CHAMBERLAIN'S GATE-A MOST MISERABLE DUNGEON REBUILT BY RICHARD WHITTINGTON, [From an old engraving.] DETENTIONAL PRISONS. qi. NEWGATE JAIL. Mr. Hepworth Dixon, in his excellent work on the prisons of London, observes, with regard to Newgate, "that it is massive, dark, and solemn, arrests the eye and holds it." He farther adds, "a stranger in the capital would fix on it at a glance, for it is one of the half dozen buildings, in this wilderness of bricks and mortar, which have a character; of all the London prisons, except the Tower, it alone has an imposing aspect." In its strong and impressive architecture, as well as in its own eventful history, it rises in stern grandeur above all the other prisons in England. Our readers will pardon us in these circumstances, taking a glance into the chronicles of London, not only to learn the past reminiscences connected with Newgate, but also to become acquainted with the prisons of London in bygone times. Maitland states that the original Old Bailey Prison got the name of Newgate, as it was erected in the reign of Henry the First, several hundred years after the four original gates of the city. It is an interesting circumstance that it should have been erected by the famous Richard Whittington, Lord Mayor of London. Stow records "it was built by an Act of Parliament granted by Henry the Sixth to John Coventre, Jenken Carpenter, and William Grove, executors to Richard Whittington, to re-edify the jail of Newgate, which they did with his goods." It was the common jail for the county of Middlesex, but was not so large and commodious as the present building. It was situated on the north side of Newgate Street, with its front looking down the Old Bailey instead of being in a line with it as now. The edifice was of an ornamental style, similar to a triumphal entrance to a capital, crowned with battlements and towers, and adorned with statues, having a wide arch in the centre for carriages, similar to Temple Bar, with a postern in the north side for foot passengers, as seen in the engraving. This old jail was gutted by the great fire of London in 1666, which extended from Billingsgate to St. Dunstan's Church, near Temple Bar, and destroyed above 12,000 houses, the damage being estimated at ten millions. As most of those houses were built of wood, they were burned down to the ground; but the walls of Old Newgate being of solid granite survived that catastrophe. The building was afterwards repaired in the year 1672. In early times Newgate, as well as the other jails in England and the Continent, was in a deplorable condition. In the words of John Howard, "the prisoners were kept in close rooms, cells, and clammy dungeons 14 or 15 hours out of the 24. The floors of some of those caverns were very damp-in some of them there was an inch or two of water, and straw, or miserable bedding, was laid on the floors. There were seldom any bedsteads in them, and the air was offensive beyond expression." Howard farther observes," my readers will judge of the malignity of the air when I assure them that my clothes were, in my first journeys, so offensive, that, when in a post-chaise, I could not bear the windows drawn up, and was therefore obliged to travel commonly on horseback. The leaves of my memorandum book were so tainted that I could not use it till after spreading it an hour or two before the fire. I did not wonder that in these journeys my jailers made excuses, and did not go with me into the felons' wards." Jail fever was then very prevalent, in consequence of cleanliness and ventilation being generally neglected. Howard observes: "From my own observations in 1773, 1774, and 1775, I was fully convinced that more prisoners were destroyed by it than were put to death by all the public executions in the kingdom." He farther observes, "A cruel custom obtains in most of the jails, which is that of the prisoner demanding of the new comer, garnish, footing, or, as it is called in some London gaols, chummage.' 'Pay or strip,' are the fatal words. I say fatal, for they are so to some who, having no money, are obliged to give up part of their scanty apparel. If they have no bedding or straw to lie on, they contract diseases which often prove mortal." At this time criminals were treated with far greater severity than in our day; and desperate crimes were much more frequent. Many of the prisoners before trial, as well as after sentence, were loaded with heavy irons by night and day, against which Howard protested. Townsend says: "In the early part of my time, such as from 1781 to 1787, where one prisoner is convicted now, I am positively convinced there were five then. We never had an execution wherein we did not grace that unfortunate gibbet with ten, twelve, or more persons; and on one occasion I saw forty at once. But this unfortunate slaughter did no good at all. The more hangings there were, the more hardened and desperate the criminals became." Highway robberies were then rife on Hounslow Heath, Blackheath, Finchley Common, Wimbledon Common, and on the Romford Road. Townsend states: "I have been in Bow Street in the morning, and while I was leaning over the desk heard three or four people come in and say, 'I was robbed by two highwaymen in such a place: I was plundered by a single highwayman in such a place.' By means of the horse patrol which Sir Richard Ford planned, people now travel safely." The rookeries of thieves in Saint Giles, Westminster, and in the Old Mint, in the Borough, were in their glory about the beginning of the 18th century, when Jack Sheppard and Jonathan Wild performed their notable exploits. Toward the end of that century, at the time Howard lived, robberies had been considerably checked, yet numerous executions took place at Tyburn, at the angle of Oxford Street and the Edgeware Road, near to where the Marble Arch, Hyde Park, now stands. The low scum of the citizens, in those days, were regaled with those gloomy exhibitions; and at the peal of the bell of St. Sepulchre's Church, assembled around Newgate, from the slums and disreputable localities of the city, and accompanied the cart conveying the criminals to Tyburn on its dismal procession along the Tyburn Road, now transformed into Oxford Street. On certain occasions when a noted highwayman, or burglar, or other criminal, was to be executed, crowds of most respectable citizens might be seen wending their way from all parts of the city toward the fatal tree. The last execution at Tyburn took place on the 7th of November, 1783. In the same month the first criminal was hanged in front of Newgate, which henceforth became the place of execution. This change appears to have been made at the suggestion of Howard, from philanthropic motives, to do away with the unseemly processions to Tyburn. In connection with this melancholy subject we extract a piece of curious information from the chronicler Stow, which we give in his own words: " Only let it be added that Mr. Robert Dow, merchant-tailor, that deceased 1612, appointed the sexton, or bellman, of St. Sepulchre's to pronounce solemnly two exhortations to the persons condemned, for which, and for ringing the passing bell for them as they were carried to the cart by the said church, be left to him 268. 8d. yearly, for ever. “The exhortation to be pronounced to the condemned prisoners in Newgate the night before their execution "You prisoners that are within, Who, for wickedness and sin, "after many mercies shown, you are now appointed to die to-morrow, in the forenoon give ear and understand that to-morrow morning the great bell of St. Sepulchre's shall toll for you, in form and manner of the passing bell as used to be tolled for those that are at the point of death. To the end that all goodly people hearing that bell, and knowing it is for you going to your deaths, may be stirred up heartily to pray to God to bestow his grace and mercy upon you whilst you live. I beseech you, for Jesus Christ his sake, to keep this night in watching and prayer for the salvation of your own souls, while there is yet time and place for mercy, as knowing to-morrow you must appear before the judgment-seat of your Creator, there to give an account of all things done in this life, and to suffer eternal torments for your sins committed against Him, unless upon your hearty repentance you find mercy through the merits, death, and passion of your only mediator and advocate, Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God to make intercession for as many of you as penitentially return to him." The admonition to be pronounced to the convicted criminals as they are passing by Saint Sepulchre's Church to execution "All good people, pray heartily to God for these poor sinners who are now going to their death, for whom this great bell doth toll." "You that are condemned to die, repent with lamentable tears. Ask mercy of the Lord for the salvation of your own souls, through the merits, death, and passion, of Jesus Christ, who now sits at the right hand of God to make intercession for as many of you as penitentially return unto him. "Lord have mercy upon you! Writing in 1777, Howard states, that "the total number of executions for the previous twenty-three years had been 678, and the annual average was 29 or 30." He remarks: "I could wish that no persons suffered capitally but for murder, for setting houses on fire, and for house-breaking, attended with acts of cruelty. The highwayman, the footpad, the habitual thief, and people of this class, should end their days in a penitentiary-house rather than on a gallows. That many cartloads of our fellow-creatures are, once in six weeks, carried to slaughter is a dreadful consideration. And this is greatly heightened by reflection, that with proper care and proper regulation, much the greater part of these wretches might have been made into useful members of society, which they now so greatly dishonour in the sight of all Christendom." We have reason to believe that the original Newgate Jail, in the general arrangements of its cells and wards was similar to the building erected in its place, but less commodious. It was seldom visited by the sheriffs and magistrates, who did not like to venture within the wards, "least they should soon be in their graves," and no government inspector was appointed till the year 1777. Howard informs us: "In many jails, and in most bridewells (Newgate included) there is no allowance of bedding or straw to lie in, and if by any means they (the prisoners) get a little, it is not changed for months together, and is almost worn to dust. Some lie on rags and others on the bare floor. The keepers told him "the County allows no straw, and the prisoners have none but at their cost." Stimulated by the noble philanthropy of Howard, a large new prison was erected by the magistrates of the City, from designs furnished by George Dance, the City architect. It was set on fire during the Protestant Riots of 1780, by an infuriated mob, led by the fanatic Lord George Gordon, but afterwards repaired. The interiors of the side wings have also been recently changed, yet the outer walls still stand as massive as ever, and will possibly do so for many centuries to come. In 1783, John Howard, when referring to the old Prison of Newgate, writes thus:"The builders seemed to have regarded nothing in their plan but the single article of keeping prisoners in safe custody. The rooms and cells were so close as almost always to be the constant seats of disease and sources of infection. The City had, therefore, very good resolution to build a new jail (which he did not consider as a model to be followed). of opinion that without more than ordinary care the prisoners in it will be in great danger of the jail fever." I am In a later volume of his works, when writing an account of the present venerable Prison of Newgate, then nearly erected, he observes that "there was no alteration since his former publication. In three or four rooms there were nearly one hundred and fifty women crowded together, many young creatures with the old and hardened, some of whom had been confined upwards of two years. On the men's side there were many boys of twelve or fourteen years of age, some almost naked. In the men's infirmary there were only seven iron bedsteads; and at my last visit, there being twenty sick, some of them naked and with sores in a miserable condition lay on the floor with only a rug. There were four sick in the infirmary for women, which is only fifteen feet and a half by twelve, has but one window and no bedsteads, the sewers being offensive, and the prison not whitewashed. Unless room be given for the separation of the prisoners, and a reform be made in the prisons, an audacious spirit of profaneness and wickedness will continue to prevail in the lower class of the people of London." In 1787 there were in Newgate 140 debtors and 350 criminals-490. In 1788 there were 114 debtors and 499 criminals-613. From which time to 1810, a space of twentythree years, Newgate continued in a wretched misguided condition. The number of prisoners was increasing, and there was no proper classification of them. In 1808, Sir Richard Philips, one of the sheriffs of the City, in his letter to the Livery of London, after complaining of want of room, air, food, etc., adds :—"that he has been shocked to see boys of thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen confined for months in the same yard with hardened, incorrigible offenders. Among the women, all the ordinary feelings of the sex are outraged by their indiscriminate association. The shameless victims of lust and profligacy are placed in the same chamber with others who, however they may have offended the laws in particular points, still preserve their respect for decency and decorum. In immediate contact with such abandoned women, other young persons are compelled to pass their time between their commitment and the Sessions, when of course it often happens that the bill is not found against them by the Grand Jury, or they are acquitted by the Petty Jury. When the female prisoners lie down on their floors at night, there must necessarily, at least in the women's wards, be the same bodily contact and the same arrangement of heads and legs as in the deck of a slave-ship. The wards being only forty-three feet wide, admit by night of two rows to lie down at once in a length of thirty-seven feet; that is to say, twenty-five or thirty women, as it may be, in a row, having each a breadth of eighteen inches by her length." This stifling confinement of the women in 1808, when Newgate was crowded with female prisoners, still continued in 1817. In 1818, the Honourable Mr. Bennet, M.P., wrote a letter to the Common Council and Livery of the City of London, in reference to the abuses existing in Newgate, and urging the necessity of an immediate reform in the manage ment of that prison. The Prison of Newgate was calculated to hold only 427 prisoners; but on one occasion about this time 822 prisoners, debtors and criminals, were huddled together, and sometimes even as many as 1200; which overcrowding created infectious jail fever. The prisoners were not provided with bedding, and the food allowed them was hardly sufficient to sustain life. Mr. Bennet writes:-"The keeper of Newgate never attended Divine service, and the ordinary did not consider the morals of even the children who were in the prison as being under his care and attention. No care was taken to inform him of the sick till he got a warning to perform a funeral. There was no separation of the young from the old, the children of either sex from the most hardened criminal. Boys of the tenderest years, and girls of the ages of ten, twelve, and thirteen were exposed to the vicious contagion that predominated in all parts of the prison; and drunkenness prevailed to such an extent, and was so common, that unaccompanied with riot it attracted no notice." In 1815 some good arrangements were made as to a better allowance of food, clothing, and coals, and several other matters, but the classification of persons was still neglected. They still continued to herd together in the associated rooms and yards, and through the facility of intercourse which subsisted between the prisoners and their friends and acquaintances who visited them, extensive burglaries and robberies were plotted in Newgate, and notes were forged and coining was carried on within its gloomy walls. By bribing the turnkeys intoxicating liquors were often introduced into the prison, and profligate women were permitted to visit the prisoners, under the pretext they were their wives, and by paying the small fee of one shilling were allowed to remain during the night in wards containing several beds, not separated from each other by a single curtain. There were then fifteen condemned cells, which inconveniently contained forty-five persons, three in each cell. In his evidence before the Police Committee, Mr. Bennet states:-"On the 19th of February, 1817, there were eighty-eight persons condemned to death in Newgate, of which five had been sentenced in the July preceding, four in September, and twenty-nine in October. The evil of this assemblage of persons is the entire absence of all moral or religious feeling. The greater part of the criminals know that on them the sentence of the law will not be executed; while those whose fate is certain, or who doubt what the event may be, are compelled to associate and live with the rest; lessening the ennui and despair of the situation by unbecoming merriment, or seeking relief in the constant application of intoxicating stimulants. I saw |