In one of the back yards of Newgate, to the right of the entrance, was the place of confinement for the condemned, the walls of which exhibited initials, sometimes entire names of unhappy occupants. One, who suffered the extreme penalty of the law nearly sixty years ago, for forging notes of the Bank of Ireland, pencilled the following lines on the door of his cell:—
"Unhappy wretch, whom Justice calls
To bide your doom within these walls,
Know that to thee this gloomy cell
May prove, perhaps, the porch of Hell.
Thy crimes contest, thy sins forgiven,
Mysterious change! it leads to heaven."
It is to be hoped that the soul of the poor prisoner experienced the "mysterious change" which his untimely fate led him so fully to appreciate.