During the revolutionary war a French prison was erected on the moor, which has been transformed into an agricultural settlement for the poor. Part of the buildings are now occupied by a company established to extract naphtha from peat.
The prisons were commenced in 1806. They are built of granite found on the moor.
Two of the prisons, a row of houses for subordinate officers, and the chapel walls, were erected by French, whilst the interior of the chapel was fitted by American, prisoners, who received from Government a small gratuity for their labour.
At one period of the year as many as ten thousand prisoners were confined within the walls—the site of the prisons—which comprise a circular measurement of thirty acres, and is about one thousand four hundred feet above the sea. The mortality in the prison at Dartmoor is, therefore, from the healthiness of its situation, much less than any other town average.
Public attention has of late years been directed to this place in consequence of the prisoner Arthur Orton, or the “Claimant,” as he has been termed, undergoing penal servitude there.
On the morning upon which the convicts were to be removed from Preston Gaol four omnibuses were drawn up, and into these the batch of prisoners were conducted.
To say the truth, they did not present a particularly respectable appearance, cropped, shaven, and habited in prison clothes as they were; but this, after all, did not trouble them much.
The moment they left the walls of the prison every man in a short time became loquacious—the silent system was no longer in full force, and a certain amount of latitude was allowed; the men were permitted to talk and chatter as they liked, and it is easy to conceive that they did not fail to avail themselves of this privilege.
The omnibuses rumbled along the streets with their distinguished passengers, who looked through the windows in a curious inquiring manner. Their attention was very naturally directed to the contents bills of the morning papers displayed outside the news-vendors’ shops, every line of which was eagerly devoured.
The theatrical posters, too, displayed on the advertising stations of the clever and enterprising firm of Willing and Co. interested them in no small degree.