nine deep, and six broad. High up, in each cell, is a small window, doubly grated. The doors are four inches thick. The strong stone wall is lined; and altogether these cells present to the eye of the offender an overwhelming appearance of strength. Escape from them was never known. The mind dwells with horror-yet not without interest—on the memories which hang about these silent cells and sombre corridors. How sad the tales which those few half-obliterated scratches on the walls suggest! (The same vanities, it should be said, which lead our travelled countrymen to scratch their names on the faces of the pyramids, or on the walls of St. Peter's, induce their criminal brethren to leave a record of themselves, even on the lining of a condemned cell.) How different the emotions they call forth!-different as the characters of the men who have occupied them. Here, in this cell, lay the wretched Dr. William Dodd "Alike through wisdom and through folly blind ” until the day of his awful death. It was while he lay here that Johnson wrote to him, and for him, those affecting letters, and made in his behalf those efforts, which make so noble an episode in the literary history of that period. Poor Dodd was dealt with in a barbarous spirit: as Johnson said, "his crime had no deep dye of turpitude; it corrupted no man's principles; it attacked no man's life; it involved only a temporary and repairable injury.” But the king was deaf to every appeal of mercy: it was a spirit which he had formally repudiated on his accession to the throne: and the poor forger, who had no criminal intent, was hanged at Tyburn. Forfeit his life was to the law, as it then stood- -a wicked law-but still in force. Punishment he deserved, and should have suffered, for his offence was great, particularly in a commercial country; but not death. The gallows raised him into a popular martyr people wept over his wretched verses, and thought them divine because he had written them; and ladies carried his portrait about with them in their bosoms as an amulet. Such is the usual effect of a severity at which the sense of justice revolts! Here it was that the famous Protestant leader, Lord George Gordon-a religious Quixote, whose mob riots have been referred to as described in the "Thrale Correspondence," and on whose story Charles Dickens has built his "Barnaby Rudge" died of the gaol distemper in 1793. The unfortunate Thistlewood, and the partners of his imputed criminal design, occupied these cells after their removal from the Tower. They were executed in the open space in front of the prison-the last time the gallows has been erected in London for purely political crimes. They were hung with every indignity which malice and triumphant fear could invent or thrust upon them. After execution, a common body-snatcher was hired for twenty guineas to cut off their heads. The assembled multitudes beheld this act of wanton and unnecessary vengeance with abhorrence and disdain. Here follows a list, copied out of the gaol records, of the chief offenders of the criminal class who have been confined in Newgate for the last fifty years : James Hadfield, for about September, 1802. shooting at George III. Acquitted as insane. John Bellingham, for the murder of Mr. Perceval, in the lobby of the House of Commons. June, 1812. John Cashman, for riots in London. Executed Executed opposite the door of the gunsmith's which had been broken open, March, 1817. Arthur Thistlewood, John Thomas Brunt, James Ings, William Davidson, Richard Tidd, for high treason. Executed May, 1820. Ann Norris, for robbing a man in Wentworthstreet, Whitechapel. Executed November, 1821. Henry Fauntleroy, the banker, for forgery on the Bank. Executed November, 1824. William Probert, the companion of John Thurtell, for horse-stealing. Executed March, 1825. Charles Thomas White, for arson. Executed January, 1827. Edward Gibbon Wakefield, for the abduction of Miss Turner. Imprisoned May, 1827. George Warner, alias Griffiths, for coining. Drawn on a sledge to the place of execution, July 1827. Mary Wittenbach, for poisoning her husband. Executed September, 1827. John Montgomery, known as Captain Montgo mery, for forging bank notes. &c. Poisoned himself the night before he was ordered for execution, July, 1828. Joseph Hunton, a well-known Quaker, for forgery. Executed December, 1828. Esther Hibner, for the murder of her apprentice. Executed March, 1829. Edward Martelly, Henry Jubilee Conway, for forgery. Executed July, 1829. Thomas Thomas Maynard, for forgery. The last execution for that offence, December, 1829. Peter James Bossey, for perjury. 1830. Pillory, June, John Smith, alias William Sapwell, for the murder of a policeman named John Long. Executed September, 1830. George John Davies, alias George Huntley; William Watts, alias Charles Williams; for piratically stealing a vessel on the high sea. Executed December, 1830. This execution took place at Execution the last there. Dock George Widgett, for stealing fifty sheep. The last execution for that offence, May, 1831. John Bishop, Thomas Williams, alias Head, called the burkers, for the murder of an Italian boy. Executed December, 1831. Elizabeth Ross, alias Cook, for burking Catherine Welch. Executed January, 1832. John Barrett, for stealing a post-letter containing property. The last execution for that offence, February, 1832. Jonathan Smithies, for arson and murder. Executed July, 1832. Thomas Altrell, for robbery by threats only five shillings was obtained. Executed February, 1833. John Pegsworth, for the murder of John Ready. Executed March, 1837. William Jordan, Thomas Sullivan, for customhouse robbery. Transported. James Greenacre, for the murder of Hannah Brown. Executed May, 1837. Thomas Williams, for forging a will. Acquitted May, 1838. Emanuel Moses, well known as Money Moses, for gold-dust robbery. Transported June, 1839. William John Marchant, for the murder of Elizabeth Poynton, a fellow-servant. Executed July, 1839. George Willis, for the murder of Sergeant Shepherd, by shooting him on the Parade at Woolwich. Executed at Maidstone. François Benjamin Courvoisier, for the murder of Lord William Russell. Executed July, 1840. Edward Oxford, for shooting at Her Majesty. Acquitted as insane, July, 1840. Robert Blakesley, for the murder of James Burdon, his brother-in-law. Executed November, 1841. Edward Beaumont Smith, for forging a large amount of exchequer bills. Transported November, 1841. Job John Ward, for the murder of an infant, his |