“The ordinary of Newgate is an orthodox, unaffected, Church of England divine, who preaches plain, homely discourses, as fit as any religious discourse can be fit for the irritated audience. The sermon of this day, whether eloquent or plain, useful or useless, must produce a striking effect at the moment of its delivery. The text, without another word, is enough to raise the wildest passions of the audience.... For a while the preacher addresses himself to the congregation at large, who listen attentively—except the clergyman and the burglar, the former of whom is still rolled up at the bottom of the condemned pew, while the eyes of the latter are wandering round the chapel, and one of them is occasionally winked impudently at some acquaintance amongst the prisoners for trial. At length the ordinary pauses, and then, in a deep tone, which, though hardly above a whisper, is audible to all, says, ‘Now for you, my poor fellow mortals, who are about to suffer the last penalty of the law.’ But why should I repeat the whole? It is enough to say that in the same solemn tone he talks about the minutest of crimes, punishments, bonds, shame, ignominy, sorrow, sufferings, wretchedness, pangs, childless parents, widows and helpless orphans, broken and contrite hearts, and death to-morrow morning for the benefit of society. What happens? The dying men are dreadfully agitated. The young stealer in a dwelling-house no longer has the least pretence to bravery. He grasps the back of the pew, his legs give way, he utters a faint groan, and sinks on the floor. Why does no one stir to help him? Where would be the use? The hardened burglar moves not, nor does he speak; but his face is of an ashy paleness; and if you look carefully you may see the blood trickling from his lip, which he has bitten unconsciously, or from rage, or to rouse his fainting courage. The poor sheep-stealer is in a frenzy. He throws his hands far from him, and shouts aloud, ‘Mercy, good Lord! mercy is all I ask. The Lord in His mercy come! There! there! I see the Lamb of God! Oh! how happy! Oh! this is happy!’ Meanwhile the clergyman, still bent into the form of a sleeping dog, struggles violently; his feet, legs, hands, and arms, even the muscles of his back, move with a quick, jerking motion, not naturally, but, as it were, like the affected parts of a galvanized corpse. Suddenly he utters a short sharp scream, and all is still.
“The silence is short. As the ordinary proceeds ‘to conclude,’ the women set up a yell, which is mixed with a rustling noise, occasioned by the removal of those whose hysterics have ended in fainting. The sheriffs cover their faces, and one of their inquisitive friends blows his nose with his glove. The keeper tries to appear unmoved, but his eye wanders anxiously over the combustible assembly. The children round the communion-table stare and gape with childish wonder. The two masses of prisoners for trial undulate and slightly murmur, while the capital convicts who were lately in that black pew appear faint with emotion.
“This exhibition lasts for some minutes, and then the congregation disperses, the condemned returning to the cells: the forger carried by turnkeys; the youth sobbing aloud convulsively, as a passionate child; the burglar muttering curses and savage expressions of defiance; whilst the poor sheep-stealer shakes hands with the turnkeys, whistles merrily, and points upwards with madness in his look.”
Mr. Wakefield winds up his graphic but somewhat sensational account by describing another religious service, which may appropriately be inserted here. He says, “On the day of execution there is no service in the chapel of Newgate. On the following day the capital convicts, whose companions have been hanged, are required to return thanks for their narrow escape. The firmest disbeliever in religion, if he had not lately been irritated by taking part in such a scene as the condemned service in Newgate, could hardly witness this ceremony without being affected. The men, who were so lately snatched from the jaws of death, kneel, whilst the rest of the congregation sit, and the ordinary, in a tone of peculiar solemnity, says, ‘Almighty God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men; particularly to those who desire now to offer up their praises and thanksgivings for thy late mercies vouchsafed unto them.’ Could any one, knowing the late situation of the kneeling men, looking as they do at the empty pew, occupied when they saw it last, but a few hours ago, by their comrades who are now dead; could any one, not disgusted with the religious ceremonials of Newgate, witness this scene without emotion? Hardly any one. But what are the feelings of those who take part in it? I have been present at the scene not less than twenty times, and have invariably observed that many of the kneeling men or boys laughed while they knelt, pinched each other, and, when they could do so without fear of being seen by any officer of the prison, winked at other prisoners in derision of what was taking place; and I have frequently heard men and lads who had been of the kneeling party boast to their companions after the service that they had wiped their eyes during the thanksgiving, to make the ordinary believe they had been crying.”
Although this misapplication of religious services still went on, the outside public continued to be excluded from the Newgate chapel on the day the condemned sermon was preached. This very proper rule was, however, set aside on the Sunday preceding Courvoisier’s execution. So many applications for admission were made to the sheriffs, that they reluctantly agreed to open the gallery which had formerly been occupied by strangers on these occasions. Cards were issued, and to such an extent, that although the service was not to commence till half-past ten, by nine a.m. all the avenues to the prison gates were blocked by ticket-holders. In spite of the throng, owing to the excellent arrangements made by the sheriffs, no inconvenience was suffered by the congregation, among whom were Lord Adolphus Fitz Clarence, Lord Coventry, Lord Paget, Lord Bruce, several members of the House of Commons, and a few ladies. Contemporary accounts give a minute description of the demeanour of the convict upon this solemn occasion. He sat on a bench before the pulpit,—the hideous condemned pew had been swept away,—and never once raised his eyes during the service. “In fact his looks denoted extreme sorrow and contrition, and he seemed to suffer great inward agitation when the ordinary particularly alluded to the crime for the perpetration of which he stood condemned.” Mr. Carver, the ordinary, appears to have addressed himself directly to Courvoisier, and to have dwelt with more emphasis than good taste upon the nature of the crime, and the necessity for repentance. But the chaplain admitted that the solitude of the convict’s cell was more appropriate for serious reflection and profitable ministration than “this exciting occasion before a large and public assembly.” So far as I can find, Courvoisier was the last condemned criminal who was thus exhibited to a crowd of morbidly curious spectators.
The atrocity of the murder no doubt attracted extraordinary attention to it. The crowd outside Newgate on the day of execution has already been described; but there was also a select gathering of distinguished visitors within the gaol. First came the sheriffs, the under-sheriffs, and several aldermen and city officials, then Lord Powerscourt and several other peers of the realm. Mr. Charles Kean the tragedian was also present, drawn to this terrible exhibition by the example of his father, the more celebrated Edmund Kean, who had witnessed the execution of Thistlewood “with a view,” as he himself said, “to his professional studies.”
But there is little doubt that as executions became more rare they made more impression on the public mind. Already a strong dislike to the reckless and almost indiscriminate application of the extreme penalty was apparent in all classes, and the mitigation of the criminal code, for which Romilly had so strenuously laboured, was daily more and more of an accomplished fact. In 1832 capital punishment was abolished for forgery, except in cases of forging or altering wills or powers of attorney to transfer stock. Nevertheless, after that date no person whatever was executed for this offence. In the same year capital punishment was further restricted, and ceased to be the legal sentence for coining, sheep or horse stealing, and stealing in a dwelling-house. House-breaking, as distinguished from burglary, was similarly exempted in the following year; next, the offences of returning from transportation, stealing post-office letters, and sacrilege were no longer punishable with death. In 1837 Lord John Russell’s acts swept away a number of capital offences, including cutting and maiming, rick-burning, robbery, burglary, and arson. Within a couple of years the number of persons sentenced to death in England had fallen from four hundred and thirty-eight in 1837 to fifty-six in 1839. Gradually the application of capital punishment became more and more restricted, and was soon the penalty for murder alone. While in London, for instance, in 1829, twenty-four persons had been executed for crimes other than murder, from 1832 to 1844 not a single person had been executed in the metropolis except for this the gravest crime. In 1837 the death penalty was practically limited to murder or attempts to murder, and in 1841 this was accepted as the almost universally established rule. Seven other crimes, however, were still capital by law, and so continued till the passing of the Criminal Consolidation Acts of 1861.
With the amelioration of the criminal code, other cruel concomitants of execution also disappeared. In 1832 the dissection of bodies cut down from the gallows, which had been decreed centuries previously,[99] was abolished; the most recent enactment in force was the 9th Geo. IV. cap. 31, which directed the dissection of all bodies of executed murderers, the idea being to intensify the dread of capital punishment. That such dread was not universal or deep-seated may be gathered from the fact that authentic cases were known previous to the first cited act of criminals selling their own bodies to surgeons for dissection. This dissection was carried out for Newgate prisoners in Surgeons’ Hall, adjoining Newgate, the site of the present Sessions House of the Old Bailey, and the operation was witnessed by students and a number of curious spectators. Lord Ferrers’ body was brought to Surgeons’ Hall after execution in his own carriage and six; after the post mortem had been carried out, the corpse was exposed to view in a first-floor room. Pennant speaks of Surgeons’ Hall as a handsome building, ornamented with Ionic pilasters, and with a double flight of steps to the first floor. Beneath is a door for the admission of the bodies of murderers and other felons. There were other public dissecting rooms for criminals. One was attached to Hicks’ Hall, the Clerkenwell Sessions House, built out of monies provided by Sir Baptist Hicks, a wealthy alderman of the reign of James I.[100] Persons were still living in 1855 who had witnessed dissections at Hicks’ Hall, and “whom the horrid scene, with the additional effect of some noted criminals hanging on the walls, drove out again sick and faint, as we have heard some relate, and with pale and terrified features, to get a breath of air.”[101] The dissection of executed criminals was abolished soon after the discovery of the crime of burking, with the idea that ignominy would no longer attach to an operation which ceased to be compulsory for the most degraded beings; and that executors or persons having lawful possession of the bodies of people who had died friendless, would voluntarily surrender them for the advancement of medical science.
Another brutal practice had nearly disappeared about the time of the abolition of dissection. This was the public exhibition of the body, as was done in the case of Mrs. Phipoe, the murderess, who was executed in front of Newgate in 1798, and “her body