The Anaconda standard., 1899-12-13
NO MORE Haneimcs AT NEweArE
Legal Executions to Cease at the Famous
Prison in British Capital.

The announcement that in years to
come there are to be 70 more hanglnSs
at Newgate prison will perhaps come
to great many Americans chiefly as a
reminder that Newgate prison still ex-
lists. ''Newgate Calendar" as name
for the acme of luridness in literature
is almost a part of the common cur
rency of speech in both branches OF
the race that has inherited the great
charter and the language OF Chau-
Ger and Shakespeare. The sullen gray
building at the eastern end OF the Hoi-
born viaduct is, moreover, associated
with English literature through the au-
thor of Robinson Crusoe,' who was
once held in durance within It's walls.
And. lastly, good Americans should not
forget that William Penn was New
gate prisoner in his time.
All this, however, hardly helps the
citizen Of newer country to realize
that the prison Is still standing and IN
excellent repair. AS a Jail 1t has exist
ed on the present site ever since the
11th century, and that, as lawyers
know, is 400 years earlier than the pc
riod beyond which the memory of man
runneth not to the contrary" But the
| Newgate of the Plantagenets, in which
| Robert Baldock, the great chancellor OF
| Edward III. died, disappeared centu-
ries ago 1t was in 1419 that the IA
| nous Dick Wilmington, to whom the
1
Turn again, Wilmington,
Thrice lord mayor of London"
Built the New Gate" of the Old Bailey
of the city That and the buildings
which grew on to it in the course of
ages were destroyed by fire in the reign
| of Charles II. The present building Is
| in the main that which was reconstruct
ed on the site of Whittington's gate
tower and dungeon in the year ITO.
Ten years later than this date the
| more modern interest of NeWgate be-
| gins with the Gordon riots, famous for
ever through ''Barnaby Rudge." Lord
| George Gordon himself was consigned
| to a cell there after his riots, which
| shows that his mob had only partly
succeeded in their efforts to tear the
| Jail to pieces. What damage they did
was repaired soon afterward and the
| structure has remained unaltered as
| to its exterior ever since. For a long
time after that Newgate was the scene
| of most of the famous hangings in En-
| glish history. That crossing where the
| prison and the Old Bailey stand, with
the Church of St. Sepulchre a little to
the west, northeast of the viaduct, has
been the scene of many an early morn
ing gathering, when crowds began 10
establish claims to every square foot OF
ground soon after midnight. 1t GER
tainly seems that the London masses
have dearly loved a hanging in the past
however much that primitive trait may
| have been civilized out of them in the
present.
That odd mixture of the terrible and
the comic, "The Execution" in which
the author of THE Ingoldsby Legends
mixes up the adventures of My Lord
Tom Noddy'' and "Sir Carnaby Jenks
of the Blues with the horror and ago
MES of public judicial killing, is prob
ably the best extant account Of the
thing as it used to be left to posterity
by a contemporary. 1t is well to re-
member that in those days an English
man could get himself hanged without
taking the life of a fellow man. One
of the capital offenses for which hun
dreds have received their legal reckon
| ing at Newgate was forgery, and one
of the most famous hangings that ever
took place on the sCaffold outside thai
famous west window was the execution
| of Fauntleroy-not the little lord-fol
forgeries on magnificent scale. Faun'
| tleroy was hanged in 1927, and in the
| succeeding 13 years there were only two
hangings for the same crime, and then
forgery ceased to be a capital offense.
One of the most memorable execu'
| tiona that nave taken place at NeWgatf
within the memory of persons now liv'
| ing and one of the last public eNecu
tions in the British isles. was that of 6
German named Mueller for the murder
of a Mr. Briggs in a compartment in {
| railway carriage. The motive for th'
crime was robbery 1t was said tha
Mueller took this means to raise money
to emigrate from Europe to this eoun
try. The circumstances of the murdal
| drew attention to one of the many dis