"refreshed his credit" at the Bank of England, as well as disarmed suspicion, by paying in a genuine bill of Messrs. Rothschilds' for £4,500 which was duly discounted. Then he explained to the bank manager that his transactions at Birmingham would shortly be very large, owing to the development of his business there in the alleged manufacture of Pullman cars. The ground thus cleared, the forgers poured in from Birmingham numbers of forged acceptances to the value of £102,217, all of which were discounted. The fraud was rendered possible by the absence of a check customary in the United States. There such bills would be sent to the drawer to be initialled, and the forgery would have been at once detected. It was the discovery of this flaw in the banking system which had encouraged the Americans to attempt this crime.
Time was clearly an important factor in the fraud, hence the bills were sent forward in quick succession. Long before they came to maturity the forgers hoped to be well beyond arrest. They had, moreover, sought to destroy all clue. The sums obtained by Bidwell in the name of "Warren" at the Bank of England were lodged at once by drafts to "Horton" another alias, in the Continental Bank. For these cash was obtained in notes; the notes were exchanged by one of the conspirators for gold at the Bank of England and again the same day a second conspirator exchanged the gold for notes. But just as all promised well,
the frauds were detected through the carelessness of the forgers. They had omitted to insert the dates in certain bills. The bills were sent as a matter of form to the drawer to have the date added, and the forgery was at once detected. Noyes was seized without difficulty, as it was a part of the scheme that he should act as the dupe, and remain on the spot in London till all the money was obtained. Through Noyes the rest of the conspirators were eventually apprehended. Very little if any of the ill-gotten proceeds, however, was ever recovered. Large sums as they were realized were transmitted to the United States and invested in various American securities, where probably the money still remains.
The prisoners, who were committed to Newgate for trial, had undoubtedly the command of large funds while there, and would have readily disbursed it to effect their enlargement. A plot was soon discovered, deep laid, and with many ramifications, by which some of the Newgate warders were to be bribed to allow the prisoners to escape from their cells at night. Certain friends of the prisoners were watched and found to be in communication with these warders, to whom it was said £100 apiece had been given down as the price of their infidelity. Further sums were to have been paid after the escape; and one warder admitted that he was to have £1,000 more paid to him and to be provided with a passage to Australia. The vigilance of the
Newgate officials assisted by the city police, completely frustrated this plot. A second was nevertheless set on foot in which the plan of action was changed, and the freedom of the prisoners was to be obtained by means of a rescue from the dock during the trial. An increase of policemen on duty sufficed to prevent any attempt of this kind. Nor were these two abortive efforts all that were planned. A year or two after, when the prisoners were undergoing their life sentences of penal servitude, much uneasiness was caused at one of the convict prisons by information that bribery on a large scale was again at work amongst the officials. But extra precautions and close supervision have so far proved effectual and the prisoners were still in custody after a lapse of ten years.
The time came at length when the old City Gaol must fall in with the steady and persistent march towards prison reform. The movement had been initiated by the legislative and certain improvements were made imperative, notably that which recognized the unalterable principle that every individual should be confined separately and singly in one cell or apartment. Already steps had been taken and public moneys voted to construct a prison on the most approved plan to serve as a model for all. The result was Pentonville, erected in 1842 at a great outlay and on such intelligent lines that in due course it fulfilled its first aim and became a model for imitation. Pentonville has been universally
adopted as the best form of building and its system the best contrived to effect the chief desiderata of a penal establishment, such as coercion, repression and reformation. It is to be seen to-day with small variation in almost every country of the world and is generally considered the best type of prison construction. In England, jurisdictions were ready to recognize their duties and responsibilities and fine prisons arose in the large provincial cities and wide areas of population, although others still lagged behind deterred by parsimony and the lack of public spirit. Newgate, the gaol of the richest corporation in the world, was one of the latter and an official report published in 1850 animadverted strongly on its still unsatisfactory condition.
Not much had been done to remedy the old defects; radical improvement was generally considered impossible. The great evil, however, had been sensibly diminished. There was no longer, or at worst but rarely, and for short periods, the same overcrowding. This was obviated by the frequent sessions of the Central Criminal Court, and the utilization of the two subsidiary prisons in Giltspur Street and Southwark. The prison population of Newgate was still subject to great fluctuations, but it seldom rose above two hundred and fifty or three hundred at the most crowded periods, or just before the sessional gaol delivery; and at its lowest it fell sometimes to fifty or sixty. These numbers would
have still further decreased, and the gaol would have been almost empty, but for the misdemeanants who were still sent to Newgate at times on long terms of imprisonment, and for the transports, whom the Home Office was often, as of old, slow to remove. The old wards, day rooms and sleeping rooms combined, now seldom contained more than ten or a dozen occupants. Some sort of decorum was maintained in the day-time. Drinking and gaming, the indiscriminate visitation of friends, and the almost unlimited admission of extra food, had disappeared.
But reformation was only skin deep. Below the surface many of the old evils still rankled. There was as yet no control over the prisoners after locking-up time; which occurred in summer at eight, but in the winter months took place at dusk, and was often as early as four or five o'clock. The prisoners were still left to themselves till next morning's unlocking, and they spent some fourteen or fifteen hours in total darkness, and almost without check or control. The only attempt at supervision was exercised by the night watchman stationed on the leads, who might hear what went on inside. If any disturbance reached his ears, he reported the case to the governor, who next morning visited the ward in fault, and asked for the culprit. The enforcement of discipline depended upon the want of honour among thieves. Unless the guilty prisoner was given up, the whole ward was punished,