Chronicles of Newgate Vol 2 — The First report of the Inspectors of Prisons part 1

In the preceding chapter I have been tempted by the importance of the general question to give it prominence and precedence over the particular branch of which I am treating.

Newgate has remained rather in the background while the whole of the gaols as a body were under discussion.

But this digression was necessary in order to present a more complete picture of the state of gaols in the early part of the present century, just before the public mind was first awakened to the need for thorough reform.

I shall now return to the great gaol of the city of London, and give a more detailed account of its condition and inner life as the inspectors of prisons found them in 1835-6. These gentlemen were appointed in October 1835, owing to the strong representations of the Lords' Committee,[80] backed up by the evidence of several influential witnesses.

Mr. Samuel Hoare, when examined, considered it indispensably necessary, to carry out whatever system might be established, that inspectors should watch over the observance of the law.

He saw no objection on the score of their probable interference with the local jurisdiction, but he would not arm them with any authority lest their co-operation might be offensive.

Sir Frederick Roe was of the same opinion as regards the appointment, but he would give the inspectors the power of acting as well as reporting.

They should be persons, he thought, selected from the highest class; the duty was most important, one which required discretion, judgment, and knowledge of law, with sufficient insight and experience to discover defects in prison discipline.

These considerations no doubt had weight with those who made the selection of the first inspectors, and the two gentlemen appointed were probably the most fitted in England to be so employed.

One was Mr. William Crawford, the other the Rev. Whitworth Russell.

The first named had long been an active philanthropist, devoting himself more particularly to the reformation of juvenile criminals.

[81] William Crawford had been one of the promoters and managers of the Philanthropic Society's farm school.

Later on he had devoted himself to the personal investigation of the prisons of the United States.

At that time the mild and intelligent prison discipline in force in Pennsylvania, the legacy of the old Quaker immigrants, had made such prisons as Auburn a model for imitation.

Several European states had despatched emissaries to examine and report upon them.

France had sent MM.

Beaumont and De Tocqueville, who subsequently published several interesting works on the subject.

England was represented by Mr. Crawford, and the result of his inquiry was given to the public as an appendix to the House of Commons' 'Report on Secondary Punishments.'

It is an able and exhaustive state paper, testifying to the keenness of the writer's perception, and his unremitting labour in pursuing his researches.

Mr. Crawford was thoroughly versed in the still imperfectly understood science of prison management, and fully qualified for his new duties.

The second inspector, the Rev. Whitworth Russell, was the chaplain of Millbank penitentiary, the great architectural experiment which grew out of the strong representations of Jeremy Bentham and others, and was the first national recognition of the principle that punishment must be reformatory as well as deterrent.

Messrs. Crawford and Russell proceeded to carry out their new functions with commendable energy, and without a moment's loss of time.

The ink was barely dry upon their letters of appointment before they appeared at Newgate, and commenced a searching investigation.

They attended early and late; they mustered the prisoners, examined into their condition, took voluminous evidence from all classes of individuals, from the governor down to the convict in the condemned cells.

They visited the wards after locking-up time, and saw with their own eyes what went on.

Having started with the proposition that the metropolitan prisons must monopolize their attention, as constituting, to use their own words, "a subject of magnitude and importance sufficient to exclude other gaols," they soon narrowed their inquiry still further, and limited it to Newgate alone.

Newgate indeed became the sole theme of their first report.

The fact was that the years as they passed, nearly twenty in all, had worked but little permanent improvement in this detestable prison.

Changes introduced under pressure had been only skin deep.

Relapse was rapid and inevitable, so that the latter state of the prison was worse than the first.

The disgraceful overcrowding had been partially ended, but the same evils of indiscriminate association were still present; there was the old neglect of decency, the same callous indifference to the moral well-being of the prisoners, the same want of employment and of all disciplinary control.

All these evils were set forth at length in the inspectors' first report.

There was no longer the faintest possible excuse for overcrowding.

The numbers now committed to Newgate had sensibly diminished.

The prison had become more or less a place of detention only, harbouring mainly those awaiting trial.

To these were still added an average of about fifty expecting the last penalty of the law; a certain number of transports awaiting removal to the colonies; an occasional prisoner or two committed by the Houses of Parliament, the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Exchequer, the Commissioners of bankruptcy and of taxes; smugglers, and a larger number sentenced for very short terms, and for offences of the most varying description, by the Central Criminal Court.

The sum total thus produced was inconsiderable compared with the hundreds that had formerly filled the gaol, and the whole by proper management might have been so accommodated as to prevent overcrowding.

But incredible as it may appear, the authorities of Newgate declined to avail themselves of the advantages offered them, and when the population fell they shut up one half the gaol and crowded up the other.

Some rooms remained quite empty and unoccupied, while others were full to overflowing.

Not only were the wards thus needlessly crammed, and for no reason but the niggardliness of the corporation which refused a proper supply of bedding, but the occupants of each were huddled together indiscriminately.

The inspectors found in the same wards in the chapel yard the convicted and the untried, the felon and the misdemeanant, the sane and the insane, the old and young offender.

The classification prescribed by the Gaol Act, which laid down that certain prisoners should not intermix, was openly neglected, and "the greatest contempt shown for the law."

In another part there were men charged with and convicted of unnatural offences shut up with lads of tender years; minor offenders charged with small thefts or non-payment of small sums were cheek by jowl with convicts sentenced to long terms of transportation.

In the master's side yard, which had only one washing place, as many as seventy-eight prisoners, frequently more, were associated together, "of every variety of age, habit, and delinquency, without employment, oversight, or control."

In the middle yard it was still worse.

"Here," say the inspectors, "are herded together the very worst class of prisoners; certainly a more wretched combination of human beings can hardly be imagined.

We have reason to fear that poverty, ragged clothes, and an inability to pay the ward dues, elsewhere exacted for better accommodation, consign many of the more petty and unpractised offenders to this place, where they inevitably meet with further contamination from the society of the most abandoned and incorrigible inmates of the gaol."

No doubt the governor for the time being, Mr. Cope, was in a great measure to blame for all this, and for the want of proper classification.

I shall have occasion to speak again, and more at length, of Mr. Cope's careless and perfunctory discharge of his many manifest duties, but I shall here confine myself to animadverting on his neglect as regards the appropriation of his prison.

He was unable to give any reason whatever for not utilizing the whole of the wards.

He saw certain rooms fill up, and yet took no steps to open others that were locked up and empty.

He blamed the construction of Newgate for the neglect of classification, and was yet compelled to confess that he had made no attempt whatever to carry it out.

The fact was, he did not keep the classification of prisoners on first arrival in his own hands, nor even in that of his officers.

A new prisoner's fate, as to location, rested really with a powerful fellow-prisoner.

The inspectors found that prisoners had their places assigned to them by the inner gatesman, himself a convicted prisoner, and a "wardsman" or responsible head of a room.

The wardsman still exacted dues, of which more directly, and this particular official took excellent care to select as residents for his own ward those most suitable from his own point of view.

"So great is the authority exercised by him, and so numerous were his opportunities of showing favouritism, that all the prisoners may be said to be in his power.

If a man is poor and ragged, however inexperienced in crime, or however trifling may be the offence for which he has been committed, his place is assigned among the most depraved, the most experienced, and the most incorrigible offenders in the middle yard."

It must be admitted that so far but little effort had been made to counteract the evils of indiscriminate association.

It was not likely that a system which left innocent men--for the great bulk of new arrivals were still untried--to be pitchforked by chance anywhere, into any sort of company, within this the greatest nursery of crime in London, should exercise even the commonest care for the personal decency or comfort of the prisoners.

Their treatment was also a matter of chance.

They still slept on rope mats on the floor, herded together in companies of four or more to keep one another warm, and under the scanty covering of a couple of dirty stable-rugs apiece.

So closely did they lie together, that the inspectors at their night visits found it difficult in stepping across the room to avoid treading on them.

Sometimes two mats were allotted to three sleepers.

Sometimes four slept under the same bedding, and left their mats unoccupied.

The rugs used were never washed; an order existed that the bedding should be taken into the yards to be aired, but it was not very punctually obeyed.

The only convenience for personal ablutions were the pumps in the yards, and the far-off baths in the condemned or press-yard.

Water might not be taken into the ward for washing purposes.

There was some provision of clothing, but it was quite insufficient, and nothing at all was given if prisoners had enough of their own to cover their nakedness.

The inspectors paraded the prisoners, and found them generally ragged and ill-clad, squalid and filthy in the extreme; many without stockings, and with hardly shoes to their feet; some, who had the semblance of covering on the upper part of their feet, had no soles to the shoes, and their bare feet were on the ground.

This, too, was in the depth of the winter, and during a most inclement season.

The allowance of food was not illiberal, but its issue was precarious, and dependent on the good will of the wardsmen, who measured out the portions to each according to his eye, and not with weights and measures, no turnkey being present.

Too much was left to the wardsman.

It was he who could issue small luxuries;

he sold tea, coffee, sugar, tobacco, although prohibited, and extra beer.

He charged a weekly sum as ward dues for the use of knives, forks, and plates--a perpetuation under another form of the old detestable custom of garnish.

He had power where his exactions were resisted of making the ward most uncomfortable for the defaulter.

He could trump up a false complaint against his fellow-prisoner, and so get him punished;

he might keep him from the fire, or give him his soup or gruel in a pail instead of a basin.

The authority of these wardsmen so improperly exalted, and so entirely unchecked, degenerated into a baneful despotism.

They bought their offices from one another, and were thus considered to have a vested interest in them.

Their original capital had been a few shillings, and for this they purchased the right to tax their fellows to the extent of pounds per week.

The wardsman had a monopoly in supplying provisions, gave dinner and breakfast at his own price, and was such complete master of the ward that none of its inmates were suffered to make tea or coffee for themselves lest it should interfere with his sales.

He made collections when it suited him for ward purposes, to be spent as he chose, in candles and so forth.

When the wardsman was a man of some education, with some knowledge of legal chicanery gained by personal experience, he might add considerably to his emoluments by drawing briefs and petitions for his fellows.

There was a recognized charge of 5_s.

_ per brief, for a petition of from 1_s.

_ 6_d.

_ to 8_s.

_, according to its length, and by these payments a wardsman had been known to amass as much as £40. The man intrusted with this privilege was often the inner gatesman, the prisoner official already mentioned, who held the fate of new arrivals as regards location in his hands.

It was not strange that he should sometimes misuse his power, and when prisoners were not to be cajoled into securing his legal services, had been known to employ threats, declaring that he was often consulted by the governor as to a prisoner's character, in view of speaking to it at the trial, and he could easily do them a good turn--or a very bad one.

The brief-drawing gatesman and wardsman at the time of the inspectors' first visit must have been a particularly powerful personage.

He was on the most intimate and improperly familiar terms with the turnkeys, had a key of both the master's side and middle side yards, was the only person present at the distribution of beer, and was trusted to examine, and, if he chose, pass in, all provisions, money, clothes, and letters brought for prisoners by their friends.

All the wardsmen alike were more or less irresponsible.

The turnkeys complained bitterly that these old prisoners had more power than they themselves.

The governor himself admitted that a prisoner of weak intellect who had been severely beaten and much injured by a wardsman did not dare complain, the victim of this cruel ill-usage having "more fear of the power of the wardsman to injure him, than confidence in the governor's power to protect him."

These wardsmen, besides thus ruling the roast, had numerous special privileges, if such they can be called.

They were not obliged to attend chapel, and seldom if ever went;

"prisoners," said one of them under examination, "did not like the trouble of going to chapel."

They had a standing bedstead to sleep on, and a good flock mattress; double allowance of provisions, filched from the common stock.

Nobody interfered with them or regulated their conduct.

They might get drunk when so disposed, and did so frequently, alone or in company.

Evidence was given before the inspectors of eight or ten prisoners seen "giddy drunk, not able to sit upon forms."

The female wards-women were also given to intemperance.

The matron deposed to having seen the gates-woman "exceedingly drunk," and having been insulted by her.

There was no penalty attached to drunkenness.

A

wardsman did not necessarily lose his situation for it.

Nor was drink the only creature comfort he might enjoy.

He could indulge in snuff if a snuff-taker, and might always smoke his pipe undisturbed; for although the use of tobacco had been prohibited since the report of the Lords Committee, it was still freely introduced into the prison.

Probably authority would not have been so recklessly usurped by the wardsmen had not the proper officials too readily surrendered it.

The turnkeys left the prisoners very much to themselves, never entering the wards after locking-up time, at dusk, till unlocking next morning, and then only went round to count the number.

Many of them were otherwise and improperly occupied for hours every day in menial services for the governor, cleaning his windows or grooming his horse.

One turnkey had been so employed several hours daily for nearly eleven years.

It was not strange that subordinates should neglect their duty when superiors set the example.

Nothing was more prominently brought out by the inspectors than the inefficiency of the governor at that time, Mr. Cope.

He may have erred in some points through ignorance, but in others he was clearly guilty of culpable neglect.

We have seen that he took no pains to classify and separate prisoners on reception.

This was only one of many grave omissions on his part.

He did not feel it incumbent on himself to visit his prison often or see his prisoners.

The act prescribed that he should do both every twenty-four hours, but days passed without his entering the wards.

The prisoners declared that they did not see him oftener than twice a week; one man who had been in the condemned ward for two months, said the governor only came there four times.

Again, a turnkey deposed that his chief did not enter the wards more than once a fortnight.

But it is only fair to Mr. Cope to state that he himself said he went whenever he could find time, and that he was constantly engaged attending sessions and going with drafts to the hulks.

But when he did visit, his inspections were of the most superficial character; sometimes he looked at his bolts and bars, but he never examined the cupboards, coal-boxes, or other possible hiding-places for cards, dice, dangerous implements, or other prohibited articles.

He only attended chapel once on Sunday, never on the week-day, and generally devoted the time service was in progress to taking the descriptions of newly-arrived prisoners.

He really did not know what passed in his gaol, and was surprised when the inspectors proved to him that practices of which he was ignorant, and which he admitted that he reprehended, went on without hindrance.

He was satisfied to let matters run on as in the old times, he said in his own justification; with him what was, was right, and evils that should have been speedily rooted out remained because they had the prescription of long usage.

He kept no daily journal of occurrences, and nothing, however important, was recorded at the time.

The aldermen never called upon him to report, and left him nearly unsupervised and uncontrolled.

In his administration of discipline he was quite uncertain; the punishments he inflicted were unequal, and it was not the least part of the blame imputed to him that he made special favourites of particular prisoners, retaining of his own accord in Newgate, and for years, felons who should have been sent beyond the seas.

But, indeed, his whole rule was far too mild, and under this mistaken leniency the interior of the gaol was more like a bear-garden or the noisy purlieus of a public-house than a prison.

It was the same old story--evil constantly in the ascendant, the least criminal at the mercy of the most depraved.

Under the reckless contempt for regulations, the apathy of the authorities, and the undue ascendancy of those who, as convicted felons, should have been most sternly repressed, the most hardened and the oldest in vice had the best of it, while the inexperienced beginner went to the wall.

Edward Gibbon Wakefield,[82] who spent three years in Newgate a little before the time of the inspectors' first report, said with justice that "incredible scenes of horror occur in Newgate."

It was, moreover, in his opinion undoubtedly the greatest nursery of crime in London.

The days were passed in idleness, debauchery, riotous quarrelling, immoral conversation, gambling, indirect contravention of parliamentary rules, instruction in all nefarious processes, lively discourse upon past criminal exploits, elaborate discussion of others to be perpetrated after release.

No provision whatever was made for the employment of prisoners, no materials were purchased, no trade instructors appointed.

There was no school for adults; only the boys were taught anything, and their instructor, with his assistant, were convicted prisoners.

Idle hands and unoccupied brains found in mischief the only means of whiling away the long hours of incarceration.

Gaming of all kinds, although forbidden by the Gaol Acts, was habitually practised.

This was admitted in evidence by the turnkeys, and was proved by the appearance of the prison tables, which bore the marks of gaming-boards deeply cut into them.

Prisoners confessed that it was a favourite occupation, the chief games being "shoving halfpence" on the table, pitch in the hole, cribbage, dominoes, and common tossing, at which as much as four or five shillings would change hands in an hour.

But this was not the only amusement.

Most of the wards took in the daily papers, the most popular being the 'Times,' 'Morning Herald,' and 'Morning Chronicle'; on Sunday the 'Weekly Dispatch,' 'Bell's Life,' and the 'Weekly Messenger.'

The newsman had free access to the prison; he passed in unsearched and unexamined, and, unaccompanied by an officer, went at once to his customers, who bought their paper and paid for it themselves.

The news-vendor was also a tobacconist, and he had thus ample means of introducing to the prisoners the prohibited but always much-coveted and generally procurable weed.

In the same way the wardsman laid in his stock to be retailed.

Other light literature besides the daily journals were in circulation: novels, flash songs, play-books, such as 'Jane Shore,' 'Grimm's German Tales,' with Cruikshank's illustrations, and publications which in these days would have been made the subject of a criminal prosecution.

One of these, published by Stockdale, the inspectors styled "a book of the most disgusting nature."

[83] There was also a good supply of Bibles and prayers, the donation of a philanthropic gentleman, Captain Brown, but these, particularly the Bibles, bore little appearance of having been used.

Drink, in more or less unlimited quantities, was still to be had.

Spirits certainly were now excluded; but a potman, with full permission of the sheriffs, brought in beer for sale from a neighbouring public-house, and visited all the wards with no other escort than the prisoner gatesman.

The quantity to be issued per head was limited by the prison regulations to one pint, but no steps were taken to prevent any prisoner from obtaining more if he could pay for it.

The beer-man brought in as much as he pleased; he sold it without the controlling presence of an officer.

Not only did prisoners come again and again for a "pint," but large quantities were carried off to the wards to be drunk later in the day.

There were more varied, and at times, especially when beer had circulated freely, more uproarious diversions.

Wrestling, in which legs were occasionally broken, was freely indulged in; also such low games as "cobham," leap-frog, puss in the corner, and "fly the garter," for which purpose the rugs were spread out to prevent feet slipping on the floor.

Feasting alternated with fighting.

The weekly introduction of food, to which I shall presently refer, formed the basis of luxurious banquets, washed down by liquor and enlivened by flash songs and thrilling long-winded descriptions of robberies and other "plants."

There was much swearing and bad language, the very worst that could be used, from the first thing in the morning to the last thing at night.

[84] New arrivals, especially the innocent and still guileless debutant, were tormented with rude horse-play, and assailed by the most insulting "chaff."

If any man presumed to turn in too early he was "toed," that is to say, a string was fastened to his big toe while he was asleep, and he was dragged from off his mat, or his bedclothes were drawn away across the room.

The ragged part of the prisoners were very anxious to destroy the clothes of the better dressed, and often lighted small pieces of cloth, which they dropped smouldering into their fellow-prisoners' pockets.

Often the victim, goaded to madness, attacked his tormentors; a fight was then certain to follow.

These fights sometimes took place in the daytime, when a ring was regularly formed, and two or three stood by the door to watch for the officer's approach.

More often they occurred at night, and were continued to the bitter end.

The prisoners in this way administered serious punishment on one another.

Black eyes and broken noses were always to be seen.

More cruel injuries were common enough, which did not result from honest hand-to-hand fights.

The surgeon's journal produced to the inspectors contained numerous entries of terrible wounds inflicted in a cowardly way.

"A serious accident: one of the prisoners had a hot poker run into his eye."

"A lad named Matthew White has had a wound in his eye by a bone thrown at him, which very nearly destroyed vision."

"There was a disturbance in the transport yard yesterday evening, and the police were called in.

During the tumult a prisoner, ...

who was one of the worst of the rioters, was bruised about the head and body."

"Watkins' knee-joint is very severely injured."

"A prisoner Baxter is in the infirmary in consequence of a severe injury to his wrist-joint."

Watkins' case, referred to above, is made the subject of another and a special report from the surgeon.

He was in the transport side, when one of his fellows, in endeavouring to strike another prisoner with a large poker, missed his aim, and struck Watkins' knee....

Violent inflammation and extensive suppuration ensued, and for a considerable time amputation seemed inevitable.

After severe suffering prolonged for many months, the inflammation was subdued, but the cartilage of the knee-joint was destroyed, and he was crippled for life.

On another occasion a young man, who was being violently teased, seized a knife and stabbed his tormentor in the back.

The prisoner who used the knife was secured, but it was the wardsman, and not the officers, to whom the report was made, and no official inquiry or punishment followed.

Matters were at times still worse, and the rioting went on to such dangerous lengths as to endanger the safety of the building.

On one occasion a disturbance was raised which was not quelled until windows had been broken and forms and tables burnt.

The officers were obliged to go in among the prisoners to restore order with drawn cutlasses, but the presence and authority of the governor himself became indispensable.

The worst fights occurred on Sunday afternoons; but nearly every night the act of locking up became, from the consequent removal of all supervision, the signal for the commencement of obscene talk, revelry, and violence.

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.

On this female side, where the Ladies' Association still reigned supreme, more system and a greater semblance of decorum was maintained.

But there were evils akin to those on the male side, prominent amongst which was the undue influence accorded to prisoners.

A female prisoner kept the registers.

Wards-women were allowed much the same authority, with the same temptations to excess, and intoxication was not unknown among them and others.

The clothing was still meagre and ragged: the washing places insufficient, and wanting in decency; in some yards the pump was the only provision, and this in a place within sight of visitors, of the windows of the male turnkeys, and unprotected from the weather.

There was the same crowding in the sleeping arrangements as on the male side; the same scarcity of bedding.

It was a special evil of this part of the prison, that the devotional exercises, originally so profitable, had grown into a kind of edifying spectacle, which numbers of well-meaning but inquisitive people were anxious to witness.

Thus, when the inspectors visited there were twenty-three strangers, and only twenty-eight prisoners.

The presence of so many strangers, many of them gentlemen, distracted the prisoners' attention, and could not be productive of much good.

The separation of the sexes was not indeed rigidly carried out in Newgate as yet.

We have seen that male prisoners visited their female relations and friends on the female side.

Besides this, the gatesman who prepared the briefs had interviews with female prisoners alone while taking their instructions; a female came alone and unaccompanied by a matron to clean the governor's office in the male prison; male prisoners carried coal into the female prison, when they saw and could speak or pass letters to the female prisoners; and the men could also at any time go for tea, coffee, and sugar to Mrs. Brown's shop, which was inside the female gate.

In the bail-dock, where most improper general association was permitted, the female prisoners were often altogether in the charge of male turnkeys.

The governor was also personally responsible for gross contravention of this rule of separation, and was in the habit of drawing frequently upon the female prison for prisoners to act as domestic servants in his own private dwelling.

Some member of the Ladies' Association observed and commented upon the fact that a "young rosy-cheeked girl" had been kept by the governor from transportation, while older women in infirm health were sent across the seas.

His excuse was that he had given the girl his promise that she should not go, an assumption of prerogative which by no means rested with him; but he afterwards admitted that the girl had been recommended to him by the principal turnkey, who knew something of her friends.

This woman was really his servant, employed to help in cleaning, and taken on whenever there was extra work to be done.

The governor had a great dislike, he said, to seeing strangers in his house.

This girl had been first engaged on account of the extra work entailed by certain prisoners committed by the House of Commons, who had been lodged in the governor's own house.

The house at this time was full of men and visitors; waiters came in from the taverns with meals.

Some of the prisoners had their valets, and all these were constantly in and out of the kitchen where this female prisoner was employed.

There was revelling and roystering, as usual, with "high life below-stairs."

The governor sent down wine on festive occasions, of which no doubt the prisoner housemaid had her share.

It can hardly be denied that the governor, in his treatment of this woman, was acting in flagrant contravention of all rules.