is also stated that prisoners are treated in this House of Correction with unnecessary severity, and are deprived of the means of providing for their legal defence. Some other alleged abuses having been submitted to the consideration of commissioners appointed by the King, who have not yet made their report, we shall abstain from mentioning or observing on them.

With regard to the next point, to which the sheriffs directed their attention, it strikes us as highly important :

The facts are these: During the first Sessions in which I had the honour to sit as one of the Sheriffs at the Old Bailey, the Grand Jury having returned several bills in Court as not found; I was induced, soon afterwards, to ask the keeper of Newgate if those persons had been discharged; and I was much astonished to find, not only that they had not been discharged, but that persons in this situation were always detained till the morning after the Grand Jury had been discharged, when they were brought to the bar, and dismissed by the Court. I learned at the same time that those persons against whom the Grand Jury had found a bill of indictment, and who happened afterwards to be acquitted by the Petty Jury, were immediately discharged. Surprised that persons should continue to be subjected to the restraints, privations, and miseries of a prison, after a Grand Jury had found that there existed no ground of accusation against them, I pursued my enquiries among various Officers of the Court, and found that the practice was defended on the ground that there might be other charges against these persons; and that it sometimes happened that there were two bills against the same person, only one of which was decided upon in the first instance. Hence it appeared that many persons would be detained for several days, against whom there existed no charge or process, because it might happen now and then that some new charge would arise against some one of them.'

The sheriffs, thinking that their authority to detain a man in prison depended only on the charge against him, and that, when that accusation was removed by the verdict of a grand jury, he was as much intitled to his liberty as if the charge had never existed, appear to have agreed on presenting a memorial to the Recorder, stating their disapprobation of the practice : but they disagreed as to the manner of proceeding, and the object was lost. The author, indeed, expresses his hope that his constituents will be convinced that (by him) everything was done' (p. 75), but we think that his own statement proves the reverse. After having observed to the Recorder, in high-sounding phrases, that relative to the restoration of a right, without which the English cease to exist as a free people a right which formed part of the institutions of Alfred the Great, made a thousand years ago-a right which

was declared by Magna Charta which has been maintained by rivers of the blood of our ancestors—and which was confirmed at the revolution, Mr. Phillips cannot, as a public officer, enter into any compromise ;'-after an avowal that the matter has presented itself to the mind of Mr. Phillips, in his official capacity;'-and after having peremptorily called on the Recorder to fix such arrangements as may enable the sheriffs immediately to discharge, in the ensuing sessions, every prisoner relative to whom the Grand Jury may have thrown out the bill of indictment;'-the sheriff is told by the Recorder "that he never would consent to the alteration proposed, and that as long as he lived it should continue as it is ;" and the author also hears (p. 226) that if the sheriff discharged any prisoner without an order from the Court, the Recorder had threatened to fine the sheriff 5ool.' Thus convinced, thus pledged, thus taunted, and thus challenged, we are sorry to say that the patriotic, sheriff effects nothing. At the five subsequent sessions which occurred while he was in office, he. quietly submitted to the practice which he so violently condemned, though having in his own hands the power of carrying his views into effect, and of ascertaining the legality of a most important constitutional question. This is the more to be lamented, because we are as perfectly persuaded as we can allow ourselves to be on any ex parte statement, that the sheriff's views of the law were correctly just. It is expressly enacted by 14 Geo. 3. c. 20, that prisoners," against whom no bill of indictment shall be found by the Grand Jury, shall be immediately set at large;" and independently of any such enactment, he who restrains the liberty of his fellow.subject must shew his warrant for so doing. When a man, who is arrested only because a specific charge has been made against him, is acquitted of it by a competent tribunal, where is the authority to retain him? Cessante causá, cessat et effectus; the suspected crime, which alone authorized the imprisonment, is wholly removed; and why is not the prisoner a free man again? If the point had been brought to issue in a question between the Sheriff and the Recorder, and the law were doubtful, the Judges of England are bound to lean in favour of liberty; but, unless some positive act of Parliament can be produced, we find it difficult to conceive a doubt as to the decision. Sir Richard Phillips very properly states some of the hardships that might ensue from the prevailing doctrine, which gives an unlimited scope to injustice and oppression; and he has done well in calling the attention of the public to this point of Old Bailey practice: but we cannot admit his claim to praise for abandoning so important a principle.

We

We shall now attend our official conductor to the prisons under his care. :

The prisons of the metropolis which are properly under the jurisdiction of the Sheriffs of London are NEWGATE, which is the county gaol; the POULTRY COMPTER, and the GILTSPUR-STREET COMPTER, which are the city prisons, each Sheriff taking cognizance of that Compter, which is the nearest to his residence; and LUDGATE, which is a prison for debtors who are citizens of London.

In Newgate are generally confined from FOUR TO FIVE HUNDRED PRISONERS, male and female, consisting of county debtors,-felons convicted and unconvicted,-state prisoners--and fines, or those sentenced to a definite term of imprisonment. I learn that there have been as many as SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY Confined at one time in this prison, but the average of the present year has not exceeded four hundred and twenty, although at particular times there have been as many as five hundred and fifty.

When it is considered that Newgate is situated in the centre of this great metropolis, that its external dimensions are only 105 yards by 40 yards, and that not more than a fourth of this superficies can be occupied as dwellings for the prisoners, it will at once be obvious that mere personal restraint is, not the greatest evil suffered by those who have the unhappiness to be detained within its walls; I understand that when the number of prisoners exceed six hundred, fevers have generally begun to shew themselves and in 1789, when the number amounted to nearly eight hundred, a contagions fever broke out, and carried off five or six of the prisoners per day.'

:

The most crowded parts of this prison are the debtors' yard, and the women-felons yard. The latter description of persons, varying in number from about 110 to 170, occupy two wards 37 feet by 13, with a sick ward, and three little rooms called the Master's side. When they lie down on their floors by night, there must necessarily be the same bodily contact and the same economical disposition of hands and legs as in the deck of a slave ship,' of which the drawing was circulated some time ago. Each woman occupies a breadth of about eighteen inches; and when the wards are full, two or three lie crosswise between the feet of every pair of women, whose heads are next to the opposite walls.-The whole of the debtors are crowded into a corner of Newgate, not fifty feet square. Their situation is nearly, but not quite, as dreadful as that of the women-felons.-The Poultry Compter is well known to be almost a ruin: but it still continues to be used as a place of commitment, because, it seems, some of the city magistrates claim the right of committing persons, where they please!-The Giltspur-Street Compter is calculated for the reception of forty debtors, and on an average it contains eighty five.-Ludgate is stated to be inadequate for its purposes, but easily susceptible of improvement.

Facts

Facts of this kind, if generally known, could scarcely be permitted to continue, since the remedy is extremely simple, a larger space being in general the only desideratum required. If the building used by the College of Physicians should be sold, it might be permanently annexed to Newgate, and assigned to the debtors exclusively. Land also might be pur chased in other places, and proper receptacles erected for human beings. The great merchants of London, who take pride and delight in charity, need no longer advertize for distant objects of romantic bounty; when they daily pass by so serious an accumulation of misery, of which a great part might be entirely removed by moderate contributions. We sincerely wish success to the Sheriff's Fund, laudably establish ed by the gentlemen whose shrievalty we are in fact reviewing. In the course of these details, various observations are made, and some of them are intitled to notice. It is justly remarked that the gaolers' fees operate as a most serious grievance; and that, in all cases, regular salaries ought to be substituted for them. Some of the evils resulting from the system of transportation also are displayed; and many readers will here learn, for the first time, that although government pays* for the banishment of the convicts, no provision is made for restoring them to their country and friends, at the expiration of their term of exile. The men have sometimes the opportunity of working their passage home but a seven years' transportation of women is in effect banishment for life. This fate appeared particularly severe in the case of several female convicts, who had already spent in prison two out of the seven years to which their punishment extended; and the propriety of .completing a Penitentiary, which was enacted between twenty and thirty years ago, but has never been seriously undertaken, for the reception of less hardened offenders, is enforced witli great shew of reason. Objections are taken to loading prisoners before trial indiscriminately with irons, for the convenience of the gaoler, who would otherwise find some difficulty in distinguishing the numerous individuals in his custody; and the bail-docks (i. e. the room connected with the bar at which cri minals stand during their trial at the Old Bailey,) are said to be in general so much crowded as to produce some danger of infection. Sheriffs Smith and Phillips made an order that six only should be assembled there at one time, rightly judging it better that the Court should occasionally wait five minutes for

a

The expence is considerable. Between 7 and 800 persons are

annually transported, at the rate of about 1201. a head.

prisoner, than be exposed to a contagious fever from the suffocating steam of an unwholesome dungeon.

The last subject here considered is the conduct of sheriffs? officers in making arrests, and the management of lock-up houses, more commonly designated as spunging-houses; a familiar title, which is too justly derived from the gross impositions practised in them. An act passed in the thirty-second year of the last reign contained many judicious and humane regulations, which had been long neglected, but were again put in force by the late sheriffs. The fees were reduced within moderate bounds; a table of them, with a list of all the parliamentary regulations on the subject, was placed within the observation of every arrested person; and all bailiffs and others, who should be guilty of extortion in their office, were threatened with immediate dismissal. We may remark, however, that no precautions, be they as prudent as they may, are likely to be here effectual, unless the sheriffs will resolve to employ the most persevering personal vigilance, in checking the rapacity of their agents.

Having touched on all the material points discussed in this volume, we must say a word on the manner in which they are treated. We wish that it had been such as would recommend the important objects for which the writer has contended: but too much is said of himself, and too little regard is evinced for the feelings of others. A tone of overbearing mightiness pervades the work; and Mr. Sheriff Phillips speaks with as much contempt of his worthy colleague,' as Mr. Constable Dogberry does of his superannuated comrade. The name of the senior sheriff is wholly omitted in the statement of many official acts of importance; and no sooner does a slight misunderstanding arise on a point of form, than charges of evasion and equivocation' asc freely insinuated, and his character for honour and fair dealing' are declared to beat stake.' On the other hand, the style of addressing members of the government is so stately, and at the same time so impassioned, as to resemble rather the verbose ceremonial of diplomacy, and the courtship of the old heroic romance, than a plain statement from respectable and independent citizens of London, on points involving the well-being of their fellow-citizens. Why should these worthy gentlemen intreat Lord Hawkesbury to accept the most respectful assurances of their personal attachment and devotion to his Lordship? Why should Mr. Sheriff Phillips inform the Chief Baron, that he has discovered urbanity and liberality to be the leading and actuating traits of his personal character? And why must the livery of London have these and twenty other similar expressions repeated to them, in

corres