THE STORY OF NEWGATE.

Otago Witness, Issue 2914, 19 January 1910, Page 87

THE STORY OF NEWGATE.

A FASCINATING VOLUME. The story of Newgate and the Central Criminal Court has always a fascination for us. however i* may be presented. The meat criiCVes which have been unravelled at the Old Bailey and the great criminals who have appeared in the dock there make up a page of history which cannot be overlooked by any student ol human affairs. This storv is told in a volume m men has been compiled by Mr W. Eden Cooper. “The Central Criminal Court ot London: Being a Survey of the Histoiy of the Court, and of Newgate, the Fleet, and other Jails, etc. ’ London, Lyre and Spottiswcnde (Ltd.). The book is made un of a description of Newgate and the Old and of treatment of prisoners therein. The history of the criminal law is dealt with, and the punishments imposed by that law, and there is a chapter which treats of the methods of dealing with crime by magistrates and the police force. In his opening remarks Mr Cooper reviews these methods, and compares the ancient practice with the modern. And while the former was “utterly brutal and degrading.” he does not consider that presentday methods are beyond reproach. There is the question of widely unequal sentences for similar offences, and of “unduly severe and -ucious” sentences

which are sometimes imposed. As lor J the police force, Mr Cooper contrasts j the efficiency and purity of our present force with that of a hundred years ago, when “false swearing- and conspiracy to obtain convictions were matters of everyday occurrence.” But even now, lie goes on to say, unceasing vigilance is required to keep the force up to a high level. He quotes the remark of a detective officer, that the police “can put it in light, or can put it in heavy,” and the admission that it is always safe to arrest a once-convicted man on suspicion. The towers of the “New Gate” were used j as a, prison from toe time of King John or earlier. According to Stow the jail was “re-edified” in 1422, under a license granted to the executors of Richard Whittington. The records of the city contain references of committals to Newgate an i far hack as 1218. This prison stood until it was burnt down in the great fire of 1656. It was rebuilt “most strong and convenient for the purpose.” But it did not remain “convenient” for long, and the first .stone of a new prison was laid in 1770. It was scarcely finished before its interior was destroyed by the “Nopopery” rioters in 1780. As a place of punishment it continued to exist until 1856, when it wan turned into a place of detention for prisoners committed for trial. In 1877 it ceased to be used for this purpose, and was only used as the place where criminals who had been sentenced to death awaited execution. Finally, it made way for our new Palace of Justice, and its grim grey walls were seen no more. The account which Mr Cooper gives of Newgate Prison makes very painful reading. For centuries it was a bonce of detention for prisoners before trial, a place of punishment, a jail for debtors, and a lunatic asylum. There does not seem to have been the slightest attempt made to separate the different classes of prisoners. And the severity of their treatment depended on the exiguity of their purses. In ether words, those who could pay escaped any punishment beyond the mere fact of being unable to leave Newgate. The prison officials were paid by fees, and they carried on a system of organised blackmail on the prisoners. The prison itself was a regular sink of vice and iniquity. The prisoners could purchase aill the drink they liked. Young and old. hardened criminals and mere children, lunatics and debtors were all herded together indiscriminately, with, as may be well imagined, the most awful results. At every sessions criminals in scores were sentenced to death, and the “death sermon’- in the prison chapel was an almost weekly occurrence. It was a favourite place for sightseers, who used to attend ' the service and watch the poor wretches herded in the “condemned pew ’ round a table on which was placed a black coffin’. Young children sometimes passed through this ordeal, and Mr Cooper gives an instance so lately as 1833. when sen-| fence of death was passed on a child of nine, who yioked a stick through a pane of glass in a chop front, and stole some pieces of paint worth 2d. This was housebreaking, and the penalty for housebreaking was death. After some official delay the l sentence was commuted, and the child sent to a penitentiary. Punishments in the old days were of the most revolting character. Boiling for poisoners, burning for “petit treason ” and heresy, and hanging, drawing, and quartering for treason, were some of its forms. The awful scenes outside Newgate during the days of public executions are fresh in the minds of many now living. Until the middle of the eighteenth * century prisoners who refused to plead were pressed to death with heavy weights. Mr Cooper quotas from the records of the old days when prisoners were transported to show the horrors of our criminal code less than 100 years ago. In 1829 one ship took 100 convicts to New South Wales for such offences as —Stealing an apron, life ; stealing bacon, life : stealing 21b of potatoes, 14 years.; stealing a pair of shoes, 14 years. From these horrors we can turn with pleasure and relief to our newer, better, and more humane methods of treating crime. Newgate has gone—Borstal remains. And a word 1 must be said of the work of the noble men and women whom Mr Cooper mentions, and who did so much to reform cur prison methods. — Chronicle.