Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

I was distressed and wished I had not been there, when the keeper went on to say, in a loud voice and careless manner (I do not mean unfeeling, for he was very much of a gentleman), so as to be heard by all the prisoners as well as by us: "These women are here for such and such offences; committed for trial; you see how they live; they are allowed rations so and so; there are twenty in this room, ten in that, and so on; these are their mats, hanging up, and those their blankets which they take down and spread on this inclined plane (plank floor), bounded by this foot board, where they sleep; we have some seventy-five of them brought in since the last sessions; it is uncertain how many of them will be convicted and transported, perhaps four fifths;" &c. all in the hearing of these poor

creatures.

Yes, I wished myself away. It was enough that they had sinned; enough that they knew their character ruined; enough that they had fallen into the hands of the law, and been incarcerated; enough that they were cut off from society and disgraced, compelled to think on the past and anticipate the future-without suffering this unnecessary infliction, if they had any feeling left, occasioned by our introduction and this conversation. And evidently they had feeling they betrayed it. Not unlikely there was the suppressed sigh of penitence in some of those wounded spirits, connected with a thousand succeeding, never-ending, and painful regrets for past offences. What and how many relations of life had been made to bleed by their fall; and where whole families had fallen with them, so much the more pitiable. Those who were alone, without parents, or brother, or sister, or friends-what desolation! They all wore a form that is human, which we always respect, and above all in a condition of suffering. As offenders and when at large, virtue loathed their vileness, and was filled with disgust at the thought of their character; but here they were suffering for their offences, and our feelings towards them in such a condition were changed.

We left these apartments for those of female convicts, already doomed to transportation-of whom there were some dozens in this prison, waiting to be taken away. They were all dressed alike, plain, but decent and comfortable; they did not appear particularly unhappy; they knew their fate, and had probably resigned themselves to it. There also many of them had very good looks. Being at table, like the others, they all rose and waited in like manner, till we had passed through and returned; and similar conversations took place in hearing of these, as before narrated, much to my discomfort. It seemed to me that nothing should be said in the hearing of prisoners, but words of kindness, expressive of a sympathy for their con

dition, calculated to afford them the consolations of religion, and induce amendment of life. I do not think it was unkindness, but mere want of consideration, and a wish to give information, that dictated these remarks; more truly, perhaps, a custom in witnessing the scene, and some knowledge of facts, which gave these women less credit for feeling, than the proprieties of their deportment before us seemed to demonstrate.

Especially were my feelings shocked, as we entered one of the smaller rooms, containing three women, one aged, one quite young, the other perhaps thirty-five, with one of the finest countenances, and apparently the most innocent that could be looked upon. She was a woman who, in good society, and of good character, must have been respected and loved by all, as one might believe. They rose as we entered, and kept standing. "These small rooms," said our conductor, used to be occupied by women under sentence of death."

[ocr errors]

I ventured, though not without effort, to look upon the face of this fair-looking woman, as this cruel remark was made. Her eyes rolled up to heaven, her eyelids dropped to a complete close, exhibiting apparently the submission and meekness of a penitent soul, looking to heaven for her only consolation, and seeming to say, Oh, is it possible that I am in such a place, and doomed to such trials!"

66

The effect of kindness, of a tender and sympathizing regard for such persons, is well illustrated by the following extract from Mrs. Frey's account of her offices in this very prison

"Our rules have certainly been occasionally broken, but very seldom. Order has been generally observed. I think I may say, we have full power among them; for one of them said, it was more terrible to be brought before me than before the judge, though we use nothing but kindness. I have never punished a woman during the whole time, or ever proposed a punishment to them; and yet I think it is impossible, in a well-regulated house, to have rules more strictly attended to, than they are as far as I order them."

66

Though we use nothing but kindness." Simple-hearted, admirable woman! An angel of mercy! Thou shouldst have said, Because we use nothing but kindness.

"Abashed the devil stood,

And felt how awful goodness is, and saw
Virtue in her shape how lovely."

From these parts of the prison we went among the males. From the bad construction of this place, they are not able to introduce the modern and more perfect modes of prison discipline. Large classes of twenty or thirty are put into the same room-the only rule of classification being to put

the vilest with the vile, and the more decent with those of their own order. It is unnecessary to say, after all that has been revealed on this subject, how much even the best of them must administer to each other's increased corruption in such society.

We passed through many rooms and courts well stocked with prisoners, some convicted, and others waiting for trial.

In the dispensary, a very comfortable-looking place, a man was sitting on a form, apparently reading a penny magazine, or something of the kind, and who would attract any one's attention from the extraordinary dimensions of his body. He was nearly as thick as long; and made me think of Lambert, and I should suppose was equally worthy of being exhibited in show. He was well dressed and clean. He seemed resolved to hide his face from us by his paper, and yet was continually stealing glances of the visiters. I should have taken him for the apothecary, or some other servant. His eye was as unfortunately made as his body, and by no means pleasant to look upon. It was enough to frighten one. As we turned our backs and retired, I asked-" Who is that ?"

"It is Mr. a printseller, from Bond-street, who has been committed for exposing obscene pictures in his shop window."

"Ay, I am glad you are looking to that matter in London. It promises well. But I think surely this fat man might have a companion of his own class from the Burlington Arcade, who may well deserve to be here.”

"The committal is a novel case, and an experiment. It is uncertain what will be the issue of the trial."

We visited an apartment with fifteen tenants (males) under sentence of death. They were permitted to be in one room in the daytime, and were shut up three in a cell at night. They were most of them young men; some mere youth. "A boy in England," said a foreign traveller, "is independent at eight, and hanged at twelve,"—a severe libel, indeed, yet not without facts to have provoked its suggestion. Thousands and tens of thousands of children in London are born and educated in crime.

"What proportion of these fifteen men are likely to suffer?" I asked.

"Two or three of the most aggravated cases probably; the rest will be transported."

[ocr errors]

"And how long are those doomed to the scaffold permitted to live, after the recorder's report has decided the question ?"

"About a week."

"A short time to prepare for death. They do not realize they are to die till the report is made, I suppose?"

"Rarely."

We passed next into an apartment containing a dozen juvenile delinquents, a sad spectacle, from eight to fifteen years of age! The youngest was one of two brothers in the same room, and said to be the most accomplished rogue of the whole class. We asked him what he and his brother were there for? He told the story, it being some little theft, exculpating themselves principally.

66

Every word of that story is a lie," said our conductor. "Is it not?" appealing to the elder brother, "Yes, sir." Any one, methinks, of right views, must have been distressed at seeing these brothers brought into such a contradiction.

These young offenders, I believe, after conviction, are put into a house of correction, and afterward apprenticed out. An adult prisoner was occupied here as their schoolmaster, who paraded and exhibited them for our inspection, with all the pride and importance of a genuine pedagogue. He seemed to think himself in an honourable place, and the boys, no doubt, were better provided for than ever before. "I want a pair of shoes," said one to the keeper. "And I too," said another. "I want a shirt, sir," said a third; while two or three others exhibited a tattered coat, or pair of trousers, in no better condition, with a like request.

66

"An English labourer is not so well provided for," says Mr. Bulwer, as an English pauper; a pauper receives less for his comfort than a criminal committed for trial; a convicted criminal, who is not to be hung, is better off yet; a convict sentenced to transportation is better provided for than either: so that the English criminal code has set a bounty on crime, and placed the strongest temptation in the way of going from one degree of crime to another." I do not profess to quote Bulwer's language, but this is the sum. And although it is perhaps a slight exaggeration, yet it is substantially true in fact, and in its moral influence. The English poor cannot rise, however industrious; and ordinarily their depressions are so great, and their habits so servile, as to destroy that pride of character which aspires after independence. Hence so many covet the privileges of pauperism, and throw themselves upon the parish. A sturdy and lazy fellow will marry a widow pauper, because she has children, and the more the better. Her children are his fortune, as the parish provisions for the family are in proportion to the number of children. And as Bulwer says, to be a criminal, and the higher the grade of offence, short of being capital, the more permanent and independent the provision. "Save me from the gallows," is all they ask for. Few know the recklessness under which the English poor run into crime; and I know not how large a portion of them are tempted to do it for these reasons. In our country the industrious poor have always the blandishments of hope to

excite their ambition; in England it is not so; and the more comfortable condition, aside from the loss of character, which has too little influence, is to fall upon the parish, or upon the provisions of the criminal code.

While thousands appear to be starving in the streets, and are houseless, the prison is a good home; and there they have always enough to eat and drink, and wherewithal to cover their nakedness.

They have a well-appointed chaplaincy at Newgate, and Bibles, prayer-books, religious books, and tracts in every room and every cell. The chapel is a decent place of public worship, which is regularly attended on the Sabbath, with occasional lectures and prayers in the week time. Directly in front of the pulpit is a pew large enough to seat about fifty under sentence of death, which is all painted black.

"Look here,” said the conductor, "do you see these defacements and figures within this enclosure, executed by the hands of these criminals under sentence of death, while kneeling at prayers, as performed by the chaplain, making sport of their doom?"

The figure to which their taste most inclined them, was a gallows, with one, three, or half a dozen hanging upon it by the neck! and all manner of inventions, especially those obscene! as vile schoolboys often mark and deface the tables, benches, and ceilings of their place of education. Alas! what melancholy proofs of our fallen nature! Within the compass of five days after being thus occupied―nay, the next day, perhaps the next hour, these very men may hang by the neck in the street, not ten yards from this their own handiwork.

Newgate prison is the common jail for London and Middlesex. It dates from 1218-was rebuilt in the early part of the fifteenth century-became a ruin in the great fire of 1666-was soon reconstructed, but afterward pulled down and rebuilt in 1778 to 1780. In the riots of 1780 the interior was destroyed by fire-after which it received its present forms, strong enough indeed, but miserably contrived for salutary prison discipline. It will accommodate conveniently 350, but 900 have been incarcerated here.

Besides Newgate there are in London and its environs eleven other prisons, viz. :-Cold-bath-fields, or house of correction; Tothill-fields Bridewell, Westminster; Giltspurstreet Compter; New Debtor's; Clerkenwell; Fleet; King's Bench; Borough Compter; Surrey county Jail; New Bridewell; and Millbank Penitentiary. Giltspur-street prison is used principally as a lodgment for vagrants and disorderly persons taken up in the night. The number thrown in there annually is upwards of 5,000. Besides the above

« ZurückWeiter »