Old Bailey experience. Criminal jurisprudence and the actual working of our penal code of laws. Also, an essay on prison discipline, to which is added a history of the crimes committed by offenders in the present day / By the author of 'The schoolmaster's experience in Newgate' [i.e. T. Wontner].

  • Wontner, Thomas
Date:
1833
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Old Bailey experience. Criminal jurisprudence and the actual working of our penal code of laws. Also, an essay on prison discipline, to which is added a history of the crimes committed by offenders in the present day / By the author of 'The schoolmaster's experience in Newgate' [i.e. T. Wontner]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    of prevarication committals arise out of the parties' intoxica- tion. The larger portion of the witnesses every session are drawn from the working classes of society, who are never from their work but they will drink. Conceive several hun- dreds of these men waiting for eight and nine days together, in a confined neighbourhood, where every third house is one of entertainment. Mr. Wakefield says, persons before honest have been so highly excited at witnessing an execution as to become thieves on the spot.* In accounting for the manner in which men are drawn into crime, I am surprised he passed over this scene, acted on the same spot, where, for a whole week together, men are in a state of excitement from drink, who are associating and conversing with persons on the sub- ject of crime and the tricks of swindlers, talking over the ex- traordinary good fortune of some and the ingenuity of others, and in every way becoming familiarised with loose notions and bad principles. Here, indeed, he might have found out a fruitful source of crime. Every week so spent in idleness and debauchery corrupts, on a moderate calculation, or de- stroys the principles of, fifty persons,*]- who, if proper ar- rangements were made, might have immediately deposed to the facts they knew, and have forthwith gone home to their avocations. No language can be too strong when used for the purpose of denouncing the system which leads to the present confusion regarding the trials at the Old Bailey. It disgraces the city authorities especially, as it can be so easily remedied. To the plan I have proposed for subpcening witnesses, and the arrangement of them at the court, there can be no objection on the score of expense. The office may be made a source of great emolument, which, perhaps, may operate as an * E. G. Wakefield, Esq. on the Punishment of Death, p. 181. t Many boys and young men have told me, their first ideas of crimes were generated and imbibed by mixing in the company of those who loiter about the Old Bailey during the sessions; and that they have come, in some instances, as witnesses, and gone away thieves in intention.