The court-room is lighted by three large windows towards Newgate, and by three smaller sombre windows on the opposite side.
The deputy-governor of Newgate informed us, that all classes of heavy offences are tried at the Old Bailey Criminal Court, which is the highest in England. The prisoners are brought from the prison of Newgate and placed in cells under the courts, until they are called to the bar to be tried.
They are then brought into the dock to answer to the criminal charges brought against them. The indictments are read over to each of them, and they are asked by the clerk of the arraigns if they are guilty or not guilty. If they plead guilty, they are ordered in the meantime to stand back.
If they plead not guilty, they remain at the bar until all the pleas are taken of the other prisoners at the dock.
After this is done the jury are called into the jury-box, to proceed to investigate the different cases. The prisoners can object to the jurymen before being sworn.
If the prisoner at the bar is found guilty, he is sentenced by the judge, and removed to the prison. If he is declared not guilty, a discharge is written out by the governor, and he retires from the bar.
In the case of a murderer, he is taken to the court in custody of an officer. He is arraigned at the bar in the same way as the other classes of prisoners. If found guilty he is taken back to the condemned cell, where he is watched day and night until he is executed, which generally takes place within three weeks thereafter.
The deputy-governor stated:—I find the murderers to be of very different characters. Some are callous and ruffian-like in demeanour, but others are of more gentle and peaceable disposition, whom you heartily pity, as you are convinced from all you see about them, that they had been incited to the commission of their crime through intemperance or other incidental causes, foreign to their general character.
We find those to be worst who premeditated their crimes for gain. There have been few murderers here who assassinated from revenge.
I have seen twenty-nine criminals executed in front of Newgate, and was present in the court at the trial of most of them. Palmer was one of the most diabolical characters among penal offenders I ever saw in Newgate, and Mrs. Manning the most callous of females. Palmer was a gentlemanlike man, educated for a surgeon.