INTERIOR OF CHAPEL (1880) " 498 CHRONICLES OF NEWGATE. CHAPTER I. CRIMES AND CRIMINALS. State of crime on opening new gaol--Newgate full--Executions very numerous--Ruthless penal code--Forgery punished with death--Its frequency--How fostered--Some notable forgers--The first forgery of Bank of England notes--Gibson--Bolland--The two Perreaus--Dr. Dodd--Charles Price, _alias_ Old Patch--Clipping still largely practised--John Clarke hanged for it--Also William Guest, a clerk in Bank of England--His elaborate apparatus for filing guineas--Coining--Forty or fifty private mints for making counterfeits--Always at work--Town and country orders regularly executed--650 prosecutions for coining in seven years--Offences against life and property--Streets unsafe--High roads infested by robbers--No regular police--Inefficiency of watchmen--Assaults on the weaker sex--Renwick Williams "the monster"--Daring Robberies at lévees--The Duke of Beaufort robbed by gentleman Harry--George Barrington, the gentleman thief, frequents Ranelagh, the Palace, the Opera House--His depredations--He aids authorities to suppress a mutiny, turns police officer and becomes chief constable of New South Wales before he dies--Gentlemen of the road ubiquitous and always busy--Highwaymen put down by the horse patrol--Horse patrol described--Executions still numerous, but transportation now adopted as a secondary punishment for lesser offenders--Some of these described--"Long firm" swindlers--Alexander Day, _alias_ Marmaduke Davenport, Esq.--Female Sharpers--Elizabeth Grieve pretends to sell places under the Crown--So does David James Dignam--Traffic in places flourished in this corrupt age--Mrs. Clarke and the Duke of York--Other forms of swindling--Jacques defrauds Warden of the Fleet--Juvenile depravity--Increased by committing the young to Newgate--Various youthful crimes--A girl for sale--Prize-fighting--Writers in gaol--The North Briton--Wilkes--The Press oppressed--Mr. Walter of the 'Times' in Newgate--Sir Francis Burdett and Mr. John Gale Jones--William Cobbett in Newgate--Also the Marquis of Sligo.