Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuryGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
In Harris's "Life of Lord Hardwicke" is a letter from the solicitor
to the Treasury to Sir Philip Yorke, referring to "the gang of
ruffians who are so notorious for their robberies, and have lately
murdered Thomas Bull in Southwark, and wounded others. Their numbers
daily increase, and now become so formidable that constables are
intimidated by their threats and desperate behaviour from any endeavour
to apprehend them." One of these ruffians was described in the
proclamation offering rewards for their apprehension as "above six feet
high, black eyebrows, his teeth broke before;" another had a large scar
under his chin.
Still worse was the "Resolution Club," a numerous gang, regularly
organized under stringent rules. It was one of their articles, that
whoever resisted or attempt to fly when stopped should be instantly cut
down and crippled. Any person who prosecuted, or appeared as evidence
against a member of the club, should be marked down for vengeance.
The members took an "infernal oath" to obey the rules, and if taken
and sentenced to "die mute." Another instance of the lawlessness of
the times is to be seen in the desperate attack made by some forty
ruffians on a watch-house in Moorfields, where an accomplice was kept a
prisoner. They were armed with pistols, cutlasses, and other offensive
weapons. The watchman was wounded, the prisoner rescued. After this
the assailants demolished the watch-house, robbed the constables,
"committed several unparalleled outrages, and went off in triumph." The
gang was too numerous to be quickly subdued, but most of the rioters
were eventually apprehended, and it is satisfactory to learn that they
were sentenced to imprisonment in Newgate for three, five, or seven
years, according to the part they had played.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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