Later records of crimes—First private execution under the new law—Poisoning, revived and more terrible—Palmer's case—His imitators—Dove—Dr. Smethurst—Catherine Wilson—Piracy and murder—The "Flowery Land"—Arrest of the mutineers—Their trial and sentence—Murder of Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage—Pursuit of murderer and his arrest in New York—Müller's conviction—Confesses guilt—A forged pardon—The Muswell Hill murder—Bidwell brothers defraud the Bank of England of £100,000—Sentenced to penal servitude for life—Pentonville erected—The best type of prison construction—Gradual reformation in Newgate—The new prison at Holloway—The end of Newgate. Executions long continued to be in public, in spite of remonstrance and reprobation. The old prejudices, such as that which enlisted Dr. Johnson on the side of the Tyburn procession, still lingered and prevented any change. It was thought that capital punishment would lose its deterrent effect if it ceased to be public, and the _raison d'être_ of the penalty, which in principle so many opposed, would be gone. This line of argument prevailed over the manifest horrors of the spectacle. Already the urgent necessity for abolishing public executions had been brought before the House of Commons by Mr. Hibbert, and the question, as part of the whole subject of capital punishment, had been referred to a royal commission in January of 1864. Full evidence was taken on all points, and on that regarding public executions there was a great preponderance of opinion towards their abolition, yet the witnesses were not unanimous. Some of the judges would have retained the public spectacle; the ordinary of Newgate was not certain that public executions were not the best. Another distinguished witness feared that any secrecy in the treatment of the condemned would invest them with a new and greater interest, which was much to be deprecated. Foreign witnesses, too, were in favour of publicity. On the other hand, Lords Cranworth and Wensleydale recommended private executions, as did Mr. Spencer Walpole, M. P. Sir George Grey thought there was a growing feeling in favour of executions within the prison precincts. Colonel (Sir Edmund) Henderson was strongly in favour of them, based on his own experience in Western Australia. He not only thought them likely to be more deterrent, but believed that a public ceremony destroyed the whole value of an execution. Other officials, great lawyers, governors of prisons, and chaplains supported this view. The only doubts expressed were as to the sufficiency of the safeguards, as to the certainty of death and its subsequent publication. But these, it was thought, might be provided by the admission of the press and the holding of a coroner's inquest.