[19]. The discipline of criminal prisons was particularly lax at the time of which Jacob Smith is supposed to be speaking.
[20]. This dreadful state of things continued in the New Prison, Clerkenwell, up to the year 1838.
[21]. The Report of the Prison Inspectors of the Home District contains these observations upon the state of Newgate:—"The association of prisoners of all ages, and every shade of guilt, in one indiscriminate mass, is a frightful feature in the system which prevails here; the first in magnitude, and the most pernicious in effect. In this prison we find that the young and the old—the inexperienced and the practical offender—the criminal who is smitten with a conviction of his guilt, and the hardened villain whom scarcely any penal discipline can subdue, are congregated together, with an utter disregard to all moral distinctions, the interest of the prisoners, or the welfare of the community. In such a state of things, can it be a matter of wonder that the effects should be such as have been described? Every other evil is aggravated by this; and it would be worse than idle to attempt a remedy for the rest, while this demoralising intermixture of criminals of all ages and degrees of guilt is suffered to frustrate the very ends of Prison discipline, and to give tenfold violence to all their mischievous inclinations, and passions, upon which it is incessantly operating, and which is the design of justice to discourage and repress. Apart from higher considerations, sound policy demands that such a system should be instantly rectified, for so long as it continues, society is nursing a moral pestilence in its bosom, and maintaining an institution in which are forged those weapons that are destined to be wielded with fatal dexterity against the community itself. Every device by which the fences of property may be overcome is here framed, and divulged to ready agents. Every fraudulent artifice, every successful trick, every ingenious mode of over-reaching the cautious, or of plundering the unguarded, is perfected here, and communicated to those who had not hitherto been initiated in the mysteries of crime.
"But the most distressing circumstance connected with this system, is the cruel indifference with which it regards the condition and necessities of those on whom the extreme penalty of the law is doomed to fall. Prisoners actually awaiting the execution of the awful sentence of death are placed, by the evil influence of companionship, in the most unfavourable circumstances for self-reflection. Religion and humanity combine to point out the imperative necessity of providing men, brought by the sentence of the law to the verge of eternity, with the means of spiritual improvement and consolation; but the system of Prison Discipline in Newgate practically defeats every such merciful design. No human authority has a right thus to trifle with the eternal interests of a dying criminal. Against this serious evil the chaplain has repeatedly and loudly protested; and it is in evidence that the unhappy victims themselves have earnestly implored the officers to deliver them from a situation in which it was impossible for them to devote the few remaining hours that the law allowed them to reflection and prayer. The companions in guilt of these wretched men become further hardened by the influence of this association. The indulgence of thoughtless apathy, unfeeling mirth, or revolting ribaldry, are productive of incalculable mischief to the minds of those who are subjected to their influence. The prisoner who witnesses with levity or indifference the last moments of a culprit in Newgate, comes forth a greater villain than when he went in. In him the evil principle has done its work, and the very exhibition of terror which justice designed for the reclaiming of the survivors, by a perversion of moral influence, irremediably hardens the heart which it was intended to soften and amend. If human ingenuity were tasked to devise means by which the most profligate of men might be rendered abandoned to the last degree of moral infamy, nothing more effectual could be invented than the system now actually in operation within the walls of the first metropolitan prison in England!"
[22]. Fact.
CHAPTER XLI.
FRESH ALARMS.
Rainford was within twenty yards of the house in which he dwelt, when a woman jostled him somewhat violently as she endeavoured to pass him while pursuing the same direction.
There was no excuse for this rudeness on her part, inasmuch as the pavement was wide in that particular spot, and no other person was on the footway.
"I beg your pardon, sir," said the female; "I'm sure——But, bless me!" she cried, in a shrill, unmistakeable voice,—"if it isn't Mr. Rainford!"