security, without sentinels, without trepidation, as men lawfully employed in full day."

When poor Lord George Gordon was sent to the Tower, and peace was restored to the city, it was determined to rebuild Newgate on a larger but similar design to the old prison. No plan could have been worse, as Howard pointed out at the time; but civic wisdom is given up to a habit of measureless contentment with itself. The elevations and general designs were furnished by George Dance, architect of the Mansion-house, and the first stone was laid on the 31st of May, 1770, by the famous Alderman Beckford, father of the still more famous author of "Vathek." The works went on very slowly until the fire destroyed the old gaol in 1780, when they proceeded much faster, and were soon completed.

But in spite of the rebuilding-in spite of all the reforms suggested by Howard-Newgate continued, and continues, down to our own day, one of the worst hot-beds of vice and moral disease in London. A single remark will suggest the whole train of evils which lingered about it. A report made to the House of Commons in 1814 thus speaks of the duties of the chaplain, the well-known Dr. Forde :"Beyond his attendance in chapel and on those who are sentenced to death, Dr. Forde feels but few duties attached to his office. He knows nothing of the state of morals in the prison; he never sees any of the prisoners in private; though fourteen boys and girls, from nine to fourteen years old, were in Newgate in April last, he does not consider attention to

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them a point of his duty. He never knows that any have been sick till he gets a warning to attend their funeral; and does not go to the infirmary, for it is not in his instructions!"

One of the last persons of note confined in Newgate for an offence purely literary, was Sir John, then Mr. Hobhouse, who was sent here in 1820 for his pamphlet called "The Trifling Mistake ;" and Byron's prophecy, that "having foamed himself into a reformer, he would subside into Newgate," literally came to pass. With more earnestness than prudence, the young liberal told the gentlemen of the House of Commons in this unfortunate production, if they did not hasten to reform themselves, the people would walk into the House one fine morning, and throw them all into the Thames. He lived in the governor's rooms, and in splendid style, as many reformers of that period still living will recollect. But let us enter :

Up the narrow steps, into the turnkey's room, and along a darkish passage, we come into a small open court, surrounded by high walls, between which a scanty supply of air and light finds its way downwards as into a well. Facing us stands a massive building, chary of windows, and those strongly grated: it is the women's wing of the prison. The matron is called-an intelligent woman-and as soon as the ponderous locks are turned, and the heavy bars removed, we enter the doorway, and ascend the stone staircase. Suites of chambers branch off on either side; these are occupied by the

prisoners who are awaiting trial. An attempt is made to classify them according to their degrees of guiltiness; but practically this is of little use, as the matron can only judge of the detenue's grade from her own statements, or from the offence with which she stands charged. These must often be fallacious. Little or no employment is found for them; and it sometimes unavoidably happens that the poor servant girl is sent here, falsely accused of some petty theft, and shut up with the most abandoned of her sex, with nothing to do for days; with no resource, no means to kill the time, except by listening to corrupting stories, and to the conversation of her degraded companions. If she were not a thief, a profligate, before, she will soon learn to be one here. Surely this is wrong. If there be a necessity, at any time, of endeavouring to prevent contamination in gaol, this necessity must certainly exist in respect to persons unconvicted of crime, and who therefore may be innocent. Before a woman or man-the case is morally the same for both-is proved to have violated the law, it is illegal, as well as immoral, to punish her; so that her safety is secured, the law has no further hold upon her. This security of the person of the law-breaker must, of course, be obtained at any price. But any privation, any wrong inflicted upon him not absolutely necessary to this end, is a piece of unwarrantable tyranny and cruelty. To force the possibly innocent man to herd with the lowest felons-to compel the young girl to live and sleep in the same room with the shameless prostitute

-can surely promote none of the ends of justice. The system can produce nothing but evil; and it does indeed seem monstrous that a government which has proved itself so anxious to separate convicts from each other for fear of mutual contamination, should suffer, in Newgate, the most notorious criminals to associate, unrestrained, with persons as yet unconvicted! Society can never make reparation to its innocent member for his or her immurement in Newgate. In such a place the heart becomes tainted in spite of itself. Felon and lascivious thoughts are daily, hourly forced upon it. Vices undreamt of become familiar to it. The mind must be more than human that could come out of the companionship of Newgate as pure as it entered in.

Pass we now through several rooms and corridors to the quadrangle occupied by the males. As we traverse these passages, we note the iron character of the building. It is, indeed, built as if its architect had had but one object in view-strength. And this he certainly obtained, though at the expense of almost every other desirable quality for a prison. It is dark, close, confined; and, in despite of the scrupulous cleanliness preserved in every part, foul smells are not unfrequently met with in its lobbies, such as recall the Newgate of the time of Howard. The great fault is the want of room; the height of the walls and the narrowness of the courts giving to the so-called airing-yards the appearance of wells, rather than open spaces. Air and light are, in consequence, less plentiful than they should be; and

the observation of Howard, "that without more than ordinary care, the prisoners will be in great danger of the gaol fever," is as applicable to the Newgate of the present day as it was seventy-five years ago.

Formerly the wards of part of this prison were occupied by debtors. This practice has been discontinued; and it has now very few inmates except such as are awaiting trial or punishment-the exceptions being persons convicted of assaults or offences on the high seas. The average number of prisoners in the year is about 3,000. Just after the termination of the sessions of the Central Criminal Court it is, of course, nearly empty, its inmates having been tried, and either acquitted or removed to the gaols where their sentences are to be endured; but it gradually begins to fill again as the next assize draws nigh, when its inmates usually number about 500. After trial, the convicts are sent off to the prisons or penitentiaries to which they are committed-the short terms to the houses of correction, the transports to Millbank. Those sentenced capitally are taken at once from the court to the condemned cells-not to leave them again, except for chapel, till the last moment. The condemned cells are built in the oldest part of the prison-at the back. There are fifteen of them in all; five on each of the three floors. The port-holes in Newgate-street let light into the galleries, into which the cell doors open; and the man confined in the farthest dungeon on the ground-floor is within a yard of the passer-by. All the death-cells are vaulted, and about nine feet high,