The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1903-02-28
OLD LONDON VANISHING.
The Passing of Old Christ Hospital
and Newgate Prison.
(Eendon Daily News

Gsndon Daily News)
Note the cheerful legends put upon
the ratings of\Christ hospital by those
who are now reducing that venerable
pile to nothingness. What subtle ele-
ment of comic callousness enters INTO
the announcement, Good old bricks for
sale!" Really, it only wants the mead
ing, What Ho." to complete the on
looking antiquarian's temporary dlspe-
lief in Providence. Then there is an
other notice: Hard Core and Dry
Brick Rubbish for DisposaP-a form
of words that rings with the indecent
brutality of inevitableness. Rubbish!
Yes, the Gray Friars cloister has be
come rubbish. May be the Great Hall,
mixed up with old tins and clnders, VIII
go 10 the making of a road III South
London suburb. 1t is possible that the
Grecians cloister, ground up, VIII De
come the foundations OF trled-hsh
shop.
They can remove the masonry, but
not the memories in their carts. Inc
Coleridge and Lamb and Leigh Hunt
associations are not for disposal with
the hard core and dry brick rubbish.
What a spot that will always be, how
ever prosaic the rent-yielding build
ings that may replace the old school
which, by the bye itself replaced an
institution whereof the memory is yet
green. That was the convent of Gray
Friars, with adjoining churchyard, that
was thought, in the Middle Ages, to
be peculiarly free from incubi and fly
ing demons of all sorts ThereforS, 1t
became a fashionable burying place,
and almost as popular as the great
Abbey, even with royalty. There the
English Queen Isabella was buried with
\, l. hIIS M
her breast. There also were placed the
remains of her wretched paramour, the
gentle Mortimer" who was hanged at
Tyburn and left two days Witherlng on
the gallows. 1t was also the last rest
ing place of two rapacious favorltes
of Richard II chow frankly can one
talk of distinguished personages OF the
pastD, to wit, Sir Nicholas Brembe
Qord mayor of London) and Sir Rob
ert Tresilian (chief justice of England).
Both gentlemen breathed their last at
Tyburn, though it was understood at
the time that the hanging of the latter
proved impossible until certain magic
images and the head of the devil had
been removed from his person. True
those ancient monuments and tombs
have not been visible for several CEN
turies, for in 1545 Sir Martin Bowes
Qord mayor) "basely and stupidly"
sold the lot for $50.
How full the place is of literary
school boy memoriesl Take Leigh
Hunts account of his first Impressions
of Lamb: "a pensive, brown, hand
some and kindly face, and gait ad-
vancing with motion from side to
side between involuntary consciousness
and attempted ease. His brown COM
plexion may have been owing to visit
,A,,ry. l. oiY. of
to a great burden of sorrow. He
dressed with a Quaker-like plainness.
did not know him as Lamb; 1 took
him for a Mr.. Guy, having heard
somebody address him by that appel
lative, 1 suppose in jest"
At last Newgate is going. The house
breakers are throwing it down piece by
piece. How many persons in the past
would have been willing, without any
payment, to prize out some of those
great stones? Nay, some enterprising
individuals have essayed demolition in
small way. Jack Sheppard, that
thievish young London carpenter, de-
stroyed some small portions of the in
stitution. "On the first OCCASION" says
Mr.. Thornbury, Jack, during an inter
view with two female friends in the
lodge at Newgate, broke a spike off the
hatch, and. by the assistance of the
two women. being slim and flexible,
was pulled through the opening and so
escaped Retaken at Finchley, the
angry turnkeys gripped the young
thief with handouts, loaded him with
heavy irons (such as are still fastened
above the side doors of the PRISON. and
chained him to a stout staple in the
| floor of a strong room called the castle.
There people of all ranks came to see
| him, and all gave money to the young
| lion of the hour, but extreme care was
taken that no sympathizers should
| pass him a chisel or a file. Jack was,
! however, eager for notoriety, and reso-
lutte to battle the turkeys. He chose a
quiet afternoon, when most of the
keepers We're away with their amiable
charges at the Old Bailey sessions.
With a small nail he had found he
loosened his chain from the floor staple,
then slipped his small, thievish hands
through his handouts, and tied up his
| fetters as high as he could with his
garters. With piece of his broken
chain he worked out of the chimney a
transverse iron bar that stopped his
upward progress. Jack forced
off the lock in seven short minutes, and
got into a passage leading to the
chapel. To force a strong bolt here he
broke hole through the WALL and
with an iron spike from the chapel
door opened a way between the chapel
and the lower leads"
The place is passing away, but it's
lamentable, pitiful and awful memories
will endure. Here is a sample of the
| grim associations of the Old Bailey:
The bodies of murderers after eXecu-
tion were removed for dissection to the
surgeons theatre, and in Annual Reg
ister" for 1903 we read of an awful ex-
pertinent performed on the corpse of a
murderer named Foster. "It was"
says the writer, Subjected to the gal
vanic process by Mr.. Aldini Ga nephew
of GalvanD in presence of Mr.. Keate,
Mr.. Carpue and several other profess
L