Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in ReformationGriffiths, Arthur
Philosophy
Millbank Penitentiary: An Experiment in Reformation
Griffiths, Arthur
Millbank Prison (London, England); Penal colonies; Prisons -- Great Britain -- History
coast close in shore, looking for a quiet spot to cast away the ship,
and at last, when within fifteen miles of port, with wind and weather
perfectly fair, he ran her on to the rocks. Even then she might have
been saved, but the captain would not suffer the crew to act. Nearly
the whole of the cargo was lost as well as the ship. The captain and
crew, however, got safely to Jamaica, and so to England, the captain
dying on the voyage home.
The crime soon became public. Mate, carpenter, and crew were eager to
disavow complicity, and voluntarily gave information. The Wallaces
were arrested, committed to Newgate, and tried at the Old Bailey.
The case was clearly proved against them, and both were sentenced to
transportation for life. While lying in Newgate, awaiting removal to
the convict ship, both prisoners made full confessions. According
to their own statements the loss of the _Dryad_ was only one of
six intentional shipwrecks with which they had been concerned. The
crime of fraudulent insurance they declared was very common, and the
underwriters must have lost great sums in this way. The merchant
Wallace said he had been led into the crime by the advice and example
of a city friend who had gone largely into this nefarious business;
this Wallace added that his friend had made several voyages with the
distinct intention of superintending the predetermined shipwrecks. The
other Wallace, the sailor, also traced his lapse into crime to evil
counsel. He was an honest sea-captain, he said, trading from Liverpool,
where once he had the misfortune to be introduced to a man of wealth,
the foundations of which had been laid by buying old ships on purpose
to cast them away. This person made much of Wallace, encouraged his
attentions to his daughter, and tempted him to take to fraudulent
insurance as a certain method of achieving fortune. Wallace’s relations
warned him against his Liverpool friend, but he would not take their
advice, and developing his transactions, ended as we have seen.
A clergyman nearly a century later followed in the steps of Dr. Dodd,
but under more humane laws did not lose his life. The Rev. W. Bailey,
LL. D., was convicted at the Central Criminal Court, in February,
1843, of forgery. A notorious miser, Robert Smith, had recently died
in Seven Dials, where he had amassed a considerable fortune. But among
the charges on the estate he left was a promissory note for £2,875,
produced by Dr. Bailey, and purporting to be signed by Smith. The
executors to the estate disputed the validity of this document. Miss
Bailey, the doctor’s sister, in whose favour the note was said to have
been given, then brought an action against the administrators, and at
the trial Dr. Bailey swore that the note had been given him by Smith.
The jury did not believe him, and the verdict was for the defendants.
Subsequently Bailey was arrested on a charge of forgery, and after a
long trial found guilty. His sentence was transportation for life.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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