h an
expressive eye and a determined look. He used to go every day to the
Tower Prison at the bottom of Water-street; and he exerted himself
greatly to obtain a reform in the atrocious abuses which then existed in
prison discipline. In the present half-century there has been great
progress made in the improvement of prison discipline, health, and
economy. Where formerly existed notorious and disgraceful abuses, the
most abject misery, and the very depth of dirt, we find good management,
cleanliness, reformatory measures, and firm steps taken to reclaim both
the bodies and souls of the erring. It is a most strange circumstance
that the once gross and frightful abuses of the prison system did not
_force_ themselves upon the notice of government--did not attract the
attention of local rulers, and cry out themselves for change. Still more
strange is it that, although Mr Howard in 1787, and again in 1795, and
Mr. James Nield (whose acquaintance I also made in 1803), pointed out so
distinctly the abuses that existed in our prisons, the progress of reform
therein was strangely slow, and moved with most apathetic steps. Howard
lifted up the veil and exposed to light the iniquities prevalent within
our prison walls; but no rapid change was noticeable in consequence of
his appalling revelations. To show how careless the authorities were
about these matters, we can see what Mr. Nield said eight years after Mr.
Howard's second visit, in 1795, in his celebrated letters to Dr. Lettsom,
who, by the way, resided in Camberwell Grove, Surrey, in the house said
to have belonged to the uncle of George Barnwell. Now, it should be
borne in mind that Mr. Howard actually received the freedom of the
borough, with many compliments upon his exertions in the cause of the
poor inmates of the gaol, and yet few or no important steps were taken to
remedy the glaring evils which he pointed out. Some feeble reforms
certainly did take place immediately after his first and second visits to
Liverpool, but a retrograde movement succeeded, and things relapsed into
their usual jog-trot way of dirt and disorder. When Mr. Howard received
the freedom of the borough an immense fuss was made about him; people
used to follow him in the street, and he was _feted_ and invited to
dinners and parties; and there was no end of speechifying. But what did
it all come to? Why, nothing, except a little cleaning out of passages
and whitewashing of walls. I went wit