Note 136 — Chapter VII · ESCAPES.

The following stanzas were written at the time, and appeared in the ‘British Journal’ of Nov. 28, 1724:—

[137] See ante, p. 268.

[138] See ante, p. 254.

[139] Ordinary’s account of executions, Nov. 1736.

[140] See ante, p. 273.

[141] Luttrell, iii. 1695.

[142] Ibid.

[143] I have described this in detail in the next chapter.

[144] ‘Life of Lord Hardwicke,’ i. 215.

[145] ‘An inquiry into the causes of the late increase of robbers,’ &c. London: 1751.

[146] Fielding, ‘Robbers,’ p. 35.

[147] Soldiers in the Guards, after long and faithful service, were granted leave of absence from military duty in order to take civil situations which did not monopolize all their time. By this means they eked out their scanty pay.

[148] ‘A Treatise on the Police of the Metropolis,’ by P. Colquhoun, LL.D. London, 1800.

[149] Fielding, p. xxviii.

[150] Ibid., p. xxix.

[151] Savage was tried before Sir Francis Page, commonly known as “the hanging judge,” and whose severity was most notorious. He afterwards admitted that he had been most anxious to hang Savage. In his old age when his health was inquired after, he is reported to have replied, “I keep hanging on, hanging on.”

[152] ‘Celebrated Trials,’ iii. 457. ‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 39. Thornbury, in his ‘Old Stories Retold,’ calls it the King’s Arms, on what authority he does not say.

[153] “What do you bring this fellow here for?” Oneby had cried to the keeper of Newgate when he appeared with Hooper. “Whenever I look at him I shall think of being hanged.” Hooper had a forbidding countenance, but he was an inimitable mimic, and he soon made himself an agreeable companion to the condemned man.

[154] ‘Calendar,’ i. 146.

[155] The husband of the Lady Macclesfield, who was mother to Richard Savage. See ante, p. 340.

[156] ‘Life of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke,’ by George Harris, i. 176.

[157] Where Lambeth Suspension Bridge now stands.

[158] The crime of petty treason was established when any person out of malice took away the life of another to whom he or she owed special obedience—as when a servant killed his master, a wife her husband, or an ecclesiastic his superior. The wife’s accomplices in the murder of a husband were not deemed guilty of petty treason.

[159] The infamous Judge Jeffries in 1685 sentenced Elizabeth Gaunt to be burnt alive at Tyburn, for sheltering persons concerned in Monmouth’s rebellion.

[160] As barristers often preferred to do business at their own homes, chambers in the Temple were rather at a discount just then, and their landlords, “preferring tenants of no legal skill to no tenants at all, let them out to any that offered, ...” consequently many private people creep about the Inns of Court.—‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 470.

[161] ‘Newgate Calendar,’ i. 189.

[162] “Beau” Fielding, who was tried at the Old Bailey in 1706 for committing bigamy with the Duchess of Cleveland, is one of the most remarkable instances of this. See ‘Celebrated Trials,’ iii. 534. Also see the trial of the Duchess of Kingston, ‘Remarkable Trials,’ 203. She was tried by the House of Lords, found guilty, but pleaded her peerage and was discharged.

[163] Hackham was present at Dr. Dodd’s execution a short time previously. His remarks on the subject will be found in vol. ii. chap. i.

[164] Quin could not resist the chance of making a sharp speech. When desired by the manager of Covent Garden to go to the front to apologize for Madame Rollau, a celebrated dancer, who could not appear, he said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, Madame Rollau cannot dance to-night, having dislocated her ancle—I wish it had been her neck.”

[165] At this date abroad, Mr. Baretti pointed out, it was not the custom to put knives on the dinner-table, so that even ladies carried them in their pockets for general use.

[166] The boot was the usual punning allusion to Lord Bute in the caricatures of the day; and the petticoat no doubt referred to his undue influence over the Princess of Wales, mother of the reigning sovereign, George III. See ante, p. 238.

[167] Cant names of the period for drinks.

[168] Walpole’s Letters to Sir Horace Mann.

[169] Wild at last had the audacity to occupy a house in the Old Bailey, opposite the present Sessions House.

[170] There were sometimes as many as sixty or seventy pirates awaiting trial at a time in Newgate, about this period.

[171] By Lord Orford and the Board of Admiralty.

[172] Luttrell.

[173] See ante, chap. vi. p. 279.

[174] Hume, xi. 418.

[175] The following are some of the great people who owned prisons in those days: “The Dukes of Portland, Devonshire, Norfolk, and Leeds, the Marquis of Carnarvon, Lords Salisbury, Exeter, Arundel, and Derby, the Bishops of Salisbury, Ely, and Durham, the Dean and Chapter of Westminster.”

[176] Book iv. c. 22.

[177] ‘Buxton on Prison Discipline,’ p. 11.

[178] As late as 1818 the most capricious rules prevailed as to ironing in various prisons in the country. Thus at Newgate all felons were ironed; it was the same at Chelmsford; but at Bury and Norwich all felons were without irons. Again at Coldbath Fields, only the untried and those sent for re-examination were ironed; at other places the untried were not ironed, and so on. Dr. Dodd, in his ‘Thoughts in Prison,’ refers to the horror he experienced in Newgate from the constant rattling of chains. It seems the most hardened prisoners often clanked their irons for an amusement.

[179] See ante, chap. v. p. 211.

[180] ‘Dr. Guy on Public Health,’ 183.

[181] Lind, ‘Health of our Seamen.’

[182] According to Lord Campbell, Lord Chief Justice Lee was attacked with the gaol fever in this year, but recovered. It was through Lee’s remonstrances that certain precautions were adopted, such as plunging a hot iron into a bucket full of vinegar and sweet smelling herbs. ‘Lives of the Lord Chief Justices.’

[183] Dr. (afterwards Sir John) Pringle had already published (1750) a pamphlet on hospital and ‘jayl’ fevers, in which he traced the distemper to jails being too small for their numbers, and too insecure to forego the use of dungeons. The only resource, he said, until these two evils were removed, was in ventilators.

[184] In this year 1752 another Lord Mayor, Winterbottom, died of the gaol fever. Lord Campbell’s ‘Lives of Lord Chief Justices.’

[185] A full account of the ventilator from the pen of Dr. Hales is published in the ‘Gentleman’s Magazine,’ vol. xxii. p. 180 (1752), where also is the plan of the windmill which worked it, which plan I have introduced into this chapter. The various letters on the plan refer to the detailed description in the original.

[186] For full account of this see next chapter.

[187] Lord George Gordon died of it in the new Newgate in 1793.

[188] See next chapter.

[189] See page 379.

[190] Dr. Dodd in his ‘Prison Thoughts’ animadverts strongly upon the evils of Newgate, but completely exonerates Mr. Akerman. “No man could do more,” says Dr. Dodd. “His attention is great, and his kindness and humanity to those in sickness or affliction peculiarly pleasing.”

[191] 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 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 désespoir; c’était un spectacle épouvantable.”—‘Mémoires,’ vi. 48.

[192] Some notion of the density of the prison population in Newgate in those times will be obtained by comparing it with modern ideas on this subject. The following figures give the acreage and average population of three comparatively new prisons.

PrisonAcreageAverage prison population.

Warwick9A.3R.2P.300

St. Albans421100

Lincoln16015180

[193] See last chapter.

[194] Lord George Gordon was the son of Cosmo, Duke of Gordon, and was born in 1750. He entered the navy as a midshipman, but left the service in consequence of a dispute with Lord Sandwich. He sat in Parliament for Ludgershall, and was a bitter opponent of the ministry.

[195] Pennant’s ‘London.’

[196] ‘Barnaby Rudge.’

[197] Lord Mansfield’s impartiality at the trial was the subject of general admiration. “He never shewed the slightest tinge of resentment or bias.” Yet with his house were destroyed not only much valuable property, but a mass of private journals and letters, which he had been collecting to form the basis of memoirs of his own times, and the loss of which was quite irreparable.

[198] This position may well be questioned. Vide vol. ii. cap. i.

[199] The Right Honourable Charles Jenkinson was created Lord Hawkesbury in 1787, and made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, as well as President of the Board of Trade. He was an authority in all mercantile and commercial affairs.