1

CHAPTER XXV—A VISIT TO NEWGATE

‘The force of habit’ is a trite phrase in everybody’s mouth; and it is not a little

remarkable that those who use it most as applied to others, unconsciously afford in

their own persons singular examples of the power which habit and custom exercise

over the minds of men, and of the little reflection they are apt to bestow on subjects

with which every day’s experience has rendered them familiar. If Bedlam could be

suddenly removed like another Aladdin’s palace, and set down on the space now

occupied by Newgate, scarcely one man out of a hundred, whose road to business

every morning lies through Newgate-street, or the Old Bailey, would pass the building

without bestowing a hasty glance on its small, grated windows, and a transient

thought upon the condition of the unhappy beings immured in its dismal cells; and yet

these same men, day by day, and hour by hour, pass and repass this gloomy

depository of the guilt and misery of London, in one perpetual stream of life and

bustle, utterly unmindful of the throng of wretched creatures pent up within it—nay,

not even knowing, or if they do, not heeding, the fact, that as they pass one particular

angle of the massive wall with a light laugh or a merry whistle, they stand within one

yard of a fellow-creature, bound and helpless, whose hours are numbered, from whom

the last feeble ray of hope has fled for ever, and whose miserable career will shortly

terminate in a violent and shameful death. Contact with death even in its least terrible

shape, is solemn and appalling. How much more awful is it to reflect on this near

vicinity to the dying—to men in full health and vigour, in the flower of youth or the

prime of life, with all their faculties and perceptions as acute and perfect as your own;

but dying, nevertheless—dying as surely—with the hand of death imprinted upon

them as indelibly—as if mortal disease had wasted their frames to shadows, and

corruption had already begun! [….]

Conceive the situation of a man, spending his last night on earth in this cell. Buoyed

up with some vague and undefined hope of reprieve, he knew not why—indulging in

some wild and visionary idea of escaping, he knew not how—hour after hour of the

three preceding days allowed him for preparation, has fled with a speed which no man

living would deem possible, for none but this dying man can know. He has wearied

his friends with entreaties, exhausted the attendants with importunities, neglected in

his feverish restlessness the timely warnings of his spiritual consoler; and, now that

the illusion is at last dispelled, now that eternity is before him and guilt behind, now

that his fears of death amount almost to madness, and an overwhelming sense of his

helpless, hopeless state rushes upon him, he is lost and stupefied, and has neither

thoughts to turn to, nor power to call upon, the Almighty Being, from whom alone he

can seek mercy and forgiveness, and before whom his repentance can alone avail.

Hours have glided by, and still he sits upon the same stone bench with folded arms,

heedless alike of the fast decreasing time before him, and the urgent entreaties of the

good man at his side. The feeble light is wasting gradually, and the deathlike stillness

of the street without, broken only by the rumbling of some passing vehicle which

echoes mournfully through the empty yards, warns him that the night is waning fast

away. The deep bell of St. Paul’s strikes—one! He heard it; it has roused him. Seven

hours left! He paces the narrow limits of his cell with rapid strides, cold drops of

terror starting on his forehead, and every muscle of his frame quivering with agony.

Seven hours! He suffers himself to be led to his seat, mechanically takes the bible

which is placed in his hand, and tries to read and listen. No: his thoughts will wander.

The book is torn and soiled by use—and like the book he read his lessons in, at

school, just forty years ago! He has never bestowed a thought upon it, perhaps, since

he left it as a child: and yet the place, the time, the room—nay, the very boys he
 3

played with, crowd as vividly before him as if they were scenes of yesterday; and

some forgotten phrase, some childish word, rings in his ears like the echo of one

uttered but a minute since. The voice of the clergyman recalls him to himself. He is

reading from the sacred book its solemn promises of pardon for repentance, and its

awful denunciation of obdurate men. He falls upon his knees and clasps his hands to

pray. Hush! what sound was that? He starts upon his feet. It cannot be two yet. Hark!

Two quarters have struck;—the third—the fourth. It is! Six hours left. Tell him not of

repentance! Six hours’ repentance for eight times six years of guilt and sin! He buries

his face in his hands, and throws himself on the bench.

Worn with watching and excitement, he sleeps, and the same unsettled state of

mind pursues him in his dreams. An insupportable load is taken from his breast; he is

walking with his wife in a pleasant field, with the bright sky above them, and a fresh

and boundless prospect on every side—how different from the stone walls of

Newgate! She is looking—not as she did when he saw her for the last time in that

dreadful place, but as she used when he loved her—long, long ago, before misery and

ill-treatment had altered her looks, and vice had changed his nature, and she is leaning

upon his arm, and looking up into his face with tenderness and affection—and he

does not strike her now, nor rudely shake her from him. And oh! how glad he is to tell

her all he had forgotten in that last hurried interview, and to fall on his knees before

her and fervently beseech her pardon for all the unkindness and cruelty that wasted

her form and broke her heart! The scene suddenly changes. He is on his trial again:

there are the judge and jury, and prosecutors, and witnesses, just as they were before.

How full the court is—what a sea of heads—with a gallows, too, and a scaffold—and

how all those people stare at him! Verdict, ‘Guilty.’ No matter; he will escape.
 4

The night is dark and cold, the gates have been left open, and in an instant he is in

the street, flying from the scene of his imprisonment like the wind. The streets are

cleared, the open fields are gained and the broad, wide country lies before him.

Onward he dashes in the midst of darkness, over hedge and ditch, through mud and

pool, bounding from spot to spot with a speed and lightness, astonishing even to

himself. At length he pauses; he must be safe from pursuit now; he will stretch

himself on that bank and sleep till sunrise.

A period of unconsciousness succeeds. He wakes, cold and wretched. The dull, gray

light of morning is stealing into the cell, and falls upon the form of the attendant

turnkey. Confused by his dreams, he starts from his uneasy bed in momentary

uncertainty. It is but momentary. Every object in the narrow cell is too frightfully real

to admit of doubt or mistake. He is the condemned felon again, guilty and despairing;

and in two hours more will be dead

Most of the sentences are complex,