and with whom she had last been seen. This brought
suspicion on to a certain James Greenacre, whom she was to have
married, and in whose company she had left her own lodgings to visit
his in Camberwell. The police wished to refer to Greenacre, but as
he was not forthcoming, a warrant was issued for his apprehension,
which was effected at Kennington on the 24th March. A woman named
Gale, who lived with him, was arrested at the same time. The prisoners
were examined at the Marylebone police court. Greenacre, a stout,
middle-aged man, wrapped in a brown greatcoat, assumed an air of
insolent bravado; but his despair must have been great, as was evident
from his attempt to strangle himself in the station-house. Suspicion
grew almost to a certainty as the evidence was unfolded. Mrs. Brown was
a washerwoman, supposed to be worth some money; hence Greenacre's offer
of marriage. She had realized all her effects, and brought them with
her furniture to Greenacre's lodgings. The two when married were to
emigrate to Hudson's Bay. Whether it was greed or a quarrel that drove
Greenacre to the desperate deed remains obscure. They were apparently
good friends when last seen together at a neighbour's, where they
seemed "perfectly happy and sociable, and eager for the wedding day."
But Greenacre in his confession pretended that he and his intended had
quarrelled over her property or the want of it, and that in a moment
of anger he knocked her down. He thought he had killed her, and in his
terror began at once to consider how he might dispose of the body and
escape arrest. While she was senseless, but really still alive, he cut
off her head, and dismembered the body in the manner already described.
It is scarcely probable that he would have gone to this extremity if he
had had no previous evil intention, and the most probable inference is
that he inveigled Mrs. Brown to his lodgings with the set purpose of
taking her life.

His measures for the disposal of the _corpus delicti_ remind us of
those taken by Mrs. Hayes and her associates, or of Gardelle's frantic
efforts to conceal his crime. The most ghastly part of the story is
that which deals with his disposal of the head. This, wrapped up in
a silk handkerchief, he carried under his coat-flaps through the
streets, and afterwards on his cap in a crowded city omnibus. It was
not until he left the 'bus, and walked up by the Regent's Canal, that
he conceived the idea of throwing the head into the water. Another
day elapsed before he got rid of the rest of the body, all of which,
according to his own confession, made with the idea of exonerating Mrs.
Gale, he accomplished without her assistance. On the other hand, it was
adduced in evidence that Mrs. Gale had been at his lodgings the very
day after the murder, and was seen to be busily engaged in washing down
the house with bucket and mop.

Greenacre, when tried at the Old Bailey, admitted that he had been
guilty of manslaughter. While conversing with Mrs. Brown, he declared
the unfortunate woman was rocking herself to and fro in a chair; as she
leaned back he put his foot against the chair, and so tilted it over.
Mrs. Brown fell with it, and Greenacre, to his horror, found that she
was dead. But the medical evidence was clear that the decapitation had
been effected during life, and the jury, after a short deliberation,
without hesitation brought in a verdict of wilful murder. The woman
Gale was also found guilty, but sentence of death was passed only
on Greenacre. The execution was, as usual, attended by an immense
concourse, and Greenacre died amidst the loudest execrations. Gale was
sentenced to penal servitude for life.

The gravest crimes continued at intervals to inspire the town with
horror, and concentrate public attention upon the gaol of Newgate,
and the murderers immured within its walls. Courvoisier's case
made a great stir. There was unusual atrocity in this murder of an
aged, infirm gentleman, a scion of the ducal house of Bedford, by
his confidential valet and personal attendant. Lord William Russell
lived alone in Norfolk Street, Park Lane. He was a widower, and
seventy-three years of age. One morning in May his lordship was found
dead in his bed with his throat cut. The fact of the murder was first
discovered by the housemaid, who, on going down early, was surprised
to find the dining-room in a state of utter confusion; the furniture
turned upside down, the drawers of the escritoire open and rifled, a
bundle lying on the floor, as though thieves had been interrupted in
the act. The housemaid summoned the cook, and both went to call the
valet, Courvoisier, who came from his room ready dressed, a suspicious
circumstance, as he was always late in the morning. The housemaid
suggested that they should see if his lordship was all right, and the
three went to his bed-room. While Courvoisier opened the shutters, the
housemaid, approaching the bed, saw that the pillow was saturated with
blood.

The discovery of the murdered man immediately followed. The
neighbourhood was alarmed, the police sent for, and a close inquiry
forthwith commenced. That Lord William Russell had committed suicide
was at once declared impossible. It was also clearly proved that
no forcible entry had been made into the house; the fresh marks of
violence upon the door had evidently been made inside, and not from
outside; moreover, the instruments, poker and chisel, by which they
had no doubt been effected, were found in the butler's pantry, used
by Courvoisier. The researches of the police soon laid bare other
suspicious facts. The bundle found in the dining-room contained, with
clothes, various small articles of plate and jewelry which a thief
would probably have put into his pocket. Upstairs in the bed-room a
_rouleaux_ box for sovereigns had been broken open, also the jewel-box
and note-case, from the latter of which was abstracted a ten-pound note
known to have been in the possession of the deceased. His lordship's
watch was gone. Further suspicion was caused by the position of a book
and a wax candle by the bedside. The latter was so placed that it would
throw no light on the book, which was a "Life of Sir Samuel Romilly."
The intention of the real murderer to shift the crime to burglars was
evident although futile, and the police, feeling convinced that the
crime had been committed by some inmate of the house, took Courvoisier
into custody, and placed the two female servants under surveillance.
The valet's strange demeanour had attracted attention from the first.
He had hung over the body in a state of dreadful agitation, answering
no questions, and taking no part in the proceedings.

Three days later a close search of the butler's pantry produced fresh
circumstantial evidence. Behind the skirting board several of his
lordship's rings were discovered; near it was his Waterloo medal, and
the above-mentioned ten-pound note. Further investigation was rewarded
by the discovery in the pantry of a split gold ring, used by Lord
William, to carry his keys on; next, and in the same place, a chased
gold key; and at last his lordship's watch was found secreted under
the leads of the sink. All this was evidence sufficient to warrant
Courvoisier's committal for trial; but still he found friends, and a
liberal subscription was raised among the foreign servants in London
to provide funds for his defence. Courvoisier, when put on his trial,
pleaded not guilty; but on the second day the discovery of fresh
evidence, more particularly the recovery of some of Lord William's
stolen plate, induced the prisoner to make a full confession of his
crime to the lawyers who defended him. This placed them in a position
of much embarrassment. To have thrown up their brief would have been
to have secured Courvoisier's conviction. Mr. Phillips, who led in
the case, went to the other extreme, and in an impassioned address
implored the jury not to send an innocent man to the gallows. It will
be remembered that the question whether Mr. Phillips had not exceeded
the limits usually allowed to counsel was much debated at the time.

The jury without hesitation found Courvoisier guilty, and he was
sentenced to death. The prisoner's demeanour had greatly changed during
the trial. Coolness amounting almost to effrontery gave way to hopeless
dejection. On his removal to Newgate after sentence, he admitted that
he had been justly convicted, and expressed great anxiety that his
fellow-servants should be relieved from all suspicion. Later in the
day he tried to commit suicide by cramming a towel down his throat,
but was prevented. Next morning he made a full confession in presence
of his attorney, and the governor, Mr. Cope. In this he gave as the
motives of his crime a quarrel he had with his master, who threatened
to discharge him without a character. Lord William, according to the
valet, was of a peevish, difficult temper; he was annoyed with his
man for various small omissions and acts of forgetfulness, and on the
night of the murder had taken Courvoisier to task rather sharply.
Finally, on coming downstairs after bed-time, Lord William had found
Courvoisier in the dining-room. "What are you doing here?" asked his
lordship. "You can have no good intentions; you must quit my service
to-morrow morning." This seems to have decided Courvoisier, who took
a carving-knife from the side-board in the dining-room, went upstairs
to Lord William's bed-room, and drew the knife across his throat. "He
appeared to die instantly," said the murderer, in conclusion. His
account of his acts and movements after the deed varied so considerably
in the several documents he left behind, that too much reliance cannot
be placed upon his confession. His last statement contains the words,
"The public now think I am a liar, and they will not believe me when
I say the truth." This was no doubt the case, but this much truth
his confession may be taken to contain: that Courvoisier was idle,
discontented, ready to take offence, greedy of gain; that he could not
resist the opportunity of robbery offered him by his situation at Lord
William Russell's; that when vexed with his master he did not shrink
from murder, both for revenge and to conceal his other crimes.

Courvoisier wished to commit suicide in Newgate, but was prevented by
the vigilant supervision to which he was subjected while in gaol. The
attempt was to have been made by opening a vein and allowing himself
to bleed to death. The Sunday night before his execution he would not
go to bed when ordered. The governor insisted, but Courvoisier showed
great reluctance to strip. The order was, however, at length obeyed,
and the whole of the prisoner's clothes were minutely searched. In
the pocket of the coat Mr. Cope, the governor, found a neatly folded
cloth, and asked what it was for. Courvoisier admitted that he had
intended to bind it tightly round his arm and bleed himself to death
in the night. The next inquiry was how he hoped to open a vein. "With
a bit of sharpened stick picked out of the ordinary firewood." "Where
is it?" asked the governor. The prisoner replied that he had left it in
the mattress of which he had just been deprived. The bed was searched,
but no piece of sharpened wood was found. It was thought that it might
have been lost in changing the mattresses. The cloth above referred to
belonged to the inner seam of his trousers, which he had managed to
tear out. There is nothing to show that Courvoisier really contemplated
self-destruction.

A murder which reproduced many of the features of that committed by
Greenacre soon followed, and excited the public mind even more than
that of Courvoisier's. Daniel Good's crime might have remained long
undiscovered but for his own careless stupidity. He was coachman to
a gentleman at Roehampton. One day he went into a pawnbroker's at
Wandsworth, and bought a pair of breeches on credit. At the same time
he was seen to steal and secrete a pair of trousers. The shop-boy gave
information. Good was followed to his stables by a policeman, but
obstinately denied the theft. The policeman insisted on searching the
premises, at which Good displayed some uneasiness. This increased when
the officer, accompanied by two others, a neighbour and a bailiff,
entered one of the stables. Good now offered to go to Wandsworth and
satisfy the pawnbroker. Just at this moment, however, the searchers
found concealed under two trusses of hay a woman's headless and
dismembered trunk. At the constable's cry of alarm Good rushed from
the stable and locked the door behind him. Some time elapsed before
the imprisoned party could force open the doors, and by then the
fugitive had escaped. Medical assistance having been summoned, it was
ascertained how the dismemberment had been effected. At the same time
an overpowering odour attracted them to the adjoining harness-room,
where the missing remains were raked out half consumed in the ashes of
a wood fire. In the same room a large axe and saw were found covered
with blood.

Inquiry into the character of Good exposed him as a loose liver, who
"kept company" with several women. One called his sister, but supposed
to be his wife, had occupied a room in South Street, Manchester
Square, with a son of Good's by a former wife. Another wife, real or
fictitious, existed in Spitalfields, and evidence was given of close
relation between Good and a third woman, a girl named Butcher, residing
at Woolwich. The victim was the first of these three. Good had told
her, much to her perturbation, that she was to move from South Street
to Roehampton, and one day he fetched her. They were seen together on
Barnes Common, and again in Putney Park Lane, where they were talking
loud and angrily. The poor creature was never seen again alive. The
actual method of the murder was never exactly ascertained. Good himself
remained at large for some weeks. He had tramped as far as Tunbridge,
where he obtained work as a bricklayer's labourer; he there gave
satisfaction for industry, but he was taciturn, and would hold no
converse with his fellows. The woman where he lodged noticed that he
was very restless at night, moaning and sighing much. Detection came
unexpectedly. He was recognized by an ex-policeman who had known him
at Roehampton, and immediately arrested. In his effects were found the
clothes he had on at the time of his escape from the stables, and under
the jacket he was wearing was a piece of a woman's calico apron stained
with blood, which he had used to save the pressure on his shoulder
by the hod. Good was committed to Newgate, and tried at the Central
Criminal Court before a crowded court. He made a rambling defence,
ending by saying, "Good ladies and gentlemen all, I have a great deal
more to say, but I am so bad I cannot say it." The case was clearly
proved against him, and he was condemned, sentenced, and duly executed.

Hocker's murder is in its way interesting, as affording another proof
of the extraordinary way in which the culprit returned to the scene of
his guilt. The cries of his victim, a Mr. Delarue, brought passers-by
and policemen to the spot, a lonely place near a dead wall beyond
Belsize Hall, Hampstead, but too late to give substantial aid. While
the body lay there still warm, battered and bleeding from the cruel
blows inflicted upon him by his cowardly assailant, a man came by
singing. He entered into conversation with the policemen, and learned,
as it seemed for the first time, what had happened. His remark was, "It
is a nasty job;" he took hold of the dead hand, and confessed that he
felt "queer" at the shocking sight. This sight was his own handiwork,
yet he could not overcome the strange fascination it had for him, and
remained by the side of the corpse till the stretcher came. Even then
he followed it as far as Belsize Lane. It was here that the others
engaged in their dismal office of removing the dead first got a good
look at the stranger's face. He wanted a light for a cigar, and got it
from a lantern which was lifted up and fully betrayed his features. It
was noticed that he wore a mackintosh. Next day the police, in making
a careful search of the scene of the murder, picked up a coat-button,
which afterwards played an important part in the identification of
the murderer. A letter, which afforded an additional clue, was also
found in the pocket of the deceased. Still it was many weeks before
any arrest was made. In the meantime the police were not idle. It
came out by degrees that the person who had been seen in Belsize Lane
on the night the body was found was a friend of the deceased. His
name was Hocker; he was by trade a ladies' shoemaker; and it was also
ascertained that after the day of the murder he was flush of money. He
was soon afterwards arrested on suspicion, and a search of his lodgings
brought to light several garments saturated with blood; a coat among
them much torn and stained, with three buttons missing, one of which
corresponded with that picked up at Hampstead. The letter found in
the pocket of the deceased was sealed with a wafer marked F, and many
of the same sort were found in the possession of the accused. This
was enough to obtain a committal, after several remands; but the case
contained elements of doubt, and the evidence at the trial was entirely
circumstantial. A witness deposed to meeting Hocker, soon after the
cries of murder were heard, running at a dog-trot into London, and
others swore that they plainly recognized him as the man seen soon
afterwards in the lane. A woman whom he called on the same evening
declared he had worn a mackintosh, his coat was much torn, there was a
stain of blood on his shirt-cuff, and he was in possession, the first
time to her knowledge, of a watch. This was Delarue's watch, fully
identified as such, which Hocker told his brother Delarue had given him
the morning of the murder.

These were damnatory facts which well supported the prosecution. The
prisoner made an elaborate defence, in which he sought to vilify the
character of the deceased as the seducer of an innocent girl to whom
he (Hocker) had been fondly attached. When her ruin was discovered
her brother panted for revenge. Hocker, whose skill in counterfeiting
handwriting was known, was asked to fabricate a letter making an
assignation with Delarue in a lonely part of Hampstead. Hocker and
the brother went to the spot, where the latter left him to meet his
sister's seducer alone. Soon afterwards Hocker heard cries of "murder,"
and proceeding to where they came from, found Delarue dead, slain
by the furious brother. Hocker was so overcome, feeling himself the
principal cause of the tragedy, that he rushed to a slaughter-house
in Hampstead and purposely stained his clothes with blood. Such an
extravagant defence did not weigh with judge or jury; the first
summed up dead against the prisoner, and the latter, after retiring
for ten minutes, found him guilty. Hocker's conduct in Newgate while
under sentence of death was most extraordinary. He drew up several
long statements, containing narratives purely fictitious, imputing
crimes to his victim, and repeating his line of defence, that Delarue
had suffered by the hands of imaginary outraged brothers acting as
the avengers of females deeply injured by him. Hocker made several
pretended confessions and revelations, all of which were proved to be
absolutely false by the police on inquiry. His demeanour was a strange
compound of wickedness, falsehood, and deceit. But at the fatal hour
his hardihood forsook him, and he was almost insensible when taken out
of his cell for execution. Restoratives were applied, but he was in a
fainting condition when tied, and had to be supported by the assistant
executioner while Calcraft adjusted the noose.

There was an epidemic of murder in the United Kingdom about 1848-9.
In November of the first-named year occurred the wholesale slaughter
of the Jermys in their house, Stanfield Hall, by the miscreant Rush.
Soon afterwards, in Gloucestershire, a maidservant, Sarah Thomas,
murdered her mistress, an aged woman, by beating out her brains with a
stone. Next year John Gleeson Wilson, at Liverpool, murdered a woman,
Ann Henrichson, also a maidservant and two children; while in Ireland
a wife dashed out her husband's brains with a hammer. London did not
escape the contagion, and prominent among the detestable crimes of
the period stands that of the Mannings at Bermondsey. These great
criminals suffered at Horsemonger Lane Gaol, but they were tried at
the Central Criminal Court, and were for some time inmates of Newgate.
Their victim was a man named Patrick O'Connor, a Custom-House gauger,
who had been a suitor of Marie de Roux before she became Mrs. Manning.
Marie de Roux up to the time of her marriage had been in service as
lady's-maid to Lady Blantyre, daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland,
and Manning hoped to get some small Government appointment through
his wife's interest. He had failed in this as well as in the business
of a publican, which he had at one time adopted. After the marriage a
close intimacy was still maintained between O'Connor and the Mannings.
He lived at Mile End, whence he walked often to call at No. 3, Minver
Place, Bermondsey, the residence of his old love. O'Connor was a
man of substance. He had long followed the profitable trade of a
money-lender, and by dint of usurious interest on small sums advanced
to needy neighbours, had amassed as much as ten thousand pounds. His
wealth was well known to "Maria," as he called Mrs. Manning, who made
several ineffectual attempts to get money out of him. At last this
fiendish woman made up her mind to murder O'Connor and appropriate
all his possessions. Her husband, to whom she coolly confided her
intention, a heavy brutish fellow, was yet aghast at his wife's
resolve, and tried hard to dissuade her from her bad purpose. In his
confession after sentence he declared that she plied him well with
brandy at this period, and that during the whole time he was never in
his right senses. Meanwhile this woman, unflinching in her cold, bloody
determination, carefully laid all her plans for the consummation of the
deed.

One fine afternoon in August, O'Connor was met walking in the direction
of Bermondsey. He was dressed with particular care, as he was to dine
at the Mannings, and meet friends, one a young lady. He was seen
afterwards smoking and talking with his hosts in their back parlour,
and never seen again alive. It came out in the husband's confession
that Mrs. Manning induced O'Connor to go down to the kitchen to wash
his hands, that she followed him to the basement, that she stood behind
him as he stood near the open grave she herself had dug for him, and
which he mistook for a drain, and that while he was speaking to her she
put the muzzle of the pistol close to the back of his head and shot him
down. She ran upstairs, told her husband, made him go down and look
at her handiwork, and as O'Connor was not quite dead, Manning gave
the _coup de grâce_ with a crowbar. After this Mrs. Manning changed
her dress and went off in a cab to O'Connor's lodgings, which, having
possessed herself of the murdered man's keys, she rifled from end to
end. Returning to her own home, where Manning meantime had been calmly
smoking and talking to the neighbours over the basement wall, the
corpse lying just inside the kitchen all the while, the two set to
work to strip the body and hide it under the stones of the floor. This
job was not completed till the following day, as the hole had to be
enlarged, and the only tool they had was a dust-shovel. A quantity of
quicklime was thrown in with the body to destroy all identification.
This was on a Thursday evening. For the remainder of that week and
part of the next the murderers stayed in the house, and occupied the
kitchen, close to the remains of their victim. On the Sunday Mrs.
Manning roasted a goose at this same kitchen fire, and ate it with
relish in the afternoon. This cold-blooded indifference after the event
was only outdone by the premeditation of this horrible murder. The hole
must have been excavated and the quicklime purchased quite three weeks
before O'Connor met his death, and during that time he must frequently
have stood or sat over his own grave.

Discovery of the murder came in this wise. O'Connor, a punctual and
well-conducted official, was at once missed at the London Docks. On the
third day his friends began to inquire for him, and at their request
two police officers were sent to Bermondsey to inquire for him at the
Mannings, with whom it was well known that he was very intimate. The
Mannings had seen or heard nothing of him, of course. As O'Connor still
did not turn up, the police after a couple of days returned to Minver
Place. The house was empty, bare and stripped of all its furniture, and
its former occupants had decamped. The circumstance was suspicious, and
a search was at once made of the whole premises. In the back kitchen
one of the detectives remarked that the cement between certain stones
looked lighter than the rest, and on trying it with a knife, he found
that it was soft and new, while elsewhere it was set and hard. The
stones were at once taken up; beneath them was a layer of fresh mortar,
beneath that a lot of loose earth, amongst which a stocking was turned
up, and presently a human toe. Six inches lower the body of O'Connor
was uncovered. He was lying on his face, his legs tied up to his hips
so as to allow of the body fitting into the hole. The lime had done its
work so rapidly that the features would have been indistinguishable but
for the prominent chin and a set of false teeth.

The corpse settled all doubts, and the next point was to lay hands
upon the Mannings. It was soon ascertained that the wife had gone off
in a cab with a quantity of luggage. Part of this she had deposited to
be left till called for at one station, while she had gone herself to
another, that at Euston Square. At the first, the boxes were impounded,
opened, and found to contain many of O'Connor's effects. At the second,
exact information was obtained of Mrs. Manning's movements. She had
gone to Edinburgh. A telegraphic message, then newly adapted to the
purposes of criminal detection, advised the Edinburgh police of the
whole affair, and within an hour an answer was telegraphed stating
that Mrs. Manning was in custody. She had been to brokers to negotiate
the sale of certain foreign railway stock, with which they had been
warned from London not to deal, and they had given information to the
police. Her arrest was planned, and, when the telegram arrived from
London, completed. An examination of her boxes disclosed a quantity of
O'Connor's property. Mrs. Manning was transferred to London and lodged
in the Horsemonger Lane Gaol, where her husband soon afterwards joined
her. He had fled to Jersey, where he was recognized and arrested. Each
tried to throw the blame on the other; Manning declared his wife had
committed the murder, Mrs. Manning indignantly denying the charge.

The prisoners were in due course transferred to Newgate, to be put
upon their trial at the Central Criminal Court. A great number of
distinguished people assembled as usual at the Old Bailey on the day
of trial. The Mannings were arraigned together; the husband standing
at one of the front corners of the dock, his wife at the other end.
Manning, who was dressed in black, appeared to be a heavy, bull-necked,
repulsive-looking man, with a very fair complexion and light hair. Mrs.
Manning was not without personal charms; her face was comely, she had
dark hair and good eyes, and was above the middle height, yet inclined
to be stout. She was smartly dressed in a plaid shawl, a white lace
cap; her hair was dressed in long _crêpe_ bands. She had lace ruffles
at her wrist, and wore primrose- kid gloves. The case rested
upon the facts which have been already set forth, and was proved to the
satisfaction of the jury, who brought in a verdict of guilty. Manning,
when sentence of death was passed on him, said nothing; but Mrs.
Manning, speaking in a foreign accent, addressed the court with great
fluency and vehemence. She complained that she had no justice; there
was no law for her, she had found no protection either from judges, the
prosecutor, or her husband. She had not been treated like a Christian,
but like a wild beast of the forest. She declared that the money found
in her possession had been sent her from abroad; that O'Connor had been
more to her than her husband, that she ought to have married him. It
was against common sense to charge her with murdering the only friend
she had in the world: the culprit was really her husband, who killed
O'Connor out of jealousy and revengeful feelings. When the judge
assumed the black cap Mrs. Manning became still more violent, shouting,
"No, no, I will not stand it! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves!"
and would have left the dock had not Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate,
restrained her. After judgment was passed, she repeatedly cried out
"Shame!" and stretching out her hand, she gathered up a quantity of the
rue which, following ancient custom dating from the days of the gaol
fever, was strewn in front of the dock, and sprinkled it towards the
bench with a contemptuous gesture.

On being removed to Newgate from the court Mrs. Manning became
perfectly furious. She uttered loud imprecations, cursing judge, jury,
barristers, witnesses, and all who stood around. Her favourite and
most often-repeated expression was, "D—n seize you all." They had to
handcuff her by force against the most violent resistance, and still
she raged and stormed, shaking her clenched and manacled hands in the
officers' faces. From Newgate the Mannings were taken in separate
cabs to Horsemonger Lane Gaol. On this journey her manner changed
completely. She became flippant, joked with the officers, asked how
they liked her "resolution" in the dock, and expressed the utmost
contempt for her husband, whom she never intended to acknowledge or
speak to again. Later her mood changed to abject despair. On reaching
the condemned cell she threw herself upon the floor and shrieked in
an hysterical agony of tears. After this, until the day of execution,
she recovered her spirits, and displayed reckless effrontery,
mocking at the chaplain, and turning a deaf ear to the counsels of
a benevolent lady who came to visit. Now she abused the jury, now
called Manning a vagabond, and through all ate heartily at every meal,
slept soundly at nights, and talked with cheerfulness on almost any
subject. Nevertheless, she attempted to commit suicide by driving
her nails, purposely left long, into her throat. She was discovered
just as she was getting black in the face. Manning's demeanour was
more in harmony with his situation, and the full confession he made
elucidated all dark and uncertain points in connection with the crime.
The actual execution, which took place at another prison than Newgate,
is rather beyond the scope of this work. But it may be mentioned that
the concourse was so enormous that it drew down the well-merited and
trenchant disapproval of Charles Dickens, who wrote to the _Times_ in
the following words: "A sight so inconceivably awful as the wickedness
and levity of the immense crowd collected at the execution this morning
could be imagined by no man, and presented by no heathen land under
the sun. The horrors of the gibbet, and of the crime which brought
the wretched murderers to it, faded in my mind before the atrocious
bearing, looks and language of the assembled spectators. When I came
upon the scene at midnight, the shrillness of the cries and howls that
were raised from time to time, denoting that they came from a concourse
of boys and girls already assembled in the best places, made my blood
run cold." It will be in the memory of many that Mrs. Manning appeared
on the scaffold in a black satin dress, which was bound tightly round
her waist. This preference brought the costly stuff into disrepute, and
its unpopularity lasted for nearly thirty years.


FOOTNOTES:

[217:1] At Liverpool, in 1842, there was a case of abduction, and the
well-known case of Mr. Carden and Miss Arbuthnot in Ireland occurred as
late as 1854.




CHAPTER IX

LATER RECORDS

    Later records of crimes—First private execution under the
    new law—Poisoning, revived and more terrible—Palmer's
    case—His imitators—Dove—Dr. Smethurst—Catherine
    Wilson—Piracy and murder—The "Flowery Land"—Arrest of the
    mutineers—Their trial and sentence—Murder of Mr. Briggs
    in a railway carriage—Pursuit of murderer and his arrest
    in New York—Müller's conviction—Confesses guilt—A forged
    pardon—The Muswell Hill murder—Bidwell brothers defraud the
    Bank of England of £100,000—Sentenced to penal servitude
    for life—Pentonville erected—The best type of prison
    construction—Gradual reformation in Newgate—The new prison at
    Holloway—The end of Newgate.


Executions long continued to be in public, in spite of remonstrance
and reprobation. The old prejudices, such as that which enlisted Dr.
Johnson on the side of the Tyburn procession, still lingered and
prevented any change. It was thought that capital punishment would lose
its deterrent effect if it ceased to be public, and the _raison d'être_
of the penalty, which in principle so many opposed, would be gone. This
line of argument prevailed over the manifest horrors of the spectacle.

Already the urgent necessity for abolishing public executions had
been brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Hibbert, and the
question, as part of the whole subject of capital punishment, had been
referred to a royal commission in January of 1864. Full evidence was
taken on all points, and on that regarding public executions there
was a great preponderance of opinion towards their abolition, yet the
witnesses were not unanimous. Some of the judges would have retained
the public spectacle; the ordinary of Newgate was not certain that
public executions were not the best. Another distinguished witness
feared that any secrecy in the treatment of the condemned would invest
them with a new and greater interest, which was much to be deprecated.
Foreign witnesses, too, were in favour of publicity. On the other hand,
Lords Cranworth and Wensleydale recommended private executions, as did
Mr. Spencer Walpole, M. P. Sir George Grey thought there was a growing
feeling in favour of executions within the prison precincts. Colonel
(Sir Edmund) Henderson was strongly in favour of them, based on his own
experience in Western Australia. He not only thought them likely to be
more deterrent, but believed that a public ceremony destroyed the whole
value of an execution. Other officials, great lawyers, governors of
prisons, and chaplains supported this view. The only doubts expressed
were as to the sufficiency of the safeguards, as to the certainty
of death and its subsequent publication. But these, it was thought,
might be provided by the admission of the press and the holding of a
coroner's inquest.

Duly impressed with the weight of evidence in favour of abolition,
the commission recommended that death sentences should be carried
out within the gaol, "under such regulations as might be considered
necessary to prevent abuses and satisfy the public that the law had
been complied with." But it is curious to note that there were several
dissentients among the commissioners to this paragraph of the report.
The judge of the Admiralty Court, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington,
the Right Hon. James Moncrieff, Lord Advocate, Mr. Charles Neate,
Mr. William Ewart, and last, but not least, Mr. John Bright declared
that they were not prepared to agree to the resolution respecting
private executions. Nevertheless, in the very next session a bill was
introduced by Mr. Hibbert, M. P., and accepted by the Government,
providing for the future carrying out of executions within prisons. It
was read for the first time in March, 1866, but did not become law till
1868.

The last public execution in front of Newgate was that of the Fenian
Michael Barrett, who was convicted of complicity in the Clerkenwell
explosion, intended to effect the release of Burke and Casey from
Clerkenwell prison, by which many persons lost their lives. Unusual
precautions were taken upon this occasion, as some fresh outrage
was apprehended. There was no interference with the crowd, which
collected as usual, although not to the customary extent. But Newgate
and its neighbourhood were carefully held by the police, both city and
metropolitan. In the houses opposite the prison numbers of detectives
mixed with the spectators; inside the gaol was Colonel Frazer, the
chief commissioner of the city police, and at no great distance,
although in the background, troops were held in readiness to act if
required. Everything passed off quietly, however, and Calcraft, who
had been threatened with summary retribution if he executed Barrett,
carried out the sentence without mishap. The sufferer was stolid and
reticent to the last.

The first private execution under the new law took place within the
precincts of Maidstone Gaol. The sufferer was a porter on the London,
Chatham, and Dover railway, sentenced to death for shooting the
station-master at Dover. The ceremony, which was witnessed by only a
few officials and representatives of the press, was performed with the
utmost decency and decorum. The fact that the execution was to take
place within the privacy of the gloomy walls, a fact duly advertised
as completed by the hoisting of the black flag over the gaol, had
undoubtedly a solemn, impressive effect upon those outside. The same
was realized in the first private execution within Newgate, that of
Alexander Mackay, who murdered his mistress at Norton Folgate by
beating her with a rolling-pin and furnace-rake, and who expiated his
crime on the 8th September, 1868. A more marked change from the old
scene can hardly be conceived. Instead of the roar of the brutalized
crowd, the officials spoke in whispers; there was but little moving
to and fro. Almost absolute silence prevailed until the great bell
began to toll its deep note, and broke the stillness with its regular
and monotonous clangour, and the ordinary, in a voice trembling with
emotion, read the burial service aloud. Mackay's fortitude, which had
been great, broke down at the supreme moment before the horror of the
stillness, the awful impressiveness of the scene in which he was the
principal actor. No time was lost in carrying out the dread ceremony;
but it was not completed without some of the officials turning sick,
and the moment it was over, all who could were glad to escape from the
last act of the ghastly drama at which they had assisted.

Private executions at their first introduction were not popular with
the Newgate officials, and for intelligible reasons. The change added
greatly to the responsibilities of the governor and his subordinates.
Hitherto the public had seemed to assist at the ceremony; the moment
too that the condemned man had passed through the debtors' door on
to the scaffold the prison had done with him, and the great outside
world shared in the completion of the sacrifice. This feeling was the
stronger because all the ghastly paraphernalia, the gallows itself
and the process of erecting and removing it, rested with the city
architect, and not with the prison officials. Moreover, after the
execution, under the old system, the latter had only to receive the
body for burial after it had been cut down by the hangman, and placed
decently in a shell by the workmen who removed the gallows. Under
the new system the whole of the arrangements from first to last fell
upon the officers. It was they who formed the chief part of the small
select group of spectators; upon them devolved the painful duty of
cutting down the body and preparing for the inquest. All that the
hangman, whoever he may be, does under the new regime is to unhook
the halter and remove the pinioning straps. The interment in a shell
filled with quicklime in the passage-way leading to the Old Bailey
is also a part of the duty of the prison officials. This strange
burial-ground is one of the most ghastly of the remaining "sights"
in Newgate. It was sometimes used as an exercising yard, and for the
greater security of prisoners it is roofed in with iron bars, which
gives it, at least overhead, the aspect of a huge cage. Underfoot and
upon the walls roughly cut into the stones, are single initial letters,
the brief epitaphs of those who lie below. As this burial-ground leads
to the adjacent Central Criminal Court, accused murderers, on going
to and returning from trial, literally walked over what, in case of
conviction, would be their own graves.

The older officers, with several of whom I have conversed, have thus
had unusual opportunities of watching the demeanour of murderers
both before trial and after sentence. All, as a rule, unless poignant
remorse has brought a desire to court their richly-merited retribution,
are buoyed up with hope to the last. There is always the chance
of a flaw in the indictment, of a missing witness, or extenuating
circumstances. Even when in the condemned cell, with a shameful death
within measurable distance, many cling still to life, expecting much
from the intercession of friends or the humanitarianism of the age.
All almost without exception sleep soundly at night, except the
first after sentence, when the first shock of the verdict and the
solemn notification of the impending blow keeps nearly all awake, or
at least disturbs their night's rest. But the uneasiness soon wears
off. The second night sleep comes readily, and is sound; many of the
most abandoned murderers snore peacefully their eight hours, even
on the night immediately preceding execution. All too have a fairly
good appetite, and eat with relish up to the last moment. A few go
further, and are almost gluttonous. Giovanni Lanni, the Italian boy
who murdered a Frenchwoman in the Haymarket, and was arrested on board
ship just as he was about to leave the country, had a little spare
cash, which he devoted entirely to the purchase of extra food. He ate
constantly and voraciously after sentence, as though eager to cram
as many meals as possible into the few hours still left him to live.
Jeffrey, who murdered his own child, an infant of six, by hanging him
in a cellar in Seven Dials, called for a roast duck directly he entered
the condemned cell. The request was not granted, as the old custom of
allowing capital convicts whatever they asked for in the way of food
has not been the rule in Newgate. The diet of the condemned is the
ordinary diet of the prison, but to which additions are sometimes made,
chiefly of stimulants, if deemed necessary, by the medical officer
of the gaol. The craving for tobacco which so dominates the habitual
smoker often leads the convicted to plead hard for a last smoke. As
a special favour Wainwright was allowed a cigar the night before
execution, which he smoked in the prison yard, walking up and down with
the governor, Mr. Sydney Smith.

Wainwright's demeanour was one of reckless effrontery steadily
maintained to the last. His conversation turned always upon his
influence over the weaker sex, and the extraordinary success he had
achieved. No woman could resist him, he calmly assured Mr. Smith that
night as they walked together, and he recounted his villainies one
by one. His effrontery was only outdone by his cool contempt for the
consolations of religion. The man who had made a pious life a cloak for
his misdeeds, the once exemplary young man and indefatigable Sunday
school teacher, went impenitent to the gallows. The only sign of
feeling he showed was in asking to be allowed to choose the hymns on
the Sunday the condemned sermon was preached in the prison chapel, and
this was probably only that he might hear the singing of a lady with a
magnificent voice who generally attended the prison services. During
the singing of these hymns Wainwright fainted, but whether from real
emotion or the desire to make a sensation was never exactly known. On
the fatal morning he came gaily out of his cell, nodded pleasantly to
the governor, who stood just opposite, and then walked briskly towards
the execution shed, smiling as he went along. There was a smile on
his face when it was last seen, and just as the terrible white cap
was drawn over it. Wainwright's execution was within the gaol, but
only nominally private. No less than sixty-seven persons were present,
admitted by special permission of the sheriff. Rumour even went so far
as to assert that among the spectators were several women, disguised
in male habiliments; but the story was never substantiated, and we may
hope that it rested only on the idle gossip of the day.

Many, like Wainwright, were calm and imperturbable throughout their
trying ordeal. Catherine Wilson, the poisoner, was reserved and
reticent to the last, expressing no contrition, but also no fear—a
tall, gaunt, repulsive-looking woman, who no more shrank from cowardly,
secret crimes than from the penalty they entailed. Kate Webster, who
was tried at the Central Criminal Court, and passed through Newgate,
although she suffered at Wandsworth, is remembered at the former
prison as a defiant, brutal creature who showed no remorse, but was
subject to fits of ungovernable passion, when she broke out into the
most appalling language. The man Marley displayed fortitude of a less
repulsive kind. He acknowledged his guilt from the first. When the
sheriff offered him counsel for his defence, he declined, saying he
wished to make none—"the witnesses for the prosecution spoke the
truth." During the trial and after sentence he remained perfectly cool
and collected. When visited one day in the condemned cell, just as St.
Sepulchre's clock was striking, he looked up and said laughingly, "Go
along, clock; come along, gallows." He tripped up the chapel-stairs to
hear the condemned sermon, and came out with cheerful alacrity on the
morning he was to die.

Some condemned convicts converse but little with the warders who
have them unceasingly in charge. Others talk freely enough on
various topics, but principally upon their own cases. When vanity is
strongly developed there is the keen anxiety to hear what is being
said about them outside. One was vexed to think that his victims had
a finer funeral than he would have. The only subject another showed
any interest in was the theatres and the new pieces that were being
produced. A third, Christian Sattler, laughed and jested with the
officers about "Jack Ketch," who, through the postponement of the
execution, would lose his Christmas dinner. When they brought in the
two watchers to relieve guard one night, Sattler said, "Two fresh
men! May I speak to them? Yes! I must caution you," he went on to the
warders, "not to go to sleep, or I shall be off through that little
hole," pointing to an aperture for ventilating the cell. On the morning
of execution he asked how far it was to the gallows, and was told it
was quite close. "Then I shall not wear my coat," he cried; "Jack Ketch
shall not have it," being under the erroneous impression that the
convict's clothes were still the executioner's perquisite.

Often the convicts give way to despair. They are too closely watched to
be allowed to do themselves much mischief, or suicides would probably
be more frequent. But it is neither easy to obtain the instruments of
self-destruction nor to elude the vigilance of their guard. Miller, the
Chelsea murderer, who packed his victim's body in a box, and tried to
send it by parcels delivery, tried to kill himself, but ineffectively,
by running his head against his cell wall. A few other cases of the
kind have occurred, but they have been rare of late years, whether in
Newgate or elsewhere.

The crime of poisoning has always been viewed with peculiar loathing
and terror in this country. It will be remembered that as far back as
the reign of Henry VIII a new and most cruel penalty was devised for
the punishment of the Bishop of Rochester's cook, who had poisoned his
master and many of his dependents. Sir Thomas Overbury was undoubtedly
poisoned by Lord Rochester in the reign of James I, and it is hinted
that James himself nearly fell a victim to a nefarious attempt of the
Duke of Buckingham. But secret poisoning on a wholesale scale such
as was practised in Italy and France was happily never popularized
in England. The well-known and lethal aqua Toffania, so called after
its inventress, a Roman woman named Toffania, and which was so widely
adopted by ladies anxious to get rid of their husbands, was never
introduced into this country. Its admission was probably checked by
the increased vigilance at the custom houses, the necessity for which
was urged by Mr. Addison, when Secretary of State, in 1717. The cases
of poisoning in the British calendars are rare, nor indeed was the
guilt of the accused always clearly established. It is quite possible
that Catherine Blandy, who poisoned her father at the instigation of
her lover, was ignorant of the destructive character of the powders,
probably arsenic, which she administered. Captain Donellan, who was
convicted of poisoning his brother-in-law, Sir Theodosius Broughton,
and executed for it, would probably have had the benefit in these
days of the doubts raised at his trial. A third case, more especially
interesting to us as having passed through Newgate, was that of Eliza
Fenning, who was convicted of an attempt to poison a whole family by
putting arsenic in the dumplings she had prepared for them. The charge
rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, and as Fenning, although
convicted and executed, protested her innocence in the most solemn
manner to the last, the justice of the sentence was doubted at the
time. Yet it was clearly proved that the dumplings contained arsenic,
that she, and she alone, had made the dough, that arsenic was within
her reach in the house, that she had had a quarrel with her mistress,
and that the latter with all others who tasted the dumplings were
similarly attacked, although no one died.

The crime of poisoning is essentially one which will be most prevalent
in a high state of civilization, when the spread of scientific
knowledge places nefarious means at the disposal of many, instead of
limiting them, as in the days of the Borgias and Brinvilliers, to
the specially informed and unscrupulously powerful few. The first
intimation conveyed to society of the new terror which threatened
it was in the arrest and arraignment of William Palmer, a medical
practitioner, charged with doing to death persons who relied upon his
professional skill. The case contained elements of much uncertainty,
and yet it was so essential to the interests and the due protection
of the public that the fullest and fairest inquiry should be made,
that the trial was transferred to the Central Criminal Court, under
the authority of an Act passed for this purpose, known as the Trial
of Offences Act, and sometimes as Lord Campbell's Act. That the
administration of justice should never be interfered with by local
prejudice or local feeling is obviously of paramount importance, and
the powers granted by this Act have been frequently put in practice
since. The trial of Catherine Winsor, the baby farmer, was thus brought
to the Central Criminal Court from Exeter assizes, and that of the
Stauntons from Maidstone.

Palmer's trial caused the most intense excitement. The direful
suspicions which surrounded the case filled the whole country with
uneasiness and misgiving, and the deepest anxiety was felt that
the crime, if crime there had been, should be brought home to its
perpetrator. The Central Criminal Court was crowded to suffocation.
Great personages occupied seats upon the bench; the rest of the
available space was allotted by ticket, to secure which the greatest
influence was necessary. People came to stare at the supposed
cold-blooded prisoner; with morbid curiosity to scan his features and
watch his demeanour through the shifting, nicely-balanced phases of his
protracted trial. Palmer, who was only thirty-one at the time of his
trial, was in appearance short and stout, with a round head covered
rather scantily with light sandy hair. His skin was extraordinarily
fair, his cheeks fresh and ruddy; altogether his face, though
commonplace, was not exactly ugly; there was certainly nothing in it
which indicated cruel cunning or deliberate truculence. His features
were not careworn, but rather set, and he looked older than his age.
Throughout his trial he preserved an impassive countenance, but he
clearly took a deep interest in all that passed. Although the strain
lasted fourteen days, he showed no signs of exhaustion, either physical
or mental. On returning to gaol each day he talked freely and without
reserve to the warders in charge of him, chiefly on incidents in the
day's proceedings. He was confident to the very last that it would be
impossible to find him guilty; even after sentence, and until within
a few hours of execution, he was buoyed up with the hope of reprieve.
The conviction that he would escape had taken so firm a hold of him,
that he steadily refused to confess his guilt lest it should militate
against his chances. In the condemned cell he frequently repeated, "I
go to my death a murdered man." He made no distinct admissions even on
the scaffold; but when the chaplain at the last moment exhorted him to
confess, he made use of the remarkable words, "If it is necessary for
my soul's sake to confess this murder (that of Cook, for which he was
tried and sentenced to death), I ought also to confess the others: I
mean my wife and my brother's." Yet he was silent when specifically
pressed to confess that he had killed his wife and his brother.

Palmer was ably defended, but the weight of evidence was clearly
with the prosecution, led by Sir Alexander Cockburn. A government
prosecution was instituted, and Palmer was brought to Newgate for
trial at the Central Criminal Court. There was not much reserve about
him when there. He frequently declared before and during the trial that
it would be impossible to find him guilty. He never actually said that
he was not guilty, but he was confident he would not be convicted. He
relied on the absence of the strychnia. But the chain of circumstantial
evidence was strong enough to satisfy the jury, who agreed to their
verdict in an hour. At the last moment Palmer tossed a bit of paper
over to his counsel, on which he had written, "I think there will be
a verdict of 'Not' Guilty." Even after the death sentence had been
passed upon him he clung to the hope that the Government would grant
him a reprieve. To the last, therefore, he played the part of a man
wrongfully convicted, and did not abandon hope even when the high
sheriff had told him there was no possibility of a reprieve, within a
few hours of execution. He suffered at Stafford in front of the gaol.

Palmer speedily found imitators. Within a few weeks occurred the Leeds
poisoning case, in which the murderer undoubtedly was inspired by the
facts made public at Palmer's trial. Dove, a fiendish brute, found
from the evidence in that case that he could kill his wife, whom he
hated, with exquisite torture, and with a poison that would leave, as
he thought, no trace. In the latter hope he was happily disappointed.
But as this case is beyond my subject, I merely mention it as one
of the group already referred to. Three years later came the case
of Dr. Smethurst, presenting still greater features of resemblance
with Palmer's, for both were medical men, and both raised difficult
questions of medical jurisprudence. In both the jury had no doubt as
to the guilt of the accused, only in Smethurst's case the then Home
Secretary, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, could not divest his mind of
serious doubt, of which the murderer got the full benefit. Smethurst's
escape may have influenced the jury in the Poplar poisoning case, which
followed close on its heels, although in that the verdict of "Not
Guilty" was excusable, as the evidence was entirely circumstantial.
There was no convincing proof that the accused had administered the
poison, although beyond question that poison had occasioned the death.

Catherine Wilson was a female poisoner who did business wholesale. She
was tried in April, 1862, on suspicion of having attempted to poison
a neighbour with oil of vitriol. The circumstances were strange. Mrs.
Wilson had gone to the chemist's for medicine, and on her return had
administered a dose of something which burned the mouth badly, but did
not prove fatal. She was acquitted on this charge, but other suspicious
facts cropped up while she was in Newgate. It appeared that several
persons with whom she was intimate had succumbed suddenly. In all
cases the symptoms were much the same, vomiting, violent retching,
purging, such as are visible in cholera, and all dated from the time
when she knew a young man named Dixon, who had been in the habit of
taking colchicum for rheumatism. Mrs. Wilson heard then casually from
a medical man that it was a very dangerous medicine, and she profited
by what she had heard. Soon afterwards Dixon died, showing all the
symptoms already described. A little later a friend, Mrs. Atkinson,
came to London from Westmoreland, and stayed in Mrs. Wilson's house.
She was in good health on leaving home, and had with her a large sum of
money. While with Mrs. Wilson she became suddenly and alarmingly ill,
and died in great agony. Her husband, who came up to town, would not
allow a post-mortem, and again Mrs. Wilson escaped. Mrs. Atkinson's
symptoms had been the same as Dixon's. Then Mrs. Wilson went to live
with a man named Taylor, who was presently attacked in the same way as
the others, but, thanks to the prompt administration of remedies, he
recovered. After this came the charge of administering oil of vitriol,
which failed, as has been described. Last of all Mrs. Wilson poisoned
her landlady, Mrs. Soames, under precisely the same conditions as the
foregoing.

Here, however, the evidence was strong and sufficient. It was proved
that Mrs. Wilson had given Mrs. Soames something peculiar to drink,
that immediately afterwards Mrs. Soames was taken ill with vomiting
and purging, and that Mrs. Wilson administered the same medicine
again and again. The last time Mrs. Soames showed great reluctance
to take it, but Wilson said it would certainly do her good. This
mysterious medicine Wilson kept carefully locked up, and allowed no
one to see it, but its nature was betrayed when this last victim also
died. The first post-mortem indicated death from natural causes, but
a more careful investigation attributed it beyond doubt to over-doses
of colchicum. Dr. Alfred Taylor, the great authority and writer on
medical jurisprudence, corroborated this, and in his evidence on the
trial fairly electrified the court by declaring it his opinion that
many deaths, supposed to be from cholera, were really due to poison.
This fact was referred to by the judge in his summing up, who said that
he feared it was only too true that secret poisoning was at that time
very rife in the metropolis. Wilson was duly sentenced to death, and
suffered impenitent, hardened, and without any confession of her guilt.

Although murder by insidious methods had become more common, cases
where violence of the most deadly and determined kind was offered
had not quite disappeared. Two cases of this class are of the most
interest; one accompanied with piracy on the high seas, the other
perpetrated in a railway-carriage, and showing the promptitude with
which criminals accept and utilize altered conditions of life, more
particularly as regards locomotion.

The first case was that of the _Flowery Land_, which left London for
Singapore on the 28th July, 1863, with a cargo of wine and other goods.
Her captain was John Smith; the first and second mates, Karswell and
Taffir; there were two other Englishmen on board, and the rest of
the crew were a polyglot lot, most of them, as was proved by their
subsequent acts, blackguards of the deepest dye. Six were Spaniards, or
rather natives of Manila, and men of colour; one was a Greek, another
a Turk; there were also a Frenchman, a Norwegian (the carpenter),
three Chinamen, a "Slavonian," and a black on board. Navigation
and discipline could not be easy with such a nondescript crew. The
captain was kindly but somewhat intemperate, the first mate a man of
some determination, and punishment such as rope's-ending and tying
to the bulwarks had to be applied to get the work properly done. The
six Spaniards, the Greek, and the Turk were in the same watch, eight
truculent and reckless scoundrels, who, brooding over their fancied
wrongs, and burning for revenge, hatched amongst them a plot to murder
their officers and seize the ship. The mutiny was organized with great
secrecy, and broke out most unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
A simultaneous attack was made upon the captain and the first mate.
The latter had the watch on deck. One half of the mutineers fell upon
him unawares with handspikes and capstan-bars. He was struck down,
imploring mercy, but they beat him about the head and face till every
feature was obliterated, and then, still living, flung him into the
sea. Meanwhile the captain, roused from his berth, came out of the
cabin, was caught near the "companion" by the rest of the mutineers,
and promptly despatched with daggers. His body was found lying in a
pool of blood in a night-dress, stabbed over and over again in the left
side. The captain's brother, a passenger on board the _Flowery Land_,
was also stabbed to death and his body thrown overboard.

The second mate, who had heard the hammering of the capstan-bars and
the handspikes, with the first mate's and captain's agonized cries,
had come out, verified the murderers, and then shut himself up in his
cabin. He was soon summoned on deck, but as he would not move, the
mutineers came down and stood in a circle round his berth. Leon, or
Lyons, who spoke English, when asked said they would spare his life
if he would navigate the ship for them to the River Plate or Buenos
Ayres. Taffir agreed, but constantly went in fear of his life for the
remainder of the voyage; and although the mutineers spared him, they
ill-treated the Chinamen, and cut one badly with knives. Immediately
after the murder, cases of champagne, which formed part of the cargo,
were brought on deck and emptied; the captain's cabin ransacked, his
money and clothes divided amongst the mutineers, as well as much of
the merchandise on board. Leon wished to make every one on board share
and share alike, so as to implicate the innocent with the guilty; but
Vartos, or Watto, the Turk, would not allow any but the eight mutineers
to have anything. The murders were perpetrated on the 10th September,
and the ship continued her voyage for nearly three weeks, meeting and
speaking one ship only. On the 2nd October they sighted land, ten miles
distant; the mutineers took command of the ship, put her about till
nightfall, by which time they had scuttled her, got out the boats, and
all left the ship. The rest of the crew were also permitted to embark,
except the Chinamen, one of whom was thrown into the water and drowned,
while the other two were left to go down in the ship, and were seen
clinging to the tops until the waters closed over them.

The boats reached the shore on the 4th October. Leon had prepared a
plausible tale to the effect that they belonged to an American ship
from Peru bound to Bordeaux, which had foundered at sea; that they had
been in the boats five days and nights, but that the captain and others
had been lost. The place at which they landed was not far from the
entrance to the River Plate. A farmer took them in for the night, and
drove them next day to Rocha, a place north of Maldonado. Taffir, the
mate, finding there was a man who could speak English at another place
twenty miles off, repaired there secretly, and so gave information
to the Brazilian authorities. The mutineers were arrested, the case
inquired into by a naval court-martial, and the prisoners eventually
surrendered to the British authorities, brought to England, and lodged
in Newgate. Their trial followed at the Central Criminal Court. Eight
were arraigned at the same time: six Spaniards; Leon, Lopez, Blanco,
Duranno, Santos, and Marsolino; Vartos, a Turk, and Carlos, a Greek.
Seven were found guilty of murder on the high seas, and one, Carlos,
acquitted. Two of the seven, Santos and Marsolino, were reprieved, and
their sentences commuted to penal servitude for life; the remaining
five were executed in one batch. They were an abject, miserable crew,
cowards at heart; but some, especially Lopez, continued bloodthirsty to
the last. Lopez took a violent dislike to the officer of the ward in
charge of them, and often expressed a keen desire to do for him. They
none of them spoke much English except Leon, commonly called Lyons.
After condemnation, as the rules now kept capital convicts strictly
apart, they could not be lodged in the two condemned cells, and they
were each kept in an ordinary separate cell of the newly-constructed
block, with the "traps," or square openings in the cell door, let down.
A full view of them was thus at all times obtainable by the officers
who, without intermission, day and night patrolled the ward. On the
morning of execution the noise of fixing the gallows in the street
outside awoke one or two of them. Lyons asked the time, and was told it
was only five. "Ah!" he remarked, "they will have to wait for us then
till eight." Lopez was more talkative. When the warder went in to call
him he asked for his clothes. He was told he would have to wear his
own. "Not give clothes? In Russia, Italy, always give chaps clothes."
Then he wanted to know when the policemen would arrive, and was told
none would come. "The soldiers then?" No soldiers either. "What, you
not afraid let us go all by ourselves? Not so in Russia or Spain."
The convicts were pinioned one by one and sent singly out to the
gallows. As the first to appear would have some time to wait for his
fellows, a difficult and painful ordeal, the seemingly most courageous
was selected to lead the way. This was Duranno; but the sight of the
heaving mass of uplifted, impassioned faces was too much for his
nerves, and he so nearly fainted that he had to be seated in a chair.
The execution went off without mishap.

In July, 1864, occurred the murder of Mr. Briggs, a gentleman advanced
in years and chief clerk in Robarts' bank. As the circumstances under
which it was perpetrated were somewhat novel,[274:1] and as some time
elapsed before the discovery and apprehension of the supposed murderer,
the public mind was greatly agitated by the affair for several months.
The story of the murder must be pretty familiar to most of my readers.
Mr. Briggs left the bank one afternoon as usual, dined with his
daughter at Peckham, then returned to the city to take the train from
Fenchurch Street home, travelling by the North London Railway. He lived
at Hackney, but he never reached it alive. When the train arrived
at Hackney station, a passenger who was about to enter one of the
carriages found the cushions soaked with blood. Inside the carriage
was a hat, a walking-stick, and a small black leather bag. About the
same time a body was discovered on the line near the railway-bridge by
Victoria Park. It was that of an aged man, whose head had been battered
in by a life-preserver. There was a deep wound just over the ear, the
skull was fractured, and there were several other blows and wounds on
the head. Strange to say, the unfortunate man was not yet dead, and he
actually survived more than four-and-twenty hours. His identity was
established by a bundle of letters in his pocket, which bore his full
address: "T. Briggs, Esq., Robarts & Co., Lombard Street."

The friends of Mr. Briggs were communicated with, and it was
ascertained that when he left home the morning of the murderous attack,
he wore gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a gold watch and chain. The stick
and bag were his, but not the hat. A desperate and deadly struggle
must have taken place in the carriage, and the stain of a bloody hand
marked the door. The facts of the murder and its object, robbery,
were thus conclusively proved. It was also easily established that
the hat found in the carriage had been bought at Walker's, a hatter's
in Crawford Street, Marylebone; while within a few days Mr. Briggs'
gold chain was traced to a jeweller's in Cheapside, Mr. Death, who had
given another in exchange for it to a man supposed to be a foreigner.
More precise clues to the murderer were not long wanting; indeed the
readiness with which they were produced and followed up showed how
greatly the publicity and wide dissemination of the news regarding
murder facilitate the detection of crime. In little more than a week
a cabman came forward and voluntarily made a statement which at once
drew suspicion to a German, Franz Müller, who had been a lodger of his.
Müller had given the cabman's little daughter a jeweller's cardboard
box bearing the name of Mr. Death. A photograph of Müller shown the
jeweller was identified as the likeness of the man who had exchanged
Mr. Briggs' chain. Last of all, the cabman swore that he had bought the
very hat found in the carriage for Müller at the hatter's, Walker's of
Crawford Street.

This fixed the crime pretty certainly upon Müller, who had already
left the country, thus increasing the suspicion under which he lay.
There was no mystery about his departure; he had gone to Canada by the
_Victoria_ sailing ship, starting from the London docks, and bound
to New York. Directly the foregoing facts were established, a couple
of detective officers, armed with a warrant to arrest Müller, and
accompanied by Mr. Death the jeweller and the cabman, went down to
Liverpool and took the first steamer across the Atlantic. This was the
_City of Manchester_, which was expected to arrive some days before
the _Victoria_, and did so. The officers went on board the _Victoria_
at once, Müller was identified by Mr. Death, and the arrest was made.
In searching the prisoner's box, Mr. Briggs' watch was found wrapped
up in a piece of leather, and Müller at the time of his capture was
actually wearing Mr. Briggs' hat, cut down and somewhat altered. The
prisoner was forthwith extradited and sent back to England, which he
reached with his escort on the 17th September the same year. His trial
followed at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and ended
in his conviction. The case was one of circumstantial evidence, but,
as Sir Robert Collyer, the Solicitor-General, pointed out, it was the
strongest circumstantial evidence which had ever been brought forward
in a murder case. It was really evidence of facts which could not be
controverted or explained away. There was the prisoner's poverty,
his inability to account for himself on the night of the murder, and
his possession of the property of the murdered man. An alibi was set
up for the defence, but not well substantiated, and the jury without
hesitation returned a verdict of guilty.

Müller protested after sentence of death had been passed upon him
that he had been convicted on a false statement of facts. He adhered
to this almost to the very last. His case had been warmly espoused by
the Society for the Protection of Germans in this country, and powerful
influence was exerted both here and abroad to obtain a reprieve.
Müller knew that any confession would ruin his chances of escape. His
arguments were specious and evasive when pressed to confess. "Why
should man confess to man?" he replied; "man cannot forgive man, only
God can do so. Man is therefore only accountable to God." But on the
gallows, when the cap was over his eyes and the rope had been adjusted
round his neck, and within a second of the moment when he would be
launched into eternity, he whispered in the ear of the German pastor
who attended him on the scaffold, "I did it." While in the condemned
cell he conversed freely with the warders in broken English or through
an interpreter. He is described as not a bad-looking man, with a square
German type of face, blue eyes which were generally half closed, and
very fair hair. He was short in stature, his legs were light for the
upper part of his body, which was powerful, almost herculean. It is
generally supposed that he committed the murder under a sudden access
of covetousness and greed. He saw Mr. Briggs' watch-chain, and followed
him instantly into the carriage, determined to have it at all costs.

An interesting case is that of old Dr. Watson, the headmaster of
Stockwell Grammar School, who escaped the final retribution of death
because, as he pleaded for himself: "In a fit of fury I have killed
my wife. Often and often have I endeavoured to restrain myself but my
rage overcame me and I struck her down. Her body will be found in the
little room off the library. I hope she will be buried as becomes a
lady of birth and position. She is an Irish lady and her name is Anne."
Here were unmistakably signs of feeble intellect, and yet when the
deed was done he was sufficiently sensible and self-possessed to make
a cunning attempt to conceal his crime. His great desire, as so often
happens with murderers, was to dispose of the chief evidence of his
guilt and he was quite cool and collected when he gave his orders to a
packing-case maker to prepare him a large chest. "And I want it done
sharp; it must be air and water tight, for it is to go by rail." Then
he seems to have broken down and bought poison which failed of effect
and led to the discovery of the crime.

Henry Wainwright's murder of Harriet Lane was a crime on a parity
with many others of earlier date. It was a curious instance of how
"murder will out," and how the devices employed to hide the crime help
really to expose it. Too much chloride of lime had been employed to
consume the buried corpse with the result that the body was preserved
instead of destroyed. Again, a mere chance led to the discovery; the
carelessness of the murderer when he had exhumed the body for removal
to some safer place, in entrusting the parcel to a stranger's hands
who was curious as to its contents. The plea set up by the accused
that the girl had committed suicide led to the shrewd remark of the
judge, Chief Justice Goulbourne, that it was very unusual for suicides
to bury themselves after death. Henry Wainwright's was one of the last
executions at Newgate.

A case, almost unique, may be quoted of a nearly successful attempt
to interfere with the course of justice by means of a forged order
of pardon. A convict on the point of execution, a man named Shurety,
was actually in the hangman's hands when a letter was brought to the
governor of Newgate purporting to come from the Home Office and signed
"A. F. Liddell," then Under-secretary of State, countermanding the
execution. The signature was so cleverly copied that it seemed genuine,
but a closer examination of the letter, envelope and seal satisfied
the authorities that the document was spurious and they took upon
themselves to send Shurety to the gallows. A couple of months later
the forgery was brought home to a surgeon, Mr. Caleb C. Whiteford,
who had interested himself in the case and having failed to save the
man by lawful means had adopted this course, which brought upon him
a sentence of fine and imprisonment. Another curious case was the
utter discomfiture of certain ultra-sentimentalists who had laboured
strenuously to obtain a pardon for a Jew, Israel Lipski, alleged to
have been wrongly convicted. Great excitement prevailed while he lay
awaiting execution; numerous petitions were addressed to the Home
Secretary, and his steadfast refusal to extend mercy was hysterically
denounced by a section of the Press. Just when it was still asserted
that judicial murder was on the point of being perpetrated, the convict
made full confession of his crime and the ill-advised action of
these busybodies was very properly overthrown. One or two more cases
must serve to complete the list of the last great crimes expiated in
Newgate. Mrs. Pearcey, who murdered her friend Mrs. Hogg, no doubt
allowed her temper to get the better of her and what was at first
a small quarrel unhappily degenerated into a murderous attack. The
circumstances of the crime were commonplace; the special interest was
in the method of removing the murdered remains. Mrs. Hogg's body with
the throat cut had been found on Hampstead Heath and shortly afterwards
her infant child was found dead in close proximity. It came out in
the course of inquiry that Mrs. Pearcey had wheeled a perambulator
containing the dead bodies all the way from St. John's Wood to
Hampstead.

But for the lucky chance which so often assists the detection of great
crimes, the Muswell Hill murder would hardly have been brought home
to its perpetrators. This was a burglary which cost the life of the
unfortunate victim, a Mr. Henry Smith, an aged gentleman who lived
alone in a small villa on Muswell Hill, one of the northern suburbs
of London. He was a man of some means who was weak enough to keep his
cash receipts for rents and dividends in his own safe at home. He was
a tall stout man of active habits and fairly robust health who "did
for himself," rising early, cleaning his house, cooking his food and
living his own simple life. His habits were watched and they marked
him down as open to attack and robbery. One morning his gardener, the
only servant he employed, and who lived away from the house, arrived
as usual to find the premises still locked up. There were unmistakable
signs that a forcible entry had been made and a wire connected with
an alarm gun behind the house had been disconnected. Calling upon the
neighbours for assistance, the gardener entered the house and saw
Mr. Smith's body lying lifeless on the floor. The safe stood open
and had been evidently rifled; drawers had been pulled out and a tin
box emptied. The murder had been committed with very brutal violence
as the state of the body amply testified. Various small clues were
forthcoming; a bull's eye lantern, two pocket knives upon the floor
near the deceased and some bread and cheese which the murderers had
been consuming after the deed. There were footprints in the garden
leading down into the woods back of the house. Two sets of footprints,
one of large boots with a very broad tread and no nails, the other of
smaller boots with pointed toes. The footprints ended at the garden
fence where there were many marks and scratches to show that someone
had climbed over. A small tobacco box was also picked up on the
footpath leading to the wood, the property of someone who did not live
at the villa, for neither the murdered man nor the gardener were in the
habit of smoking.

It is customary with the police in cases of this gravity to search
their records and ascertain what known offenders likely to be guilty
of such a crime were then at large. Two ex-convicts, Albert Milsom and
Henry Fowler, stood upon the list and at once attracted the attention
of the police as habitual criminals addicted to burglary, but there was
no specific evidence against them until suspicion was raised by a young
lady who resided near Muswell Hill. She thought it her duty to inform
the police that she had been accosted by two men, a little before the
murder, who had made many inquiries about the woods behind Mr. Smith's
house. Another lady had seen the same man on the very day of the murder
walking in a neighbouring lane. This was sufficient to cause inquiry
to be made for the two men in question who were soon identified as the
above mentioned Milsom and Fowler. Suspicion deepened when it became
known that after the day of the murder they were flush of money and had
bought new clothes. Then a damaging fact turned up when the bull's eye
lantern picked up on the scene of the crime was claimed by Milsom's
brother-in-law as his property. He proved his ownership by pointing out
changes he had made in it and further that it had been abstracted from
him some little time before the murder, and that the next time he saw
it was in the hands of the police. The same lad recognized the tobacco
box as one that Albert Milsom constantly used.

The next step was to "run in" the two men so strongly suspected. They
were "wanted" for some weeks and although they seem to have still hung
about London it was believed they had gone abroad. Towards the end of
February they left for Liverpool and then moved south to Cardiff, where
they joined forces with an itinerant showman having bought a share in
his business. They moved to and fro in South Wales and then worked back
to Chippenham and Bath where the police, ever hot on their track, came
upon them and captured them after a desperate struggle. Fowler was a
strong man of large frame and he fought like a tiger but was knocked on
the head with the butt end of a revolver and overpowered. He owed his
confederate Milsom a deep grudge and on more than one occasion made a
murderous attempt on his life, once in the exercising yard at Holloway
while awaiting trial, an affair which the present writer myself
witnessed. The two men were walking in a circle some distance apart,
but Fowler ran after him and was only prevented by the officers from
doing him serious mischief. Again at the Old Bailey when the jury had
retired to consider their verdict, Fowler jumped out of the dock and
attacked his companion but was restrained in time. Milsom had enraged
him by making full confession of the murder and the manner in which it
had been committed. Fowler, he said, had done the deed alone but had
bitterly upbraided Milsom for giving no assistance. Both criminals were
executed in Newgate.

The last great case of fraud upon the Bank of England will fitly find a
place in the later criminal records of Newgate. This was the well and
astutely devised plot of the brothers Bidwell, assisted by Macdonell
and Noyes, all of them citizens of the United States, by which the bank
lost upwards of £100,000. The commercial experience of these clever
rogues was cosmopolitan. Their operations were no less world-wide. In
1871 they crossed the Channel, and by means of forged letters of credit
and introduction from London, obtained large sums from continental
banks in Berlin, Dresden, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Lyons. With this
as capital they came back to England via Buenos Ayres, and Austin
Bidwell opened a bona fide credit in the Burlington or West End Branch
of the Bank of England, to which he was introduced by a well known
tailor in Saville Row. After this the other conspirators travelled
to obtain genuine bills and master the system of the leading houses
at home and abroad. When all was ready, Bidwell first "refreshed
his credit" at the Bank of England, as well as disarmed suspicion,
by paying in a genuine bill of Messrs. Rothschilds' for £4,500 which
was duly discounted. Then he explained to the bank manager that his
transactions at Birmingham would shortly be very large, owing to the
development of his business there in the alleged manufacture of Pullman
cars. The ground thus cleared, the forgers poured in from Birmingham
numbers of forged acceptances to the value of £102,217, all of which
were discounted. The fraud was rendered possible by the absence of a
check customary in the United States. There such bills would be sent to
the drawer to be initialled, and the forgery would have been at once
detected. It was the discovery of this flaw in the banking system which
had encouraged the Americans to attempt this crime.

Time was clearly an important factor in the fraud, hence the bills were
sent forward in quick succession. Long before they came to maturity the
forgers hoped to be well beyond arrest. They had, moreover, sought to
destroy all clue. The sums obtained by Bidwell in the name of "Warren"
at the Bank of England were lodged at once by drafts to "Horton"
another alias, in the Continental Bank. For these cash was obtained in
notes; the notes were exchanged by one of the conspirators for gold
at the Bank of England and again the same day a second conspirator
exchanged the gold for notes. But just as all promised well, the
frauds were detected through the carelessness of the forgers. They had
omitted to insert the dates in certain bills. The bills were sent as a
matter of form to the drawer to have the date added, and the forgery
was at once detected. Noyes was seized without difficulty, as it was a
part of the scheme that he should act as the dupe, and remain on the
spot in London till all the money was obtained. Through Noyes the rest
of the conspirators were eventually apprehended. Very little if any of
the ill-gotten proceeds, however, was ever recovered. Large sums as
they were realized were transmitted to the United States and invested
in various American securities, where probably the money still remains.

The prisoners, who were committed to Newgate for trial, had undoubtedly
the command of large funds while there, and would have readily
disbursed it to effect their enlargement. A plot was soon discovered,
deep laid, and with many ramifications, by which some of the Newgate
warders were to be bribed to allow the prisoners to escape from their
cells at night. Certain friends of the prisoners were watched and
found to be in communication with these warders, to whom it was said
£100 apiece had been given down as the price of their infidelity.
Further sums were to have been paid after the escape; and one warder
admitted that he was to have £1,000 more paid to him and to be provided
with a passage to Australia. The vigilance of the Newgate officials
assisted by the city police, completely frustrated this plot. A second
was nevertheless set on foot in which the plan of action was changed,
and the freedom of the prisoners was to be obtained by means of a
rescue from the dock during the trial. An increase of policemen on
duty sufficed to prevent any attempt of this kind. Nor were these two
abortive efforts all that were planned. A year or two after, when the
prisoners were undergoing their life sentences of penal servitude, much
uneasiness was caused at one of the convict prisons by information that
bribery on a large scale was again at work amongst the officials. But
extra precautions and close supervision have so far proved effectual
and the prisoners were still in custody after a lapse of ten years.

The time came at length when the old City Gaol must fall in with the
steady and persistent march towards prison reform. The movement had
been initiated by the legislative and certain improvements were made
imperative, notably that which recognized the unalterable principle
that every individual should be confined separately and singly in one
cell or apartment. Already steps had been taken and public moneys
voted to construct a prison on the most approved plan to serve as a
model for all. The result was Pentonville, erected in 1842 at a great
outlay and on such intelligent lines that in due course it fulfilled
its first aim and became a model for imitation. Pentonville has been
universally adopted as the best form of building and its system the
best contrived to effect the chief desiderata of a penal establishment,
such as coercion, repression and reformation. It is to be seen to-day
with small variation in almost every country of the world and is
generally considered the best type of prison construction. In England,
jurisdictions were ready to recognize their duties and responsibilities
and fine prisons arose in the large provincial cities and wide areas of
population, although others still lagged behind deterred by parsimony
and the lack of public spirit. Newgate, the gaol of the richest
corporation in the world, was one of the latter and an official report
published in 1850 animadverted strongly on its still unsatisfactory
condition.

Not much had been done to remedy the old defects; radical improvement
was generally considered impossible. The great evil, however, had been
sensibly diminished. There was no longer, or at worst but rarely, and
for short periods, the same overcrowding. This was obviated by the
frequent sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and the utilization of
the two subsidiary prisons in Giltspur Street and Southwark. The prison
population of Newgate was still subject to great fluctuations, but it
seldom rose above two hundred and fifty or three hundred at the most
crowded periods, or just before the sessional gaol delivery; and at its
lowest it fell sometimes to fifty or sixty. These numbers would have
still further decreased, and the gaol would have been almost empty,
but for the misdemeanants who were still sent to Newgate at times on
long terms of imprisonment, and for the transports, whom the Home
Office was often, as of old, slow to remove. The old wards, day rooms
and sleeping rooms combined, now seldom contained more than ten or a
dozen occupants. Some sort of decorum was maintained in the day-time.
Drinking and gaming, the indiscriminate visitation of friends, and the
almost unlimited admission of extra food, had disappeared.

But reformation was only skin deep. Below the surface many of the old
evils still rankled. There was as yet no control over the prisoners
after locking-up time; which occurred in summer at eight, but in the
winter months took place at dusk, and was often as early as four or
five o'clock. The prisoners were still left to themselves till next
morning's unlocking, and they spent some fourteen or fifteen hours in
total darkness, and almost without check or control. The only attempt
at supervision was exercised by the night watchman stationed on the
leads, who might hear what went on inside. If any disturbance reached
his ears, he reported the case to the governor, who next morning
visited the ward in fault, and asked for the culprit. The enforcement
of discipline depended upon the want of honour among thieves. Unless
the guilty prisoner was given up, the whole ward was punished, either
by the exclusion of visitors or the deprivation of fire, sharp tests
which generally broke down the fidelity of the inmates of the ward to
one another. Later on a more efficacious but still imperfect method of
supervision was introduced. Iron cages, which are still to be seen in
Newgate, were constructed on the landings, ensconced in which warders
spent the night, on duty, and alert to watch the sleepers below, and
check by remonstrance or threat of punishment all who broke the peace
of the prison.

These disciplinary improvements were, however, only slowly and
gradually introduced. Other changes affecting the condition and
proper treatment of prisoners were not made until repeatedly urged
and recommended. Thus the wards, which, as I have said, were left in
complete darkness, were now to be lighted with gas; and after this most
salutary addition, the personal superintendence of night officers,
as already described, became possible. The rule became general as
regards the prison dress; hitherto clothing had been issued only to
such as were destitute or in rags, and all classes of prisoners,
those for trial, and those sentenced for short terms or long, wore
no distinguishing costume, although its use was admitted, not only
for cleanliness, but as a badge of condition, and a security against
escape. Renewed recommendations to provide employment resulted in
the provision of a certain amount of oakum for picking, and one or
two men were allowed to mend clothes and make shoes. The rules made
by the Secretary of State were hung up in conspicuous parts of the
prison; more officers were appointed, as the time of so many of those
already on the staff was monopolized by attendance at the Central
Criminal Court. Another custom which had led to disorder was abolished;
prisoners who had been acquitted were not permitted to return to the
prison to show their joy and receive the congratulations of their
unfortunate fellows. The Corporation seems to have introduced these
salutary changes without hesitation. It was less prompt apparently in
dealing with structural alterations and improvements. Well-founded
complaints had been made of the want of heating appliances in the gaol.
The wards had open fires, but the separate cells were not warmed at
all. It was long before a scheme for heating the whole prison with hot
water pipes was accepted and introduced.

At last the authorities realized that all idea of reconstruction on
proper lines was out of the question. It was imperative to begin at the
beginning, select a sufficiently spacious piece of ground and erect a
prison thereon, which from foundations to roofs should be in conformity
with the newest ideas.

Now for the first time the Tuffnell estate in Holloway was mentioned.
The Corporation owned lands there covering from nineteen to twenty
acres. Why not move the city prison bodily into this more rural spot,
with its purer air and greater breathing space? Eventually Holloway
was decided upon as a site for the new city prison. The necessary
preliminaries took some time, but the contracts for the new building
were completed in 1849, when the works were commenced. The prison
was to contain four hundred and four prisoners, and the estimated
expenditure was £79,000. It was to accommodate all convicted prisoners
sentenced to terms short of penal servitude, and after its completion
the uses of Newgate were narrowed almost entirely to those of a prison
of detention. It was intended, as far as possible, that no prisoner
should find himself relegated to Newgate except when awaiting trial.

With the reduction of numbers to be accommodated, there was ample space
in Newgate for its reconstruction on the most approved modern lines.
In 1857 the erection of a wing or large block of cells was commenced
within the original walls of the prison, and upon the north or male
side. This block contained one hundred and thirty cells, embracing
every modern improvement; it also contained eleven reception cells,
six punishment cells, and a couple of cells for condemned criminals.
This block was completed in 1859, after which the hitherto unavoidable
and long-continued promiscuous association of prisoners came to an
end. In 1861 a similar work was undertaken to provide separate cell
accommodation for the female inmates of Newgate, and by the following
year forty-seven new cells had been built on the most approved
plan. During this reconstruction the female prisoners were lodged in
Holloway, and when it was completed, both sides of the prison were
brought into harmony with modern ideas. The old buildings were entirely
disused, and the entire number of those at Newgate were kept constantly
in separate confinement.

With the last re-edification of Newgate, a work executed some seven
centuries after the first stone of the old gaol was laid, the
architectural records of the prison end. Nothing much was done at
Newgate in the way of building, outside or inside, after 1862. The Act
for private executions led to the erection of the gallows shed in the
exercising yard, and at the flank of the passage from the condemned
cells. The first "glass house," or room in which prisoners could talk
in private with their attorneys, and still be seen by the warder on the
watch, had been constructed, and others were subsequently added. But no
structural alterations were made from the date first quoted until in
1902 the prison ceased to exist as such.

A few words will suffice in closing the record of this old-world
prison, which after seven centuries of existence has no longer a place
in the heart of the great overgrown city. It has been crowded out, the
space it occupied was far too limited and yet too valuable to remain
the centre of Metropolitan criminal procedure. It was imperative that
the famous assize court of the Old Bailey should be enlarged and the
ground upon which the prison stood was urgently needed for extension.
The chief prison authority, the State itself which had administered to
the powers so long exercised by local jurisdiction, decided to remove
the last vestige of prison business from the ancient site. A prison
already standing in the suburb of Brixton was enlarged and appropriated
to meet the purposes which Newgate had fulfilled almost to the last.
For it continued until yesterday to serve as the last resting place
of malefactors condemned to death. It was still the succursal of the
assize court, sheltering the accused during the trial and holding them
after conviction until they stood finally under the drop and the fatal
bolt was drawn. But Newgate in 1882 ceased to be more than a temporary
prison receiving lodgers about to take the last long journey from which
no traveller returns, and in this way old Newgate continued to be
associated with all capital offences in London.

Many pages might still be filled with painful stories often reproducing
almost exactly the criminal episodes of the past and proving that
there is literally nothing new under the sun. The latest Newgate
records exhibited the same fatal consequences of overpowering greed,
unappeasable rage, brutal passions uncontrolled; the same fierce thirst
for vengeance; the same bitter jealousy, only to be assuaged in blood
under the maddened impulse of minds on the borderland of insanity.
Great crimes may be rarer nowadays, but they still present the same
familiar features as of old, and will no doubt do so while the world
lasts.

       *       *       *       *       *

NOTE. Occasional references to the Tower have been made in the
preceding chapters. Its history in full would be the history of England
and far too extended for the scope of this work; therefore an outline
only is given, with reference in brief to many important prisoners who
were confined or suffered within its gloomy walls.

[Illustration: _Great Court of the Tower of London_

    Ancient palace-citadel of London, and famous state prison,
    whose history began with William the Conqueror. The chief
    buildings of the group are the work of Norman kings and Henry
    III. Familiar as the place of durance and scene of death of
    many prisoners of royal blood and political importance.]


FOOTNOTES:

[274:1] They have since been repeated, but accompanied by more
premeditation, in the case of Lefroy, who murdered Mr. Gould in a
first-class carriage on the Brighton line in 1881.




CHAPTER X

THE TOWER OF LONDON

    Location—Traditions of ancient fortifications—William
    the Conqueror and Gundulf the Builder—Additions by other
    kings—The first prisoners—Royal tenants—Richard Duke of
    Gloucester and the "Two Little Princes"—Increase in number
    of prisoners during Tudor period—Anne Boleyn's two visits
    to the Tower—Another queen's fate—The "Nine Days' Queen"
    and her friends—Spanish influence fills the Tower—Sir
    Walter Raleigh—Lady Arabella Stuart—Executions grow
    fewer—Culloden—The last man beheaded in England—Present uses
    of the Tower.


On the north bank of the Thames, a half mile below London Bridge and
just east of the old city of London, stands an irregular pile of
buildings with walls, battlements and moat which fires the imagination,
and grips the fancy as no other group in the world can do.

The Tower of London, in turn fortress, palace and prison—sometimes all
three simultaneously—and now a storehouse and museum, has a continuous
existence almost as long as England's history. Tradition says that the
Britons had a stronghold here before Cæsar came; that the great Roman
himself ordered the walls strengthened; that the Saxon kings held court
on the site. Certainly excavations for various purposes made from time
to time have revealed masonry and relics of all three periods.

The Tower as we have it to-day goes back only to the Norman kings.
William the Conqueror's keen eye saw the advantage of this low hill
and wished a fortress which should command the river and help to
overawe the turbulent city to the west. Gundulf, a Benedictine monk,
whom he had made Bishop of Rochester, and who had shown his ability
by rebuilding the cathedral there, set to work in 1078 or 1079 on the
keep, or White Tower.

This great building stands to-day his monument. The solid masonry
walls twelve to sixteen feet thick enclose the vaults formerly used as
torture chambers when occasion demanded, the main floor, the banqueting
floor and the state floor. The chapel of St. John the Evangelist rises
through two floors in the southeast corner, while the low towers at
the four corners command the scene for miles. Old Gundulf built well,
and completed also St. Peter's chapel and the Hall tower. The other
towers with their connecting walls enclosing the Inner Ward were built
later, many of them by Henry III. The Beauchamp tower, the Belfry, the
Garden or Bloody tower, the Lantern, the Salt tower, the Broad Arrow
tower, the Constable tower, the Martin tower, the Brick tower, the
Flint tower, the Bowyer tower and the Develin tower, were all built in
the wall for purposes of defence, but all have sheltered prisoners from
time to time.

Within this Inner Ward, besides the buildings already named were royal
apartments and a Great Hall of justice (long since destroyed), the
mint, which remained until 1810, residences for officers, barracks,
etc. Around all this was a second strong wall protected by other strong
towers, which was planned and partially constructed by Henry III. Of
these towers on the outer wall, St. Thomas' tower on the river—better
known as the Traitors' Gate—is the most important. Under this tower
prisoners were landed from the river. The space enclosed by the outer
wall is about thirteen acres, and around all was a broad moat flooded
from the Thames.

The importance of the Tower as a fortress diminished with the invention
of gunpowder, but it continued to be used as a royal residence, at
intervals, until the accession of Charles II. Here Henry III lived
and planned great structures; during the wars of the Roses, York and
Lancaster held court in turn; Henry VII schemed for greater wealth, and
his son was led to defy the Pope while keeping a residence here.

But it is with the Tower as a prison that we are most concerned. The
roll of the prisoners tells England's history. The petty intrigues of
court favourites; the greatness or the meanness of kings; the struggle
for power among great families; the truckling to foreign power which
brought Raleigh to the block, and the great struggle for religious and
political freedom are all set forth in the story of this great prison.

The first prisoner confined within the walls appears to have been
Ralph Flambard, (the Firebrand), Bishop of Durham, who as treasurer
of William the Conqueror had been forced to find the funds for old
Gundulf's work. Hated by the commons for his exactions, he was taken
into custody on the accession of Henry Beauclerc and was lodged in an
upper room of the White tower, as yet unsurrounded by walls. He was
well treated and allowed many privileges, but his efforts to secure
his release were unsuccessful. One night in February, 1101, when he
had caused all his guards to drink heavily of wine brought in at his
expense, he drew a rope from one of the casks, tied it to the window
sixty-five feet from the ground, and descended. Though the rope was
short and he fell heavily, his servants were waiting, and he made good
his escape to France, there to remain until forgiven and restored to
his bishopric.

Another important early prisoner was the victim of King John's unlawful
love, Maud Fitzwalter, the daughter of one of his powerful barons,
who refused to grant his will. The coward king attempted to break
her spirit by confinement in an uncomfortable cell, and banished her
family. Bravely resisting the king's desires to the end, she died,
perhaps by poison. Her father returned and placed himself at the head
of that band of bishops and barons who compelled the king to sign the
Great Charter at Runnymede.

Next we hear of the incarceration of six hundred Jews charged by
Edward I with tampering with the coinage. The same king brought John
de Baliol, king of Scotland, and David Bruce to the Tower in 1298, and
William Wallace, the hero of Scotland, was imprisoned here in 1305
before his execution at Smithfield. During this reign also Griffin,
Prince of Wales, who had been first confined by Henry III, attempted to
escape by the same method which Flambard had used so successfully, but
his cord, made from strips of his bed coverings, was too weak and his
neck was broken by the fall.

During the unhappy reign of Edward II court was kept in the Tower with
a splendour before unknown. Here the king's children were born, and
here Roger Mortimer, although a captive, began the guilty intrigue with
Queen Isabella which ended in disaster and disgrace for all.

More royal tenants appeared under Edward III. King David of Scotland
was confined in 1347, and in 1358, after Poitiers, King John of France
and his son joined the great number of French nobles whom the fortunes
of war had brought hither. It was in the Tower also that Edward's
unworthy grandson, Richard II, saw his favourite, Simon Burley, seized
by the indignant nobles and finally taken to Tower Hill. It is said
that this was the first public execution on Tower Hill, just north of
the Tower itself. In the Tower also Sir John Oldcastle suffered, and
the old walls saw Richard yield to Henry of Lancaster the crown which
he was too weak to hold.

With the accession of Henry V the war with France was renewed and
again many French nobles became tenants of the pile. One of them,
Charles of Orleans, grandson of Charles V, is described by Shakespeare.
Wounded and captured at Agincourt, the impossible ransom of 300,000
crowns was demanded by his unsuccessful rival, Henry V, who had failed
to win the love of Isabella, widow of Richard II of England. Indeed
Henry preferred that he remain a perpetual prisoner; and a prisoner
he remained for twenty-five years, spending his time with his books
and his verses, many addressed to his dead wife. Finally released, he
married Mary of Cleves, and their son was Louis XII, who married Mary,
the sister of Henry VIII of England.

With the Wars of the Roses, the records became more bloody, and the
sanguinary tinge continues through the Tudor period. During the first
period it was great house against great house, but during the Tudor
period began the great struggle for political freedom, which at times
seemed hopeless of attainment.

No figure so dominates the first period as the sinister, humpbacked
brother of Edward IV, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, Richard III of
England. His influence is felt in the sober history as well as in the
plays of Shakespeare. He is said to have stabbed with his own hand the
imbecile Henry VI, who had already at a previous time spent five years
a prisoner in the Tower. Tradition persists that he drowned his brother
the Duke of Clarence, in a butt of the latter's favourite wine. We know
of his denunciation of Lord Hastings on charge of witchcraft and of the
murder of that unhappy nobleman. We know that he kept Jane Shore, the
mistress of his brother, in prison here until all her charms were faded.

But the mysterious disappearance of the two little princes has done
most to damn his memory. As the result of the marriage with Elizabeth
Woodville, Edward IV left two sons, Edward V, aged twelve, and Richard,
aged eight. Gloucester was Protector but with diabolical cunning threw
doubt upon the legitimacy of the boys placed under his charge. They
were confided to Sir John Brackenbury, the lieutenant of the Tower,
while the preparations for the coronation went on. Their mother, filled
with unhappy forebodings for them and fearful of her own fate, was in
sanctuary at Westminster.

The tale as we have it runs thus: Richard left for the north after
sending a plain message to the lieutenant of the Tower. At Warwick,
Richard was informed that the worthy knight refused to do his bidding.
Nothing daunted, Richard sent orders that for one night only he should
give up his command to Sir James Tyrrell. That officer, who lived in
mortal fear of Richard, came to the Tower accompanied by two ruffians,
secured the keys and the passwords, went down to the Garden tower and
sent his ruffians up-stairs. Shortly they called him to see that the
work was done. There lay the princes, dead. The oldest account says
that one was smothered while the throat of the other was cut. Quickly a
priest was called and the bodies consigned to earth. Later this priest
moved them secretly, where, no one knew, and shortly after died. As the
bodies could not be shown some doubted the death of the little princes,
and later we have the claim of Perkin Warbeck that he was one of the
princes, escaped from the Tower and marvellously spared. Perhaps he may
have been Edward's son, for that king ruined many women beside Jane
Shore.

Two hundred years later, while making some changes in the White
tower, workmen found underneath the stone staircase near the chapel
the bones of two boys, apparently corresponding in age and stature to
the princes. Rigid investigation confirmed the guess, and Charles II
ordered their removal to Westminster Abbey, where they now lie among
their royal kindred in the chapel of Henry VII.

When Henry VIII set to work to get rid of his Spanish queen, and take
in her place the pretty maid of honour, Anne Boleyn, he let loose
forces which kept the Tower full of distinguished prisoners and gave
the axeman much work. The desire for the divorce led him further than
he anticipated. When he demanded that he be received as the head of the
church, one man, the wisest counsellor of the time, who had held high
office and whose talents fitted him to adorn any station, refused to go
so far. Sir Thomas More, author of Utopia, statesman and philosopher,
after enduring confinement for a few months went to the block and is
buried in St. Peter's chapel, though tradition says that his head
was secured by his faithful daughter, who preserved it carefully and
finally had it buried with her in her tomb.

A mad "maid of Kent" began to prophesy against the divorce. She ordered
the king to put Anne Boleyn away and to take Catherine back, and
finally began to threaten. When the king acted, he acted vigorously.
The maid and her associates went to Tyburn, and Bishop Fisher, just
then appointed cardinal, who had listened at least, if he had not
encouraged the maid, went to the Tower and soon to the block.

For six years Henry had sought a legal method of freeing himself from
his matrimonial chains. Then he took matters into his own hands. On
the twenty-fifth of January, 1533, the barge bearing Anne Boleyn, now
acknowledged as queen, attended by fifty others reached the Tower, and
she climbed the Queen's Stairway, where her impatient husband awaited
her. Three years later a barge again bore her along the stream, this
time attended by armed men, but now she was landed at the Traitors'
Gate, a prisoner charged with adultery, and destined to lose her head
upon Tower Green. We know that she bore herself well, protesting her
innocence to the last, and winning the pity of all. The story goes that
no coffin had been prepared for her and that her body was jammed into
an elm chest which happened to be conveniently empty. A few years ago,
in restoring St. Peter's chapel, her bones were found jumbled together,
apparently confirming the story that she had not been permitted to lie
decently buried at full length.

Only a few years later another queen of England came a prisoner to
the Tower and a victim of the axeman on the Green. Katherine Howard's
hold upon the affections of her fickle lord was no stronger than Anne
Boleyn's, and also charged with misconduct she was beheaded Feb.
15, 1542. With her died her companion and alleged accomplice, Jane,
Viscountess Rochford.

But the block on Tower Hill outside the walls where the public
executions took place was not idle. Wolsey's death of chagrin saved
him from the Tower and perhaps from the axe, but Thomas Cromwell,
whose devotion to his king had humbled so many, was not so fortunate
as Wolsey. Many things combined to lose him the favour of his royal
master, but nothing perhaps more than his recommendation of Anne of
Cleves as a wife for the fastidious, fickle king. She was so plain
and so awkward that the king was disgusted, and in 1540 Cromwell went
to the Tower and the block as Edward Stafford, the great Duke of
Buckingham, had done twenty years before.

The death of Henry made a delicate boy of nine years king, as Edward
VI. If, as seemed probable, he should die without descendants, where
would the crown go? Both of his sisters, Mary and Elizabeth, had in
turn been declared illegitimate and out of the succession. Mary was
Spanish in blood on her mother's side, and entirely so in education and
feeling. The young Elizabeth was an unknown quantity.

John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who had helped to send the king's
uncle, the Duke of Somerset, to the block, again began to plot. Henry
VIII's sister Mary, who married Charles Brandon after the death of
her first husband, Louis XII of France, had left a daughter Frances,
who married Henry Grey, later Duke of Suffolk, and had a daughter
whose right to the throne, if Mary and Elizabeth were put away, was at
least as good as any. So Dudley arranged a marriage between his fourth
son, Guilford, a boy of nineteen, and Lady Jane Grey, a sweet girl of
sixteen, whose pitiful history has power to stir a heart of stone.

King Edward died July 6, 1553, and Dudley showed what purported to be
his will passing the succession to his cousin, Lady Jane, and next
attempted to secure the person of Princess Mary, who had however been
warned of his purpose. On Monday, July 10, Lady Jane was proclaimed
Queen of England and many great nobles gathered around her. The people
showed no enthusiasm. They knew Dudley, and they felt that Mary was
the rightful heir. So pronounced was public sentiment that the politic
began to gather around Mary, who was proclaimed July 19, and Jane
descended from the throne which she had unwillingly accepted, after a
reign of only nine days.

Immediately the Tower filled. Lady Jane herself, and her foolish
husband, her father, Dudley and his four other sons and dozens of
less degree were confined, and the axeman was to reap a bloody
harvest. Dudley and his eldest son, the Earl of Warwick, went to the
block almost immediately. Robert Dudley, the husband of Amy Robsart,
afterward the favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and Guilford Dudley lodged
in the Beauchamp tower. Today one sees their names and inscriptions
carved in the soft stone and Guilford, perhaps, twice cut the name,
JANE.

Mary would have spared her unfortunate cousin if she could have induced
her to conform to the old faith, but Jane's Protestantism was too
firmly fixed, and she had a will of iron beneath her soft and gentle
exterior. Refusing to yield her faith, the Nine Days' Queen went to
Tower Green, her husband to Tower Hill, and shortly afterward her
father followed his friends and his children.

The queen under the influence of Renard, the agent of Charles V, began
the series of executions for conscience's sake which has given her the
awful title of Bloody Mary. Those who disliked either the Spaniard
or the old church had good cause to fear. Elizabeth was confined in
the Tower for a time, but Mary could not bring herself to order her
execution though strongly advised to do so. But Sir Thomas Wyat, Thomas
Cobham and then the three bishops, Cranmer, Latimer and Ridley, with
hundreds of others crowded the Tower until it overflowed into Newgate
and the Fleet.

With the accession of Elizabeth the headsman rested. For a century
hardly a year had passed without political executions. During the long
reign of Elizabeth they were few, and for twelve years there were none
at all. Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, who engaged in the plot to
raise Mary Queen of Scots to the throne, was the first; the Earl of
Northumberland was mysteriously murdered in the Bloody tower in 1585,
and Philip, Earl of Arundel, died on the block in 1595. Nor must we
forget Elizabeth's darling, Robert Devereux, Earl of Essex, who died
on Tower Green inside the walls in 1601, though the loving but jealous
queen was longing to grant his pardon if he would only ask it.

But the grim old walls held many tenants, even if the extreme
penalties were not invoked. Margaret, Countess of Lennox, mother of
Lord Darnley, and so grandmother of James I, lived in the Belfry
until after Darnley's death, when she was released, a broken old
woman. Philip Howard, son of Thomas mentioned above, though guilty of
high treason in aiding the enemies of his country, finally died in
the Beauchamp tower. It was during Elizabeth's reign that Sir Walter
Raleigh endured the first of his four imprisonments, this time for the
seduction of the queen's maid of honour and his subsequent disobedience.

At the accession of James I Raleigh returned to the Tower, as a
concession to Spain, against whose power and influence he had done so
much. He was tried, convicted on perjured testimony and sent back to
remain fourteen years a prisoner. The cowardly king feared to put the
sentence into effect, and so first in the Bloody tower and then in the
Garden house he received his friends, studied geography and chemistry,
seeking a method to sweeten sea water, distilling his wonderful elixir,
and awaiting further evidences of the king's petty nature. The story
that in a little dark cell in the White tower his History of the World
was written has no foundation. That work was written in the Garden
house. On his return from his unsuccessful and unhappy voyage, he lived
in the Brick tower for a little while, was then removed to the Wardrobe
tower, and then brought back to the Brick tower and tempted to commit
suicide. Meanwhile the Spanish court continued to clamour for his
blood, and James, crazed by the hope of the Spanish marriage for his
son, at length signed the death warrant of, perhaps, the greatest man
in England.

The king's cousin, Lady Arabella Stuart, because of her birth spent
most of her life as a prisoner of state, though she was not brought to
the Tower until after her unsuccessful attempt to escape to France in
1611. From that time until her death in 1615, she was a resident of the
old prison.

It is said that James would sometimes come to see prisoners tortured
in the gloomy crypt under the White tower, the place where Guy Fawkes
suffered after the discovery of the Gunpowder plot in 1606, before his
execution.

Executions for treason grow fewer as the years go on. Charles I saw
his unpopular minister, Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford, go first
to prison and then to Tower Hill in 1641, and the more unpopular Laud,
Archbishop of Canterbury, spent many weary months here in 1645, before
the procession to the scaffold. Cromwell kept George Monk, afterward
Duke of Albemarle, in confinement 1643-46, but during the reign of
Charles II there is less of interest, though Algernon Sydney suffered
the extreme penalty for alleged complicity in the Rye House Plot in
1683, and George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, had three separate terms
here.

During the short but turbulent reign of James II, the bastard son of
Charles II, James, Duke of Monmouth, spent three days in the Tower,
begging for mercy, after his disastrous defeat at Sedgmoor. The "Seven
Bishops" were confined here awaiting their trial for daring to resist
the king's will, and the infamous Chief Justice Jeffreys, captured
while attempting to escape, died in April, 1689, while awaiting trial.

After the destruction of Jacobite hopes at Culloden, three Scottish
lords, Kilmarnock, Balmerino and Fraser of Lovat awaited trial for
their devotion to the old line. The first two were executed in 1746,
and the last in 1747, the last man legally beheaded in England.

A few scattered individuals occupy the pile during the next
seventy-five years. John Wilkes, the great demagogue, was here in 1763,
and Lord George Gordon in 1780. In 1820 seven persons charged with
conspiracy were here, but the days of the Tower as a great prison were
past.

For many years no persons have been confined within its walls, but
every year thousands go to see the Crown Jewels, the arms and armour,
the instruments of torture and the relics of the kings. They study
the inscriptions upon the walls of the Beauchamp tower, carved by the
fingers of men who knew not what the morrow would bring forth, and
stand upon the ground where England's worst and England's noblest have
stood.




TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES


The following corrections have been made to the original text:

    Page 7: by the ruffians who ruled the roost[original has
    "roast"]

    Page 40: which was thought of some time ago."[quotation mark
    missing in original]

    Page 67: was asked if she would coöperate[original has
    "co/operate" split across a line break]

    Page 140: women, according[original has "acording"] to another
    eyewitness

    Page 156: full[original has "ful"] view of the males

    Page 160: watch for the officer's approach[original has
    "aproach"]

    Page 179: They were accordingly[original has "acordingly"]
    apprehended





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The History and Romance of Crime,
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol 2, by Arthur Griffiths

*** 