THE GAOL FEVER.
Why chapter so styled--The gaol fever the visible exponent of foul
state of gaols--Their evils briefly described--Neither sufficient
light nor air--Often underground--Scantiest supply of water--No
bed, no exercise--Meagre rations--Water soup--Allowance to
criminals denied to debtors who had to beg alms--Prison buildings
wretched--Often private property of local magnates, who farmed them
out, and pocketed the gains--How the Bishop of Ely kept his
prisoners--All prisoners loaded with irons--Legal opinions on the
practice--Description of irons used--Women also fettered--John
Wilkes when sheriff protests against ironing the untried--Avarice
primary cause of ill-treatment of prisoners--Drunkenness
encouraged--Gaol fees--Overcrowding the parent of gaol
fever--Rarity of gaol deliveries--The gaol fever explained--Its
causes--Its ravages--Extends from prisons to court-houses--To
villages--Into the army and the fleet--Earliest mention of gaol
distemper--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--A new ventilator recommended by the Rev. Dr.
Hales and Dr. Pringle, F.R.S.--The ventilator described--Hopes
expressed that it will check the disease, but the air of Newgate
continues pestiferous--Fatal effects of working at the
ventilator--Men employed show all symptoms of gaol fever--The fever
constantly present in Newgate--Mr. Akerman’s evidence--Statistics
of deaths--The fever taken into the country gaols by prisoners
removed from Newgate--Also to Southwark--Renewed dread in the
Courts, which are protected by the fumes of vinegar--All this time
no regular doctor at Newgate--Howard condemns construction of new
Newgate as likely to produce gaol fever--Lord George Gordon dies of
it in 1793--Dr. Smith reports and condemns the new prison at
Newgate--Too crowded and faulty site--Mr. Akerman defends it as
superior to the old, but admits that prisoners die in it,
broken-hearted--Mr. Akerman a humane man--A friend of Boswell’s,
who panegyrizes him--Mr. Akerman’s brave and judicious conduct at a
fire in prison--Calms the prisoners, and remains in the midst of
danger--Life at Newgate--The sexes
intermixed--Debauchery--Gaming--Drunkenness--Moral
contamination--Criminals willingly took military service to escape
confinement in Newgate.
I have given this title to the present chapter because the gaol fever
while it raged was the visible exponent of the foul condition of all
gaols, including Newgate, or, as Dr. Guy puts it, “the physical
expression of manifold prison neglect and mismanagement.” 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 would be incredible were they not
vouched for on the unimpeachable testimony of the great philanthropist.
All through the eighteenth century the case of all prisoners was
desperate, their sufferings heart-rending, their treatment a disgrace to
that or any age. They were either entirely deprived of, or at best but
scantily provided with, the commonest and most indispensable necessaries
of life. They were often denied both light and air, which are assuredly
the free heritage of all God’s creatures. Rapacity and extortion, of
which more directly, were too prevalent in prison administration to
allow of many windows when all such openings were heavily taxed. What
windows there were looked generally down dark entries or noisome
passages, and gave no light. In Newgate until the building of the new
(and last) gaol, the felons’ side and the common debtors’ side were so
dark that it was necessary to use links and burners all day long;
indeed, artificial light was generally necessary all over the prison,
except in the press-yard.
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 terrible _oubliettes_ were 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 fireplace, no barrack
beds; the wretched inmates huddled together for warmth upon heaps of
filthy rags or bundles of rotten straw reeking with foul exhalations,
and fetid with all manner of indescribable nastiness. 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,
for the spaces within the prison walls were generally too limited to
allow 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. Howard 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, 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 indeed 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 subsistence required by the
Act. Any alms collected within the prison by direct mendicancy were
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 the former 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 box and absconded with the
contents. The debtors’ ward in this gaol was called the “shew,” because
the debtors begged by letting down a _shoe_ from 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. The prisons lingered long
after the power lapsed, and in Howard’s time many of the worst prisons
were the private property of individuals,[175] 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 the Duke 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’[176] 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 Chief
Justice 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; additional irons
on his person are cheaper than additional elevation to the walls. Thus
we cover our own negligence by increased severity to our captives.”[177]
The irons were so heavy that “walking, 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. But 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 practise of keeping the prisoners in irons at
the time of arraignment and trial, which he conceives to he 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 a situation. 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.”[178]
Avarice was no doubt a primary cause of the ill-treatment of prisoners,
and, as I have described elsewhere,[179] 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, as I shall presently show, till well on into the present
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 were hauled 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 8_s._ 10_d._ for a
debtor’s discharge, to 18_s._ 10_d._ for a felon’s, and £3 6_s._ 8_d._
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 he in
his suggestions for the improvement of gaols, although recommending the
abolition of fees and the substitution of a regular salary to the
gaoler, 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 “shall be immediately set at large in open court.” Yet the law
was openly evaded by the clerks of assize and clerks of the place, 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, and the immediate
parent of gaol fever, was the disgraceful and almost indiscriminate
overcrowding of the gaols. The rarity of gaol deliveries was a proximate
cause of this. 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 folk helped 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 gaol fever or distemper, of which I shall now give some account, was
the natural product of these insanitary conditions. This fell epidemic
exercised strange terrors by the mystery which once surrounded it; but
this has now been dispelled by the strong light of modern medical
science. All authorities are agreed that it was nothing but that typhus
fever, 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,
as Dr. Guy remarks, “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.”[180] It is easy to understand that the
poison would be generated in gaol establishments such as I have
described; still more, that prisoners should 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 mostly hear of it. 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 danger, while its fatal effects can be traced far
from 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 carried it on board ship, and imported it
into our fleets. “The first English fleet sent to America lost by it
above 2000 men; ... the of infection were carried from the guardships
into our squadrons; and the mortality thence occasioned was greater than
by all other diseases or means of death put together.”[181] 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 in ‘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, and tells 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 phrenzy 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 furthest 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.[182] 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.,[183] the latter of whom 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 try further
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 up-draught.
To effect this a machine was erected upon the leads of Newgate with
large arms like those of a windmill. The plan was fully approved of by
the Court of Aldermen, but its execution was delayed. At length, in
July, 1752,[184] Dr. Pringle heard that a portion of the machine was
completed and in working order, and went to inspect it, accompanied by
other medical men. “Having visited several of the wards,” he says, “we
were all of us very sensible that such as were provided with ventilating
tubes were much less offensive than the rest that wanted them.” The air
of the whole gaol they thought was distinctly improved. Some of the
wards indeed were so free from the smell peculiar to such places that
Dr. Pringle felt persuaded that if the design was completed, and persons
appointed to regulate the sliders of the tubes, and keep the machine in
order, the usual evil effects of overcrowding in gaols might be in a
great measure if not wholly prevented in Newgate.
Nevertheless, throughout the execution of the work and afterwards the
air of Newgate continued pestiferous and fatal to all who breathed it.
The workmen employed in fixing the tubes ran great risks, and in several
cases were seized with unmistakable gaol fever. One man had found
himself indisposed for some days and left off work; then returning to
Newgate, he had been employed in opening one of the tubes of the old
ventilator which had stood for three or four years. Such an offensive
smell had issued from the tube that he was seized with sickness and
nausea. He went home, and that night fell ill of the fever, being
afflicted with violent headache, retching, trembling of the hands, and
last of all delirium. He was admitted into St. Thomas’ Hospital, and
said to be suffering from continued fever, attended with stupor and a
sunk pulse. Another victim was a fellow workman, who from, having been
active and full of health, fell ill after working at Newgate, and shewed
the same symptoms. Three more of his companions were also attacked, all
of whom had the headaches, tremblings, stupor, and “petechial” spots.
One of these was a lad of fifteen, who had been forced by his fellows to
go down the great trunk of the ventilator in order to bring up a wig
which some one had thrown into it; on coming up again he was immediately
attacked by a violent headache, a great disorder in his stomach, and
nausea, none of which had left him when seen weeks later. A peculiarity
in his case was, that he had been twice let down into the ventilator
when the machine on the leads had been standing still, and he had
suffered no ill effects; but the last time it was in motion, and the
heavily-laden up-draught had well nigh poisoned him and two others who
had dragged him out of the shaft. These cases did not complete the
mischief done. The infection was carried home and spread in the families
of those attacked in Newgate. Wives, children, friends, and nurses all
fell sick in turn. Besides those who received the contagion at
second-hand, there were seven originally infected in the gaol, and this
out of a total of eleven workmen employed.
It is probable that the great windmill and ventilator[185] did some
good, for there is no further mention of epidemic seizure in court. But
the sanitary condition of the inmates of Newgate cannot have been
permanently or very appreciably improved. I find in the Home Office
papers, under date July, 1769,
[Illustration]
a letter from Fras Ingram to Lord ---- in favour of one William Wiseman,
condemned for petty larceny, and awaiting transportation. The prisoner
was in chains in Newgate, and when Mr. Ingram’s servant went to inquire
for him he was forbidden to approach the bars of the room in which
Wiseman was detained. The prison was so foul and loathsome in this hot
season that there was a fear lest Mr. Ingram’s servant should run the
risk of taking and carrying away the infection of the gaol distemper.
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 by the
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 the whole one
hundred and thirty-two had died of 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 prisoners 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 several had died. An attempt was made to tinker up
the ventilator, and other precautions 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, that built by
Dance, and still standing (1883), was just then in process of
erection,[186] 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.”[187]
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 wholesome as possible.” The new prison, goes on Dr.
Smith, 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. He had no fault to find with the wards, which were large, airy,
high, and “as clean as can well be supposed 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, who was 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 also fraudulently under weight, the 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 London Riots,[188] he
says, “I should think myself very much to blame did I here neglect to do
justice to my esteemed friend Mr. Akerman, the 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 I cannot forbear giving it again to the public. “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 having after some confused vociferations of
‘Hear him! hear him!’ obtained a silent attention, he then 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 who has 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.”
Another tribute to Akerman’s worth comes from a less distinguished but
probably not less genuine source. In the letters of the wretched Hackman
already referred to,[189] 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.”[190]
Life in Newgate, with its debauchery and foul discomfort, the nastiness
and squalor of its surroundings, the ever-present infectious sickness
due to constant overcrowding, 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 present 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 employment
of 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.[191]
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 by Lady
Mary Wortly Montague from the East, 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 permitted an
experiment to be performed on his ear. The process, which was the
invention of a Mr. Chas. 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
from 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 exconvicts 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.”