The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 573, October 27, 1832

AMERICAN PRISON DISCIPLINE

(By the clever Schoolmaster in Newgate—See Fraser's Magazine.)

It appears, from the testimony of Captain Basil Hall, R.N. that perfect as he describes the American prison discipline to be, yet "there is a gradually increasing culprit population growing up in America, of which the legislation cannot rid the country. These men, who may almost be called the penitentiary population, run the round just as I have observed with respect to the Bridewell at Edinburgh; the same men come and go, round and round again." Well, then, nothing is accomplished in the way of reform, even under this lauded plan, which aims at the twofold object of efficient punishment and reformation, by enforcing reflection. Their error, and consequent failure in producing the good they expected, I conceive arises from their having neglected to adopt any plan for the improvement of the prisoners when they have separated them. They work, it seems, every day for years in silence, without intermission, except the time allowed for meals, which are always taken in solitude. The Bible is the only book allowed them—no paper nor pens: and this is called giving them habits of industry. I should say nothing can be more calculated to disgust them with every description of work all the rest of their days. If you can beget habits of industry, with a proportionate improvement of the mind, and an increased sense of the moral duties, which will bring right notions of meum and tuum, then habits of industry are of the utmost importance to the prisoner; as through these habits only can he obtain his bread, when brought to that state of mind which makes him prefer honesty to roguery. This can only be brought about by reflection, it is true; but I am afraid the term reflection, as here applied, is used in a very abstract sense. If it is meant the culprit should reflect on his having done wrong, I answer this he always does, under any punishment, however slight: he cannot but be aware of the cause which places him under coercion, and regret it. This kind of reflection only makes him more sorry for having been detected in his crime, than for having committed it. To reflect with advantage in solitude, there must be some materials stored in the mind; or books must be read to furnish these materials: if these be supplied, however unwilling a being may be to reflect, no mind will be long able to resist the temptation of mental employment, if in continual solitude. But if a mind, totally void of sources of reflection, be shut up in a cell for years, or even for months, what can be expected but that every day will stultify its powers, and at last render it callous and unimpressable; or in the end imbecile, and so weak as to be irresponsible for its own acts! The Americans do, it seems, in their solitary penitentiaries, teach those to read who cannot under twenty-five years of age; and then they leave them.

RETROSPECTIVE GLEANINGS

THE STATIONERS' COMPANY

It appears, from the most authentic records, that the company of stationers, or text-writers, who wrote and sold all sorts of books, formerly in use—namely, the A.B.C., with the Paternoster, Ave, Creed, Grace, &c. to large portions of the Bible, and even to the whole Bible itself, dwelt in and about Paternoster Row. Hence we have in that neighbourhood, Creed Lane, Amen Corner, Ave Maria Lane, &c., all which places are named after some scriptural allusion. Here dwelt also turners of beads, who were called Paternoster-makers, as we read in a record of one Robert Nikke, "Paternoster-maker and Citizen," in the reign of Henry IV. The company of stationers is of great antiquity. By the authority of the lord mayor and court of aldermen, they formed into a guild, or fraternity, in the year 1403, and had their ordinances made for the good government of their fellowship. Thus constituted, they regularly assembled, under the government of a master and two wardens. Their first hall was in Milk-street.

H.B.A.

TITLES

 
"Princes have but their titles for their glories,
An outward honour for an inward toil;
And, for unfelt imaginations,
They often feel a world of restless cares;
So that, between their titles and low name,
There's nothing differs but the outward fame."
 

SHAKSPEARE.

The Romans gave the titles of Africanus, Asiaticus, Macedonicus, Numidicus, Parthicus, &c., in memory of the victories obtained over the people of those countries. The Emperor of China, among his titles, takes that of Tiensu, son of Heaven. The Orientals are extremely fond of titles: the simple Governor of Schiraz, for instance, after a pompous enumeration of qualities, lordships, &c., adds the titles of Flower of Courtesy, Nutmeg of Consolation, and Rose of Delight.

The King of Spain, after the old Roman manner, has a whole page of titles, to express the several kingdoms and signories of which he is master. Henry IV. of England had the title of "Grace" conferred on him; Henry VI. that of "Excellent Grace;" Edward IV. that of "High and Mighty Prince;" Henry VII. "Highness;" Henry VIII. "Majesty," (and was the first and last that was styled, "Dread Sovereign;") and James I. that of "Sacred," or, "Most Excellent Majesty."

That of "Majesty" was first given to Louis XI. of France; before, it was the title only of emperors. The Kings of Arragon, Castile, and Portugal, had the title only of "Highness;" those of England, "Your Grace;" those of France, "Your Despotism."

P.T.W.

THE GATHERER

Hood's Comic Annual for 1833.—Mr. Hood's announcement of his forthcoming volume is in the very vein of the work itself. He writes to his publisher:—"The report of my death, I can assure you is premature, but I am equally obliged to you for your tribute of putting up shutters and wearing a crape hatband. I suspect your friend and informant, Mr. Livingstone—(it should be Gravestone)—drew his inference from a dark passage in Miss Sheridan's Preface which states that, 'of the three Comic Annuals which started at the same time, the Comic Offering alone remains.' The two defuncts therein referred to are the 'Falstaff' and 'The Humorist,' which I understand have put an end to themselves.

"If you should still entertain any doubts, you will shortly have ten thousand impressions to the contrary; for I intend to contradict my demys by fresh octavos. The Comic Annual for 1833, with its usual complement of plates—mind, not coffin-plates—to appear as heretofore, in November, will give the lie, I trust, not merely to my departure, but even to anything like a serious illness: and a novel, about the same time, will help to prove that I am not in a state of de-composition.

"I should have relieved your joint anxieties some days earlier, but till I met Mr. Livingstone, at Bury, I was really not alive to my death."

Cartoons at Hampton Court.¹⁴—I mentioned in my last, that I had formed an acquaintance with Holloway, who has been sometime occupied in copying in black chalks the Cartoons of Raphael in this palace. It will be a magnificent work, and admirably executed, for he finishes them as highly as a miniature; his chalk-pencils are of a superior quality, and he cuts them to the finest point: but he says they will only serve to work with on vellum, or on fine skin. He is an eccentric genius, deeply read in Scripture history, which he expounds in the most methodistical tone; but it is very delightful and instructive to listen to his observations on the beauties and merits of these masterpieces of Raphael. A Madame Bouiller, an interesting French emigrant is also occupied on the same subjects. She is patronized by West, who has given her permission to study here; and says that he never saw such masterly artist touches of the crayon as hers. Her style is large heads, after the size and manner of the French; therefore the figures in the Cartoons are particularly adapted for her pencil.

I found poor Holloway this morning foaming with rage in the Cartoon Gallery. Some person has written against the Cartoons, denominating them "washed daubs." No doubt it is either the pen of envy and malignity, or of ignorance: n'importe, it has wounded the feelings of a superior artist and a good man, who worships with religious enthusiasm those works of Raphael, and who has spent so many years in perfecting his engravings of them. It was a grotesque scene to behold Madame Bouiller pacing after Holloway up and down the gallery, with all the grimaces and vivacity of a Frenchwoman, and re-echoing his furious lamentations.

Edinburgh (by Mr. Cobbett).—I thought that Bristol, taking in its heights and Clifton, and its rocks and its river, was the finest city in the world; but Edinburgh, with its castle, its hills, its pretty little sea-port, conveniently detached from it, its vale of rich land lying all around, its lofty hills in the back ground, its views across the Frith;—I think little of its streets and rows of fine houses, though all built of stone, and though everything in London and Bath is beggary to these; I think nothing of Holyrood House; but I think a great deal of the fine and well-ordered streets of shops—of the regularity which you perceive everywhere in the management of business; and I think still more of the absence of all that foppishness, and that affectation of carelessness, and that insolent assumption of superiority, that you see in almost all the young men that you meet with in the fashionable parts of the great towns in England. I was not disappointed; for I expected to find Edinburgh the finest city in the kingdom. Conversations at Newcastle, and with many Scotch gentlemen for years past, had prepared me for this; but still the reality has greatly surpassed every idea that I had formed about it. The people, however, still exceed the place: here all is civility; you do not meet with rudeness, or even with the want of a disposition to oblige, even in persons in the lowest state of life. A friend took me round the environs of the city; he had a turnpike ticket, received at the first gate, which cleared five or six gates. It was sufficient for him to tell the future gatekeepers that he had it. When I saw that, I said to myself, "Nota bene: Gate-keepers take people's word in Scotland—a thing that I have not seen before since I left Long Island."

King John—died at Swinshead Abbey, in Lincolnshire; his body was interred at Worcester; his bowels in Croxton Abbey Church, in Leicestershire, the abbot being his physician; and his heart at Croxden, in Staffordshire. Perhaps the most precious portion of his relics would be the hand that signed Magna Charta. (See page 279.)

The River Dove.—The fertility of the land on the upper parts of this river has always been proverbial: "as rich as Dove" being applied to any spot highly forced. The land has a perpetual verdure, and the spring-floods of the river are very gratifying to the land-occupiers, who have this proverb—

 
In April, Dove's flood
Is worth a king's good.
 

It is also said of Dove's banks in spring, that a stick laid down there over-night shall not be found next morning for grass.

St. Hellen's Well, near Rushton Spencer, in Staffordshire, is remarkable in superstitious history, for some singular qualities. It sometimes becomes suddenly dry, after a constant discharge of water for eight or ten years. This happens as well in wet as in dry seasons, and always at the beginning of May, when the springs are commonly esteemed highest; and so it usually continues till Martinmas, November 12, following. The people formerly imagined, that when this happened there would soon follow some stupendous calamity of famine, war, or some other national disaster, or change. It is said that it grew dry before the civil war, and again before the beheading of Charles I.; against the great scarcity of corn in 1670; and in 1679, when the miscalled Popish plot was discovered; but we do not hear that St. Hellen's Well withheld its supplies previous to, or upon, the breaking out of the last calamitous war.

Prodigious Elm.—At Field, adjoining Rushton Spencer, grew a prodigious witch elm, which was felled in 1680. Two able workmen were five days in stocking or felling it. It was 120 feet in length; at the butt-end it was seven yards in circumference; its girth was 25-1/2 feet in the middle. Fourteen loads of firewood, as much as six oxen could draw, broke off in the fall; there were 47 loads more fire-wood cut from the top; they were compelled to fasten two saws together, and put three men to each end, to cut the body of it asunder. Out of this tree were cut 80 pairs of naves for carriage-wheels, and 8,000 feet of sawn timber in boards and planks, at six score per cent.—which, for the sawing only, as the price of labour then was, came to the sum of 12l.

Newcastle-under-Line.—The right of election in this borough has been several times the subject of parliamentary investigation. At the last inquiry, the greater part of the borough appeared to be the property of the Marquess of Stafford; and it was found customary for the burgesses to live ten, fifteen, and even twenty years in the houses, without payment of rent!

Monument to a Faithful Servant.—In the church of King's Swinford, Staffordshire, is a plain stone, erected by Joseph Scott, Esq., and his wife, in memory of Elizabeth Harrison, who had been thirty years in their service, and had conducted herself with such integrity, and anxiety for her master's interest, as drew from him the following epitaph:

 
While flattering praises from oblivion save,
The rich, and splendour decorates the grave,
Let this plain stone, O Harrison, proclaim
Thy humble fortune and thy honest fame.
In work unwearied, labour knew no end—
In all things faithful, everywhere a friend;
Herself forgot, she toiled with generous zeal,
And knew no interest but her master's weal.
'Midst the rude storms that shook his ev'ning day,
No wealth could bribe her, and no power dismay;
Her patrons' love she dwelt on e'en in death,
And dying, blest them with her latest breath.
 

She departed this life June 19, 1797. Aged 50 years.

 
Farewell, thou best of servants—may the tear
That sorrow trickled o'er thy parting bier,
Prove to thy happy shade our fond regard,
And all thy virtues find their full reward.
 

^*** Mr. Warwick, on the Ostrich, in our next.