1815.]

Report on the New Prison for Debtors in London.

a statue of King Charles the Second, in Roman costume, erected to his honour by his grateful Knight and Mayor, Sir Robert Vining, which tradition states to have been originally a fine statue of the Protector Cromwell, but which, at the happy restoration, was displaced and left in obscurity, till it was purchased by the prudent cit, who had the head carefully taken off, a new bust of his majesty placed on the trunk in its stead; and lo! by a speedy metamorphosis of the brassfounder, the republican statue became royal.

Now for our modern city Mecanuses and their mode of patronizing and manufacturing their Vitruviuses.

To the last city Vitruvius (George Dance, Esq. R. A. &c. &c.) who truly deserved the name, nothing but praise as an architect can be awarded; his prisons (witness his Newgate, &c.) and hospitals, his churches, his designs are all excellent; his great merits are on all hands acknowledged, and his resignation of the office of architect to the city of London was a public loss. This situation ought to have been replaced by the ablest architect that England could have produced; but the city "Mecænases" sell all their places and patronage; therefore a deep purse is a much more essential requisite than a long head in the constitution of a city « Vitruvius." The meanest capacity must instantly perceive that no man of real talent will purchase a place like this, for his abilities must raise him to a suitable eminence; but that the man of mediocrity, or of little or no talent, creeping on at humble distance, gathering and caring for nothing so much as money, he is the man to lay down his cash for the purchase of a place, that he is certain his talents only, without purchase, never could have procured for

him.

Every body knows that the Corporation of London are now building a new Debtors' Prison in the parish of Cripplegate; that the city representatives have several times in the House of Commons requested the public opinion on the state of their prisons to be suspended till the production of their " Vitruvius" should be completed, which is certainly no un just request, as every architect's motto over his incipient work should be, “STAY TILL FINISHED." A committee for the superintendance of this prison has also been appointed by the city" Mecenases" who have at considerable expense visited almost every prison in England. Who

15

now can suppose, that being so nearly completed, that the committee of the House of Commons have at length been allowed to visit and report thereon, but that the new City Prison will be "the very best of all possible" prisonsaided as it is by the purse of the first commercial city in the world, at a time. too when we are possessed of the talents of a race of architects, which your reviewer states (how truly remains for him to prove) to be equal to any task the nation can require, and only want "Mecænases" to bring them forth; who had the faults and excellencies of all former prisons, and works on prisons, and priencourage? This certainly was my serison-building before them, to warn and ous opinion and anxious hope; I fondly flattered nyself that my native city would have the finest, the best, the most appropriate debtors' prison in the world, and I looked forward with pleasure to the day when I should visit and inspect its completed excellencies. I heard with pleasure of the committee of the House of Commons being permitted to inspect it, and borrowed of a member, with some pride, their report thereon. But judge, sir, of my surprise, indignation, and shame, on reading the following passages in their report and criticism on the "Mecænases and Vitruviuses" of the city of London.

"Since the Committee of the House of Commons sat last year, MANY alterations have taken place, and the construction of the prison is MUCH IMPROVED!!" (What must it have been prior to these improvements?) A spacious yard has been added for air and convenience, for the enjoyment of the Poultry and Giltspur-street debtors. The plan is however adhered to of keeping the Newgate, Ludgate, Poultry, and Giltspur-street debtors separate. This plan, in the buted very materially to cause that awkopinion of your committee, has contriward and incommodious construction of building and arrangement of space of which they complain. They observe, too, that the women debtors from all the compters, as well as those from Newgate, are mixed together; and they are at a loss to conceive what peculiar privilege the male debtors have over the fe

* Taken from the Report of the CommitBench, Fleet, and Marshalsca Prisons, from tee of the House of Commons on the King's that part relating to the New City Prison now building, May 1815. The Hon. Henry Grey Bennett, chairman.

16

Craniological Observations of Capts Flinders."

male, that shall exempt them from the
operation of the same system.
"No part of the prison is FIRE PROOF,
neither the floors nor the division of the
committee have much to
rooms; and your
regret, that those who have had the ma-
nagement of the building should have suf-
fered a prison to be undertaken upon u
plan so little likely to answer its object,
as that which has been adopted by the
LONDON Committee.

"They are also of opinion, that the placing debtors in large communities in the sleeping-rooms is a great aggravation to the pains of imprisonment, and they cannot conceive a mode by which the distressed situation of decent respectable women is more aggravated than the turning them on the first day of their arrival into a room with six to fifteen persons, most of them probably strangers to the new comers, and many perhaps of characters and manners the most disreputable.

"Such then is the plan and manage ment of the New London prison, which is, as far as the women's apartments and those for the debtors from the Giltspur street, Ludgate, and Poultry compters, nearly completed.

TAKE
"NO ALTERATION CAN NOW
PLACE. BUT YOUR COMMITTEE CANNOT
APPROVE OF THE PLAN; AND THEY RE-
GRET THAT SO MUCH MONEY HAS BEEN
SO ILL LAID OUT!!

"They trust that no time will be lost
in completing the building, such as it is!
as the removal of the crowds of prisoners
which now, encumber Newgate, as well
as their proper classification, depends
on that circumstance, and the more they
have occasion to examine the latter pri-
son, the more they feel convinced that
every principle of duty imperiously calls
upon the magistracy of the city of London
to adopt there a more improved system
of management.'

** Leaving your reviewer, sir, to reconcile
the above facts with his hypothesis; the
Lord Mayor and corporation of Lon-
don, the city "Macanases and Vitru-
viuses" to chew the cud on this review of
their conduct; and those who provide
the money to be thus " so ill laid out,"
to express their satisfaction as they
please, I remain,

PHILOTECTON LONDINENSIS.

[Aug. I,

yet their inferences respecting cranio-
logy are spun rather too fine, I still
think it may be conducive to the ad-
vancement of a curious, and perhaps in
time a useful, investigation, if means were
taken to collect all the scattered, and
focus.
likewise all the passing facts, into one

It may be said, that a medical work is
the fittest medium for such a pursuit;
but as your magazine is professedly on
the philosophical principles of all sci-
ences, I beg leave to send you a curious
circumstance, now before me, in the
second volume of Flinders' Voyage.-
Whilst that indefatigable and much-
injured officer was suffering detention-
unjust detention-at Mauritius, through
republican insolence and Corsico-Impe-
rial brutality, on the part of the so-often
applauded friends of the Old Monthly
Magazine, he had an opportunity of
visiting some caves that had been the
residence of a negro banditti about thirty
years previous, but whose captain had
been shot at the entrance of the cave,
and his followers dispersed. Capt. F.
then states-"The skull of their captain,
who was said to be possessed of much
cunning and audacity, was at this time
lying upon a stone at the entrance of
the cavern; and for narrowness of front,
and large extent at the back of the head,
was the most singularly formed craniumi
I ever saw."

It may be objected that the distance of time rendered this uncertain; but that is immediately afterwards explained by the narrator saying, that "little oblong enclosures, formed with small stones by the side of the cavern, once the sleeping places of these wretches, also existed nearly in the state they had been left; owing apparently to the supersti tion of the black, and the policy and Yours, &c. excavations." disgust of the white visitants to those

MR. EDITOR,

L.

A CORRESPONDENT, under the signature A. P. S., in the second num ber of your magazine, has furnished you with some observations relative to the church of Christchurch, Hampshire. He some future number; but as this has promised to continue these remarks ip not been done, I am induced to take up the subject, for the purpose of describing some of the remarkable specimens of carving which appear upon the stalls of the choir. These stalls were erected towards the latter end of the fifteenth, or about the beginning of the sixteenth

1815.]

Rev. Mr. Bingley on the Church of Christ-church.

century, and are thirty-six in number at the back, fifteen on each side, and six at the west end. There are eleven others on each side in front of these. Such of the seats as are left exhibit, when turned up, a strange and motley collection of ludicrous, satirical, and, in many respects, indecorous figures; and respecting which it is to be observed, that the people at large are satirized under the figure of a fool or zany, or a simple animal; and that the friars are always designated by some cunning, rapacious, indolent, or destructive beast. The following numbers commence with the first stall on the left side of the entrance to the choir from the nave of the church :1. An open-mouthed foolish figure, with his arms extended.

2. One somewhat similar, with wide asinine ears.

3. A man, with a hammer and chisel. 4. A foolish-looking half-length figure, with extended arms, the chin edged by a kind of foliage.

5. A man lying down, and having his posterior paris upward. The flaps of his jacket are turned back, and expose the manner in which his hose or breeches are fastened to the upper parts of his dress, viz. by a loop and skewer. He holds in his hands a bowl.

6. A zany with his rattle, and the ears of an ass.

7. A large bat or vampyre. 8. A man sitting, and a dog obsequi ously licking his feet.

9. The head and upper parts of a fool. The face is strikingly expressive of idiotism.

10. A zany lying on his back; the right hand having hold of his cap, and the left of his feet.

11. A fool, with his legs extended up ward, and his hands upon his feet.

12. A baboon reposing on his belly; his paunch enormously swollen.

15. A fool lying down, with one hand on his posteriors, and the other elevated over his head.

14. A fool: his eyes, mouth, and large asinine ears, arms and hands, all widely extended, and bearing on his shoulders an immense purse, apparently well filled. 15. A crowned head. 16. A vampyre. 17. A hugely fat baboon in a cowl, stealing off with a large purse upon his shoulders.

18. The head and upper parts of a fool. All the ancient seats of the principal range of stalls on the south side of the choir are wanting. On the front row of NEW MONTHLY MA6.--No. 19.

17

stalls on the north side, commencing at
the entrance, are the following:-
1. A starved dog eagerly gnawing a
bone.

2. A fish.

3. A fool, with a weapon (now broken off) in his right hand, and in his left a round shield, which a goose, sitting on her nest, is seizing.

4. Wanting.

5. A hare or rabbit, the emblem of timidity-and a dog starting out of a place of concealment to prey upon it. 6. A fat baboon chained to a log. 7. A vampyre.

8. A fool, with large ass's ears; his right hand holding his knee, and his head resting on the left; apparently in the act of listening, with deep attention, to the preaching of a snail.

9. A cherub, having the head and tail of a serpent appearing from under its wings.

Over several of the stalls there are some remarkable carvings in relief. Five of these apparently caricature the manner in which King Henry VII, was teazed respecting Perkin Warbeck, whose pretensions were fostered in Ireland, openly recognized by James IV. of Scotland, and at one time adopted by the French King, but more especially by Margaret Duchess of Burgundy, (the sister of the then late King Edward IV.) with whom, indeed, they appear to have originated. These carvings are invariably of three heads, somewhat smaller than life; the one in the middle listening to a head on each side.

1. The first of these carvings has, in the middle, a flat broad face, apparently that of a female: the eyes are nearly closed, and she has the appearance of being much perplexed. On her right is a head, from the mouth of which issues the flower of a thistle into her right ear; and on her left a head, out of whose mouth proceeds a kind of trefoil. The former of these is evidently intended for Scotland; and the latter, by the trefoil or shamrock, must be meant to represent Ireland. They are no doubt indicative of the Duchess of Burgundy attended by the agents of the King of 'Scotland and of the people of Ireland.

2. A fat, bearded male head, in the middle, with large asinine ears, and a kind of crown. The countenance of this figure is expressive of deep and fixed attention: he seems literally to open his ears to the discourse of the figure on each side. That on the right has e siagularly formed cap, surmounted by a VOL. IV.

D

18

Hints relative to East-India Commerce.

fleur-de-lis, and attached to his ear there is an ornament somewhat resembling a hawk's bell this was probably intended to designate the French King. The opposite figure is probably that of a female, and has a head-dress in the shape of a shell, intended perhaps for the Duchess of Burgundy; the shell denoting either a maritime power, or a power connected with the sea, as she was by her maritime provinces.

3. A smaller, bearded male bead, in the middle, which seems to weep at what is said to him by the head on each side.

4. The head in the centre is that of a female, greatly perplexed by two figures which, from the form of their caps, were probably meant to represent military persons.

5. In the middle, a large and broad female face, the countenance expressive of the utmost perplexity and distress. On the right is a head, the ear of which is immensely large and deep, designed perhaps to give a notion of credulity. This is the more remarkable, as the ear of the opposite figure is not even visible, It is further to be observed, that the pointed extremities of the caps of these two figures are tied to the lady's headdress.

Besides the above, there are three or four other singular carvings of the same general size and appearance. One of these is intended to represent a debate between a churchman and a layman on the subject of the Trinity. The Trinity is designated by a head with three faces, two of them in profile, and the third a full face. The face of the layman, which has a kind of fool's-cap, has all the vacant appearance of an idiot, while the other has an extremely grave and solemn air.-Another has a fleur-de-lis in the centre; on the right, a head in a kind of helmet, partly thrown back, as if expressive of contempt at what is said by the figure on the opposite side, which has a turban.

Along the whole upper part of the stalls there is a delicately executed and curious fascia, or fillet, of grapes and vine-leaves.

On opening the back of a monument in the wall of the north side of St. Mary's chapel, a few years ago, I discovered three beautiful pieces of carving on Caen 'stone. These were each on a single block, and built with its face inward, as if for the purpose of concealing them from the observation of those persons who, at the time of the Reformation, were employed to deface every figure

[Aug. 1,

which might be considered in the light of an image. One of them represents Solomon with the Queen of Sheba; another is descriptive of the offering the Magi; and the third of the ascension of Christ. I am, &c.

MR. EDITOR,

WM. BINGLEY.

AS notices on commercial speculations evidently form part of your plan, it might be useful to your readers if detached, but important facts, on that subject should be recorded in your pages, for the benefit of those whose pursuits and occupations afford them but little opportunity of gathering information from scattered sources.

With this view I send you a short extract from a recent voyage, which may be highly deserving the notice of oriental speculators, particularly as the regu lar Indian markets do not seem either to reward or to justify that spirit of adventure which has manifested itself since the opening of the chartered trade.

The passage I allude to is with respect to the island of Timor and its vicinity, where an American ship had been for some time in the year 1803-"This ship was upon a trading speculation, and the commander was buying here sandalwood and bees-wax. For the best kind of wood he paid twenty dollars per picol; for the inferior sort thirteen, and seven dollars for the refuse: and bees-wax cost him twenty-five dollars. Upon all these he expected to make three hundred per cent. at Canton, besides the advantage of paying for them with cutlasses, axes, and other iron tools, at an equally great advance; he reported, however, that iron was still more valuable at Solor, Flores, and the neighbouring islands; and that supplies of provisions were more plentiful. The usual profits of trade here seemed to be cent. per cent. upon every exchange; and this the commander of the Hunter proposed to make many times over during his voyage."

Now, Sir, if private ships must be sent to India, it is evident that a little good sense and enterprise might in that quarter of the country be attended with beneficial results; and although the Canton markets are not yet opened to our adventurers, still might liberal arrangements be made with the Company in favour of those who, at their own risk, should thus open a new source of colonial commerce.

As slavery and a slave-trade are indeed still existing in that quarter, it is

On the Harmonic Sounds of Strings..