_Manchester.—Journey to Chester.—Packet-boat.—Brindley.—Rail
Roads.—Chester Cathedral.—New Jail.—Assassination in the South of
Europe not like Murder in England.—Number of Criminals.—but Abatement
of Atrocity in Crimes.—Mitigation of Penal Law.—Robert Dew.—Excellent
Administration of Justice.—Amendments still desired._
A place more destitute of all interesting objects than Manchester it is
not easy to conceive. In size and population it is the second city in
the kingdom, containing above fourscore thousand inhabitants. Imagine
this multitude crowded together in narrow streets, the houses all built
of brick and blackened with smoke; frequent buildings among them as
large as convents, without their antiquity, without their beauty,
without their holiness; where you hear from within, as you pass along,
the everlasting din of machinery; and where, when the bell rings, it is
to call wretches to their work instead of their prayers.... Imagine
this, and you have the materials for a picture of Manchester. The most
remarkable thing which I have seen here is the skin of a snake, fourteen
English feet in length, which was killed in the neighbourhood, and is
preserved in the library of the collegiate church.
We left it willingly on Monday morning, and embarked upon the canal in a
stage-boat bound for Chester, a city which we had been advised by no
means to pass by unseen. This was a new mode of travelling, and a
delightful one it proved. The shape of the machine resembles the common
representations of Noah's ark, except that the roof is flatter, so made
for the convenience of passengers. Within this floating house are two
apartments, seats in which are hired at different prices, the parlour
and the kitchen. Two horses, harnessed one before the other, tow it
along at the rate of a league an hour; the very pace which it is
pleasant to keep up with when walking on the bank. The canal is just
wide enough for two boats to pass; sometimes we sprung ashore, sometimes
stood or sate upon the roof,—till to our surprise we were called down to
dinner, and found that as good a meal had been prepared in the back part
of the boat while we were going on, as would have been supplied at an
inn. We joined in a wish that the same kind of travelling were extended
every where: no time was lost; kitchen and cellars travelled with us;
the motion was imperceptible; we could neither be overturned nor run
away with, if we sunk there was not depth of water to drown us; we could
read as conveniently as in a house, or sleep as quietly as in a bed.
England is now intersected in every direction by canals. This is the
province in which they were first tried by the present duke of
Bridgewater, whose fortune has been amply increased by the success of
his experiment. His engineer Brindley was a singular character, a man of
real genius for this particular employment, who thought of nothing but
locks and levels, perforating hills, and floating barges upon aqueduct
bridges over unmanageable streams. When he had a plan to form he usually
went to bed, and lay there working it out in his head till the design
was completed. It is recorded of him, that being asked in the course of
an examination before the House of Commons for what he supposed rivers
were created, he answered after a pause,—To feed navigable canals.
Excellent as these canals are, rail-roads are found to accomplish the
same purpose at less expense. In these the wheels of the carriage move
in grooves upon iron bars laid all along the road; where there is a
descent no draught is required, and the laden waggons as they run down
draw the empty ones up. These roads are always used in the neighbourhood
of coal-mines and founderies. It has been recommended by speculative men
that they should be universally introduced, and a hope held out that at
some future time this will be done, and all carriages drawn along by the
action of steam-engines erected at proper distances. If this be at
present one of the dreams of philosophy, it is a philosophy by which
trade and manufactures would be benefited and money saved; and the dream
therefore may probably one day be accomplished.
The canal not extending to Chester, we were dismissed from the boat
about half way between the two cities, near the town of Warrington,
which was just distant enough to form a pleasing object through the
intervening trees. A stage, to which we were consigned, was ready to
receive us; and we exchanged, not very willingly, the silent and
imperceptible motion of a water journey, to be jolted over rough roads
in a crowded and noisy coach. The country was little interesting, and
became less so as we advanced. I saw two bodies swinging from a gibbet
by the road side; they had robbed and murdered a post-boy, and,
according to the barbarous and indecent custom of England, were hanged
up upon the spot till their bones should fall asunder.
We found Chester to be as remarkable a place as our travelling friend at
Manchester had represented it. The streets are cut out of a soft red
rock, and passengers walk, not upon flag-stones at the side, as in most
other cities, nor in the middle of the street,—but through the houses,
upon a boarded parade, through what would elsewhere be the front room of
the first floor. Whenever a lane or street strikes off, there is a
flight of steps into the carriage road. The best shops are upon this
covered way, though there are others underneath it on a level with the
street. The cathedral is a mean edifice of soft, red, crumbly stone,
apparently quarried upon the spot: it would have been folly to have
erected any thing better with such wretched materials.
The old walls are yet standing; there is a walk on the top of them, from
whence we overlooked the surrounding country, the mountains of Wales not
far distant, and the river Dee, which passes by the city, and forms an
estuary about two leagues below it. The new jail is considered as a
perfect model of prison architecture, a branch of the art as much
studied by the English of the present day, as ever cathedral building
was by their pious ancestors. The main objects attended to are, that the
prisoners be kept apart from each other, and that the cells should be
always open to inspection, and well ventilated, so as to prevent
infectious disorders, which were commonly occurring in old prisons. The
structure of this particular prison is singularly curious, the cells
being so constructed that the jailor from his dwelling-house can look
into every one,—a counterpart to the whispering dungeons in Sicily,
which would have delighted Dionysius. I thought of Asmodeus and Don
Cleofas. The apartment from whence we were shown the interior of the
prison was well, and even elegantly furnished; there were geraniums
flowering upon stands,—a piano-forte, and music-books lying open,—and
when we looked from the window we saw criminals with irons upon their
legs, in solitary dungeons:—one of them, who was intently reading some
devotional book, was, we were told, certainly to be executed at the next
assizes. Custom soon cauterizes human sympathy; or the situation of the
keeper who sits surrounded with comforts, and has these things always in
view, would be well nigh as deplorable as that of the wretches under his
care.
Of late years the office of jailor has become of considerable
importance, and ennobled by the title of Governor. The increase of
criminals has given it this consequence; and that the number of
criminals must be prodigiously increased, is sufficiently proved by the
frequency and magnitude of these new prisons. In fact, more persons
annually suffer death in this country than in the whole of Christendom
besides; and from hence it has been inferred, that either the people of
England are the most depraved people in Europe, or their laws are the
bloodiest. No, say the English; the true reason is, that in other
countries crimes are committed with impunity,—and they never fail to
instance assassination: thus they satisfy themselves and silence the
objector. True it is that in all the southern parts of Europe, to our
shame be it spoken, assassination is far more frequently committed than
punished; but murder with us, generally speaking, is neither in its
motive nor in its manner, the same atrocious crime which in England is
regarded with such religious abhorrence, and punished with such certain
severity. Among us, a love dispute between peasants or mechanics leads
as regularly to this deadly spirit of revenge, as a quarrel upon the
point of honour between two English gentlemen. The Spanish zagal holds
the life of his rival no cheaper than the English gentleman that of his
equal, who has elbowed him in the street, or intruded into his places at
the theatre; a blow with us is revenged by the knife, as it is in
England with the pistol. The difference is, that the sense of honour
extends lower in society among us, and that the impunity which we allow
to all, is restricted in England to the higher orders; and the truth is,
that, wherever assassination or duelling prevails, the fault is more to
be imputed to the laws than to the people. These are offences from which
men may be easily deterred; life will never be held cheap by the people,
if the laws teach them that it should be held sacred.
Every stage of society has its characteristic crimes. The savage is
hard-hearted to his children, brutal to his women, treacherous to his
enemies; he steals and runs away with his booty; he poisons his weapons;
he is cowardly and cruel. In the barbarian, pride and courage introduce
a sense of honour which lays the foundation for morality: he is a
robber, not a thief, ferocious instead of cunning, rather merciless than
cruel. When states become settled, new offences spring up, as the weeds
in meadow land differ from those of the waste; laws are necessary to
restrain the strong from oppression, and the weak from revenge. A new
tribe of evils accompany civilization and commerce,—the vices which are
fostered by wealth, and the crimes which are produced by want. Still the
progress of the human race, though slow, is sure; the laws and the
people soften alike, and crimes and punishments both become less
atrocious.
More offences are committed in England than in other countries, because
there is more wealth and more want; greater temptations to provoke the
poor, greater poverty to render them liable to temptation, and less
religious instruction to arm them against it. In Scotland, where the
puritan clergy retain something of their primitive zeal, the people are
more moral; poverty is almost general there, and therefore the less
felt, because there is little wealth to invite the contrast. In both
countries the greater number of offences are frauds; even they who prey
upon society partake of its amelioration, and forsake the barbarous
habits of robbery and murder, for methods less perilous to themselves
and to others. The weasel fares better than the wolf, and continues her
secret depredations after the wolf has been extirpated. In Ireland, on
the contrary, where the characteristics of savage life are still to be
found, murder is the most frequent crime; and, horrid as it is, it is
generally rendered still more so by circumstances of wanton cruelty. If
the Welsh are addicted to any peculiar offence it is sheep-stealing,
because the sheep have ceased to be wild,—and the people have not.
The laws are mitigated in due proportion to the amelioration of the
people:—it was formerly the custom, if a prisoner refused to plead to a
capital charge, to stretch him upon his back, and lay weights upon his
breast, which were daily to be increased till he died; now he is
regarded as guilty, and sentenced as such. Till lately, women were burnt
when men were only hanged;[9] the punishment is now the same for both
sexes; the horrible butchery for treason, by which the martyrs suffered
under the persecutions of Elizabeth and James, is commuted for
beheading. In these last instances the mitigation is of the national
manners, and not of the law: but the laws themselves should be amended;
custom is no security: a cruel minister might enforce these inhuman
sentences which are still pronounced,—and nations can never take too
many precautions against the possibility of being rebarbarized. There is
no _Misericordia_ in England: and, except indeed for spiritual
assistance, its humane services are not needed; the prisoners are
sufficiently fed and clothed, and the law which punishes, allows every
alleviation of punishment which does not defeat the main end of justice.
Something of the spirit of this charitable institution was displayed by
an individual in the metropolis two centuries ago. He gave fifty pounds
to the parish in which the great prison is situated, on condition that,
for ever after, a man on the night preceding an execution should go to
Newgate in the dead of the night, and strike with a hand-bell twelve
tolls with double strokes, as near the cells of the condemned criminals
as possible,—then exhort them to repentance. The great bell of the
church was also to toll when they were passing by on their way to
execution, and the bellman was to look over the wall and exhort all good
people to pray to God for the poor sinners who were going to suffer
death. Robert Dew was the name of this pious man: the church is
dedicated to the Holy Sepulchre, which these heretics have ingeniously
converted into a saint!
I need not tell you that the torture has long since been abolished in
England. In no other part of the world are laws so well executed; crimes
are never committed here with impunity;—there is no respect of persons,
justice is never defeated by delay, and the people are not familiarised
to cruelty by the sight of cruel punishments. The effect of so
familiarizing a nation has been dreadfully exemplified in France. All
history does not present a spectacle more inexpiably disgraceful to the
country in which it occurred, than the council of surgeons assembled to
fix the sentence of Damiens; a council appointed by the king of France
and his ministers, to discover in what manner the poor madman could be
made to feel the most exquisite tortures, and kept alive as long as
possible to endure them! Louis XV. signed this sentence,—and then
desired he might not be told when it was to be executed,—because it
would hurt his feelings! The present king of England has, in like
manner, twice escaped death; and in both instances the unhappy persons
concerned have been lodged in the public hospital for the insane. Is
there upon record another contrast so striking between two neighbouring
nations?
Even however in England some improvements are still desirable in
criminal law. The principle of the law is, that every man shall be
presumed innocent till he is proved guilty; yet this principle is never
carried into effect, and the accused are confined in irons:—it is
necessary to secure them; but any rigour not absolutely necessary for
this purpose, is in manifest violation of this humane and just axiom. A
pleader should be permitted to defend the prisoner, as well as one to
accuse him; where the innocence of the prisoner is proved, he ought to
be indemnified for the losses he has sustained, and the expenses he has
incurred by his imprisonment and trial; where he is convicted, the
expense of bringing him to justice ought to fall upon the public, not
upon the individual prosecutor, already a sufferer by the offence.
[9] Only for coining, and for murdering their husbands. The author seems
to have supposed it was always the case.—TR.