Mr. Young’s cries of “Murder!” had been continuous. They were re-echoed by the shouts of the many prisoners who, standing at their open cell doors, were spectators of the scene. One man, Nolan, climbing up to his window, gave the alarm to the tower below. Assistance soon arrived—the taskmaster followed by two others, who met first Morris and King as they were returning to their cells. “What has happened?” they asked. “I haven’t an idea,” Morris replied coolly. King, too, is equally in the dark. The officers pass on and come to other cells, in which the prisoners are seen grinning as if in high glee, and when questioned they only laugh the more. But at length Nolan is reached. “Oh, sir,” says Nolan at once, through the bars of his gate, “they’ve murdered the officer, Mr. Young, sir. There lie his keys, and his body is a little further on.” At this moment, however, Mr. Young is seen dragging himself slowly towards them, evidently seriously injured and hardly able to walk. He just manages to explain what has happened, and as the governor has by this time also arrived, the offenders are secured and carried off to the refractory cells.
Here was another case in which a prompt exhibition of the “cat” would probably have been attended with the best results. But for some reason or other this course was not adopted; the prisoners Morris and King were remanded for trial at the next Clerkenwell Assizes, where, many months afterwards, they were sentenced to an additional year’s imprisonment. So far as I can discover, in these times the power to inflict corporal punishment in the Penitentiary was very sparingly employed. No other case beyond that which I have just described appears recorded in the journals till some four years afterwards, in 1834, when a prisoner having attacked his officer with a shoe frame, the sitting magistrate ordered him to be flogged with as little delay as possible. For this purpose the services of the public executioner were obtained from Newgate, and one hundred out of the three hundred lashes ordered were laid on “not very severely.” A large gathering of the worst behaved prisoners witnessed the punishment; but all were very quiet. “Not a word was spoken, though many were in tears.” “I fervently hope,” says Captain Chapman, “that this painful discharge of my duty may be productive of that to which all punishment tends—the prevention of crime.”
