Chronicles of NewgateFROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURYTO ITS DEMOLITIONA SKETCH OF THE TOWER

Chronicles of Newgate Vol. 1 title page

Chronicles of NewgateFROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURYTO ITS DEMOLITIONA SKETCH OF THE TOWERbyMAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHSLate Inspector of Prisons in Great BritainAuthor of"The Mysteries of Police and Crime""Fifty Years of Public Service," etc.In Two VolumesVolume IITHE GROLIER SOCIETYEDITION NATIONALELimited to one thousand registered and numbered sets.NUMBER 307INTRODUCTIONThe 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 terribleoublietteswere 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 toallow 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 mendicancywere 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 ashoefrom 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 theDuke 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 ChiefJustice 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 asituation. 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 werehauled 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 8s.10d.for a debtor's discharge, to 18s.10d.for a felon's, and £3 6s.8d.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 thepeace, 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 folkhelped 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.CONTENTSCHAPTERPAGEIntroduction5I.The Gaol Fever19II.The Rebuilding of Newgate37III.Celebrated Crimes and Criminals53IV.Newgate in the Nineteenth Century116V.Philanthropic Efforts128VI.The Beginning of Prison Reform150VII.Interesting Instances171VIII.Newgate Notorieties193IX.Later Records251X.The Tower of London297List of IllustrationsNewgate ChapelFrontispieceCompter, Giltspur St., LondonPage31Thieving Lane (Bow Street)Page78The Great Court of the Tower, LondonPage297CHRONICLES OFNEWGATECHAPTER ITHE GAOL FEVERThe 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 typhusfever, 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 thesquadrons; 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, andtells 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 bythe 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 severalhad 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 wholesomeas 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, whowas 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 whohas 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."Compter, Giltspur Street, LondonAnother 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 itssurroundings, 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 employmentof 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 aMr. 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 IITHE REBUILDING OF NEWGATE

byMAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHSLate Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain

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

In Two VolumesVolume 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 terribleoublietteswere 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 toallow 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 mendicancywere 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 ashoefrom 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 theDuke 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 ChiefJustice 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 asituation. 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 werehauled 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 8s.10d.for a debtor's discharge, to 18s.10d.for a felon's, and £3 6s.8d.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 thepeace, 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 folkhelped 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

List of Illustrations

CHRONICLES OFNEWGATECHAPTER ITHE GAOL FEVER

CHRONICLES OFNEWGATE

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 typhusfever, 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 thesquadrons; 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, andtells 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 bythe 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 severalhad 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 wholesomeas 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, whowas 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 whohas 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."

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 itssurroundings, 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 employmentof 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 aMr. 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."

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 andspecifications 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, andboth 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 countrythis 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'sbetween 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, hasteneden masseto 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 greatpile 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 wasvery 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 Iwas 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 theentrance 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 byJohn 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 theirhands," 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.

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