The History and Romance of Crime FROM THE EARLIEST TIMES TO THE PRESENT DAY [Illustration] THE GROLIER SOCIETY LONDON [Illustration: TEMPLE BAR _Temple Bar_ A famous gateway which stood before the Temple in London built by the noted architect, Christopher Wren, in 1670. According to ancient custom when the sovereign wishes to visit the City of London, he asks permission of the lord mayor to pass through this gateway into the city.] Millbank Penitentiary AN EXPERIMENT IN REFORMATION _by_ MAJOR ARTHUR GRIFFITHS _Late Inspector of Prisons in Great Britain_ _Author of “The Mysteries of Police and Crime” “Fifty Years of Public Service,” etc._ [Illustration: LOGO] THE GROLIER SOCIETY EDITION NATIONALE Limited to one thousand registered and numbered sets. NUMBER 307 INTRODUCTION MILLBANK PRISON stood for nearly a century upon the banks of the Thames between Westminster and Vauxhall, a well-known gloomy pile by the river side, with its dull exterior, black portals, and curious towers. This once famous prison no longer attracts the wide attention of former days but the very name contains in itself almost an epitome of British penal legislation. With it one intimately associates such men as John Howard and Jeremy Bentham; an architect of eminence superintended its erection; while statesmen and high dignitaries, dukes, bishops, and members of Parliament were to be found upon its committee of management, exercising a control that was far from nominal or perfunctory, not disdaining a close consideration of the minutest details, and coming into intimate personal communion with the criminal inmates, whom, by praise or admonition, they sought to reward or reprove. Its origin and the causes that brought it into being; its object, and the success or failure of those who ruled it; its annals, and the curious incidents with which they are filled,—these are topics of much interest to the general reader.