Transcriber's Notes: Words in italics in the original are surrounded
with _underscores_. Variations in spelling and hyphenation have been
left as in the original. Ellipses match the original. A complete list
of corrections follows the text.
The History and
Romance of
Crime
FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES
TO THE PRESENT DAY
[Illustration: colophon]
THE GROLIER SOCIETY
LONDON
[Illustration: _The Chapel at Newgate_]
Chronicles of Newgate
FROM THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
TO ITS DEMOLITION
A SKETCH OF THE TOWER
_by_
MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS
_Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_
_Author of
"The Mysteries of Police and Crime"
"Fifty Years of Public Service," etc._
In Two Volumes
Volume 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
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 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 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. 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 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 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 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. 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 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" 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;
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 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."
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 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 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 the peace, 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 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 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
CHAPTER PAGE
INTRODUCTION 5
I. THE GAOL FEVER 19
II. THE REBUILDING OF NEWGATE 37
III. CELEBRATED CRIMES AND CRIMINALS 53
IV. NEWGATE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 116
V. PHILANTHROPIC EFFORTS 128
VI. THE BEGINNING OF PRISON REFORM 150
VII. INTERESTING INSTANCES 171
VIII. NEWGATE NOTORIETIES 193
IX. LATER RECORDS 251
X. THE TOWER OF LONDON 297
List of Illustrations
NEWGATE CHAPEL _Frontispiece_
COMPTER, GILTSPUR ST., LONDON _Page_ 31
THIEVING LANE (BOW STREET) " 78
THE GREAT COURT OF THE TOWER, LONDON " 297
CHRONICLES OF
NEWGATE
CHAPTER I
THE GAOL FEVER
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 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
"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 the squadrons; 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, 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 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 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 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 several had 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 wholesome as 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, 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 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 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."
[Illustration: _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 its surroundings, 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 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. 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 a Mr. 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."