LATER RECORDS
Later records of crimes—First private execution under the
new law—Poisoning, revived and more terrible—Palmer's
case—His imitators—Dove—Dr. Smethurst—Catherine
Wilson—Piracy and murder—The "Flowery Land"—Arrest of the
mutineers—Their trial and sentence—Murder of Mr. Briggs
in a railway carriage—Pursuit of murderer and his arrest
in New York—Müller's conviction—Confesses guilt—A forged
pardon—The Muswell Hill murder—Bidwell brothers defraud the
Bank of England of £100,000—Sentenced to penal servitude
for life—Pentonville erected—The best type of prison
construction—Gradual reformation in Newgate—The new prison at
Holloway—The end of Newgate.
Executions long continued to be in public, in spite of remonstrance
and reprobation. The old prejudices, such as that which enlisted Dr.
Johnson on the side of the Tyburn procession, still lingered and
prevented any change. It was thought that capital punishment would lose
its deterrent effect if it ceased to be public, and the _raison d'être_
of the penalty, which in principle so many opposed, would be gone. This
line of argument prevailed over the manifest horrors of the spectacle.
Already the urgent necessity for abolishing public executions had
been brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Hibbert, and the
question, as part of the whole subject of capital punishment, had been
referred to a royal commission in January of 1864. Full evidence was
taken on all points, and on that regarding public executions there
was a great preponderance of opinion towards their abolition, yet the
witnesses were not unanimous. Some of the judges would have retained
the public spectacle; the ordinary of Newgate was not certain that
public executions were not the best. Another distinguished witness
feared that any secrecy in the treatment of the condemned would invest
them with a new and greater interest, which was much to be deprecated.
Foreign witnesses, too, were in favour of publicity. On the other hand,
Lords Cranworth and Wensleydale recommended private executions, as did
Mr. Spencer Walpole, M. P. Sir George Grey thought there was a growing
feeling in favour of executions within the prison precincts. Colonel
(Sir Edmund) Henderson was strongly in favour of them, based on his own
experience in Western Australia. He not only thought them likely to be
more deterrent, but believed that a public ceremony destroyed the whole
value of an execution. Other officials, great lawyers, governors of
prisons, and chaplains supported this view. The only doubts expressed
were as to the sufficiency of the safeguards, as to the certainty
of death and its subsequent publication. But these, it was thought,
might be provided by the admission of the press and the holding of a
coroner's inquest.
Duly impressed with the weight of evidence in favour of abolition,
the commission recommended that death sentences should be carried
out within the gaol, "under such regulations as might be considered
necessary to prevent abuses and satisfy the public that the law had
been complied with." But it is curious to note that there were several
dissentients among the commissioners to this paragraph of the report.
The judge of the Admiralty Court, the Right Hon. Stephen Lushington,
the Right Hon. James Moncrieff, Lord Advocate, Mr. Charles Neate,
Mr. William Ewart, and last, but not least, Mr. John Bright declared
that they were not prepared to agree to the resolution respecting
private executions. Nevertheless, in the very next session a bill was
introduced by Mr. Hibbert, M. P., and accepted by the Government,
providing for the future carrying out of executions within prisons. It
was read for the first time in March, 1866, but did not become law till
1868.
The last public execution in front of Newgate was that of the Fenian
Michael Barrett, who was convicted of complicity in the Clerkenwell
explosion, intended to effect the release of Burke and Casey from
Clerkenwell prison, by which many persons lost their lives. Unusual
precautions were taken upon this occasion, as some fresh outrage
was apprehended. There was no interference with the crowd, which
collected as usual, although not to the customary extent. But Newgate
and its neighbourhood were carefully held by the police, both city and
metropolitan. In the houses opposite the prison numbers of detectives
mixed with the spectators; inside the gaol was Colonel Frazer, the
chief commissioner of the city police, and at no great distance,
although in the background, troops were held in readiness to act if
required. Everything passed off quietly, however, and Calcraft, who
had been threatened with summary retribution if he executed Barrett,
carried out the sentence without mishap. The sufferer was stolid and
reticent to the last.
The first private execution under the new law took place within the
precincts of Maidstone Gaol. The sufferer was a porter on the London,
Chatham, and Dover railway, sentenced to death for shooting the
station-master at Dover. The ceremony, which was witnessed by only a
few officials and representatives of the press, was performed with the
utmost decency and decorum. The fact that the execution was to take
place within the privacy of the gloomy walls, a fact duly advertised
as completed by the hoisting of the black flag over the gaol, had
undoubtedly a solemn, impressive effect upon those outside. The same
was realized in the first private execution within Newgate, that of
Alexander Mackay, who murdered his mistress at Norton Folgate by
beating her with a rolling-pin and furnace-rake, and who expiated his
crime on the 8th September, 1868. A more marked change from the old
scene can hardly be conceived. Instead of the roar of the brutalized
crowd, the officials spoke in whispers; there was but little moving
to and fro. Almost absolute silence prevailed until the great bell
began to toll its deep note, and broke the stillness with its regular
and monotonous clangour, and the ordinary, in a voice trembling with
emotion, read the burial service aloud. Mackay's fortitude, which had
been great, broke down at the supreme moment before the horror of the
stillness, the awful impressiveness of the scene in which he was the
principal actor. No time was lost in carrying out the dread ceremony;
but it was not completed without some of the officials turning sick,
and the moment it was over, all who could were glad to escape from the
last act of the ghastly drama at which they had assisted.
Private executions at their first introduction were not popular with
the Newgate officials, and for intelligible reasons. The change added
greatly to the responsibilities of the governor and his subordinates.
Hitherto the public had seemed to assist at the ceremony; the moment
too that the condemned man had passed through the debtors' door on
to the scaffold the prison had done with him, and the great outside
world shared in the completion of the sacrifice. This feeling was the
stronger because all the ghastly paraphernalia, the gallows itself
and the process of erecting and removing it, rested with the city
architect, and not with the prison officials. Moreover, after the
execution, under the old system, the latter had only to receive the
body for burial after it had been cut down by the hangman, and placed
decently in a shell by the workmen who removed the gallows. Under
the new system the whole of the arrangements from first to last fell
upon the officers. It was they who formed the chief part of the small
select group of spectators; upon them devolved the painful duty of
cutting down the body and preparing for the inquest. All that the
hangman, whoever he may be, does under the new regime is to unhook
the halter and remove the pinioning straps. The interment in a shell
filled with quicklime in the passage-way leading to the Old Bailey
is also a part of the duty of the prison officials. This strange
burial-ground is one of the most ghastly of the remaining "sights"
in Newgate. It was sometimes used as an exercising yard, and for the
greater security of prisoners it is roofed in with iron bars, which
gives it, at least overhead, the aspect of a huge cage. Underfoot and
upon the walls roughly cut into the stones, are single initial letters,
the brief epitaphs of those who lie below. As this burial-ground leads
to the adjacent Central Criminal Court, accused murderers, on going
to and returning from trial, literally walked over what, in case of
conviction, would be their own graves.
The older officers, with several of whom I have conversed, have thus
had unusual opportunities of watching the demeanour of murderers
both before trial and after sentence. All, as a rule, unless poignant
remorse has brought a desire to court their richly-merited retribution,
are buoyed up with hope to the last. There is always the chance
of a flaw in the indictment, of a missing witness, or extenuating
circumstances. Even when in the condemned cell, with a shameful death
within measurable distance, many cling still to life, expecting much
from the intercession of friends or the humanitarianism of the age.
All almost without exception sleep soundly at night, except the
first after sentence, when the first shock of the verdict and the
solemn notification of the impending blow keeps nearly all awake, or
at least disturbs their night's rest. But the uneasiness soon wears
off. The second night sleep comes readily, and is sound; many of the
most abandoned murderers snore peacefully their eight hours, even
on the night immediately preceding execution. All too have a fairly
good appetite, and eat with relish up to the last moment. A few go
further, and are almost gluttonous. Giovanni Lanni, the Italian boy
who murdered a Frenchwoman in the Haymarket, and was arrested on board
ship just as he was about to leave the country, had a little spare
cash, which he devoted entirely to the purchase of extra food. He ate
constantly and voraciously after sentence, as though eager to cram
as many meals as possible into the few hours still left him to live.
Jeffrey, who murdered his own child, an infant of six, by hanging him
in a cellar in Seven Dials, called for a roast duck directly he entered
the condemned cell. The request was not granted, as the old custom of
allowing capital convicts whatever they asked for in the way of food
has not been the rule in Newgate. The diet of the condemned is the
ordinary diet of the prison, but to which additions are sometimes made,
chiefly of stimulants, if deemed necessary, by the medical officer
of the gaol. The craving for tobacco which so dominates the habitual
smoker often leads the convicted to plead hard for a last smoke. As
a special favour Wainwright was allowed a cigar the night before
execution, which he smoked in the prison yard, walking up and down with
the governor, Mr. Sydney Smith.
Wainwright's demeanour was one of reckless effrontery steadily
maintained to the last. His conversation turned always upon his
influence over the weaker sex, and the extraordinary success he had
achieved. No woman could resist him, he calmly assured Mr. Smith that
night as they walked together, and he recounted his villainies one
by one. His effrontery was only outdone by his cool contempt for the
consolations of religion. The man who had made a pious life a cloak for
his misdeeds, the once exemplary young man and indefatigable Sunday
school teacher, went impenitent to the gallows. The only sign of
feeling he showed was in asking to be allowed to choose the hymns on
the Sunday the condemned sermon was preached in the prison chapel, and
this was probably only that he might hear the singing of a lady with a
magnificent voice who generally attended the prison services. During
the singing of these hymns Wainwright fainted, but whether from real
emotion or the desire to make a sensation was never exactly known. On
the fatal morning he came gaily out of his cell, nodded pleasantly to
the governor, who stood just opposite, and then walked briskly towards
the execution shed, smiling as he went along. There was a smile on
his face when it was last seen, and just as the terrible white cap
was drawn over it. Wainwright's execution was within the gaol, but
only nominally private. No less than sixty-seven persons were present,
admitted by special permission of the sheriff. Rumour even went so far
as to assert that among the spectators were several women, disguised
in male habiliments; but the story was never substantiated, and we may
hope that it rested only on the idle gossip of the day.
Many, like Wainwright, were calm and imperturbable throughout their
trying ordeal. Catherine Wilson, the poisoner, was reserved and
reticent to the last, expressing no contrition, but also no fear—a
tall, gaunt, repulsive-looking woman, who no more shrank from cowardly,
secret crimes than from the penalty they entailed. Kate Webster, who
was tried at the Central Criminal Court, and passed through Newgate,
although she suffered at Wandsworth, is remembered at the former
prison as a defiant, brutal creature who showed no remorse, but was
subject to fits of ungovernable passion, when she broke out into the
most appalling language. The man Marley displayed fortitude of a less
repulsive kind. He acknowledged his guilt from the first. When the
sheriff offered him counsel for his defence, he declined, saying he
wished to make none—"the witnesses for the prosecution spoke the
truth." During the trial and after sentence he remained perfectly cool
and collected. When visited one day in the condemned cell, just as St.
Sepulchre's clock was striking, he looked up and said laughingly, "Go
along, clock; come along, gallows." He tripped up the chapel-stairs to
hear the condemned sermon, and came out with cheerful alacrity on the
morning he was to die.
Some condemned convicts converse but little with the warders who
have them unceasingly in charge. Others talk freely enough on
various topics, but principally upon their own cases. When vanity is
strongly developed there is the keen anxiety to hear what is being
said about them outside. One was vexed to think that his victims had
a finer funeral than he would have. The only subject another showed
any interest in was the theatres and the new pieces that were being
produced. A third, Christian Sattler, laughed and jested with the
officers about "Jack Ketch," who, through the postponement of the
execution, would lose his Christmas dinner. When they brought in the
two watchers to relieve guard one night, Sattler said, "Two fresh
men! May I speak to them? Yes! I must caution you," he went on to the
warders, "not to go to sleep, or I shall be off through that little
hole," pointing to an aperture for ventilating the cell. On the morning
of execution he asked how far it was to the gallows, and was told it
was quite close. "Then I shall not wear my coat," he cried; "Jack Ketch
shall not have it," being under the erroneous impression that the
convict's clothes were still the executioner's perquisite.
Often the convicts give way to despair. They are too closely watched to
be allowed to do themselves much mischief, or suicides would probably
be more frequent. But it is neither easy to obtain the instruments of
self-destruction nor to elude the vigilance of their guard. Miller, the
Chelsea murderer, who packed his victim's body in a box, and tried to
send it by parcels delivery, tried to kill himself, but ineffectively,
by running his head against his cell wall. A few other cases of the
kind have occurred, but they have been rare of late years, whether in
Newgate or elsewhere.
The crime of poisoning has always been viewed with peculiar loathing
and terror in this country. It will be remembered that as far back as
the reign of Henry VIII a new and most cruel penalty was devised for
the punishment of the Bishop of Rochester's cook, who had poisoned his
master and many of his dependents. Sir Thomas Overbury was undoubtedly
poisoned by Lord Rochester in the reign of James I, and it is hinted
that James himself nearly fell a victim to a nefarious attempt of the
Duke of Buckingham. But secret poisoning on a wholesale scale such
as was practised in Italy and France was happily never popularized
in England. The well-known and lethal aqua Toffania, so called after
its inventress, a Roman woman named Toffania, and which was so widely
adopted by ladies anxious to get rid of their husbands, was never
introduced into this country. Its admission was probably checked by
the increased vigilance at the custom houses, the necessity for which
was urged by Mr. Addison, when Secretary of State, in 1717. The cases
of poisoning in the British calendars are rare, nor indeed was the
guilt of the accused always clearly established. It is quite possible
that Catherine Blandy, who poisoned her father at the instigation of
her lover, was ignorant of the destructive character of the powders,
probably arsenic, which she administered. Captain Donellan, who was
convicted of poisoning his brother-in-law, Sir Theodosius Broughton,
and executed for it, would probably have had the benefit in these
days of the doubts raised at his trial. A third case, more especially
interesting to us as having passed through Newgate, was that of Eliza
Fenning, who was convicted of an attempt to poison a whole family by
putting arsenic in the dumplings she had prepared for them. The charge
rested entirely on circumstantial evidence, and as Fenning, although
convicted and executed, protested her innocence in the most solemn
manner to the last, the justice of the sentence was doubted at the
time. Yet it was clearly proved that the dumplings contained arsenic,
that she, and she alone, had made the dough, that arsenic was within
her reach in the house, that she had had a quarrel with her mistress,
and that the latter with all others who tasted the dumplings were
similarly attacked, although no one died.
The crime of poisoning is essentially one which will be most prevalent
in a high state of civilization, when the spread of scientific
knowledge places nefarious means at the disposal of many, instead of
limiting them, as in the days of the Borgias and Brinvilliers, to
the specially informed and unscrupulously powerful few. The first
intimation conveyed to society of the new terror which threatened
it was in the arrest and arraignment of William Palmer, a medical
practitioner, charged with doing to death persons who relied upon his
professional skill. The case contained elements of much uncertainty,
and yet it was so essential to the interests and the due protection
of the public that the fullest and fairest inquiry should be made,
that the trial was transferred to the Central Criminal Court, under
the authority of an Act passed for this purpose, known as the Trial
of Offences Act, and sometimes as Lord Campbell's Act. That the
administration of justice should never be interfered with by local
prejudice or local feeling is obviously of paramount importance, and
the powers granted by this Act have been frequently put in practice
since. The trial of Catherine Winsor, the baby farmer, was thus brought
to the Central Criminal Court from Exeter assizes, and that of the
Stauntons from Maidstone.
Palmer's trial caused the most intense excitement. The direful
suspicions which surrounded the case filled the whole country with
uneasiness and misgiving, and the deepest anxiety was felt that
the crime, if crime there had been, should be brought home to its
perpetrator. The Central Criminal Court was crowded to suffocation.
Great personages occupied seats upon the bench; the rest of the
available space was allotted by ticket, to secure which the greatest
influence was necessary. People came to stare at the supposed
cold-blooded prisoner; with morbid curiosity to scan his features and
watch his demeanour through the shifting, nicely-balanced phases of his
protracted trial. Palmer, who was only thirty-one at the time of his
trial, was in appearance short and stout, with a round head covered
rather scantily with light sandy hair. His skin was extraordinarily
fair, his cheeks fresh and ruddy; altogether his face, though
commonplace, was not exactly ugly; there was certainly nothing in it
which indicated cruel cunning or deliberate truculence. His features
were not careworn, but rather set, and he looked older than his age.
Throughout his trial he preserved an impassive countenance, but he
clearly took a deep interest in all that passed. Although the strain
lasted fourteen days, he showed no signs of exhaustion, either physical
or mental. On returning to gaol each day he talked freely and without
reserve to the warders in charge of him, chiefly on incidents in the
day's proceedings. He was confident to the very last that it would be
impossible to find him guilty; even after sentence, and until within
a few hours of execution, he was buoyed up with the hope of reprieve.
The conviction that he would escape had taken so firm a hold of him,
that he steadily refused to confess his guilt lest it should militate
against his chances. In the condemned cell he frequently repeated, "I
go to my death a murdered man." He made no distinct admissions even on
the scaffold; but when the chaplain at the last moment exhorted him to
confess, he made use of the remarkable words, "If it is necessary for
my soul's sake to confess this murder (that of Cook, for which he was
tried and sentenced to death), I ought also to confess the others: I
mean my wife and my brother's." Yet he was silent when specifically
pressed to confess that he had killed his wife and his brother.
Palmer was ably defended, but the weight of evidence was clearly
with the prosecution, led by Sir Alexander Cockburn. A government
prosecution was instituted, and Palmer was brought to Newgate for
trial at the Central Criminal Court. There was not much reserve about
him when there. He frequently declared before and during the trial that
it would be impossible to find him guilty. He never actually said that
he was not guilty, but he was confident he would not be convicted. He
relied on the absence of the strychnia. But the chain of circumstantial
evidence was strong enough to satisfy the jury, who agreed to their
verdict in an hour. At the last moment Palmer tossed a bit of paper
over to his counsel, on which he had written, "I think there will be
a verdict of 'Not' Guilty." Even after the death sentence had been
passed upon him he clung to the hope that the Government would grant
him a reprieve. To the last, therefore, he played the part of a man
wrongfully convicted, and did not abandon hope even when the high
sheriff had told him there was no possibility of a reprieve, within a
few hours of execution. He suffered at Stafford in front of the gaol.
Palmer speedily found imitators. Within a few weeks occurred the Leeds
poisoning case, in which the murderer undoubtedly was inspired by the
facts made public at Palmer's trial. Dove, a fiendish brute, found
from the evidence in that case that he could kill his wife, whom he
hated, with exquisite torture, and with a poison that would leave, as
he thought, no trace. In the latter hope he was happily disappointed.
But as this case is beyond my subject, I merely mention it as one
of the group already referred to. Three years later came the case
of Dr. Smethurst, presenting still greater features of resemblance
with Palmer's, for both were medical men, and both raised difficult
questions of medical jurisprudence. In both the jury had no doubt as
to the guilt of the accused, only in Smethurst's case the then Home
Secretary, Sir George Cornewall Lewis, could not divest his mind of
serious doubt, of which the murderer got the full benefit. Smethurst's
escape may have influenced the jury in the Poplar poisoning case, which
followed close on its heels, although in that the verdict of "Not
Guilty" was excusable, as the evidence was entirely circumstantial.
There was no convincing proof that the accused had administered the
poison, although beyond question that poison had occasioned the death.
Catherine Wilson was a female poisoner who did business wholesale. She
was tried in April, 1862, on suspicion of having attempted to poison
a neighbour with oil of vitriol. The circumstances were strange. Mrs.
Wilson had gone to the chemist's for medicine, and on her return had
administered a dose of something which burned the mouth badly, but did
not prove fatal. She was acquitted on this charge, but other suspicious
facts cropped up while she was in Newgate. It appeared that several
persons with whom she was intimate had succumbed suddenly. In all
cases the symptoms were much the same, vomiting, violent retching,
purging, such as are visible in cholera, and all dated from the time
when she knew a young man named Dixon, who had been in the habit of
taking colchicum for rheumatism. Mrs. Wilson heard then casually from
a medical man that it was a very dangerous medicine, and she profited
by what she had heard. Soon afterwards Dixon died, showing all the
symptoms already described. A little later a friend, Mrs. Atkinson,
came to London from Westmoreland, and stayed in Mrs. Wilson's house.
She was in good health on leaving home, and had with her a large sum of
money. While with Mrs. Wilson she became suddenly and alarmingly ill,
and died in great agony. Her husband, who came up to town, would not
allow a post-mortem, and again Mrs. Wilson escaped. Mrs. Atkinson's
symptoms had been the same as Dixon's. Then Mrs. Wilson went to live
with a man named Taylor, who was presently attacked in the same way as
the others, but, thanks to the prompt administration of remedies, he
recovered. After this came the charge of administering oil of vitriol,
which failed, as has been described. Last of all Mrs. Wilson poisoned
her landlady, Mrs. Soames, under precisely the same conditions as the
foregoing.
Here, however, the evidence was strong and sufficient. It was proved
that Mrs. Wilson had given Mrs. Soames something peculiar to drink,
that immediately afterwards Mrs. Soames was taken ill with vomiting
and purging, and that Mrs. Wilson administered the same medicine
again and again. The last time Mrs. Soames showed great reluctance
to take it, but Wilson said it would certainly do her good. This
mysterious medicine Wilson kept carefully locked up, and allowed no
one to see it, but its nature was betrayed when this last victim also
died. The first post-mortem indicated death from natural causes, but
a more careful investigation attributed it beyond doubt to over-doses
of colchicum. Dr. Alfred Taylor, the great authority and writer on
medical jurisprudence, corroborated this, and in his evidence on the
trial fairly electrified the court by declaring it his opinion that
many deaths, supposed to be from cholera, were really due to poison.
This fact was referred to by the judge in his summing up, who said that
he feared it was only too true that secret poisoning was at that time
very rife in the metropolis. Wilson was duly sentenced to death, and
suffered impenitent, hardened, and without any confession of her guilt.
Although murder by insidious methods had become more common, cases
where violence of the most deadly and determined kind was offered
had not quite disappeared. Two cases of this class are of the most
interest; one accompanied with piracy on the high seas, the other
perpetrated in a railway-carriage, and showing the promptitude with
which criminals accept and utilize altered conditions of life, more
particularly as regards locomotion.
The first case was that of the _Flowery Land_, which left London for
Singapore on the 28th July, 1863, with a cargo of wine and other goods.
Her captain was John Smith; the first and second mates, Karswell and
Taffir; there were two other Englishmen on board, and the rest of
the crew were a polyglot lot, most of them, as was proved by their
subsequent acts, blackguards of the deepest dye. Six were Spaniards, or
rather natives of Manila, and men of colour; one was a Greek, another
a Turk; there were also a Frenchman, a Norwegian (the carpenter),
three Chinamen, a "Slavonian," and a black on board. Navigation
and discipline could not be easy with such a nondescript crew. The
captain was kindly but somewhat intemperate, the first mate a man of
some determination, and punishment such as rope's-ending and tying
to the bulwarks had to be applied to get the work properly done. The
six Spaniards, the Greek, and the Turk were in the same watch, eight
truculent and reckless scoundrels, who, brooding over their fancied
wrongs, and burning for revenge, hatched amongst them a plot to murder
their officers and seize the ship. The mutiny was organized with great
secrecy, and broke out most unexpectedly in the middle of the night.
A simultaneous attack was made upon the captain and the first mate.
The latter had the watch on deck. One half of the mutineers fell upon
him unawares with handspikes and capstan-bars. He was struck down,
imploring mercy, but they beat him about the head and face till every
feature was obliterated, and then, still living, flung him into the
sea. Meanwhile the captain, roused from his berth, came out of the
cabin, was caught near the "companion" by the rest of the mutineers,
and promptly despatched with daggers. His body was found lying in a
pool of blood in a night-dress, stabbed over and over again in the left
side. The captain's brother, a passenger on board the _Flowery Land_,
was also stabbed to death and his body thrown overboard.
The second mate, who had heard the hammering of the capstan-bars and
the handspikes, with the first mate's and captain's agonized cries,
had come out, verified the murderers, and then shut himself up in his
cabin. He was soon summoned on deck, but as he would not move, the
mutineers came down and stood in a circle round his berth. Leon, or
Lyons, who spoke English, when asked said they would spare his life
if he would navigate the ship for them to the River Plate or Buenos
Ayres. Taffir agreed, but constantly went in fear of his life for the
remainder of the voyage; and although the mutineers spared him, they
ill-treated the Chinamen, and cut one badly with knives. Immediately
after the murder, cases of champagne, which formed part of the cargo,
were brought on deck and emptied; the captain's cabin ransacked, his
money and clothes divided amongst the mutineers, as well as much of
the merchandise on board. Leon wished to make every one on board share
and share alike, so as to implicate the innocent with the guilty; but
Vartos, or Watto, the Turk, would not allow any but the eight mutineers
to have anything. The murders were perpetrated on the 10th September,
and the ship continued her voyage for nearly three weeks, meeting and
speaking one ship only. On the 2nd October they sighted land, ten miles
distant; the mutineers took command of the ship, put her about till
nightfall, by which time they had scuttled her, got out the boats, and
all left the ship. The rest of the crew were also permitted to embark,
except the Chinamen, one of whom was thrown into the water and drowned,
while the other two were left to go down in the ship, and were seen
clinging to the tops until the waters closed over them.
The boats reached the shore on the 4th October. Leon had prepared a
plausible tale to the effect that they belonged to an American ship
from Peru bound to Bordeaux, which had foundered at sea; that they had
been in the boats five days and nights, but that the captain and others
had been lost. The place at which they landed was not far from the
entrance to the River Plate. A farmer took them in for the night, and
drove them next day to Rocha, a place north of Maldonado. Taffir, the
mate, finding there was a man who could speak English at another place
twenty miles off, repaired there secretly, and so gave information
to the Brazilian authorities. The mutineers were arrested, the case
inquired into by a naval court-martial, and the prisoners eventually
surrendered to the British authorities, brought to England, and lodged
in Newgate. Their trial followed at the Central Criminal Court. Eight
were arraigned at the same time: six Spaniards; Leon, Lopez, Blanco,
Duranno, Santos, and Marsolino; Vartos, a Turk, and Carlos, a Greek.
Seven were found guilty of murder on the high seas, and one, Carlos,
acquitted. Two of the seven, Santos and Marsolino, were reprieved, and
their sentences commuted to penal servitude for life; the remaining
five were executed in one batch. They were an abject, miserable crew,
cowards at heart; but some, especially Lopez, continued bloodthirsty to
the last. Lopez took a violent dislike to the officer of the ward in
charge of them, and often expressed a keen desire to do for him. They
none of them spoke much English except Leon, commonly called Lyons.
After condemnation, as the rules now kept capital convicts strictly
apart, they could not be lodged in the two condemned cells, and they
were each kept in an ordinary separate cell of the newly-constructed
block, with the "traps," or square openings in the cell door, let down.
A full view of them was thus at all times obtainable by the officers
who, without intermission, day and night patrolled the ward. On the
morning of execution the noise of fixing the gallows in the street
outside awoke one or two of them. Lyons asked the time, and was told it
was only five. "Ah!" he remarked, "they will have to wait for us then
till eight." Lopez was more talkative. When the warder went in to call
him he asked for his clothes. He was told he would have to wear his
own. "Not give clothes? In Russia, Italy, always give chaps clothes."
Then he wanted to know when the policemen would arrive, and was told
none would come. "The soldiers then?" No soldiers either. "What, you
not afraid let us go all by ourselves? Not so in Russia or Spain."
The convicts were pinioned one by one and sent singly out to the
gallows. As the first to appear would have some time to wait for his
fellows, a difficult and painful ordeal, the seemingly most courageous
was selected to lead the way. This was Duranno; but the sight of the
heaving mass of uplifted, impassioned faces was too much for his
nerves, and he so nearly fainted that he had to be seated in a chair.
The execution went off without mishap.
In July, 1864, occurred the murder of Mr. Briggs, a gentleman advanced
in years and chief clerk in Robarts' bank. As the circumstances under
which it was perpetrated were somewhat novel,[274:1] and as some time
elapsed before the discovery and apprehension of the supposed murderer,
the public mind was greatly agitated by the affair for several months.
The story of the murder must be pretty familiar to most of my readers.
Mr. Briggs left the bank one afternoon as usual, dined with his
daughter at Peckham, then returned to the city to take the train from
Fenchurch Street home, travelling by the North London Railway. He lived
at Hackney, but he never reached it alive. When the train arrived
at Hackney station, a passenger who was about to enter one of the
carriages found the cushions soaked with blood. Inside the carriage
was a hat, a walking-stick, and a small black leather bag. About the
same time a body was discovered on the line near the railway-bridge by
Victoria Park. It was that of an aged man, whose head had been battered
in by a life-preserver. There was a deep wound just over the ear, the
skull was fractured, and there were several other blows and wounds on
the head. Strange to say, the unfortunate man was not yet dead, and he
actually survived more than four-and-twenty hours. His identity was
established by a bundle of letters in his pocket, which bore his full
address: "T. Briggs, Esq., Robarts & Co., Lombard Street."
The friends of Mr. Briggs were communicated with, and it was
ascertained that when he left home the morning of the murderous attack,
he wore gold-rimmed eye-glasses and a gold watch and chain. The stick
and bag were his, but not the hat. A desperate and deadly struggle
must have taken place in the carriage, and the stain of a bloody hand
marked the door. The facts of the murder and its object, robbery,
were thus conclusively proved. It was also easily established that
the hat found in the carriage had been bought at Walker's, a hatter's
in Crawford Street, Marylebone; while within a few days Mr. Briggs'
gold chain was traced to a jeweller's in Cheapside, Mr. Death, who had
given another in exchange for it to a man supposed to be a foreigner.
More precise clues to the murderer were not long wanting; indeed the
readiness with which they were produced and followed up showed how
greatly the publicity and wide dissemination of the news regarding
murder facilitate the detection of crime. In little more than a week
a cabman came forward and voluntarily made a statement which at once
drew suspicion to a German, Franz Müller, who had been a lodger of his.
Müller had given the cabman's little daughter a jeweller's cardboard
box bearing the name of Mr. Death. A photograph of Müller shown the
jeweller was identified as the likeness of the man who had exchanged
Mr. Briggs' chain. Last of all, the cabman swore that he had bought the
very hat found in the carriage for Müller at the hatter's, Walker's of
Crawford Street.
This fixed the crime pretty certainly upon Müller, who had already
left the country, thus increasing the suspicion under which he lay.
There was no mystery about his departure; he had gone to Canada by the
_Victoria_ sailing ship, starting from the London docks, and bound
to New York. Directly the foregoing facts were established, a couple
of detective officers, armed with a warrant to arrest Müller, and
accompanied by Mr. Death the jeweller and the cabman, went down to
Liverpool and took the first steamer across the Atlantic. This was the
_City of Manchester_, which was expected to arrive some days before
the _Victoria_, and did so. The officers went on board the _Victoria_
at once, Müller was identified by Mr. Death, and the arrest was made.
In searching the prisoner's box, Mr. Briggs' watch was found wrapped
up in a piece of leather, and Müller at the time of his capture was
actually wearing Mr. Briggs' hat, cut down and somewhat altered. The
prisoner was forthwith extradited and sent back to England, which he
reached with his escort on the 17th September the same year. His trial
followed at the next sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and ended
in his conviction. The case was one of circumstantial evidence, but,
as Sir Robert Collyer, the Solicitor-General, pointed out, it was the
strongest circumstantial evidence which had ever been brought forward
in a murder case. It was really evidence of facts which could not be
controverted or explained away. There was the prisoner's poverty,
his inability to account for himself on the night of the murder, and
his possession of the property of the murdered man. An alibi was set
up for the defence, but not well substantiated, and the jury without
hesitation returned a verdict of guilty.
Müller protested after sentence of death had been passed upon him
that he had been convicted on a false statement of facts. He adhered
to this almost to the very last. His case had been warmly espoused by
the Society for the Protection of Germans in this country, and powerful
influence was exerted both here and abroad to obtain a reprieve.
Müller knew that any confession would ruin his chances of escape. His
arguments were specious and evasive when pressed to confess. "Why
should man confess to man?" he replied; "man cannot forgive man, only
God can do so. Man is therefore only accountable to God." But on the
gallows, when the cap was over his eyes and the rope had been adjusted
round his neck, and within a second of the moment when he would be
launched into eternity, he whispered in the ear of the German pastor
who attended him on the scaffold, "I did it." While in the condemned
cell he conversed freely with the warders in broken English or through
an interpreter. He is described as not a bad-looking man, with a square
German type of face, blue eyes which were generally half closed, and
very fair hair. He was short in stature, his legs were light for the
upper part of his body, which was powerful, almost herculean. It is
generally supposed that he committed the murder under a sudden access
of covetousness and greed. He saw Mr. Briggs' watch-chain, and followed
him instantly into the carriage, determined to have it at all costs.
An interesting case is that of old Dr. Watson, the headmaster of
Stockwell Grammar School, who escaped the final retribution of death
because, as he pleaded for himself: "In a fit of fury I have killed
my wife. Often and often have I endeavoured to restrain myself but my
rage overcame me and I struck her down. Her body will be found in the
little room off the library. I hope she will be buried as becomes a
lady of birth and position. She is an Irish lady and her name is Anne."
Here were unmistakably signs of feeble intellect, and yet when the
deed was done he was sufficiently sensible and self-possessed to make
a cunning attempt to conceal his crime. His great desire, as so often
happens with murderers, was to dispose of the chief evidence of his
guilt and he was quite cool and collected when he gave his orders to a
packing-case maker to prepare him a large chest. "And I want it done
sharp; it must be air and water tight, for it is to go by rail." Then
he seems to have broken down and bought poison which failed of effect
and led to the discovery of the crime.
Henry Wainwright's murder of Harriet Lane was a crime on a parity
with many others of earlier date. It was a curious instance of how
"murder will out," and how the devices employed to hide the crime help
really to expose it. Too much chloride of lime had been employed to
consume the buried corpse with the result that the body was preserved
instead of destroyed. Again, a mere chance led to the discovery; the
carelessness of the murderer when he had exhumed the body for removal
to some safer place, in entrusting the parcel to a stranger's hands
who was curious as to its contents. The plea set up by the accused
that the girl had committed suicide led to the shrewd remark of the
judge, Chief Justice Goulbourne, that it was very unusual for suicides
to bury themselves after death. Henry Wainwright's was one of the last
executions at Newgate.
A case, almost unique, may be quoted of a nearly successful attempt
to interfere with the course of justice by means of a forged order
of pardon. A convict on the point of execution, a man named Shurety,
was actually in the hangman's hands when a letter was brought to the
governor of Newgate purporting to come from the Home Office and signed
"A. F. Liddell," then Under-secretary of State, countermanding the
execution. The signature was so cleverly copied that it seemed genuine,
but a closer examination of the letter, envelope and seal satisfied
the authorities that the document was spurious and they took upon
themselves to send Shurety to the gallows. A couple of months later
the forgery was brought home to a surgeon, Mr. Caleb C. Whiteford,
who had interested himself in the case and having failed to save the
man by lawful means had adopted this course, which brought upon him
a sentence of fine and imprisonment. Another curious case was the
utter discomfiture of certain ultra-sentimentalists who had laboured
strenuously to obtain a pardon for a Jew, Israel Lipski, alleged to
have been wrongly convicted. Great excitement prevailed while he lay
awaiting execution; numerous petitions were addressed to the Home
Secretary, and his steadfast refusal to extend mercy was hysterically
denounced by a section of the Press. Just when it was still asserted
that judicial murder was on the point of being perpetrated, the convict
made full confession of his crime and the ill-advised action of
these busybodies was very properly overthrown. One or two more cases
must serve to complete the list of the last great crimes expiated in
Newgate. Mrs. Pearcey, who murdered her friend Mrs. Hogg, no doubt
allowed her temper to get the better of her and what was at first
a small quarrel unhappily degenerated into a murderous attack. The
circumstances of the crime were commonplace; the special interest was
in the method of removing the murdered remains. Mrs. Hogg's body with
the throat cut had been found on Hampstead Heath and shortly afterwards
her infant child was found dead in close proximity. It came out in
the course of inquiry that Mrs. Pearcey had wheeled a perambulator
containing the dead bodies all the way from St. John's Wood to
Hampstead.
But for the lucky chance which so often assists the detection of great
crimes, the Muswell Hill murder would hardly have been brought home
to its perpetrators. This was a burglary which cost the life of the
unfortunate victim, a Mr. Henry Smith, an aged gentleman who lived
alone in a small villa on Muswell Hill, one of the northern suburbs
of London. He was a man of some means who was weak enough to keep his
cash receipts for rents and dividends in his own safe at home. He was
a tall stout man of active habits and fairly robust health who "did
for himself," rising early, cleaning his house, cooking his food and
living his own simple life. His habits were watched and they marked
him down as open to attack and robbery. One morning his gardener, the
only servant he employed, and who lived away from the house, arrived
as usual to find the premises still locked up. There were unmistakable
signs that a forcible entry had been made and a wire connected with
an alarm gun behind the house had been disconnected. Calling upon the
neighbours for assistance, the gardener entered the house and saw
Mr. Smith's body lying lifeless on the floor. The safe stood open
and had been evidently rifled; drawers had been pulled out and a tin
box emptied. The murder had been committed with very brutal violence
as the state of the body amply testified. Various small clues were
forthcoming; a bull's eye lantern, two pocket knives upon the floor
near the deceased and some bread and cheese which the murderers had
been consuming after the deed. There were footprints in the garden
leading down into the woods back of the house. Two sets of footprints,
one of large boots with a very broad tread and no nails, the other of
smaller boots with pointed toes. The footprints ended at the garden
fence where there were many marks and scratches to show that someone
had climbed over. A small tobacco box was also picked up on the
footpath leading to the wood, the property of someone who did not live
at the villa, for neither the murdered man nor the gardener were in the
habit of smoking.
It is customary with the police in cases of this gravity to search
their records and ascertain what known offenders likely to be guilty
of such a crime were then at large. Two ex-convicts, Albert Milsom and
Henry Fowler, stood upon the list and at once attracted the attention
of the police as habitual criminals addicted to burglary, but there was
no specific evidence against them until suspicion was raised by a young
lady who resided near Muswell Hill. She thought it her duty to inform
the police that she had been accosted by two men, a little before the
murder, who had made many inquiries about the woods behind Mr. Smith's
house. Another lady had seen the same man on the very day of the murder
walking in a neighbouring lane. This was sufficient to cause inquiry
to be made for the two men in question who were soon identified as the
above mentioned Milsom and Fowler. Suspicion deepened when it became
known that after the day of the murder they were flush of money and had
bought new clothes. Then a damaging fact turned up when the bull's eye
lantern picked up on the scene of the crime was claimed by Milsom's
brother-in-law as his property. He proved his ownership by pointing out
changes he had made in it and further that it had been abstracted from
him some little time before the murder, and that the next time he saw
it was in the hands of the police. The same lad recognized the tobacco
box as one that Albert Milsom constantly used.
The next step was to "run in" the two men so strongly suspected. They
were "wanted" for some weeks and although they seem to have still hung
about London it was believed they had gone abroad. Towards the end of
February they left for Liverpool and then moved south to Cardiff, where
they joined forces with an itinerant showman having bought a share in
his business. They moved to and fro in South Wales and then worked back
to Chippenham and Bath where the police, ever hot on their track, came
upon them and captured them after a desperate struggle. Fowler was a
strong man of large frame and he fought like a tiger but was knocked on
the head with the butt end of a revolver and overpowered. He owed his
confederate Milsom a deep grudge and on more than one occasion made a
murderous attempt on his life, once in the exercising yard at Holloway
while awaiting trial, an affair which the present writer myself
witnessed. The two men were walking in a circle some distance apart,
but Fowler ran after him and was only prevented by the officers from
doing him serious mischief. Again at the Old Bailey when the jury had
retired to consider their verdict, Fowler jumped out of the dock and
attacked his companion but was restrained in time. Milsom had enraged
him by making full confession of the murder and the manner in which it
had been committed. Fowler, he said, had done the deed alone but had
bitterly upbraided Milsom for giving no assistance. Both criminals were
executed in Newgate.
The last great case of fraud upon the Bank of England will fitly find a
place in the later criminal records of Newgate. This was the well and
astutely devised plot of the brothers Bidwell, assisted by Macdonell
and Noyes, all of them citizens of the United States, by which the bank
lost upwards of £100,000. The commercial experience of these clever
rogues was cosmopolitan. Their operations were no less world-wide. In
1871 they crossed the Channel, and by means of forged letters of credit
and introduction from London, obtained large sums from continental
banks in Berlin, Dresden, Bordeaux, Marseilles and Lyons. With this
as capital they came back to England via Buenos Ayres, and Austin
Bidwell opened a bona fide credit in the Burlington or West End Branch
of the Bank of England, to which he was introduced by a well known
tailor in Saville Row. After this the other conspirators travelled
to obtain genuine bills and master the system of the leading houses
at home and abroad. When all was ready, Bidwell first "refreshed
his credit" at the Bank of England, as well as disarmed suspicion,
by paying in a genuine bill of Messrs. Rothschilds' for £4,500 which
was duly discounted. Then he explained to the bank manager that his
transactions at Birmingham would shortly be very large, owing to the
development of his business there in the alleged manufacture of Pullman
cars. The ground thus cleared, the forgers poured in from Birmingham
numbers of forged acceptances to the value of £102,217, all of which
were discounted. The fraud was rendered possible by the absence of a
check customary in the United States. There such bills would be sent to
the drawer to be initialled, and the forgery would have been at once
detected. It was the discovery of this flaw in the banking system which
had encouraged the Americans to attempt this crime.
Time was clearly an important factor in the fraud, hence the bills were
sent forward in quick succession. Long before they came to maturity the
forgers hoped to be well beyond arrest. They had, moreover, sought to
destroy all clue. The sums obtained by Bidwell in the name of "Warren"
at the Bank of England were lodged at once by drafts to "Horton"
another alias, in the Continental Bank. For these cash was obtained in
notes; the notes were exchanged by one of the conspirators for gold
at the Bank of England and again the same day a second conspirator
exchanged the gold for notes. But just as all promised well, the
frauds were detected through the carelessness of the forgers. They had
omitted to insert the dates in certain bills. The bills were sent as a
matter of form to the drawer to have the date added, and the forgery
was at once detected. Noyes was seized without difficulty, as it was a
part of the scheme that he should act as the dupe, and remain on the
spot in London till all the money was obtained. Through Noyes the rest
of the conspirators were eventually apprehended. Very little if any of
the ill-gotten proceeds, however, was ever recovered. Large sums as
they were realized were transmitted to the United States and invested
in various American securities, where probably the money still remains.
The prisoners, who were committed to Newgate for trial, had undoubtedly
the command of large funds while there, and would have readily
disbursed it to effect their enlargement. A plot was soon discovered,
deep laid, and with many ramifications, by which some of the Newgate
warders were to be bribed to allow the prisoners to escape from their
cells at night. Certain friends of the prisoners were watched and
found to be in communication with these warders, to whom it was said
£100 apiece had been given down as the price of their infidelity.
Further sums were to have been paid after the escape; and one warder
admitted that he was to have £1,000 more paid to him and to be provided
with a passage to Australia. The vigilance of the Newgate officials
assisted by the city police, completely frustrated this plot. A second
was nevertheless set on foot in which the plan of action was changed,
and the freedom of the prisoners was to be obtained by means of a
rescue from the dock during the trial. An increase of policemen on
duty sufficed to prevent any attempt of this kind. Nor were these two
abortive efforts all that were planned. A year or two after, when the
prisoners were undergoing their life sentences of penal servitude, much
uneasiness was caused at one of the convict prisons by information that
bribery on a large scale was again at work amongst the officials. But
extra precautions and close supervision have so far proved effectual
and the prisoners were still in custody after a lapse of ten years.
The time came at length when the old City Gaol must fall in with the
steady and persistent march towards prison reform. The movement had
been initiated by the legislative and certain improvements were made
imperative, notably that which recognized the unalterable principle
that every individual should be confined separately and singly in one
cell or apartment. Already steps had been taken and public moneys
voted to construct a prison on the most approved plan to serve as a
model for all. The result was Pentonville, erected in 1842 at a great
outlay and on such intelligent lines that in due course it fulfilled
its first aim and became a model for imitation. Pentonville has been
universally adopted as the best form of building and its system the
best contrived to effect the chief desiderata of a penal establishment,
such as coercion, repression and reformation. It is to be seen to-day
with small variation in almost every country of the world and is
generally considered the best type of prison construction. In England,
jurisdictions were ready to recognize their duties and responsibilities
and fine prisons arose in the large provincial cities and wide areas of
population, although others still lagged behind deterred by parsimony
and the lack of public spirit. Newgate, the gaol of the richest
corporation in the world, was one of the latter and an official report
published in 1850 animadverted strongly on its still unsatisfactory
condition.
Not much had been done to remedy the old defects; radical improvement
was generally considered impossible. The great evil, however, had been
sensibly diminished. There was no longer, or at worst but rarely, and
for short periods, the same overcrowding. This was obviated by the
frequent sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and the utilization of
the two subsidiary prisons in Giltspur Street and Southwark. The prison
population of Newgate was still subject to great fluctuations, but it
seldom rose above two hundred and fifty or three hundred at the most
crowded periods, or just before the sessional gaol delivery; and at its
lowest it fell sometimes to fifty or sixty. These numbers would have
still further decreased, and the gaol would have been almost empty,
but for the misdemeanants who were still sent to Newgate at times on
long terms of imprisonment, and for the transports, whom the Home
Office was often, as of old, slow to remove. The old wards, day rooms
and sleeping rooms combined, now seldom contained more than ten or a
dozen occupants. Some sort of decorum was maintained in the day-time.
Drinking and gaming, the indiscriminate visitation of friends, and the
almost unlimited admission of extra food, had disappeared.
But reformation was only skin deep. Below the surface many of the old
evils still rankled. There was as yet no control over the prisoners
after locking-up time; which occurred in summer at eight, but in the
winter months took place at dusk, and was often as early as four or
five o'clock. The prisoners were still left to themselves till next
morning's unlocking, and they spent some fourteen or fifteen hours in
total darkness, and almost without check or control. The only attempt
at supervision was exercised by the night watchman stationed on the
leads, who might hear what went on inside. If any disturbance reached
his ears, he reported the case to the governor, who next morning
visited the ward in fault, and asked for the culprit. The enforcement
of discipline depended upon the want of honour among thieves. Unless
the guilty prisoner was given up, the whole ward was punished, either
by the exclusion of visitors or the deprivation of fire, sharp tests
which generally broke down the fidelity of the inmates of the ward to
one another. Later on a more efficacious but still imperfect method of
supervision was introduced. Iron cages, which are still to be seen in
Newgate, were constructed on the landings, ensconced in which warders
spent the night, on duty, and alert to watch the sleepers below, and
check by remonstrance or threat of punishment all who broke the peace
of the prison.
These disciplinary improvements were, however, only slowly and
gradually introduced. Other changes affecting the condition and
proper treatment of prisoners were not made until repeatedly urged
and recommended. Thus the wards, which, as I have said, were left in
complete darkness, were now to be lighted with gas; and after this most
salutary addition, the personal superintendence of night officers,
as already described, became possible. The rule became general as
regards the prison dress; hitherto clothing had been issued only to
such as were destitute or in rags, and all classes of prisoners,
those for trial, and those sentenced for short terms or long, wore
no distinguishing costume, although its use was admitted, not only
for cleanliness, but as a badge of condition, and a security against
escape. Renewed recommendations to provide employment resulted in
the provision of a certain amount of oakum for picking, and one or
two men were allowed to mend clothes and make shoes. The rules made
by the Secretary of State were hung up in conspicuous parts of the
prison; more officers were appointed, as the time of so many of those
already on the staff was monopolized by attendance at the Central
Criminal Court. Another custom which had led to disorder was abolished;
prisoners who had been acquitted were not permitted to return to the
prison to show their joy and receive the congratulations of their
unfortunate fellows. The Corporation seems to have introduced these
salutary changes without hesitation. It was less prompt apparently in
dealing with structural alterations and improvements. Well-founded
complaints had been made of the want of heating appliances in the gaol.
The wards had open fires, but the separate cells were not warmed at
all. It was long before a scheme for heating the whole prison with hot
water pipes was accepted and introduced.
At last the authorities realized that all idea of reconstruction on
proper lines was out of the question. It was imperative to begin at the
beginning, select a sufficiently spacious piece of ground and erect a
prison thereon, which from foundations to roofs should be in conformity
with the newest ideas.
Now for the first time the Tuffnell estate in Holloway was mentioned.
The Corporation owned lands there covering from nineteen to twenty
acres. Why not move the city prison bodily into this more rural spot,
with its purer air and greater breathing space? Eventually Holloway
was decided upon as a site for the new city prison. The necessary
preliminaries took some time, but the contracts for the new building
were completed in 1849, when the works were commenced. The prison
was to contain four hundred and four prisoners, and the estimated
expenditure was £79,000. It was to accommodate all convicted prisoners
sentenced to terms short of penal servitude, and after its completion
the uses of Newgate were narrowed almost entirely to those of a prison
of detention. It was intended, as far as possible, that no prisoner
should find himself relegated to Newgate except when awaiting trial.
With the reduction of numbers to be accommodated, there was ample space
in Newgate for its reconstruction on the most approved modern lines.
In 1857 the erection of a wing or large block of cells was commenced
within the original walls of the prison, and upon the north or male
side. This block contained one hundred and thirty cells, embracing
every modern improvement; it also contained eleven reception cells,
six punishment cells, and a couple of cells for condemned criminals.
This block was completed in 1859, after which the hitherto unavoidable
and long-continued promiscuous association of prisoners came to an
end. In 1861 a similar work was undertaken to provide separate cell
accommodation for the female inmates of Newgate, and by the following
year forty-seven new cells had been built on the most approved
plan. During this reconstruction the female prisoners were lodged in
Holloway, and when it was completed, both sides of the prison were
brought into harmony with modern ideas. The old buildings were entirely
disused, and the entire number of those at Newgate were kept constantly
in separate confinement.
With the last re-edification of Newgate, a work executed some seven
centuries after the first stone of the old gaol was laid, the
architectural records of the prison end. Nothing much was done at
Newgate in the way of building, outside or inside, after 1862. The Act
for private executions led to the erection of the gallows shed in the
exercising yard, and at the flank of the passage from the condemned
cells. The first "glass house," or room in which prisoners could talk
in private with their attorneys, and still be seen by the warder on the
watch, had been constructed, and others were subsequently added. But no
structural alterations were made from the date first quoted until in
1902 the prison ceased to exist as such.
A few words will suffice in closing the record of this old-world
prison, which after seven centuries of existence has no longer a place
in the heart of the great overgrown city. It has been crowded out, the
space it occupied was far too limited and yet too valuable to remain
the centre of Metropolitan criminal procedure. It was imperative that
the famous assize court of the Old Bailey should be enlarged and the
ground upon which the prison stood was urgently needed for extension.
The chief prison authority, the State itself which had administered to
the powers so long exercised by local jurisdiction, decided to remove
the last vestige of prison business from the ancient site. A prison
already standing in the suburb of Brixton was enlarged and appropriated
to meet the purposes which Newgate had fulfilled almost to the last.
For it continued until yesterday to serve as the last resting place
of malefactors condemned to death. It was still the succursal of the
assize court, sheltering the accused during the trial and holding them
after conviction until they stood finally under the drop and the fatal
bolt was drawn. But Newgate in 1882 ceased to be more than a temporary
prison receiving lodgers about to take the last long journey from which
no traveller returns, and in this way old Newgate continued to be
associated with all capital offences in London.
Many pages might still be filled with painful stories often reproducing
almost exactly the criminal episodes of the past and proving that
there is literally nothing new under the sun. The latest Newgate
records exhibited the same fatal consequences of overpowering greed,
unappeasable rage, brutal passions uncontrolled; the same fierce thirst
for vengeance; the same bitter jealousy, only to be assuaged in blood
under the maddened impulse of minds on the borderland of insanity.
Great crimes may be rarer nowadays, but they still present the same
familiar features as of old, and will no doubt do so while the world
lasts.
* * * * *
NOTE. Occasional references to the Tower have been made in the
preceding chapters. Its history in full would be the history of England
and far too extended for the scope of this work; therefore an outline
only is given, with reference in brief to many important prisoners who
were confined or suffered within its gloomy walls.
[Illustration: _Great Court of the Tower of London_
Ancient palace-citadel of London, and famous state prison,
whose history began with William the Conqueror. The chief
buildings of the group are the work of Norman kings and Henry
III. Familiar as the place of durance and scene of death of
many prisoners of royal blood and political importance.]
FOOTNOTES:
[274:1] They have since been repeated, but accompanied by more
premeditation, in the case of Lefroy, who murdered Mr. Gould in a
first-class carriage on the Brighton line in 1881.