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ART. VI.-Facts relating to the Punishment of Death in the Metropolis. By Edward Gibbon Wakefield, Esq. 12mo. pp. 198. London: Ridg

IN giving to our readers an account of this work, we shall not make a single allusion to the unhappy celebrity which the name of its author has acquired, as it seems but just that every man should be allowed to live down the indiscretions of his early life, especially when he has undergone the punishment assigned to his transgressions by the laws of his country. We cannot, indeed, avoid congratulating Mr. Wakefield on the good use which he appears to have made of the three years of his imprisonment in Newgate. He does not scruple to inform us that he has held frequent conversations with thieves and criminals of every age and degree, for the purpose of obtaining a knowledge of their usual habits, and we have here the results of his inquiries. It is obvious that an individual, situated as he was, possessed facilities for the attainment of his object, which could have fallen to the lot of very few others of equal intelligence. He was the fellow-prisoner of numerous delinquents, and of course supposed by them to sympathize in their fate; he was amongst them as often as he pleased, during the period of his incarceration, and they could have had no suspicion that he intended to communicate his remarks to the world. They were, therefore, in a great measure thrown off their guard, and were easily induced, by his superior tact and address, to • make confessions to his ear, which they would never have been induced to communicate to a mere casual visitor, much less to the officers of the gaol. It is highly creditable to his character, that he seems to have received not the slightest contamination from this impure contact, and that, instead of avenging his own sufferings upon the virtuous part of society, he has, on the contrary, endeavoured, in this little work, to turn to their advantage many of the hours which he was condemned to count within the walls of Newgate.

His principal object is to illustrate, by the information which he has collected, the effects of capital punishment as administered in London and Middlesex. But to this object he has not confined himself exclusively, for a great, and by no means the least interesting, portion of his book, is occupied with notices of what may be called the art of thieving in this great metropolis, the haunts of those who follow that art as a regular calling, the artifices by which they seduce apprentices and other youths to become members of their fraternity, and, above all, of the defects in our system of police, whereby crime of every description is openly encouraged, and rendered more prosperous than it is in any other country upon the face of the earth. He discloses to us, also, the internal scenery and operations of Newgate, of which the world is

in truth as ignorant as if that famed prison were situated upon the wildest steppes of Tartary, instead of being in the very heart of the city of London, and he enumerates many facts, to which it is highly expedient that the attention of the legislature should be forcibly directed. He paints in glowing language the serious and unhappy consequences, that are constantly proceeding from the mode in which criminal justice is administered in the capital, a mode that differs in some essential points from that which takes place in all the other counties of England, and which, so far as we know, is only to be ascribed to the actual or supposed presence of the King within its jurisdiction. We have never seen the abuses of this system, for abuses they undoubtedly are, so clearly pointed out and commented upon as they are in this little work, and if it contribute in any degree to the correction of them, he will have no great reason to complain of the mischance which gave him the opportunity of collecting his materials.

The author apprehends that his representations of some of the scenes that have occurred within the walls of Newgate, will hardly be believed; that they will be looked upon as exaggerations, as the productions of a distempered fancy. We see no reason for any such apprehensions upon his part. He has no interest whatever in the invention of falsehoods upon the subject; it is manifest that his object in disclosing the observations which he made, is a laudable one, and that he can have no motive for making things better or worse than they really are. For our own parts, after perusing his work with the utmost attention, we shall freely acquit him of any such charge, if ever it be brought against him. He seems, indeed, to have formed a strong opinion against the expediency of the punishment of death in general, and so far he may be suspected of entertaining a bias upon a subject of which he professes to treat impartially. But we cannot therefore fairly suppose that he imagines or distorts facts for his purpose, since any trick of this kind would be easily discovered, and his efforts might thus be effectually marred.

It appears to us that no intelligent person can peruse the details compressed within these pages without coming to two conclusions, both of which will be of very great importance as affecting the present state of our criminal law. They will, in the first place, probably be of opinion, that the mode of punishment, whatever the sentence may be, should be the same within the metropolis as it is in the other counties; and secondly, that the penalty of transportation to the colonies is no penalty at all. With respect to the punishment of death, the facts here enumerated are sufficient to shake the attachment which many of our statesmen still preserve for that ancient usage; but into this part of the subject we shall enter presently, convinced that the ideas of the community have undergone a sensible change upon this important point, which must VOL. II. (1831.) No. IV.

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lead, at no very distant period, to fundamental alterations in our criminal code.

The author is fully aware of the prejudices which are entertained in this country against the institution of a preventive police, prejudices which, we verily believe, may be traced rather to the gross abuse of such an establishment as it existed under Napoleon and his successors, than to any legitimate notions of personal liberty. It must, however, be admitted that there is something in the genius of our laws unfriendly to a preventive interference, as they most absurdly presume all culprits to be innocent until proved to be guilty. The only prevention that we have as yet admitted amongst us, is that which consists merely of bolts and bars, and sheet-iron linings to our doors and window-shutters. Some further advance has indeed been of late years made upon this subject, by the improved manner in which our streets are illuminated, and especially by the formation of the new police, a body whose great utility is strongly attested by the extreme dislike which all the thieves of the metropolis entertain towards it. When the new police was first established, the hostility of the thieves broke out against it in frequent acts of outrage, which some of our sapient newspapers represented as proceeding from a proper constitutional jealousy, that deserved rather to be encouraged than repressed. The author states that he repeatedly passed through the crowd which was assembled at Temple Bar on the evening of the 9th of November last, when it was expected that the King would dine at Guildhall, and he confidently assures us that the assemblage was composed almost exclusively of persons whom he had seen before as prisoners in Newgate. The new system thus appears to be greatly superior to the old, but, strange to say, it has not as yet effected any material diminution of crime in the metropolis. It renders the perpetration of it, perhaps, more dangerous, because it increases the chances of detection; but in fact it increases also the ingenuity, and multiplies the contrivances of the thieves, in order to elude the vigilance of the officers, and so far very little, if any thing, has been gained by the public.

It is well known, as Mr. Wakefield states, that there are organized bodies of thieves in haunts, which, though concealed from the glare of noon-day, are not unknown to the police, and also frequently discernible to the practised eye in the open streets, and yet they cannot be disturbed unless taken in the fact. To these are appended regular schools, in which children are seduced and taught to pursue thieving as a kind of trade or profession; nevertheless the law has not empowered any person to enter these nurseries of crime, and rescue the unhappy children from the misfortunes that await them. There are also, in many parts of the metropolis, establishments for facilitating the disposal of stolen goods; they are known to the initiated members of the fraternity by certain conventional signs, and although directly at variance with the safety of property, they cannot be subjected even to the inspection of the police, without

all the forms of informations and search warrants, the very preparation of which frequently affords sufficient time for the removal and concealment of every thing that might even justify suspicion. Mr. Wakefield strenuously recommends some essential alteration in our laws, with a view to the removal of these evils; his testimony upon the whole subject cannot be too highly valued.

'The importance of some effectual interference with the haunts and the free circulation of known thieves, can scarcely be overrated. If this enquiry had extended to every description of crime, I should have been able to shew that of the persons turned out of Newgate at each jail delivery -that is, eight times a year-a great number are practised criminals, whose experience enables them to defeat the law by means of perjured witnesses, compromise with the prosecutor, and corrupting the witnesses for the prosecution. If the laws were efficient, all such persons would be apprehended on leaving the prison, and sent to some penitentiary as notorious thieves. What becomes of them? Leaving the prison, generally pennyless, they go straight to their well known haunts, where, either by notorious thieves like themselves, who, as such, ought to be in confinement, or by publicans or others, who, as harbourers of thieves ought to be in prison, they are supplied with a loan of money for their immediate wants, and with information as to favourable opportunities of clearing the debt by means of robbery. These are, for the most part, persons who commit capital robberies, requiring previous arrangement. Others, such as pickpockets, if they leave the prison sufficiently well dressed, walk fearlessly through the streets, laughing at the police, and in the course of an hour or two acquire the means of passing the night in carousing and low debauchery, at public houses or other haunts of thieves. One little boy I remember, who, though only twelve years old, was a notorious thief, on the point of leaving the prison for want of prosecution. I asked him what he intended to do. "Go to work," was his ready answer. He was committed again some months later, and finally transported for picking the pocket of a police magistrate. When he was recommited, I asked him what he had done on leaving the prison? He answered-and I have no doubt truly that he had walked through the Old Bailey, Ludgate Hill, and Fleet Street, followed by two City officers who knew him, "but once through the Bar," said he, "I went to work and got twelve handkerchiefs between St. Clement's church and Charing Cross." This urchin was a most expert and industrious pickpocket, was known as such to the keeper of Newgate and the Police of the City, had been previously committed to Newgate more than once, and was seen by the Police-officers setting out on his predatory excursion when discharged from jail. All these facts might have been readily proved to the satisfaction of a magistrate or a jury,-yet the law did not interfere to prevent further crimes by that individual, and to save him from the gallows. The case is but a sample of hundreds that occur every year in London.

Three things appear to be necessary, in order to suppress the haunts of the thieves and prevent the circulation of notorious thieves in the streets. First, That the law should be altered, so as to render its execution against notorious thieves and those who harbour them, less troublesome to the Police.

Secondly, That the execution of such a law of Prevention should be confided to officers of Police, having no other occupation, and responsible for that particular service, though under the superintendence of higher authority, so as to furnish the immediate executors of the law with a sufficient motive for doing their duty.

Thirdly, Some provision for unity of purpose and action throughout the metropolis and its suburbs; so that a person known to be a thief in Whitechapel should be equally notorious to the officers at Pimlico, and that a harbourer of thieves driven from Islington should not commence business in Southwark.

The last-mentioned improvement could not, it may be said, take place without abrogating the present system of separate and independent Police jurisdictions, and interfering with what are called the privileges of the City of London. This is true; but which is it that the public requires,-separate jurisdictions, or effectual checks to crime?'-pp. 11–15.

The great nursery of crime in the metropolis is undoubtedly Newgate itself; but there are innumerable minor establishments for the same purpose. The author examined more than a hundred juvenile prisoners, between eight and fourteen years, as to the immediate cause of their delinquency, and in nineteen cases out of twenty, he assures us, it appeared that the boy had not committed his first crime spontaneously, but had been persuaded to commence the career of thieving by persons whose business it is to practise this kind of seduction." The following statement is appalling, but we are perfectly persuaded that it is not in any respect exaggerated.

The most numerous class of such seducers consists of experienced thieves, both men and boys, who look out for boys not criminal, to whom they represent the life of a thief as abounding in pleasure. The object of these representations is to obtain instruments, with which experienced thieves may commit robberies with less danger to themselves-participators whose ignorance of the trade subjects them to be put forward into the most dangerous situations, and to be cheated in the division of the spoil. But words are not the only means of seduction employed in such cases; food is given to the hungry, and all kinds of stimulating enjoyments are presented to others who do not want the means of subsistence. I state what I know to be a fact, in saying that a practised thief often spends as much as 107. in the course of a few days, for the purpose of corrupting a youth, by taking him to play-houses and other shows, and allowing him to eat and drink extravagantly at pastry-cooks, fruit-shops, and public-houses. The inevitable consequence of such indulgences is the victim's discontent with his previous mode of life, and when this feeling predominates, he is considered ripe for receiving without alarm the suggestions of his seducer. Very often a still more effectual means of seduction is applied, viz. the precocious excitement and gratification of the sexual passion, by the aid of women in league with the thieves, and to whom is commonly entrusted the task of suggesting to the intoxicated youth that robbery is the only means, and a safe means, of continuing to enjoy a life of riotous debauchery. This method of seduction succeeds, I believe, invariably. For the information of those who may think the statement overcharged, I add that a large proportion of the boys above twelve years of age, and some even