There are here deposited the leg-irons worn by the celebrated burglar and prison-breaker, Jack Sheppard, consisting of an iron bar about an inch and a half thick and fifteen inches long.
At each end are connected heavy irons for the legs, about an inch in diameter, which were clasped with strong iron rivets.
In the middle of the cross-bar is an iron chain, consisting of three large links to fasten round the body. We found these irons to weigh about twenty pounds.
There is also in this cupboard a “fac simile” of the heavy leg-irons of Dick Turpin, the celebrated highwayman, who plays a conspicuous part in Mr. Ainsworth’s celebrated romance, “Rookwood,” in which work “Turpin’s Ride to York” is not the least attractive feature.
The irons worn by Turpin consist of two iron hoops about an inch thick to clasp the ankle, and about five inches in diameter.
A ring goes through and connects with the iron clasp, which secures the ankle with a long link on each side, about ten inches in length, and about an inch in thickness.
These long links are connected with another circular link, by a chain passing through to fasten round the body. They are about thirty-seven pounds in weight.
It was a saying in the olden time when any body wanted to be extremely bitter, “I shall live to see you double-ironed in Newgate.”
But criminals are not so frequently manacled in the present day beyond wearing handcuffs, when it is deemed necessary for security, and in extreme cases in penal prisons by way of punishment for refractory conduct. Those, however, who work in gangs at Portland, Dartmoor, or elsewhere, are chained together, so that there should be no chance of escape. But men condemned to death are not now placed in irons as was the custom in such cases in former times.
There are, however, to be seen now at Newgate some of the old irons which were formally put on prisoners capitally convicted, which they were constrained to wear day and night till the morning of execution, when they were knocked off before they ascended the scaffold.