The Sun.
London, England, 1859-01-07 00:00:00

71IE STATE OF NETVGATE.

Mr. J. Anderson. Rose, ' ex-Under-Sheriff of
London, in a letter to lt contemporary, says :
Sonic time ago attention was called to the state
of Newgate, and its utter unfitness for the renten-
tion of prisoners or punishment of criminals. That
part appropriaten to male prisoners has in conse-
quence been reconstructed, with what advantage
the report of the ordinary of Newgate, lately pub-
lished in your columns, has clearly disclosed ; but
the portion still used for the imprisonment of
women is as it was, and there are among those who
have the care and control of Newgate some opposed
to any further improvement of this gaol. The fol•
lowing statement of facts may serve to clinch your
representations as to the necessity completing
the alterations by reconstructing the portion ap-
propriated to *omen, so as to admit of the classifi-
cation and separation of female prisoners and
criminals, of -whom it may be said that while
women generally are better than men, when they
fall they sometimes discover (-difficult perhaps) a
lower depth than the worst of men. To the facts,
however.

In one room I have seen confined in Newgate a
woman--:-Mary Ann Alice Seago by name—who had
beaten her step child to death under circumstances
of unparalleled barbarity. The process of murder oc-
cupied some considerable time • but I cannot write
the details, and it would be sickening to read them.
She was a clever, cunning woman, well educated,.
and with a very competent knowledge of the law
relating to prisons, with which she often favoured the
officials, and full of grievances. Sir George, Grey,
the then, Secretary
,of State for the Home Depart-
ment,: would not remove her from Newgate on
account of a supposed delicacy of health, and the
most effectual stop to the outrages committed by
this woman in • prison was a threat to get her re-
moved froM Newgate.
• Confined with her was one Celestina. Somner,
also well educated ; convicted of cutting the throat
of her child, 10 'years old, in a coal cellar, with a
carving knife, and whose conviction was secured
by the evidence of a servant girl, Raehel, who slept
usually in or on a bed in the kitchen, through
which the mother and daughter passed on their way.
to the shambles in the coal cellar, and who,
awakened that night, heard the butcher in the act
of murder , :informing her. victim, that she would
" teach the —to tell lies." That servant girl--
her nervous system strung in an agony of fear—
became many years older that night ; for her
mistress, carving-knife in hand, came to ,Rachael's
bed to turn, her over and see whether she was
to asleep, which she pretended to be. "I did not go
sleep," said this .witness at the trial; "I lay awake
all night," The softening influence of prison asso-
ciations on the, heart' of Celestina Somner May. be
imagined, when she informed her convict com-
panions that she was sorry she. had not finished the
servant as well as her own child.

The last of the three companions was a woman
who, by three different men, had had three children,
who,. wishing to visit a paramour in the country
(whether the father of any one of her offspring I
forget, but I think not), and finding the expense
of moving all four more than she could .afford,
deliberately took two of. her children down to a
canal and held them under water until they were
dead: This woman before her trial trumped up a
deliberate lie with elaborate circumstances against
the policeman Who foOk her into custody, which
She adhered to after dial and conviction, but in the
imminent prospect of the gallows she admitted the
whole to be false.

These three were associated together in one room,
—vain of the attention they excited and received,
—as such criminals usually are, the more so the
worse the crime and the more notorious the criminal.
They were attended by the doctor, the clergyman,
the governor, the matron, the visiting magistrates,
the sheriffs, the under-sheriffs (to say nothing .of

visitors), who are privileged, some. daily and some
weekly, to wait upon criminals to hear a statement
of their coMplaints and
sgrievances.
More, much more might be added ; but this is
enough to. prove that Ncwgate wants fnrther im-
provement.

PRESERVATION OF LIFE FROM SHIP-
WRECK

Yesterday a meeting of the Royal National Life-
boat Institution was held at its house, John•street,
Adelphi—Thomas Chapman, Esq., F.R.S., in the
chair. There were also present—Admiral Sir Thos.
Herbert, K.C.B. ; Admiral Gordon, Deputy Master
of the Trinity-house ; Alexander Boetefeur, Esq.;
Admiral Cator ; Capt. Washington, R.N., Hydro-
grapher of the Admiralty ; Admiral McHardy ;
W. H. Harton, Esq. ; Capt. Lambert Perrott ; and
Capt. Ward, R.N., Inspector of Lifeboats to the In-
stitution.

Mr. LEWIS, the Secretary, having read the minutes
of the previous meeting, the following rewards were
then voted :

Nineteen pounds to the crew of the institution's
life-boat at Caister, Norfolk, for putting off late on
the night of the 15th ult., and rescuing eleven men
from the Portuguese brig Prophete, which was
wrecked during a gale of wind on the Scroby Sands
that day. The service was attended by great ex-
posure to cold and extreme difficulty in obtaining
an early communication with the wreck. £4' to the
crew of a lifeboat at Appledore for putting off in
her and rescuing seven men from the brig Felicity,
of Milford, which; during a strong wind and thick
fog, went to pieces on Bideford bar early on the
morning of the 18th ult. The master of the vessel
was at first insensible-of the-danger he was in, but
was afterwards induced to abandon his vessel, and
on the flowing of the tide she broke up. The life-
boat of the institution stationed at Newcastle, Dun-
drum Bay, was reported to have saved the crew of
five men belonging td :a French lugger from Bor-
deaux, wrecked off Newcastle on the 12th nit: The
lifeboat performed this service with much prompti-
tude. Rewards- amounting to £l5 were also voted
to the Yarmouth and Lytham lifeboats for putting
off, in reply to signals of distress from ships, with
the view of saving life. The Lytham lifeboat was
likewise reported to have assisted in bringing the
schooiter "E. D., of Salcombe, into port in safety: A
reward of £6 was also voted to a boat's crew in con-
sideration of their laubable conduct in rescuing one
out of three persons from the smack 'Catherine
Anna which was wrecked during stormy weather
off IVlaryport. The boat succeeded only in taking
off one man on her first trip, but on her second she
was too late to save the life of the'captain, who, in
the meantime, had been washed off the wreck and
drowned ; another man had come ashore on a piece
of the wreck. Had there been a good lifeboat, with
an experienced crew, at Maryport, such a calamity
could hardly occur. The silver medal of the insti-
tution and £1 were voted to John Nloss, seaman,
in acknowledgment of his gallant conduct in
saving, at the imminent risk of his own life, one
out of two persons who had been thrown out
of a small boat off Dungeness. Moss had sprung
over the bows of ,the lugger and secured one man
by tying a rope round him, who Was nearly ex-
hausted when brought on board. Moss again,
nothing daunted, darted overboard a second time to
the rescue of another man, and had actually suc-
ceeded, by great exertions, in placing him on the
bobstay of the lugger when a heavy wave washed
both of them off. The man unfortunately sunk
this time to rise no more, and the gallant Moss him-
self only. narrowly escaped from sharing a similar
fate. A sum of £4 was also voted to a boat's crew
for saving six persons from the schooner Sealby, of
Maryport, which during a heavy gale of wind was
wrecked off Innishofin Island, on the coast of
Donegal. The boatmen had put off with much
promptitude, and had succeeded in rescuing the
crew just in time to save them from a watery grave.
£2 was also given to a boat's crevv, for their credit-
able and prompt exertions in saving three men be-
longing to the brig Florence Nightingale's boat's
crew, whose boat had been swamped off Arklow
during squally weather. A sum of £8 was also
voted to a boat's crew of four men for putting off
and rescuing the, crew of three men from the
schooner Oaks, of Goole, wrecked during a heavy
gale of wind off Blakeney, on the Norfolk coast.
£3 was likewise, granted to a boat's crew in consi-
deration of their laudable conduct in rescuing five
men from the brig Sampson, of Waterford, which
during stormy and cloudy weather was wrecked
off Badinacorty, near Dungarvan. The institution
is, it was reported, about to send a new lifeboat to
this dangerous locality. Various other rewards
were voted in acknowledgment of meritorious ser-
vices in saving life from wrecks on different parts
of the coast.
It was reported that the institution had during
the past month sent-new lifeboats and carriages to
Cullercoats, near Tynemouth, and to Carnsore and
Tramore.
Payments amounting to £721 Bs. 3d. were
ordered to be made for various lifeboats and their
equipments.
A tabular statement showing the services of the
lifeboats of the institution during the past year was
laid before the meeting. The boats had attended
upwards of 40 wrecks, and had saved more than
100 lives. The society had paid its lifeboat crews
nearly £6OO for their laudable services on those
occasions.

It was stated that the institution was much in
need of funds to maintain in a state of thoreugh
efficiency its 80 lifeboat establishments ; that, the
committee had been compelled to draw largely on
its small reserved fund to meet their largo• out-
goings ; and that the present income of the, society
is very inadequate to meet its necessarily increas-
ing expenditure.