HEPWORTH DIXON'S PRISONS. * THE research necessary for the Life of

Howard seems to have given Mr. Dixon a turn for prisons, and led him to investigate the actual condition of those of London, as well as to inquire into their former state. The preliminary results of his more living labour were published in a series of articles in the Daily News, which excited so much attention that Mr. Dixon was in- duced to extend the field of his inquiry by an examination of several provincial gaols, and to vary his subject by occasionally introducing a rapid sketch of the history of some of the more re- markable prisons. The upshot was the volume before us ; for which the old papers were entirely rewritten, and extended in their scale, so that two-thirds of the volume is entirely new. The matter mainly consists of three topics. 1. Discussions on prison discipline, and the state of the criminal population. 2. A description of the various systems or no-systems pursued in the hulks and the principal London and provincial prisons, with an account of their abuses, defects, and merits, if any. 3. A com- pendious review of the story of some prisons, and the most memor- able prisoners they have confined, with sketches of their existing antiquities. In some eases these topics are presented singly,—as in the first chapter on Crime and Criminals ; and in the second, which contains a notice of the Tower as a building and a state prison, a summary of the eminent hisc 11 persons who have there been done to death, privately or b. ..- -1 of law, with a list of all the re- markable commitments. Very frequently, however, two or more of the leading subjects are intermingled in the same essay,—as in New- gate, which contains a brief notice of the past, a pretty full descrip- tion of the actual condition of the prisoners, with occasional re- marks on their management. It is difficult thoroughly to change an original plan, especially when it has been to some extent executed, and it is perhaps more congruous than the alteration to the native genius of the designer. The " article," both in style and treatment, is still visible in the chapters notwithstanding the efforts to turn the papers into a book. There is no coherence; part may be taken away and something else substituted ; wile the subjects generally are treated too compendiously. The Tower, for example, is a very capital ,paper ; running rapidly over the whole history and bringing out its salient points with skill and relief, condensing some parts and dwelling a little upon others : but for a book the whole is too super- ficial. It should have been more extended, and have given fuller information ; for the paper was not needful to the practical objects of the author. The past story of Newgate and the Fleet would also have admitted of more expansion ; for manners and opinions are as strongly marked in the character of prisons and the treatment of prisoners as in anything else. The style, too, smacks of the journalist's " strong " writing ; giving a forced air to the vigour as well as the smartness.

These faults are rather of a critical than a practical kind, and do not militate against the readableness of the book ; perhaps, with many persons, they add to it, as they undoubtedly produce

• The London Prisons: with an Account of the more distinguished Persons who have been confined in them. To which is added, an Account of the chief Provincial Prisons. By Hepworth Dixon. Published by Jackson and Watford.

relief. In other respects Ms. Dixon is well qualified for his task. He has given attention to the subject of prison discipline, and is acquainted with the prisons he describes. In principle he belongs to the class of philanthropic reformers, who look upon criminals as created by circumstances, and that the duty of society is to reform them if it can, but that it has no business to un- duly punish an offender, still less to make him worse than it found him. But these views are under the control of philosophy and common sense. Mr. Dixon does not consider that fetters make d martyr, or look upon felons in any other light than as felons, whatever be the remote causes that have contributed to make them criminal. He has no notion that a prison should be made a place of comfort, where the most luxurious sanatory improvements of modern science should be introduced for the felons enjoyment ; or that pri- soners should be supported in a better manner than honest industry outside of the house ; or that architecture, floriculture, and what not, should be inlisted in the cause of gaols and their inmates. Neither has he much faith in the reformation of criminals, unless by Captain Maconoehie's system ; none whatever in the case of old and hard- ened offenders, and none under any circumstances from mere intel- lectual or religious teaching—the ministrations of the schoolmaster and the divine. Stern, inflexible, but judicious discipline—attention to the animal wants, so that no injurious discomfort shall be in- flicted upon the prisoner—and hard work—comprise the main prin- ciples of his prison discipline. Mr. Dixon, however, feels, what every one who thinks must feel, that if you really can succeed in in- ducing in the mind of the prisoner a desire to reform himself, what is he to do when he comes out, with a tainted character? It did not lie in Mr. Dixon's way to pursue the subject; but in the pre- sent state of the labour market in this country, and perhaps in France, there is a deeper question behind. I'very reformed cri- minal whom interest or compassion employs, displaces or occupies the place of some workman, who as far as the criminal law is in question has no need of reformation. All work that does not con- sist in raising food or improving land is open to a similar ob- jection. Mat-making, shoe-making, tailoring, and so forth, &na-

te with honest industry, and on more favourable terms. The new

oh plan of not selling the produce of prisoners' labour, but using it by Government, may be less, but not much less objection- able. If the articles are wanted, they must have been bought ; and there is still competition, though not so visible. If not wanted, there is waste. In like manner, public works by criminals check what would otherwise be the demand for private labourers. At the same time, Government consumption and public works are far better than direct competition with regular trade ; though public works as yet have not been without their evils, moral and econo- mical. Whether in hulk-gangs at home or chain-gangs in a penal settlement, the condition and morals of the prioners seem worse than under any other system. The waste of power appears so great as to go beyond mere bad management. W hen one looks at the immense muscular force that Government has had at its disposal for the last sixty or seventy years, and the large sums that have been expended on the hulks and convict colonies, and compares them with the works produced, the result is astounding. These speculations should not be altogether overlooked in any consideration of prison discipline ; though, strictly speaking, they formed no part of Mr. Dixon's object. Where this was not purely literary, his the was to point out actual abuses in existing prisons, to criticize the different systems, where any system is followed, and to exhibit some of the most striking facts connected with prisoners. The following is a shocking example of corporation doings in the t day, and no further off than London City. The filth of the

mpter is a fitting pendant to the filth of its neighbour Smithfield.

" In Giltspur Street Compter the prisoners sleep in small cells, little more than half the size of the model cell at Pentonville, which is calculated (on the supposition that the cell is to be ventille`ed on the best plan which science can suggest, regardless of cost) to be just larp enough for one inmate. The cell in Giltspur Street Compter is little more than half the size, and is either not ventilated at all, or is ventilated very imperfectly. I have mea- sured it, and know exactly the quantity of air which it will hold, and have no doubt but that it contains lees than any human being ought to breathe in the course of a night. Well, in this cell, in which there is hardly room for them to lie down, I have seen fire persons locked up at four o'clock in the day, to be there confined in darkness, in idleness, to pass all those hours, to do all the offices of nature, not merely in each other's presence, but crushed by the narrowness of their den into a state of filthy contact which brute beasts would have resisted to the last gasp of life. Think of these five wretched beings—men with souls, and gifted with human reason—con- demned, day by day, to pass in this unutterably loathsome manner two- thirds of their time ! Can we won* if these men come out of prison, after three or four months of such treatedt, prepared to commit the most revolt- ing crimes ? Could five of the purest men in the world live together in such a manner without losing every attribute of good which had once belonged to them ? He would be a rash man who would dare to answer yes. Take the other fact from Newgate. In any of the female wards may be seen, a week before the Sessions, a collection of persona of every shade of guilt and some who are innocent. I remember one case particularly. A servant girl, of about sixteen, a fresh-looking healthy creature, recently up from the coun- try, was charged by her mistress with stealing a brooch. She was in the same room, lived all day, slept all night, with the most abandoned of her sex. They were left alone; they had no work to do ; no books, except a few tracts for which they had no taste, to read. The whole day was spent as is usual in such prisons, in telling stories—the gross and guilty stories of their own lives. There is no form of wickedness, no aspect of vi ,ce with

which the poor creature's mind would not be compelled to grow familiar in the few weeks she passed in Newgate awaiting trial. When the day came, the evidence against her was found to be the lamest in the world, and she was at once acquitted. That she entered Newgate innocent I have no doubt; but who shall answer for the state in which she left it ? "

The cost of criminality in its various aspects is frequently handled by Mr. Dixon. On the waste, especially in model or pet prisons, he is strong. These are some startling facts in connexion with Lord i

rd John Russell's Pentonville.

" The first stone was laid on the 10th of April 1840, and the works were completed in the autumn of 1842, at a cost of more than 90,000/.

"The building so erected consists of five wings or galleries, radiating from a point ; the view from which is very striking, and at the same time very unprisonlike. On the sides of four of these galleries the cells are situate and numbered. There are 620 of them, but not more than 500 are ever occupied. If we divide 90,0001. by 500 we shall find that the accom- modation for each criminal costs the country 1801. for cell-room as ori outlay. This is a pretty serious item to begin with ; but there have been continual additions since. For example, in the last report—January 1st to December 31st 1847—nearly 3,0001. more are set down for building,'—that is, about 61. more for each criminal in one year. Ha! but then this is a model prison—an example of efficiency and economy to the country at large.

i

Well, now, what is the cost of management ? This is a question of some im- portance to the various county magistrates and ratepayers who have it pro- posed to them to follow the model. Last year the expenses of mere manage- ment at Pentonville were 16,3921. la. 7d. ' • the daily average of prisoners for the year was 475 ; consequently, the cost per head for victualling and man- agement was nearly 361. This, 'be it borne in mind, was irrespective of all the other grand chargm upon such institutions, such as rent, taxes, &e. But let us be perfectly just and fair : from this large sum all the proceeds of the prisoners' labour have to be deducted. Five hundred men working under competent instructors must produce a good deal, the reader will be in- clined to think : in Glasgow the male prisoners keep themselves by their work. In Pentonville, the 500 earned last year 1,1431. 12s. 6d.—about 2& 6a. 8d. each. Well, even this, though not much, look at it how you will, would be something if it were real, net, and to the good. But no—the ex- penses of this labour department are still more than the proceeds. Exclu- sive of rations and apartments, the salaries alone paid to trade-instructors amount to 1,7061. 148. 3d. ; including rent, rations, and other items, to ra- ther more than 2,0001. The manufactures of Pentonville—this is a fact so curious as to need repetition to make it understood—cost 2,0001. a year, and produce 1,1431." These are curious facts touching the "hangdog look." "There is a certain monotony and family likeness in the criminal counte- nance, which is at once repulsive and interesting : repulsive from its rugged outlines, its brutal expression, its physical deformity ; interesting from the mere fact of that commonness of outward character ' • the expression and the structure and style of features being so unnaturally alike, as to suggest that there must be a common cause at work, to produce upon these faces so re- markable a result. What is this cause ? Is it mere habit of life ? Intel- lectual pursuits, it is well known, affect the character, even the material form of the face : why not criminal pursuits ? No person can be long in the habit of seeing masses of criminals together without being struck with the sameness of their appearance. Ugliness has some intimate connexion with crime. No doubt, the excitement, the danger the alternate penalties and excesses attached to the career of the cruninald make him ugly. A hand- some face is a thing rarely seen in a prison, an never in a person who has been law-breaker front childhood. Well-formed heads—round and mas- sive, denoting intellectual power—may be seen occasionally in the gaol; but a pleasing, well-formed face, never. What does this ugliness of the prison- population indicate ? This—that the habit of crime becomes in a few years a fixed organism, which finds expression even in the external form. And is not such a fact full of morals? Does notnot every one feel how important it is in the interests of society, in the interests of the criminal himself—that he should be dealt with in the earliest stage of his career, before the evil that is in him has had time to fix itself in the organization, to grow fast in the

ever-hardening granite ? • • "A man who has not seen masses of men in a great prison cannot con- ceive how hideous the human countenance can become. Looking in the front of these benches, one sees only (Lemons. Moderately well-shaped heads and intelligent countenances are very rare amongst them. Occasionally the eye rests upon a cranium of a superior order—grand in outline and finely moulded : the man belonging to it, no doubt, has a history, if it could only be got at. But the vast mass of heads and faces seem made and stamped by nature for criminal acts. Such low, misshapen brows—such animal and sensual mouths and jaws—such cunning, reckless, or stupid looks—hardly seem to belong to anything that can by courtesy be called human."