[39] See ante, p. 68, et seq.
[40] See ante, p. 57.
[41] Evidence before Committee of House of Commons, 1814.
[42] See ante, p. 72.
[43] One lunatic was kept in the state side upwards of six years. He was described as “sometimes a little dangerous,” and generally occupied in a room by himself. There were at this time three or four other lunatics (two of them “dangerous”) who went at large in the wards on the common side.
[44] See ante, vol. i. cap. v.
[45] Cashman was the only one of the Spafields rioters (1816) who was capitally convicted and executed. Four others who were arraigned with him were acquitted by the jury, to the astonishment of the court. Cashman, who had been a seaman in the Royal Navy, pleaded that he had been to the Admiralty to claim prize-money to the value of £200 on the day of the riot. On his way home, half drunk, he had been persuaded to join the rioters. Cashman’s unconcern lasted to the end. As he appeared on the gallows the mob groaned and hissed the Government, and Cashman joined in the outcry until the drop fell.
[46] As to ironing females, see post, p. 136.
[47] Visitors were searched at the lodge—the males by a turnkey, the females by a woman retained for the purpose. These officials had orders to strip those they searched if they thought necessary. The examination was seldom of any avail; but on one occasion a wife, who had hopes of compassing her husband’s escape, was detected in trying to pass a long rope into the prison. The woman was arrested and committed to Newgate for trial, where her husband already lay cast for highway robbery.
[48] Petworth Prison, built in 1785, and Gloucester Penitentiary, erected in 1791, were the two first gaols established which provided a separate sleeping cell for every prisoner.