tain to come out a confirmed thief. However
this may be now, it was unquestionably true of old Newgate. It was the
grand nursery of vice.--"A famous university," observes Ned Ward, in the
London Spy, "where, if a man has a mind to educate a hopeful child in
the daring science of padding; the light-fingered subtlety of
shoplifting: the excellent use of jack and crow; for the silently
drawing bolts, and forcing barricades; with the knack of sweetening; or
the most ingenious dexterity of picking pockets; let him but enter in
this college on the Common Side, and confine him close to his study but
for three months; and if he does not come out qualified to take any
degree of villainy, he must be the most honest dunce that ever had the
advantage of such eminent tutors."

To bring down this imperfect sketch of Newgate to the present time, it
may be mentioned, that, being found inadequate to the purpose required,
the old jail was pulled down in 1770. Just at the completion of the new
jail, in 1780, it was assailed by the mob during the Gordon riots,
fired, and greatly damaged. The devastations, however, were speedily
made good, and, in two years more, it was finished.

It is a cheering reflection, that in the present prison, with its clean,
well-whitewashed, and well-ventilated wards, its airy courts, its
infirmary, its improved regulations, and its humane and intelligent
officers, many of the miseries of the old jail are removed. For these
beneficial changes society is mainly indebted to the unremitting
exertions of the philanthropic HOWARD.

CHAPTER X.

How Jack Sheppard got out of the Condemned Hold.

Monday, the 31st of August 1724,--a day long afterwards remembered by
the officers of Newgate,--was distinguished by an unusual influx of
visitors to the Lodge. On that morning the death warrant had arrived
from Windsor, ordering Sheppard for execution, (since his capture by
Jonathan Wild in Bedlam, as related in a former chapter, Jack had been
tried, convicted, and sentenced to death,) together with three other
malefactors on the following Friday. Up to this moment, hopes had been
entertained of a respite, strong representations in his favour having
been made in the highest quarter; but now that his fate seemed sealed,
the curiosity of the sight-seeing public to behold him was redoubled.
The prison gates were besieged like the entrance of a booth at a fair;
and the Condemned Hold where he was confined, and to which