The mirror. (Stillwater, Minn.) 1894-1925, 1903-02-12


be successful must be manufactured to undersell
coal.
ANOTHER historical London landmark and relic
of the dark ages those good old times!-has passed
away and is now but a memory Last week wit
messed the sale by auction Of all that remained of
the old Newgate prison. The death bell, tolled
for a century whenever criminal was execut-
ed; the great iron entrance door, torn off it's
hinges by an Infatuated mob during the Gordon
riots; the flag pole, upon which black flag was
flung to the breeze when men we're hanged, these
and number of other relics were sold to curiosity
hunters, and now nothing remains Of the old prison
but the name
Newgate was the most renowned of all the
English prisons excepting the Tower of London.
It is described with great minuteness in Dickens
"Barnaby Rudge" and in number of other books
not so widely known It was built at the portal of
the New Gate of the city in 12l8 and after the death
of Dick Wilmington, two centuries later, it was
repaired and practically rebuilt by his heirs, who
erected statute of the famous Lord Mayor and his
cat in niche by the main entrance. The great fire
of 1866 destroyed it, together with number of poor
wretches confined within it's walls but it at
rebuilt and remained unimproved until 1870, when
the last edifce bearing the name erected
Of the many horrible places of torture and crime
done in the Laws name in Europe, old Newgate was
for many centuries the most horrible Not only were
prisoners executed there for offences which today
would be classed petty larceny, but the sanitary
condition of the place was such that fever and
pestilence thrived within its walls from years end
to years end. Few who passed it's sinister portals
victims of the laws vengeance came out alive
The latest prison improvement all its
forerunners, but it horrible place from a
modern viewpoint It city of dreadful night
in which the good in men was hopelessly and IT.
retrievably crushed by brutal treatment poor food
solitary confinement, darkness and unsanitary con-
ditions. Within it's confines the brute in man. the
cruel and inhuman, fourished like the proverbial
green bay tree. It was place to make men hate
men. And thank Heaven it is gone!
It is good thing for those who are prone to
lament the seemingly slow progress of humanity
toward its ideals to and then recall to mind such
places as Old Newgate and compare them with
present day institutions of like character. Even
the worst of our Southern PRISONS some of which
are veritable Hes on EARTH are not to be compared
with Newgate of fifty years ago. while there is nc
likeness at all between modern prison and such 8
place. Society has advanced along humanitarian
lines, and is advancing with giant strides. Ideas
that were looked upon as Utopian dreams of senti.
mentalists decade or more ago now regarded
as eminenty practical by all who consider the sub
iect at all. Punishment has ceased to be the end
and the prison is being pushed to the wall to make
room for the reformatory. Society is more lenient
because it is older and wiser, because it is coming
to understand. Men deprived of their liberty nc
longer denied theright to life, but are rather in
structed in how to make the best of it. Newgate
started on its march to oblivion when the modern
prison system was first evolved. Now it is gone, and
with it went the ideas it once stood for.
The MIRROR publishes this week two articles
on one view of big subject the labor question
Both we're written in good faith and both worth
road;,,er Int ur NIP does not wish to be helG