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THE STONES OF NEWGATE.

ONE of the noblest productions of modern art literature is Ruskin's "Stones of Venice," which gives in every page interesting glimpses of a people and an age long passed away, yet still illustrious in memory, because, while stained with many crimes, and degraded by many follies, they did honour to man's intellect, and exalted our common nature. Even now, airy phantoms of grace and beauty hover round the desecrated triumphs of the architect, and the rainbow hues of gladness, glancing from departed generations, invest the City of the Sea with a peculiar charm. While we gaze on ruins grand even in decay, a sympathy, mournful, but far from painful, links us insensibly with the glorious works which, in their decay, continue symmetrical and beautiful. How different are our feelings while we contemplate the sordid remains of buildings devoted to uses rendered necessary by the wickedness, madness, or weakness of our race! A prison, however pleasant its site or faultless its structure, excites nothing save painful emotions. The stones of Newgate-for we are to speak of a dreary pile-were portions of the ancient metropolitan gate, and are mingled with the varied débris of gloomy houses of incarceration, from the reign of King Stephen to the Gordon Riots, and downward to this improving era, when, at length, prison classification,

It

order, and morality, are admitted to be important. sadly lowers our swelling vanity, raised into dangerous proportions by the mental advances of the nineteenth century, when we have sufficient courage to scan the horrors and impurities of a gaol. We all feel that vice must be punished, and that the wrong-doer must suffer, were it only for example's sake. Did not the iron hand of law repress the licence of unbridled offenders, society would quickly grow unendurable, and we should be glad to hide our heads in the wilderness. Yet we cannot but mourn over "Guilt, the child of Woe," when we behold his anguish and penance in the dreary abodes where convicted crime expiates its derelictions from the straight paths of integrity. Still we may benefit when, occasionally turning from the heyday of life, we visit more sombre scenes, and strive to realize the holy maxim; “It is better to enter the house of mourning than the house of mirth."

Newgate was the fifth chief entrance in the City wall, and was so called, being "latelier built than the rest.” It stood across the present Newgate-street, east of Giltspurstreet and the Old Bailey. It was probably erected in the reign of Henry I., in consequence of the re-edification of old St. Paul's, by which the road from Aldgate through Cheap to Ludgate was so "crossed and stopped up, that pedestrians went about by Paternoster-row or the old Exchange to reach Ludgate." It was repaired at the expense of Sir Richard Whittington, "thrice Lord Mayor," in 1442, again in 1630, and in 1672, after the Great Fire. On the City side were three stone figures-Justice, Mercy, and Truth; and four on Holborn-hill side-Liberty (with Whittington's cat at her feet), Peace, Plenty, and Concord. Some of these statues are placed on the south front of our modern Newgate. According to Stow, the ancient prison was only a tower or appendage to the gate, and was a

place of detention for felons in the reign of King John. It afforded sufficient prison room for the City and county from that period to the age of Charles II., except, of course, that prisoners of rank were confined in the Tower of London. This fact strikingly proves the vast increase of population, for now it would take a long time to enumerate all the prisons needed for the safe custody of criminals in Middlesex alone-not to mention that, while houses of detention for debtors have decreased, owing to the judicious amelioration of the law, asylums for lunatics have fearfully multiplied, one monster madhouse-that at Colney Hatch -actually containing nearly 2,000 patients.

Newgate was rebuilt after the Great Fire by Wren, and when burnt in the Gordon Riots, by George Dance, R.A., who designed the building in 1780, his plan being objected to by Howard. While the work was progressing, it was arrested by the rioters, who, breaking into the completed portion, liberated three hundred prisoners, and left it in flames, so that the prison was not finished until 1782. The external architecture was thought suitable, from its gloomy grandeur and severity, to the proposed object; but the interior was so insufficient for classification or moral discipline, that within the last few years the whole plan has been changed, nothing of Dance's work remaining but the walls, which are remarkable for their thickness and solidity.

Old Surgeons' Hall was close to Newgate, and convicts sentenced to be anatomized had this part of their doom performed there. While executions took place at Tyburn, corpses of murderers or traitors were placed under the operator's knife, as we see in Hogarth's ghastly picture of "The Idle Apprentice's Fate," and as really occurred in the case of Earl Ferrers, and a thousand other criminals.

Our old chroniclers, and especially Maitland, speak with horror of prison discipline. The unfortunate wretches

in confinement were placed in dark dungeons, where the foul air engendered "the gaol distemper," which often led to a fearful mortality, for a dozen or more deaths not unfrequently happened in one day.

In 1750, while the assize was going on, the pestilential effluvia infected the whole court-judges, barristers, witnesses, and spectators—and not less than sixty persons died in consequence. This led to the erection of a ventilating shaft, and ever after the court was strewn with sweet herbs, and bouquets were laid before the presiding judges, though at present an abundant supply of fresh air is a far better preventive.

Lord George Gordon died here of gaol distemper, while in confinement for a libel on the Queen of France. After the riots, if not before, his reason became impaired. He affected to be a convert to Judaism, and was remarkable for his monstrous beard, which would have gained no notice in modern streets, for beards are again fashionable, and our hirsute ancestors are more than rivalled.

Formerly, debtors and criminals were huddled together in Newgate. Even while contagious fever raged, 800 human beings were packed in spaces which made healthy respiration impossible; a breadth of eighteen inches only was allowed for each bed. Mrs. Fry (and this refers to the beginning of the nineteenth century) describes the prisoners as "swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, drinking, and the women dressing up in men's clothes." Even in 1838 gambling and card-playing were common among the males.

The public have lost the privilege, if it was one, of attending the condemned sermons. In the centre of the chapel was placed a chair for the culprit under order for execution, and his coffin was placed before him during the sermon. On one Sunday sixty criminals have been seated in the " "condemned" pew, and what moral good they

reaped from it may be gathered from the fact that they often employed the time in carving their names on the wood-work. The place of execution was altered from Tyburn to the front of the prison, at the suggestion of Howard, in 1783.

Of the many awful and disgusting scenes perpetrated within these walls, the "press-yard," perhaps, recalls the most terrible. Our ancient penal law, written in blood rather than ink, prescribed the peine fort et dure (the strong and hard pain) as the torture to be exercised on persons refusing to plead; they were stripped, and, their limbs being secured by cords with merciless severity, laid in chambers exceedingly low, and with little air or light; then a weight of iron, "as much as they could bear, and more,' being cast upon them, they were there to be fed on black bread and water from the next puddle until they died. We might doubt the reality of so savage a practice were we not supplied with facts which leave no doubt on the subject. Indeed, the custom of pressing to death continued until 1734. The families of prisoners who refused to plead, and died without pleading, escaped the confiscation of their goods.

Contemporary writers describe the Gordon Riots as most terrible, and only rivalled by the horrors of the French Revolution. The mob, breaking into Langdale's distillery, in Holborn, drank themselves mad, and then, firing the premises, proceeded to perpetrate fearful atrocities. Several soldiers were thrown alive into the fire. Lord Mansfield's mansion in Bloomsbury-square, with all its literary treasures, was consigned to the flames. The judge himself narrowly escaped. Another detachment of these drunken fiends threw burning fagots into the new buildings of the prison, and set the culprits free. Langdale's cellars the gutters ran with spirits of wine, which, kindling from a falling torch, the inebriated wretches were