If the subject is little, but little can be said upon it; I shall shine
as dimly in this chapter on confinement, as in that on government. The
traveller who sets out lame, will probably limp through the journey.
Many of my friends have assured me, "That I must have experienced much
trouble in writing the history of Birmingham." But I assure them in
return, that I range those hours among the happiest of my life; and part
of that happiness may consist in delineating the bright side of human
nature. Pictures of deformity, whether of body or of mind, disgust--the
more they approach towards beauty, the more they charm.
All the chapters which compose this work, were formed with pleasure,
except the latter part of that upon _births and burials_; there, being
forced to apply to the parish books, I _figured_ with some obstruction.
Poor _Allsop_, full of good-nature and affliction, fearful lest I should
sap the church, could not receive me with kindness. When a man's
resources lie within himself, he draws at pleasure; but when necessity
throws him upon the parish, he draws in small sums, and with difficulty.
I either _have_, or _shall_ remark, for I know not in what nich I shall
exhibit this posthumous chapter, drawn like one of our sluggish bills,
_three months after date_, "That Birmingham does not abound in villainy,
equal to some other places: that the hand employed in business, has less
time, and less temptation, to be employed in mischief; and that one
magistrate alone, corrected the enormities of this numerous people,
many years before I knew them, and twenty-five after." I add, that the
ancient lords of Birmingham, among their manorial privileges, had the
grant of a gallows, for capital punishment; but as there are no traces
even of the name, in the whole manor, I am persuaded no such thing was
ever erected, and perhaps the _anvil_ prevented it.
Many of the rogues among us are not of our own growth, but are drawn
hither, as in London, to shelter in a crowd, and the easier in that
crowd to pursue their game. Some of them fortunately catch, from
example, the arts of industry, and become useful: others continue to
cheat for one or two years, till frightened by the grim aspect of
justice, they decamp.
Our vile and obscure prison, termed _The Dungeon_, is a farther proof
how little that prison has been an object of notice, consequently
of use.
Anciently the lord of a manor exercised a sovereign power in his little
dominion; held a tribunal on his premises, to which was annexed a
prison, furnished with implements for punishment; these were claimed by
the lords of Birmingham. This crippled species of jurisprudence, which
sometimes made a man judge in his own cause, from which there was no
appeal, prevailed in the highlands of Scotland, so late as the rebellion
in 1745, when the peasantry, by act of parliament, were restored
to freedom.
Early perhaps in the sixteenth century, when the house of Birmingham,
who had been chief gaolers, were fallen, a building was erected, which
covered the east end of New-street, called the Leather-hall: the upper
part consisted of a room about fifty feet long, where the public
business of the manor was transacted. The under part was divided into
several: one of these small rooms was used for a prison: but about the
year 1728, _while men slept an enemy came_, a private agent to the lord
of the manor, and erazed the Leather-hall and the Dungeon, erected three
houses on the spot, and received their rents till 1776, when the town
purchased them for 500_l_. to open the way. A narrow passage on the
south will be remembered for half a century to come, by the name of the
_dungeon-entry_.
A dry cellar, opposite the demolished hall, was then appropriated for a
prison, till the town of all bad places chose the worst, the bottom of
Peck-lane; dark, narrow, and unwholesome within; crowded with dwellings,
filth and distress without, the circulation of air is prevented.
As a growing taste for public buildings has for some time appeared among
us, we might, in the construction of a prison, unite elegance and use;
and the west angle of that land between New-street and Mount-pleasant,
might be suitable for the purpose; an airy spot in the junction of six
streets. The proprietor of the land, from his known attachment to
Birmingham, would, I doubt not, be much inclined to grant a
favour.--Thus, I have expended ten _score_ words, to tell the world what
another would have told them in _ten_--"That our prison is wretched, and
we want a better."