Chapter IX: Later Records

Latest cases of escape--Charles Thomas White--John Williams--Henry
Williams--Other attempts frustrated--Bell, Brown, and Barry escape
together--Krapps the sailor--The last case on
record--Suicides--Latest executions--Some account of Calcraft and
Marwood--Public executions continue, but much reprehended--The
crowd at the 'Flowery Land' executions--Prices paid for seats--The
same at Müller's--'Times'' account of that execution--Efforts to
make executions private in gaols--Royal commission--Mr. Hibbert's
bill--- The Fenian Barrett's, last public execution at
Newgate--First private one, that of Alexander Mackay--Private
executions not popular with Newgate officials--Some account, by
them, of the demeanour of murderers--Wainwright--Catherine
Wilson--Kate Webster.

The old notion always prevailed that Newgate was impregnable, so to speak, from within, and that none of its inmates could hope to escape from its secure precincts. Yet the gaol, in spite of its fortress-like aspect, was by no means really safe. Year after year prisoners determined to get free, and occasionally succeeded in their efforts. The inspectors' reports mention many cases of evasion accomplished. There were others less successful. Charles Thomas White, awaiting execution for arson, made a desperate effort to escape from Newgate in 1827. He had friends and auxiliaries inside the gaol and out. The cell he occupied was near the outer wall, and had he but been able to remove its iron bars, he might have descended into Newgate Street by means of a rope ladder. The ladder was actually made, of black sewing-thread firmly and closely interwoven. But White could not remove the bars; the instruments needed for the purpose never reached him. It was noticed that he was most anxious to receive a pair of shoes for which he had asked, and when they arrived they were closely examined. Sewn in between the upper and lower leathers several spring saws were found, which would have easily cut through any bars. White, when taxed with his attempt, admitted that the accusation was true, and spoke "with pride and satisfaction of the practicability of his scheme."

There is an attempt at escape mentioned in Mr. Wakefield's book, which might have been an intended suicide. John Williams, a young fellow only twenty-three years of age, awaited execution in 1827 for stealing in a dwelling-house. On the very morning on which he was to suffer he eluded the vigilance, such as it was, of his officers, and climbed up the pipe of a cistern in the corner of the press yard; some thought with the idea of drowning himself. He never reached the cistern, but fell back into the yard, injuring his legs severely. Although his execution was imminent, a surgeon attended to his wounds, and he was carried more dead than alive to the scaffold. A harrowing scene followed; the wounds broke open and bled profusely while the last dread penalty was being performed, to the manifest excitement and indignation of the crowd.

A more daring and skilful escape was effected in 1836 by the chimney-sweep Henry Williams, who, while detained in the press-yard as a capital convict, under sentence of death for burglary, managed to get away in the very same spot where his namesake had nine years before so miserably failed. Escape seemed absolutely hopeless, and would certainly have been impossible to any one less nimble than a chimney-sweep, trained under the old system to ascend the most intricate flues. Even after Williams had got out, persons were disposed to disbelieve that the escape had been accomplished in the manner indicated; they preferred to credit it to carelessness or collusion from officers of the gaol. Yet from the circumstantial account given by Williams after recapture, there can be little doubt that he got away as will be described. Williams as a capital convict was lodged in the press-yard or condemned ward. He had access to the airing yard, and there was for hours no kind of supervision. In one corner of the airing yard stood a cistern at some height from the ground; the wall beneath and above it was "rusticated," in other words, the granite surface had become roughened, and offered a sort of foothold. About fifty feet from the ground level, and above the cistern, a revolving chevaux-de-frise of iron was fixed, with only a short interval between it and the wall, supported by a horizontal iron railing with upright points; in the wall above the chevaux-de-frise projected a series of iron spikes sharp enough to forbid further ascent. Williams surveyed these formidable obstacles to evasion, and calmly proceeded to surmount them. His first task was to gain the top of the cistern; this he effected by keeping his back to one side of the angle, and working with his hands behind him, while he used his bare feet like claws upon the other side of the wall angle. The condition of the stone surface just mentioned assisted him in this, and he managed to get beyond the cistern to the railing below the chevaux-de-frise. The least slip now would have been fatal to him. But he could not thrust his body in through the narrow space left by the chevaux-de-frise, and was compelled to work along the railing round three-quarters of the square of the yard, and at length reached a point opposite the top of the building containing the condemned wards. This had been a perilous and painful task; the spikes of the railing penetrated his flesh and made progression slow and difficult. But the worst part of the business was to jump from this irksome foothold of the iron grating on to the top of the building just mentioned, a distance of eight or nine feet. He had here completed his ascent. His next job was to descend outside Newgate. Clambering along the roof, he passed to the top of the ordinary's residence, hoping to find an open sky-light by which he might enter and so work downstairs. If the worst came to the worst, he intended to have gone down some chimney, as he had often done before in the way of business. But he did not like the risk of entering a room by the fireplace, and the chances of detection it offered.

He traversed vainly all the roofs in Newgate Street, running a great risk of discovery as he passed by a lot of workmen at Tyler's manufactory in Warwick Square, which had formerly been the College of Physicians. As his coat was an incumbrance, he left it on the top of the third house in Newgate Street, and thus in shirt-sleeves, barefoot and bareheaded, he worked along to the roofs in Warwick Lane. Here he came upon a woman on the leads hanging out clothes to dry. Williams concealed himself behind a chimney till she had re-entered her garret, and then following her down a step ladder into the house, told his story, appealed to and won her compassion. She suffered him to pass downstairs. Below he met another woman and a girl, both of whom were terrified at his appearance, but when he explained that he was running away from the gallows they left him the road clear. To walk out into the street was an easy affair, and he was now free, with one and fourpence in his pocket and a shirt and trousers for all his clothing. Denied admission everywhere as a ragged, half-naked beggar, he tramped across London Bridge to Wandsworth, where he refreshed himself with a pint of strong ale, the first sustenance he had taken since his escape, and continued his march to Kingston, where he slept soundly under a hedge till next morning. Entering a town, he obtained employment at once as a chimney-sweep from a widow woman, who gave him "bub and grub," or food and one-and-sixpence, for every nine days' work. Dissatisfied with this remuneration, he again took to the road, and tramped into Hampshire, where he presently committed a burglary at Lymington, was caught, and lodged in Winchester Gaol. Mr. Cope, the governor of Newgate, having been communicated with, proceeded to Winchester, where he at once identified Williams.

The success, although very short-lived, which attended him, no doubt inspired other inmates of Newgate to follow his example. It was for some time after this a constant practice to go up the chimneys in the hopes of escaping by the flue. Even then, however, irons across barred the ascent after a certain distance, and in no one case did a fugitive get clear away. A man named Lears, under sentence of transportation for an attempt at murder on board ship, got up part of the way, but had to come down again covered with soot and filth just as the officers entered the ward. Lears was rewarded by being obliged to wear cross irons on his legs, a punishment rarely inflicted in Newgate, and probably one of the few cases of a recurrence, but under proper safeguards and limitations, to the old system of chains. On another occasion Mr. Cope the governor came in and missed a man. The ward was one short of its number. What had become of the fellow? No one would answer. It was summer-time, and the grate was empty, but the governor promptly ordered a fire to be lighted. The effect was nearly instantaneous; the fugitive, uncomfortably ensconced in the flue, came down of his own accord, like Colonel Colt's racoon. After this great iron guards, just as are to be seen in lunatic asylums, were fixed over the fireplaces, and the prisoners had no longer access to the chimneys.

Among the escapes still remembered was one in 1849, accomplished by a man who had been employed working at the roof of the chapel on the female side. He was engaged in whitewashing and cleaning; the officer who had him in charge left him on the stairs leading to the gallery. Taking advantage of being unobserved, he got out through the roof on to the leads, and travelled along them towards No. 1, Newgate Street. This was a public-house. He stepped in at a garret window, coolly walked downstairs, and entered the bar. They asked him how he had cut his hand, which was bleeding, and he said he had done it while working up on the roof. No further notice was taken of him; no one seemingly suspected that he was a prisoner, and he was suffered to walk off without let or hindrance.

In 1853 three men escaped in company from one of the wards in the middle yard. They were penal servitude men, their names Bell, Brown, and Barry, and they were awaiting transfer to Leicester, which with Wakefield was utilized as a receptacle for convicts not going to Western Australia, or any of the new establishments at home, at Portland, Dartmoor, or elsewhere. These men managed to cut a hole in the ceiling of the ward near the iron cage[119] on the landing, and so got access to the roof. At that time rope mats were still used as beds. One of the three, shamming ill, remained all day in his ward, where he employed himself unravelling the rope from the sleeping-mats. By evening he manufactured a good long length, and after all was quiet the three got on to the roof through the hole, and so on to Tyler's manufactory close by, whence they let themselves down into the street by the rope. These men were all in prison dress at the time of their escape, but one of their number, Bell, sent back his clothes a few days later by parcel's delivery, with a civil note to the governor, saying he had no further use for them. All three fugitives were recaptured, Brown almost at once; then Barry, who was taken at the East End in a public-house where he had arranged to meet a pal. The Newgate officers obtained information of this, and went to the spot, where they effected the capture, but not till they had had an exciting chase down the street. The third, Bell, remained longest at large. He too was run into at a lodging in the Kingsland Road. The officers dropped on to him while he was still in bed, but as they came upstairs he jumped up and hid in a cupboard. All three after recapture passed on, as originally intended, to Leicester, where they did their "bit"[120] and were released; but only to be taken soon afterwards for a fresh offence, and again pass through Newgate with sentences of penal servitude.

A later case was still more remarkable, as it was effected after the alteration of the prison and its reconstruction on the newest lines. A sailor, Krapps by name, occupied one of the upper cells in the new block. The doors, through incomplete knowledge of prison needs, were not, as now, sheeted with iron. The prisoner had nothing to deal with but wooden panels, and by dint of cutting and chopping he got both the lower panels out. Through the aperture he crept out on to the landing at the dead of night, and so down into the central space of the building. Under superior orders all the doors and gates of this block were left open at night, to allow the night watchman to pass freely to all parts. This was considered safer than intrusting him with keys. Krapps walked at once into the yard and across to the female side, where he found some of the washing still hanging out to dry. He made a strong rope with several of the sheets; then, returning to the male yard, got hold of the step ladder used in lighting the gas, and which under our more careful supervision would have been, as now-a-days, chained up. Cutting the cord which fastened the two legs of the step ladder, he opened them out and made one long length; with this, placed against the wall near the chevaux-de-frise, he made an escalade. The top of the wall was gained without difficulty. Along this Krapps crawled, and then dropped down on to the cook-house. He now put in requisition the rope made of the sheets, and with its help lowered himself into the street. Down below were market-carts waiting for daylight, and among them Krapps found a refuge and friends. The first intimation of his escape was afforded by the police, who informed the prison authorities next day that a rope was hanging down from the cook-house roof. Nothing more was heard of Krapps. The curious thing in his case was that his offence was a trifling one; he was still untried, but would almost certainly have escaped with a minor penalty, say of three or four months' imprisonment. There is, however, no explanation of the motives which prompt prisoners to attempt escapes. Cases well authenticated have been known of men who had all but completed their sentences, and for whom the prison gates would open within a few days, who yet faced extraordinary risks to advance their enlargement by only a few hours. On the other hand, at the great convict establishments, such is the moral restraint of a systematic discipline, that numbers of men, "lifers," and others with ten, fourteen, or twenty years to do, can be trusted to work out of doors without bolts and bars at a distance from the prison.

The last escape from Newgate was only three years ago, and occurred just before the final closing of the prison. No report of it was made public, as the man was almost immediately recaptured. He was at work under the supervision of the artisan warder of the prison, who permitted him to go up on to the roof of the old wards, in order to throw water for flushing purposes down a shoot. He was out of sight while so employed, and remained so long absent that the warder, becoming uneasy, went in search of him. He had disappeared. Encouraged by the shouts and signals of some workmen employed on a building outside, the prisoner made one of the most marvellous jumps on record, from the building he was on to a distant wall, with a drop of sixty feet between. Then he ran along the coping of the wall towards its angle with Tyler's manufactory, and dropped down on to the gridiron below. This was not strong enough to carry him, and he fell through.

Suicides and executions were, however, always the most effectual methods of making exit from durance. Suicides at Newgate were numerous enough, but they seldom possessed any novel or unusual features; prison suicides seldom do, except as regards ingenuity and determination. Only great resolution indeed, persisted in to the bitter end, would make death a certainty, so limited and imperfect are the means generally available. When a bit of rope carefully secreted, braces, shoe-strings, shirt torn into strips are the only instruments, and a bar or small hook at no elevation affords the only drop, strangulation would seldom supervene but for the resolution of the miserable _felo de se_. One curious instance of a suicide carried out under the most adverse and extraordinary circumstances may be quoted. It was that of a "Long Firm" swindler, by name Johnson, who contrived to hang himself from a hammock hook only eighteen inches from the ground. The noose was one of his hammock straps, which he buckled round his throat. Having carefully spread out a blanket on the floor just below the hammock as it lay suspended, he fastened one end of the strap above mentioned to the hook, and then fell down. He might have saved himself at any moment by merely extending an arm; but he lay there patiently till death supervened. When discovered next morning, quite dead, it was found that the strap actually did not touch his throat; three fingers might have been inserted between it and the flesh; the pressure was all on the arteries behind the ears, and surgical opinion stated that the stoppage of circulation was the cause of death. Probably dissolution came as easily and almost without pain.

A laudable desire to invest executions with more and more solemnity and decorum gained ground as they became more rare. As more humane principles were introduced into prison management, greater attention was paid to the capital convicts, and the horrors of their situation while awaiting sentence were as far as possible mitigated and toned down. But there was little improvement in the ceremony itself. There were still untoward accidents occasionally at executions, and even the chief practitioner of recent times, Calcraft, was not always to be trusted to do his fell work efficiently.

Having mentioned Calcraft's name, I may be permitted to digress for a moment to give a few particulars concerning the last officially appointed hangman of the city of London. After Calcraft's resignation no successor was really appointed. Marwood, whose name is so familiar with the present generation, had no official status, and was merely an operator selected by the Corporation, and who, on the strength of it, contracted with sheriffs and conveners to work by the job. But Calcraft regularly succeeded Foxen, who followed Botting, and Dennis, the actor in the 1780 riots. Calcraft was born at Baddow, in Essex, in 1800; he was a shoemaker by trade, and settled in London after his marriage in 1825. The story goes, that about 1828 his attention was drawn early one morning to a man who leant against a lamp-post in Finsbury Square, coughing violently. Calcraft, who, in spite of the dreadful calling he subsequently followed, was always reputed a kindly man, invited the man with the cough to enter a neighbouring house and try a little peppermint for it. The other accepted, and they got into conversation. He told Calcraft that he was Foxen the executioner, and that he was that moment on his way to Newgate to hang a man, but that his cough was getting so much the master of him that he feared he would not be able to carry on his duties much longer. "I have no idea who the sheriffs will get to do the work after me," said Foxen, adding that his assistant, Tom Cheshire, was given to drink, and not to be trusted. "I think I could do that sort of job," said Calcraft, on the spur of the moment. Foxen asked him his name and address, and went away. Calcraft thought no more of what had occurred till the next sessions at the Old Bailey, when the sheriffs sent for him, and offered him the post of executioner for the city of London and Middlesex. He accepted, having at first Tom Cheshire as his assistant, then for a time, when Cheshire was dismissed for drunkenness, a man named Osborne. After that he worked alone.

I cannot find that Calcraft was sworn in when appointed, or any exact information when the old forbidding ceremony ceased to be practised. It was customary to make the executioner take the Bible in his hand, and swear solemnly that he would despatch every criminal condemned to die, without favouring father or mother or any other relation or friend. When he had taken the oath he was dismissed with the words, "Get thee hence, wretch!"

Calcraft's emoluments were a guinea per week, and an extra guinea for every execution. He got besides half-a-crown for every man he flogged, and an allowance to provide cats or birch rods. For acting as executioner of Horsemonger Lane Gaol he received a retaining fee of £5 5_s._, with the usual guinea for each job; he was also at liberty to engage himself in the country, where he demanded and was paid £10 on each occasion. It was not always easy to get a hangman so cheap, as I have already indicated on a previous page. The onus and responsibility of carrying out the sentence is personal to the sheriff. A good story is told illustrating this. Some wags in Scotland seized Calcraft and kept him in durance the night before the execution. Meanwhile the convener or sheriff was in despair, expecting that, failing the executioner, he would have to do the job himself. But, fortunately for him, just at the last moment Calcraft was set free.

Calcraft's salary was more than the proverbial "thirteenpence halfpenny--hangman's wages." The origin of this expression dates, it is said, from the time when the Scottish mark, a silver coin bearing the same relation to the Scottish pound that an English shilling does to an English pound, was made to pass current in England. The mark was valued at thirteenpence halfpenny, or rather more than the shilling, which from time immemorial had been the hangman's wages. That very ancient perquisite the convict's clothes was never claimed by Calcraft, and it may be doubted whether he was entitled to it. On one particular occasion, however, he got them. A gentleman whose sins brought him to the gallows at Maidstone wished to do Calcraft a good turn, and sent to his London tailor for a complete new suit, in which he appeared at his execution. He expressly bequeathed them to Calcraft, who was graciously pleased to accept them. On another occasion an importunate person begged Calcraft eagerly to claim his right to the clothes, and give them to him. Calcraft consented, got and bestowed the clothes, only to find that the person he had obliged exhibited them publicly. It may be added that of late years the clothes in which a convict has suffered are invariably burnt. Capital convicts go to the gallows in their own clothing, and not in prison dress, unless the former is quite unfit to be worn.

Calcraft shared the odium which his office, not strangely, has always inspired. But he was admitted into the gaol, which his predecessors were not, and who were paid their wages over the gate to obviate the necessity for letting them enter. To this curious etiquette was due the appointment of an official whose office has long since disappeared, "the yeoman of the halter," whose business it was to provide the rope and do the pinioning, and who was paid a fee of five shillings. They did not dislike Calcraft, however, at Newgate. He was an illiterate, simple-minded man, who scarcely remembered what executions he had performed. He kept no record of them, and when asked questions, referred to the officers of the gaol. His nature must have been kindly. When he came to the prison for his wages his grand-children often accompanied him, affectionately clinging to his hands; and he owned a pet pony which would follow him about like a dog. In his own profession he was not unskilful, but he proceeded entirely by rule of thumb, leaving the result very much to chance and the strength of the rope. He was so much in favour of short drops that his immediate successor, Marwood, stigmatized him as a "short-drop" man; Marwood being, on the other hand, in favour of giving a man as much rope as possible. With Calcraft's method there were undoubtedly many failures, and it was a common custom for him to go below the gallows "just to steady their legs a little;" in other words, to add his weight to that of the hanging bodies. Marwood till latterly seemed to have done his work more effectually, and has been known to give as much as six feet fall. This generally produces instantaneous death, although cases where complete fracture of the spinal cord occurred are said to be rare.

Calcraft served the city of London till 1874, when he was pensioned at the rate of twenty-five shillings per week. The last execution at which he acted was that of Godwin, on the 25th May, 1874.

Marwood, who succeeded him, and who died while these sheets were in the press, was a Lincolnshire man, a native of Horncastle, who first took to the work from predilection, and the idea of being useful in his generation, as he himself assured the writer of these pages. Until the time of his death he kept a small shop close to the church in Horncastle. Over the door, in gilt letters, were the words "Crown Office"; in the window was a pile of official envelopes, ostentatiously displayed, while round about were shoe-strings, boot-laces, and lasts. Marwood, strange to say, followed the same trade as Calcraft. Marwood was proud of his calling, and when questioned as to whether his process was satisfactory, replied that he heard "no complaints." The strange competition amongst hundreds to succeed Marwood is a strange fact too recently before the public to need mention here. It may, however, be remarked that the wisdom of appointing any regular hangman is very open to question, and must be strongly deprecated on moral grounds, as tending to the utter degradation of one individual. Possibly such changes may be introduced into the method of execution that the ceremony may be made more mechanical, thus rendering the personal intervention of a skilled functionary unnecessary.

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. These increased as time passed. The graphic and terrible account given by Charles Dickens of the awful scene before Horsemonger Lane Gaol, at the execution of the Mannings, has already been quoted. Again, the concourse of people collected in front of Newgate to witness the execution, simultaneously, of the five pirates, part of the mutinous crew of the 'Flowery Land,' was greater than on any previous occasion. It was a callous, careless crowd of coarse-minded, semi-brutalized folk, who came to enjoy themselves. Few, if any, showed any feeling of terror, none were impressed with the solemnity, or realized the warning which the sight conveyed. The upturned faces of the eager spectators resembled those of the 'gods' at Drury Lane on Boxing Night; the crowd had come to witness a popular and gratuitous public performance--better than a prize-fight or a play. No notion that they were assisting at a vindication of the law filled the minds of those present with dread. On the contrary, the prevailing sentiment was one of satisfaction at the success of the spectacle. The remarks heard amongst the crowd were of coarse approval. "S'help me, ain't it fine?" one costermonger was heard to exclaim to his companion. "Five of them, all darkies in a row!" The reply evinced equal satisfaction, and the speaker, with a profane oath, declared that he would like to act as Jack Ketch to the whole lot.

To the disgrace of the better-educated and better-bred public, executions could still command the attendance of curious aristocrats from the West End. At Müller's execution there was great competition for front seats, and the windows of the opposite houses, which commanded a good view, as usual fetched high prices. As much as £25 was paid for a first-floor front on this occasion. Never, indeed, had an execution been more generally patronized. This is proved by contemporary accounts, especially one graphic and realistic article which appeared in the 'Times,' and which contributed in no small degree to the introduction of private executions. A great crowd was expected, and a great crowd came. They collected over night in the bright light of a November moon. "There were well-dressed and ill-dressed, old men and lads, women and girls." Rain fell heavily at intervals, but did not thin the concourse. "Till three o'clock it was one long revelry of songs and laughter, shouting, and often quarrelling, though, to do them mere justice, there was at least till then a half-drunken ribald gaiety among the crowd that made them all akin." There were preachers among the crowd, but they could not get a patient hearing. Then one struck up the hymn of the Promised Land, and the refrain was at once taken up with a mighty chorus--

"Oh, my!
Think I've got to die."

This was presently superseded by a fresh catch--

"Müller, Müller,
He's the man";

till a diversion was created by the appearance of the gallows, which was received with continuous yells. As day broke the character of the crowd was betrayed. There were but few women, except of the most degraded sort; the men were mostly young men--"sharpers, thieves, gamblers, betting men, the outsiders of the boxing ring, bricklayers' labourers, dock workmen, German artisans and sugar-bakers, ... with the rakings of cheap singing-halls and billiard-rooms, the fast young men of London. But all, whether young or old, men or women, seemed to know nothing, feel nothing, to have no object but the gallows, and to laugh, curse, or shout, as in this heaving and struggling forward they gained or lost in their strong efforts to get nearer where Müller was to die." The actual execution made some impression. The crowd was for a moment awed and stilled by the quiet rapid passage from life to death! But before "the slight slow vibrations of the body had well ended, robbery and violence, loud laughing, oaths, fighting, obscene conduct, and still more filthy language reigned round the gallows far and near. Such too the scene remained with little change or respite till the old hangman (Calcraft) slunk again along the drop, amid hisses and sneering inquiries of what he had had to drink that morning. He, after failing once to cut the rope, made a second attempt more successfully, and the body of Müller disappeared from view."[121]

It was preposterous to claim for such a scene as this that it conveyed any great moral lesson, or had any deterring influence. Numbers of humane and thoughtful persons had long been convinced of this. 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 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; so did Mr. Spencer Walpole, M.P. Sir George Grey thought there was a growing feeling in favour of executions within the prison precincts. Colonel (now Sir Edmund) Henderson was strongly in favour of them, based on his experience of them 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 abuse, 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 was 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 quite 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 villanies 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,[122] 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 language the most appalling. The man Marley[123] 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. The man, Bousfield, however, whose execution was so sadly bungled,[124] made a determined effort to burn himself to death by throwing himself bodily on to the fire in the condemned ward. He was promptly rescued from his perilous condition, but not before his face and hands were badly scorched. They were still much swollen when he was led out to execution. 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.