The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 198: what you’re looking at

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THE MYSTERIES. shockingly prominent. Oh! our’s indeed are blood- thirsty—atrocious—and sanguinary laws; and they | necessarily render all their administrators, agents, and myrmidons cruel and heartless likewise. “There, ladies,” said Mr. Soper, “you see the gallery where we puts the vimen; and that’s the gallery for the men. They’re separated you see: eos vy—morals afore everything. In this here round pew,” he continued, pointing to the enclosure which we have already noticed, “the gallows’ birds sits. On them Sundays when there’s a condemned sermon, the place is quite crowded with all your fine lords and ladies from the Vest End, and with the families of the City authorities. Lord bless ye, ma’am,” he added, turning towards Mrs. Brace, “it’s as good as a play to the fashionable folk; but I often thinks to myself, thinks I, ‘ What a precious cruel and heart- less set the wealthy and the great of this country are, to be sure !’” The milliner made no reply: but she doubtless thought that the man was not far wrong ;—otherwise she would perhaps have taken the trouble to express her dissent from his observation. “Now we'll wisit the vimen’s room,” said Mr. Soper; and he accordingly led the way into the wing tenanted by the female prisoners. The moment the door of that compartment was thrown open, the ears of Mrs. Brace and Harriet were saluted by licentious songs, obscene jests, and terrible imprecations; and they drew back, shuddering from head to foot. “ Lord, this is nothing, I can assure ye, ladies,” ex- claimed the man: then raising his voice to the highest pitch of its gruff intonation, he vociferated, “ Now, then, you vimen, hold your jaw, will’ee ?—or else [ll tell the guv’ner and stop your meat at dinner-time to-day.” The females held their peace for a short interval: but it was not through respect for Mr. Soper’s com- mand, nor in dread of his menace. Their curiosity was suddenly excited by the arrival of visitors. And now what a revolting spectacle met the eyes of Mrs. Brace and the lady’s-maid! In a large apartment, along one side of which the beds were arranged like shelves, three deep, and reminding one of the berths in a ship’s cabin, a number of hideous- lookimg women were assembled. The air was hot | and fetid: the beds were all in disorder, dirty, and | miserable. Some of the females were evidently ina | State bordering upon intoxication, even at that early hour in the forenoon; and their flushed counte- ‘mances were rendered more disgusting by the tangled, ‘matted, or dishevelled state of their hair—their torn, loose, negligent, and filthy apparel—their bold looks '—and the air of savage ferocity and hardened sin \ which stamped their features. / Having indulged ina good long stare at the visitors, some of the most daring of these wretches surrounded Mrs. Brace and Harriet, demanding money ; and the milliner, with a sickening sensation at the heart, hastened to distribute some small silver coins amongst them. ‘They expressed their pleasure in character- istic terms of revolting coarseness;—and Soper con- ducted Mrs. Brace andthe maid into an adjoining ward. “'Them’s the misdemeanant vimen that you’ve just seen,’ he observed, as he closed the huge door of the first apartment. “Now you're going to wisit the fe- male felons.” Again were the ears of the visitors saluted with 183 libidinous songs, obscene jests, and horrid oaths as they entered the second ward; and again were those voices extinguished for a few minutes by the presence of the milliner and her abigail. | The occupants of this room were not so uniformly revolting as those in the former ;—and yet they were a worse class of criminals, so far as the shades of ini- quity are defined. But the misdemeanants were chiefly drunken wretches who had committed savage assaults—brothel-keepers—the lowest description of prostitutes—and old charwomen and washerwomen who had been committed for illegally pawning: whereas the female felons consisted of the dashing woman of the town who had perpetrated a robbery— the servant who had stolen in her master’s dwelling- house—the young creature who had murdered her illegitimate child—the well-dressed shop-lifter—the poor seamstress who had disposed of the materials given her to make up—the lady who had robbed her furnished lodgings—the starving mother who had thieved a loaf for her famishing children—the receiver of stolen goods—the female swindler—and the old bawd in whose house some iniquitous deed had been committed. For in Newgate, up to this very hour, no attempt at classification—beyond the mere divi- sion of the misdemeanants and the felons—has ever been made ;—and thus the novice in crime herds with those who have grown gray in iniquity! Is not this infamous ?—is it not shocking in the extreme? And then the Legislature affects to won- der that crime should be upon the increase! How can it be otherwise? What effort is made to reform the offender ?—what wholesome scheme is adopted to re- claim and restore him to society? None—none;— and nine-tenths of the wretched beings who crowd the felons’ gaols, the hulks, and the penal settlements, and who ascend the accursed scaffold, are not so much the victims of their own misdeeds, as of that atrocious apathy and abominable neglect which are exhibited by those who have the power of reforming and ameliorating the condition of prison discipline. The poor and the ignorant in this wretched enslaved country are made poor and epé ignorant by the ras- cally and detestable oligarchy ;—and when John Bull boasts of the freedom and excellence of his institu- tions, he is a prejudiced, bigotted, narrow-minded, and besotted fool Oh! my heart bleeds when I think of the wrongs which the mi/lions endure at the hands of the few; and there are times when I feel ashamed, degraded and humiliated at having been born an Englishman, and wish to God that I was a Frenchman or an American! For at this moment true freedom exists only in the United States and in France;—and it is a loathsome mockery, a foul lie, and a burning shame to vaunt even the enjoyment of a shadow of liberty in Eng- land! Again in the female felons’ ward was Mrs. Brace’s purse opened ;—and, having dispensed some money amongst society’s poor outcasts there, she followed Soper, who Jed the way to the quadrangle occupied by the males,—Harriet keeping close behind her mistress. In the misdemeanants’ apartment, a sad spectacle of human demoralisation and abasement met the eyes of the visitors. Old men—young men—and boys were wasting their time in gaming, singing flash Songs, relating anecdotes of villany or debauchery, exchang- ing ribald jests, wrestling, or sparring. The ward was in the utmost disorder, and filthy to a degree. The Com CElooolkks.conn