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INTRO DUCTO RY. EADERS of C harles Di cken s must all have remarked the deep and abiding interest he took in that grim accessory to civili zati on the . not , prison He only went jail hunt n ff i g whenever opportunity o ered, but made a of profound study the rules, practices , and in f . abuses o these institutions Penology was , one of and of fact, his hobbies, some the most powerful passages in his books are those which have thei r scene of ‘ action laid within the f shadow o the gaol . It was this fact which led to the compilation of the papers comprised i n the present volume . The writer had been a student of Dickens from the days when the publication of his in novels serial form was a periodical event . f When he first visited England , many o the n h la dmarks whic the novelist had, in a manner, s in made hi torical , were still existence, but of the principal prisons which figure in his wo rks Newgate was the only one which existed in t u r i v Ez rod cto y. i Th any approx mation to its integrity . e ’ Fleet and the King s Bench were entirely swept away ; of the Marshalsea only a few buildings remained , converted to ordinary ‘ I n hi . t s uses country, however, the two jails which interested him, still remain , with cer tain changes that do not impair their general conformance to his descriptions . of These papers , therefore, consist personal knowledge, as a voluntary visitor, be it under stood of Newgate . The Tombs in New York, and the Eastern District Penitentiary i n Philadelphia, s upplemented by references to F r and . o the records the Fleet, Marshalsea, the Kings Bench, the writer is indebted to chronicles and descriptions of Peter Cunning in ham , John Timbs , Leigh Hunt, and other geni o us and interesting historians of the Lon ” d f on o the early Victorian era . In connection with the paper relating to the Eastern Dis tri ct o f Penitentiary Philadelphia, his thanks are due for the assistance and information rendered by Mr . Michael J . Cassidy, the War den . ALFRED TRUMBLE . New 1 6 York, March 89 . T ENT S C O N . H T R I C AP E . GA I O NEW TE W TH UT, A E I CH PT R I. NEWGATE WITHIN HAPTER III C . THE L P I ON F EET R S , CHAPTER IV . THE MARSHALSEA CHAPTER V . ’ THE KING S B N C E H, 134 CHAPTER V I . THE NEW YO K TOMB R S, CH APTER VII . ’ P ILAD LP IA BA IL H E H S ST E, Presented to the LIB RA RY of the UNIVERSITY O F T O RO NT O Vi c t o r i a. Un i v e r s i t y ( 511 gm with M arlee gimme. CHAPTER I . N W G I O U E ATE W TH T. EW GAT E was the first prison to whi ch Charles Dickens gave any literary atten tion . An account of a visit to it appears among “ ” the early Sketches by Boz . It is also the only on e of the London jails of which he has left us graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sket h o c es, which preserves t day so much of its original character as to be identifiable i n de f tail by the student o his works . The Fleet and ’ the King s Bench have disappeared . The Mar shal sea may only be recognized by slight sur v i v in g landmarks . But the sombre and sul len bulk of Newgate rears itself in the heart of London , a sinister monument to the horrors bred by a civilization rotten of its own over r - of ipeness, in the forcing bed the most mag In Jai l with ha rles ic ens 2 C D k . nifi cent , wonderful and monstrously terrible f h city o t eworld . If external gloom could exercise an influence to deter anyone from the commission of crime o f which it is a part of the penalty, Newgate a t would never have any inmates . Surrounded the time of my introductory visit to it, as an c a cidental but not legally involuntary visitor, - by low public houses, poor shops and a tumble and down market , all bearing the grime of age the e of marks of d cay, as if the frown the great jail had blighted them ; with the foul , miry a ew ate - l ne of N g street, and the scarcely cleaner Old Bailey, alive with muddy carts and shabby people, skulking roughs, draggled women and squalling children , no man who had no business there would care, once having seen it, to seek t o u . it again Being then new in London , I had been begriming myself among the old ’ books of St . Paul s Churchyard until I was tired and thirsty, and strolling along Ludgate Hill in u o f q est refreshment, turned into the second street I came to . A few steps more and I found myself stopping at another street corner to look at an immense and grim mass of gray i n fo stone toweringloftily the g, with little ut lVewgate Wi tho . 3 windows here and there along its frowning o wall . They were s small that they might have been mere spaces where the builders had for to o f had gotten put in a block granite, if it not been for the strong, rusty bars that crossed man o ut o f them . I asked a who came a public -house wiping his mouth on the back of H his hand what place that was . e stared at me i n and evident amazement for a minute, then of said, shortly, in an aggravated tone voice, poking a finger, still moist from his libation , at : it, like a dagger “ ew ate . N g , that is n in He went alo g, shaking his head a dubious at way and looking back several times me, clearly either suspicious of the genuineness o f o r my stupendous ignorance, unable to com prehend how anyone could be ignorant of the o f f m u il n d identity the a o s j a . I have o oubt f . In that it was vastly stupid o me fact, I ex peri en ced a certain feeling o f contempt for my and self, now that I knew what the place was , ; that it was the place of which I had read so much that I almost had its history by heart ; “ but after all , London is a very considerable ” sized town, as I once had a Chicago acquaint 4 In ail with harles ic e J C D k ns. ance n generously admit, and o e could scarcely to - i be expected know it like a guide book, w thin forty -eight hours after making first acquaint ance with its bitter beer, its bloody beef, and its beds into whose coverlids the essence of the fo g seemed to have penetrated , if, indeed, the n ot sheets were woven out of the fog itself . i n Newgate, its external appearance, at least, an is ideal prison . Its aspect, whether pur p osely o r through the adaptation of its con - s to . truction its uses, is thoroughly jail like in The few openings the walls, the empty blind niches, which might have been left there for statues of great felons never set up in them ; rv the entrance , with its festooned fetters ca ed i n stone a s an ornament to the gloomy and and a forbidding portal, all are appropriate to f o f significant part o it . Within a few feet where I stood when I viewed it first was the l spot where the scafi o d used to be put up . on of on e Here, the occasion an execution , as “ ” 52 liv er may read in Chapter of O Twist, the space before the prison was cleared, and a few strong barriers painted black thrown across of the road to break the pressure the crowd, while the morefavored portion of the audien ce t out Newga te Wi h . 5 of and occupied every post vantage, at windows housetops , that commanded a view of the ghast l h r y s ow . He e, as Oliver noted when he came away from his last interview with Fagin at the “ dawn of day : A great multitude had already assembled ; the windows were filled with people smoking and playing cards to beguile the time ; the i . crowd was pushing, quarreling and j ok ng on e Everything told of life and animation , but dark cluster of objects in the very centre of all - and the black stage, the crossbeam, the rope, all the hideous apparatus of death . Prisoners of old were executed on Tyburn o r Hill in public , on some occasions, when it an was especially desired to enforce example, as close as possible to the scene of guilt . Those who were punished for participation in the Gordon Riots of 1780 were swung ofi i n the va rious parts of the city where thei r crimes 1 3 n were committed . In 79 the commo places o f execution were changed to the Old Bailey, in front of Newgate .

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