The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2Griffiths, Arthur
History
The Chronicles of Newgate, vol. 2/2
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Other regulations laid down by the Gaol Acts were still defied. One of
these was that prisoners should be restricted to the gaol allowance of
food; but all could still obtain as much extra, and of a luxurious kind,
as their friends chose to bring them in. Visitors were still permitted
to come with supplies on given days of the week, about the only
limitation being that the food should be cooked, and cold; hot meat,
poultry, and fish were also forbidden. But the inspectors found in the
ward cupboards mince-pies and other pasties, cold joints, hams, and so
forth. Many other articles were introduced by visitors, including money,
tobacco, pipes, and snuff. From the same source came the two or three
strong files which the inspectors found in one ward, together with four
bradawls, several large iron spikes, screws, nails, and knives; "all of
them instruments calculated to facilitate attempts at breaking out of
prison, and capable of becoming most dangerous weapons in the hands of
desperate and determined men." The nearly indiscriminate admission of
visitors, although restricted to certain days, continued to be an
unmixed evil. The untried might see their friends three times a week,
the convicted only once. On these occasions precautions were supposed to
be taken to exclude bad characters, yet many persons of notoriously
loose life continually obtained egress. Women saw men if they merely
pretended to be wives; even boys were visited by their sweethearts.
Decency was, however, insured by a line of demarcation, and visitors
were kept upon each side of a separated double iron railing. But no
search was made to intercept prohibited articles at the gate, and there
was no permanent gate-keeper, which would have greatly helped to keep
out bad characters. Some idea of the difficulty and inconvenience of
these lax regulations as regards visiting, may be gathered from the
statement that as many as three hundred were often admitted on the same
day--enough to altogether upset what small show of decorum and
discipline was still preserved in the prison. Perhaps the worst feature
of the visiting system was the permission accorded to male prisoners
"under the name of husbands, brothers, and sons" to have access to the
female side on Sundays and Wednesdays, in order to visit their supposed
relations there.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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