Newgate
The most notorious prison in England and the most interesting because intimately connected with the early annals of London. Chancellor's Gate to the City of London, originally called Westgate, was rebuilt in the reign of Henry I and named Newgate. When the county of Middlesex was added to the territory of London, Newgate was first used as a place of detention for prisoners from that county.
In the advertisement sheets of these sessions' papers are notices of other criminal publications, proving how great was the demand for this kind of literature. Thus in 1731 is announced "The History of Executions: being a complete account of the thirteen malefactors executed at Tyburn for robberies, price 4d.," and this publication is continued from year to year. In 1732 "T. Applebee and others" published at 3s. 6d. the "Lives of the Most Remarkable Criminals," a volume containing as a frontispiece the escape of Jack Sheppard from Newgate. In the description of this book the public is assured that the volume contains a first and faithful narration of each case, "without any additions of feigned or romantic adventures, calculated merely to entertain the curiosity of the reader." Jack Sheppard had many biographers. Seven accurate and authentic histories were published, all purporting to give the true story of his surprising adventures, and bequeathing a valuable legacy to the then unborn historical novelist, Mr. Harrison Ainsworth. Again, Rich, the manager of the Lincoln's Inn Theatre, brought out "Harlequin Jack Sheppard"
in the year of that desperado's execution, an operatic pantomime founded upon his exploits. A little before this another dramatic performance, the "Beggar's Opera," having a criminal for its hero, had taken the town by storm; and many strongly and with reason condemned the degradation of national taste which could popularize the loves of "Polly Peachum" and "Captain Macheath." Besides these books and plays there was a constant publication of broad sheets and chap-books of a still lower type, intended to pander to the same unwholesome taste, while a great novelist like Fielding did not hesitate to draw upon his personal acquaintance with crime, obtained as a police magistrate, and write the life of Jonathan Wild.
The demand was no doubt fostered by the extraordinary prevalence of crime in England. Criminal records would probably be read with avidity at times when ruffianism was in the ascendant, and offences of the most heinous description were of daily occurrence. New crimes cropped up daily. The whole country was a prey to lawlessness and disorder. Outrages of all kinds, riots, robberies, murders, took place continually. None of the high-roads or by-roads were safe by night or day. Horsemen in the open country, footpads in or near towns, harassed and pillaged wayfarers. Armed parties ranged the rural districts attacking country-houses in force, driving off cattle and deer, and striking terror everywhere.
The general turbulence often broke out into open disturbance. The Riot Act, which was a product of these times, was not passed before it was needed. Riots were frequent in town and country. The mob was easily roused, as when it broke open the house of the Provost Marshal Tooley in Holborn, to whom they owed a grudge for impressing men to sell as recruits to Flanders. They burned his furniture in the street, and many persons were killed and wounded in the affray. Now political parties, inflamed with rancorous spirit, created uproars in the "mug houses;" now mutinous soldiers violently protested against the coarse linen of their "Hanover" shirts; again the idle flunkies at a London theatre rose in revolt against new rules introduced by the management and produced a serious riot. In the country gangs of ruffians disguised in female attire, the forerunners of Rebecca and her daughter, ran amuck against turnpike gates, demolishing all they found. There were smuggling riots, when armed crowds overpowered the customs officers and broke into warehouses sealed by the Crown; corn riots at periods of scarcity, when private granaries were forced and pillaged. A still worse crime prevailed—that of arson. I find in "Hardwicke's Life," reference to a proclamation offering a reward for the detection of those who sent threatening letters "to diverse persons in the citys of London, Westminster, Bristol, and Exeter, requiring them to deposit certain sums of money in
particular places, and threatening to set fire to their houses, and to burn and destroy them and their families in case of refusal, some of which threats have accordingly been carried into execution."
Other threats were to murder unless a good sum was at once paid down. Thus Jepthah Big was tried in 1729 for writing two letters, demanding in one eighty-five guineas, in the other one hundred guineas from Nathaniel Newnham, "a fearful old man," and threatening to murder both himself and wife unless he got the money. Jepthah Big was found guilty and sentenced to death.
The state of the metropolis was something frightful in the early decades of the eighteenth century. Such was the reckless daring of evil-doers that there was but little security for life and property. Wright, in his "Caricature History of the Georges," says of this period: "Robbery was carried on to an extraordinary extent in the streets of London even by daylight. Housebreaking was of frequent occurrence by night, and every road leading to the metropolis was beset by bands of reckless highwaymen, who carried their depredations into the very heart of the town. Respectable women could not venture in the streets alone after nightfall, even in the city, without risk of being grossly insulted." In 1720 ladies going to court were escorted by servants armed with blunderbusses "to shoot at the rogues." Wright gives a detailed account of five and twenty robberies perpetrated