of London — was erected in the time of committed from London, Middlesex, Kent, Henry I, and used as a prison soon after or Essex, for trial at the Central Criminal the middle of the twelfth century. It was Court, and also for the execution of any rebuilt definitively as a prison by Sir Richard sentence passed at that court (section 10), Whittington (the owner of the famous cat, and for the detention of persons whose trial of the harmless, necessary species, not was removed to the Central Criminal Court, an instrument of flagellation), and used as under 19 & 20 Vict., c. 16 (known as the the common gaol for the city of London Palmer Act, and passed to enable the Rugeand county of Middlesex. In 1357 the ley poisoner, William Palmer, to be tried lord mayor — perhaps in distant and belated in London instead of at the Circuit Court recognition of Whittington's services — was in Stafford, within whose jurisdiction his named as a commissioner for the delivery of offense was committed, and where he could the gaol, and his successor in office remains scarcely, owing to local prejudice, have to this day a justice of the Old Bailey, or obtained a fair trial), and the jurisdiction Central Criminal Court. The functions of on Homicides Act.. Under the Prison Act, 1877, and the Central Criminal Court Prisons the lord mayor in this capacity are, how Act, 188 1, Newgate has been used for the ever, now of a practically ornamental char acter. From 1357 the old prison remained confinement of prisoners before and during without substantial change until 1770, when trial at the Old Bailey, and also for the exe its reconstruction was undertaken during cution of some death sentences passed there, the Gordon riots of 1780 [as to which see and for the birching of little boys, but not "Harnaby Rudge"]. However, it was com for any other sentences. pletely destroyed, and the modern prison, It may bring home to the mind of the which was constructed on the plans of 1780, reader the structure and internal regimen of was not completed until 1783. With the Newgate if a visit to the prison, under an completion of Newgate, Tyburn ceased to order of the Home Secretary, by the present be a place of public executions, and these writer, is described. ghastly functions were perpetrated — in the Some years ago the author of this article case of persons sentenced to death at the and a friend, who may be named for Old Bailey — outside the prison, until the the present purpose, Grice (a dignitary in abolition of public executions in all cases the Indian Civil Service) obtained a pass except treason, largely in consequence of from Mr. Secretary Asquith to go through the humane efforts of Thackeray and other Newgate. The prison is situated in a lane, "Old Bailey," running off at right angles to philanthropists in 1868. Newgate was used as a prison not only Ludgate Hill. As one approaches St. Paul's for criminals but for debtors under the old the block in which it is comprised consists law (which gave Dickens so much material first of the Old Bailey — a gloomy building for his stories of the Fleet) until 181 5, when with several narrow, draughty and ill-venti the latter were sent to White Cross Prison. lated courts imbedded in it — and then, as In 1877 Newgate was transferred from the wayfarer draws near to Holborn, New the city corporation to the crown, and it gate prison itself. In front of the prison, in has been under the control of the prison a rough square, is the site where the public commissioners since that date. Under the gallows used to be erected. It is almost opposite one of the doors leading into the statute which established the Central Crim inal Court on its modern basis (1834; 4 & prison, and is now a scene of busy traffic. 5 Will. IV., c. 36, § 9), Newgate could be On entering the prison we were received by used as a place for the detention of persons one of the principal warders, who, after
