The Corn-market, City Goals of Newgate and the Black Dog.

Chapter VII.

The Corn-Market. - The City Gaols of New-Gate, and the Black Dog.

At the western end of the High-street, Jean le Decer, Mayor of Dublin, in 1308, erected at his own expense a marble cistern to receive water from the conduit for the benefit of the citizens, such, says the old writer, as was never before seen there. The line of street to the westward of this cistern was styled the “Newgate-street,” from the city portal called the “New Gate,” which formed its western boundary. From being the locality where grain was usually exposed for sale, the Newgate-street subsequently acquired the name of the “Corn-market,” by which title a portion of the original locality is still designated.

On the north-western side of Corn-market at an early period was located the “Bull Ring” of Dublin, of the officers connected with which a writer in the reign of Elizabeth gives the following account:-

For the better training of their youth in martiall exploits, the citizens use to muster foure times by the yeare: on ‘Blacke Mondaie,’ which is the morrow of Easter daie, on Maie daie, Saint John Baptist his eeve, and Saint Peter his eeve. Whereof two are ascribed to the Maior and Shiriffs: the other two, to wit, the musters on Maie daie and Saint Peter his eeve, are assigned to the Maior and Shiriffs of the Bull-ring. The Maior of the Bull-ring is an officer elected by the citizens, to be as it were captaine or gardian of the batchelers and the unwedded youth of the civitie. And for the yeare he hath authoritie to chastise and punish such as frequent brothelhouses, and the like unchast places. He is tearmed the Maior of the Bull-ring, of an iron ring that sticketh in the Corn-market, to which the bulles that are yearlie bated be usuallie tied: which ring is had by him and his companie in so great price, as if anie citizen batcheler hap to marrie, the Maior of the Bull-ring and his crue conduct the bridegroome upon his returne from church, to the Market-place, and there with a solemne kisse for his *ultimum vale, *he dooth homage unto the Bull-ring.”

The Mayor of the Bull-ring frequently accompanied the Mayor and Sheriffs of the city on their military expeditions. The office, however, appears to have fallen into desuetude in the reign of James I., and the last reference we find to the Bull-ring is in the “Liber tennarum provinciae Lageniae,” which mentions Bartholomew Ball as holding a tenement at “Le Bulringe,” in 1632.

The Corn-market appears to have been one of the most important localities in the ancient city of Dublin. The Brehon laws demonstrate that corn was cultivated in Ireland from the remotest period, bread having always been one of the principal articles of food used by the natives. King John, by his charter, enacted that no foreign merchants should buy corn, hides, or wool, within the city of Dublin, from any but the citizens; and our records show that, during the middle ages, very large quantities of grain were exported from Ireland to England, Wales, Scotland, and more distant countries.

From the account of Jean Le Decer and Thomas Colys, citizens of Dublin, it appears that, in 1229, they supplied the King’s armies in Scotland with the following articles:- Flour, 131 quarters 1 bushel; another parcel, 113 cranogs; bran, 1151 quarters; wheat, 1147 quarters 1 bushel; peas, 8 cranogs; malt flour, 1 cranog and 7 bushels; oats, 501 cranogs 10 pecks; red wine, 55 hogsheads and 1 pipe; beer, 55 hogsheads, and that they paid for the freight of the same £153 7s. 2d. The crannock, or *cranóg, *was a wicker basket or hamper, generally understood to contain the produce of 17 sheaves of corn; according to Sir William Betham, this measure was equal to 16 bushels or two quarters.

The most ancient Anglo-Irish Act of Parliament extant is a statute passed in 1268, enacting that the weights and measures of every kind of corn in Ireland should correspond with those of London; and among the manuscripts in Birmingham Tower is preserved the following memorandum, relative to the delivery of the standard weights and measures into the Exchequer in 1272:-

“Memorandum, That on the fourteenth day of November, in the first year of the reign of King Edward (I.), William de Balligavoran, late keeper of the King’s measures in Ireland, delivered into the Exchequer of Dublin, to Roger Smalrys, appointed by a letter of the King from England to keep the aforesaid measures in the place of the above mentioned William, one standard bushel, one brazen gallon, one brazen quart, not yet proved, one rod for a standard, and three seals, namely, one for sealing weights, another for sealing measures, and a third for sealing ells, one wooden beam, with one pair of leathern scales, half of a piece of lead, one brazen weight, two pounds filled with lead, and one brazen pound filled with lead.”

The following particulars of the weights used in Ireland in the fourteenth century are preserved in an abstract of the now missing “Book of Ross,” or “Liber Rossensis”:-

“Note that the penny (denarius) weighs 32 grains taken from the middle of an ear of corn.

“Twelve pence make one ounce.

“Twelve ounces make one pound of twenty shillings.

“Eight pounds of corn make a gallon or lagena.

“Eight gallons or lagenae make a bushel, which is the eighth part of a quarter of corn.

“Fifteen ounces make a London pound.

“Twelve pounds and a half make a London stone.”

The assize of bread was established in 1204 by King John and his Barons, who enacted that every baker should mark his bread with his own stamp, and have a profit of four pence or three pence for every quarter, together with the bran. In 1222, one of the articles of complaint against Henri de Loundres, Archbishop of Dublin, then Justiciary, was that he assumed a jurisdiction over the bakers, whom on some occasions he had delivered from the custody in which they had been placed for vending dishonest bread (“pro falso pane”); and the annals record that the bakers of Dublin were dragged on hurdles through the streets for their false weights, during the scarcity in the year 1310, when a bushel of wheat sold in the winter for 20 shillings; but this price, we are told, increased but little in the spring, in consequence of the corn imported from abroad. In the same year John Bowet and William Keppok received an order for £500, to buy in Dublin, for the war in Scotland, 1,500 quarters of wheat, 2,000 quarters of oats, 500 pipes of wine, and also 500 quarters of wheat, 500 of oats, and 100 pipes of wine, which were tobe sent to Skynburnesse. The cranog of wheat is recorded to have sold for 20 shillings, and that of oats for eight shillings, during the dearth of 1330. In 1332 a peck of wheat at Christmas was worth 22 shillings, but in consequence of the temperate weather in the following year, the price fell in the Dublin corn market to six pence per peek.

Edward I. granted to the Mayor and citizens of Dublin the assize of bread and beer, and the custody and assays of weights and measures, and of all other matters appertaining to the management of the city markets, authorizing them to punish transgressors, and to correct and amend defects in weights and measures, under the supervision of the Clerk of the Market.

By the oath taken upon his entrance upon office, the chief magistrate of Dublin was bound to see the market of the city kept decent and in order, and that false weights or measures were not used within his jurisdiction. A statute of 1468 enacted that no man having sufficient store of corn of his own, should buy any in the common market, nor should any called “Badgers” buy corn at one market and shortly after carry the same to another market, and then sell it dearer by two or four pence in a bushel, upon pain of being decreed “Begrators” of the King’s market. The same penalty was decreed against persons who bought corn in the common market, and sold it again in the same, or in any other market. In 1472 the exportation of grain, when the price of the peck exceeded two pence, was prohibited, under penalty of forfeiture both of the cargo and of the ship. From a proceeding recorded on a memorandum roll of the year 1433, it appears that long previous to that time it had been usual to hold the market for corn in Dublin on Saturdays, a custom maintained in the reign of Elizabeth, as appears from the documents cited in Chapter 6. In the early part of the last century the usual time for opening the Dublin Corn-market was 12 o’clock; but during the winter it was opened at 10 a. m., to allow the farmers to retire at a seasonable hour.

Keyzar’s, or De Keyzar’s-lane, extending from Corn-market to Cook-street, is described, in 1587, as “steepe and slipperie, in which otherwhiles, they that make more haste than good speed clinke their backs to the stones.” Jenico Marks, Mayor of Dublin in 1486, was slain in this lane in 1496, while endeavouring to quell a riot of the citizens. At the western end of Keyzar’s-lane, in Corn-market, was located the Hall of the Guild of Carpenters, Millers, Heylers, and Tilers, incorporated, in 1507, by Henry VII. at the solicitation of Walter Fitz Simon, Archbishop of Dublin. From this building, subsequently known as the “New Hall,” a meat market, extending from Corn-market to Cook-street, received the name of the” New Hall Market.” In the reign of James I., a poorhouse was located in Keyzar’s-lane, the buildings in which have long since fallen to ruin, and a portion of the site of the Carpenters’ Hall, is now occupied by the Widows’ Alms-House of St. Audoen’s parish.

Among the merchants of the city who resided in the Corn-market in the 16th century, was William Fyan, whose mansion-house, near Newgate, continued to be known as “Fyan’s house,” till the commencement of the 18th century; and a house called “New Cromblin,” erected in Corn-market about 1612, is noticed in the patent rolls of James I.

The Corn-market of Dublin was one of the localities where peace or war was formally proclaimed by the Ulster King-at-Arms. On the entry of the Duke of Ormond into the city in 1665, a conduit was placed in the Corn-market, from which wine flowed in abundance, and at the “New Hall” was erected a scaffold on which were placed “half a dozen antics.” Public punishments were also inflicted here, as in the case of Michael Fitz Simons, a Roman Catholic priest, hanged in the Corn-market in the 16th century, for having been implicated in 1583 in the insurrection of James Eustace, third Viscount Baltinglass.

The House of Commons, in 1644, condemned Laurence Lambert, Provost-Marshal of the city, for having assaulted one of their members, to be conveyed from the Marshalsea by the Sheriffs on the next market day, “without hat or cloak unto the Gibbet in the Corn-market,” and there to make an acknowledgment of his offence.

During the Commonwealth it was usual to publish here the banns of persons about to be married; and in the official records of the courts martial in Dublin, at the same period, the following entries occur:-

“Major Manwaring informant, John Bayden, souldier, defendant.

“The Defendant being found guilty of neglect of duty, it was ordered that he should ride the wooden horsse fbr the space of an howre at Corn-market with two muskets at each heele, and that be should carry the wooden horsse from the Maine guard to the place where he is to ride as above said. 23rd June, 1652.

“At a court houlden in the Castle of Dublin the 7th of October, 1652, Lieutenant Colonel Arnop, president.

“Mabill Archbold being accused for a spie, and thereof found guilty, ordered and decreed that she suffer death at the Cornmarkett, and that what goods of hirs or hir husbands shall be founde in the Parliament quarters shall be disposed of to the Informant.”

The Committee of Privileges of the House of Lords appointed in 1666 to examine into a charge brought against Connell Molloy of counterfeiting the signatures to protections of Viscount Ranelagh, and John Keating, Deputy Clerk of the Parliament, recommended that: “The said Connell Molloy shall be made exemplary by being put to stand in the Pillory, in Corn-market, Dublin, from the hour of 10 in the morning till the hour of 12, for three market days, and there to have his ears nailed to the said Pillory, and his crime to be written on paper, to be fixed upon his breast, and to be imprisoned during the pleasure of the House.”

A Roman Catholic Convent stood in Corn-market at the close of the 17th century; and at the same period we find notice of a house here called “the Frying Pan;” also of a large old castle four stories high, the ground floor vaulted; and of “a large timber house, on the ground floor a kitchen and one lodging room, on the second and third three rooms each, and on the fourth two garrets, being the sign of the George.”

The Corn-market of Dublin was removed to Thomas-street early in the 18th century, and some years later the “Bear tavern” and the “Hibernian chop house” were located in the old Corn-market, the former kept by Christopher Geshil, and the latter by Dalton Tench, who died in 1769. James Napper Tandy, in early life, traded as an ironmonger, at No. 21, Corn-market; and in 1798 Lord Edward Fitzgerald lay for some days concealed at the house of Bartholomew Gannon, linen-draper, No. 22 in the same street.

During the latter years of the 18th century Corn-market was chiefly inhabited by haberdashers, woollen-drapers, and dealers in coarse linens; and it was difficult in passing through the street to evade the importunities of the “Pluckers in,” who, as the name imported, were hired to induce purchasers to enter the shops of their employers.

The date of the erection of the New-gate has not been ascertained, but from the charter of the Hospital of St. John it appears to have been standing in 1188, and the ancient laws of the city contain the following enactment:- “The second watchman (vigilator) shall begin his patrole at the New-gate, and so through the High-street to the new Tholsel, and so far as St. Patrick’s Gate, including Rochel-street (vicus Rupelle), and the three lanes (venellae), namely, St. Audben’s-lane, Gillamocholmog’s-lane, and the other lane leading to the house of Thomas le Marechal.” From the latter part of the 15th century the New-gate was used as the town prison of Dublin, Richard III. having, in 1485, constituted the Mayor and Recorder of Dublin Justices of Oyer, Terminer, and gaol delivery; and authorized the Mayor and Sheriffs to hold a gaol in any part of the city, for the safe keeping of malefactors and felons. The irons and other instruments of the prison are particularized, as follows, in the City Manuscript known as the “Chain Book:”

“1486. - Memorandum, that thes bene the instrumentes of Iryn boght vpon Tresory costes and delyuered to Janico Marcus Maire, Thomas Benet, and Robert Blanchvile, Baillifes of the Cite of Dyvelyn : In primis, iij sheres, ii kyves, ij Boltes, with iiij colleres, j Bolte with iij poynetes for mens handes, iij shaglis for mens legges, j grete chayne, the wiche weyth vij stone, xij li and di, and thei to delyuer them to ther successors at ther departyng.

“Item ii sheres, ii pa iij quarters. Item ij yeokys, with vi collers, weyng ij pa xjjj li. Item v pair maniclis, weying l pa ij li di. Item, iij stok lockys vpon the dorres. Item ij hangyn lockis. Item vi boltes Iryn vpon the Dorres abow. Item, v boltes with collers that weyth jjJ pa 1 li and di. Item iij shaglis weying i pa. Item a glaslan.”

“1512. - Memorandum, that this ben the Irnes that lengyth to the Newegate delyuered to Thomas Jacobs, gayler, the yere of the reyn of Kyng Herry the viijth, the third yere and the xxvijth day of Februarii.

“In primis ij. leyge boltes with vi. colleres.

“Item ij. sheres ij. payr of gywes.

“Item iij smale boltes for the Donjoun.

“Item j payr manaclys for men handes, with the bolte.

“Item v. manaclys, with ij boltes for handes.

“Item a brokyn bolte, with ij shaglys.

“Item a brokyn shaklys.

“Item a hangyn loke callyt horse loke.

“Item iij hangyn lokes.

“Item iiij keys for both the prisones.

“Item ij keys, one for the hall dore and anothyr for the chamer.

“1525-6. Memorandum, that thes ben the ernes that lengyth to the New gatt deliveryt to Thomas Whytt, gayler, the yere of the Reyn of Kyng Harry the viijth the xvijth yere, then Meyre Richard Talbot; Symon Gaydon, John Shilton, balyffes.

“Item fowr boltes for men legges, with ther shakkles.

“Item i bolte for chylder, with ij shakkles.

“Item a payr sheres for men legges.

“Item a bolt with iiij collers for men nekkes

“Item a clynchyng hambyr

“Item a key for the hall dorre.

“Item a key for the chamber dorre.

“Item one hangyng lok with a key.

“Item ij keys for both the dongeons beneth.

“Item ij keys for the gret gatt.”

A similar list is enrolled under the year 1526, and concludes with the following entry:-

“Memorandum, that thes ben the prisoners [that the] forsayd Meyr and Baleffes haff resseued [of Richard] Talbot, lat Meyr, and John Shilton, and Symon [Gaydon], lat Bayleffes, In presens of the courtt

“Item on[e] John Heyward in for dett.

“Item one John Gryffen, Junior, for dett.

“Ellen Gorman for dett.

“Myc Col [ ] in for dett.

“Item Mor Leynard Cantwell for suspecyons of felony.

“Item one Rychart Kelle for felony.

“Item one Bell Brysse for Trespas.”

Of the attack made upon the New-gate in 1535 by Thomas Fitzgerald, after he had failed in his attempts to take the Castle, and to obtain ingress to the city, a contemporary writer has left the following account

“The greater number of the Rebels assembled to Thomas his court, and marched to St. Thomas his street, rasing down the partitions of the row of houses before them on both sides of the street, finding none to withstand them: for the inhabitants fled into the citie, so that they made a long lane on both the sides like a gallerie covered all over head, to shield as well their horssmen as their footmen from gunshot. This done they burnt the new street, planted a falcon right against the New Gate, and it discharged, pearsed the gate, and kild an apprentise of Thomas Stephans, Alderman, as he went to bring a basin of water from the High Pipe, which by reason the springs were damd up, was at that time drie. Richard Stanton, commonlie called Dicke Stanton, was then Gailor of the New Gate, a good servitor and excellent markeman, as his valiant service that time did approve. For besides that he gald divers of the Rebels as they would skip from house to house, by causing some of them with his peece to carrie their errands in their buttocks; so he perceived one of the enimies levelling at the window or spike at which he stood: but whether it were, that the rebell his pouder failed him, or some gimboll or other was out of frame, Stanton took him so trulie for his marke, as he strake him with his bullet full in the forehead under the brim of his scull, and withall turned up his heeles. Stanton not satisfied with his death, issued out at the wicket, stript the varlot mother naked, and brought in his peece and his attire. The desperatnesse of this fact disliked of the citizens, and greatlie stomached of the Rebels, before Stanton returned to his standing, the enimies brought faggots and fiers to the New Gate, and incontenentlie fired them. The townsemen perceiving that if the gate were burnt, ( the enimies would be encouraged upon hope of the spoile, to venter more fiercelie than if they were incountred without the wals, thought it expedient presentlie to charge them. To this exploit they were the more egerlie moved, because that notwithstanding Thomas his souldiors were manie in number; yet they knew that the better part of his companie bare but hollow hearts to the quarrell: for the number of the wise gentlemen of the Pale did little or nothing incline to his purpose. And therefore, when he besieged the citie, the most part of those arrows, which were shot over the walls, were unheaded, and nothing annoied them: some shot in letters, and foretold them of all the treacherous stratagems that were in hammering. That espied the citizens, and gathering the faintnesse of his souldiors thereby, blazed abroad upon the walles triumphant newes, that the King his armie was arrived; and as it had been so indeed, suddenlie to the number of 400 rushed out the New Gate, through flame and fire upon the rebels, who (at the first sight of armed men) weening no lesse but the truth was so, otherwise assured, that the citie would never dare to re-incounter them, gave ground, forsooke their Capteins, dispersed and scattered into diverse corners, their falcon taken, an hundred of their stoutest galloglasses slain. Thomas Fitzgirald fled to the Graie Friers in S. Francis his street, there coucht that night, unknown to the citie, until the next morning he stale privilie to his armie not far off, who stood in wonderful feare that he was apprehended. Thomas his courage by this gate overthrow somewhat cooled, and also behg assuredlie told, that a fleete was espied a farre off, bearing full sail towards the coast of Ireland, he was soon intreated, having so manie irons in the fire, to take eggs for his monie: and withall, having no forren succor, either from Paulus tertius or Charles the fifth, which dailie he expected, he was sore quailed, being of himself though strong in number of souldiers, yet unfurnished of sufficient munition and artillerie, to stand and withstand the King his armie in a pitcht field, or maine battell Upon this and other considerations, to make as faire weather as he could, he sent James de la Hide, Linche of the Knocke, William Bath of Dollarstowne, Doctor Traverse, Thomas Field of Painstowne, as messengers to the citizens, to treat with them of a truce, who being let in at the New Gate, repaired to William Kellie his house, where maister Maior and his brethren were assembled.”

The Newgate is described, towards the close of the 16th century, as having “twoe Towres, and every Towre is three heightes, with twoe smale towrettes in the tope, and the gatte howse stands betwixt bothe the saide towres, the loer stone of every Towre is vawted, and the other twoe stories lofted; every towre is 12 foote sqware within the wall, and the wall fyve foote thicke, and every rowme twoe lowpes. The Gatte Howse is 40 foote one waye and 15 foote another waye, and the height of boethe the said Towres from the pavement to the leads is forty foote, besydes the garettes, and there is a percwlles for the same gatte.”

In the city wall, close to the southern side of the New-gate, was a building called the “Watch Tower,” where a sentry usually stood to guard the prisoners confined in the gaol. In the course of some repairs executed during the Protectorate, the two towers of Newgate, next to the city, were removed, the other two, on the western side, being allowed to remain. Between Newgate and Gormond’s-gate, on the northern side, stood a square tower, described as follows in the reign of Elizabeth

“From the North Towre of the Neue Gatte to the Towre in Mr. Nicholas Fitzsimons pocession is 180 foote distaut, the wall four foote thicke and 22 foote hie, with a buttris withowte as before, and no rampier within, but howses close joyninge to the wall within. The said Towre in Mr. Fitzsimons pocession is a sqware Towre, fowre stories hie, with three loftes and no vawte, twoe lowps in the loer stone, three lowps in the seconde storie, fower lowps in the third stone, and fowre lowps in the fowrthe storie; the Towre 32 foote hie, 16 foote sqware, and three foote thicke.”

In the early part of the 17th century this tower was styled “Browne’s Castle,” from its proprietor, Richard Browne, who kept his mayoralty in 1614, 1615, and 1620, in this building, in a back room of which the proscribed Roman Catholic Priests used to celebrate Mass privately in the reign of James I. Browne’s Castle was subsequently converted into an inn, which acquired the name of the “Black Dog,” from the sign of a Talbot or hound there suspended. It’s proprietor, named Barton, was committed by the House of Lords, in 1661, for having declared in conversation that “the Earl of Drogheda was a cheating knave, and that he thought all the Lords in Ireland were no better;” and early in the 18th century the “Black Dog” was used as the Marshalsea prison of the Sheriff of the city of Dublin.

With the exception of occasional small assessments, there was no public provision made for the maintenance of the prisoners in Newgate, who were mainly supported by the charity of the citizens. A statute passed in 1542 enacted, that all gaolers in Ireland should have a seal engraved with the name of their gaols, for the purpose of sealing licenses granted to poor prisoners to beg through the country in order to collect sufficient money for their discharge.

In 1634 the House of Commons ordered a donation of two shillings from every member to the poor prisoners in the Dublin gaols; and in the “humble general petition and addresse of the poor prisoners of Cragfergus to the Right Hon. Lord ChiefBaron Bysse, and the rest of the Hon. Lords and Barons of the Exchequer,” the prisoners state that they, in number 92, “stand committed in the common gaol of New-gate, where they have not anything allowed unto them but what is extended out of the charity of good people as they pass by the gates, which amounts to soe small a value, especially among so considerable a number, that they will inevitably perish unless relieved with the more care and expedition some other way, that some care be taken by supremacyes that they do not utterly languish under their grievous and close restraint and confinement.”

Dr. Oliver Plunkett, Roman Catholic Primate of all Ireland, was committed to Newgate in December, 1679, and confined there till removed, in October, 1680, to London, where he was subsequently executed.

Assessments were made in 1686 for enlarging Newgate; in 1687, for “finishing the building and repairing of Newgate;” in 1689, for mending the roof of old Newgate; and in 1694, for repairing and strengthening the gaol. Among the prisoners in Newgate in the last century was the Rev. Thomas Emlyn, who, having been found guilty in 1704 of publishing a treatise in advocacy of the doctrine of the Unitarians, was sentenced to pay a fine of £1,000, and to undergo a year’s imprisonment. For three months he remained a prisoner in the Sheriff’s house, whence he was suddenly hurried to Newgate, and placed among the felons in a close room containing six beds; and after having continued there for about five weeks, he procured his removal to the Marshalsea. During his sojourn in the “Black Dog,” Emlyn wrote a treatise in support of his opinions, and preached on every Sunday to the confined debtors in a large room which he had hired for the purpose, at which many of his former congregation attended, although his brother Presbyterian ministers, with one exception, forsook him during his incarceration, which continued till 1705, when he obtained his release from gaol and a reduction of the fines imposed upon him. Emlyn’s writings have been long held in esteem by the Unitarians; and the inscription on his monument records that he was, “to the shame and reproach of a Christian country, persecuted even to bonds and imprisonment, and the spoiling of his goods, for having maintained the supreme unequalled majesty of the one God and Father of all”

During the panic occasioned by the apprehended Jacobite invasion in 1708, Father Paul Mac Egan and several other Roman Catholic priests were imprisoned in the “Black Dog,” their incarceration in which formed the theme of various Irish poems, written at the time by John O’Neachtan.

Innumerable disorders and irregularities prevailed during the early part of the 18th century in the gaols of Dublin, which at that period were no better regulated than other European prisons. The offices of Keeper of the gaol of New-gate and that of the Sheriff’s Marshal were generally executed by the same individual, who received a salary of £10 per annum from the city, and usually presented the Sheriff with a gratuity of 20 guineas, making the “Black Dog” that officer’s prison. A great portion of the abuses in the gaols arose from the grants of Henry V., Richard III., and Edward VI., by which the Mayor, Bailiffs, and Recorder of Dublin, and their successors, were constituted Justices of the Peace, and of Oyer and Terminer; similar powers were also conferred by Charles I. upon the six senior Aldermen of the city and other members of the Corporation. These functionaries, at the commencement of the last century, were accustomed to commit the entire management of this department of their offices to clerks, who paid their employers a percentage on all fees received. These clerks generally kept dram shops, and were in league with a number of constables, who continually arrested citizens on the most frivolous pretexts; and the clerks being provided with blank warrants, signed by the Aldermen, immediately committed their victims to the “Black Dog,” where they were incarcerated until they had discharged the fees demanded from them. The constables, who were generally men of the lowest grade, committed the grossest enormities in the discharge of their office, obtaining large rewards for apprehending persons whom they pretended it would be extremely difficult to arrest, while at the same time they were privately bribed to forbear by the parties whom they had been paid for pursuing; and, after having captured an unfortunate debtor, every artifice was used to extort money from hint while awaiting the arrival of his bail. The number of constables and sheriffs’ bailiffs in Dublin in 1729 being found to amount to 2,000, the Lords Justices and Privy Council ordered the several churchwardens to return the names of the constables in their respective parishes; and, after a review upon Oxmantown-green, reduced them considerably, allowing four to every justice of the peace, 20 to the Lord Mayor, six to the City Marshal for the service of his Marshalsea, 12 to the Gaoler of Newgate, and three to the Master of the House of Correction, all to be persons of good behaviour and Protestants, and to have their names and places of abode constantly posted at the Tholsel.

Ashenhurst Isaack, gaoler of Newgate, was discharged from his situation in 1721, on a charge of having permitted a number of prisoners to escape; notwithstanding which, he received £245 for his goodwill of the office from John Hawkins, who also paid the Mayor and Sheriffs £100, as a gratuity for having secured him the appointment. Hawkins had originally been an attorney’s clerk, subsequently practised as a bailiff, and was appointed Keeper of the House of Correction, whence he was transferred to the Gaolership of Newgate, which, under the management of him and his wife, became the scene of most flagrant abuses.

In both Newgate and the “Black Dog,” the gaoler carried on an extensive trade by selling liquors to the inmates, who, on entering the latter place, although for only one night, were immediately called upon to pay 2s. 2d. for what was styled a “penny pot;” prisoners refusing to comply with this demand were abused, violently beaten and stripped; and persons not having sufficient money to pay the impost were dreadfully maltreated and their clothes seized and sold to supply the required funds. In the “Black Dog” there were 12 rooms for the reception of prisoners, two of which contained five beds each; the others were no better than closets, and held but one bed each. The general rent for lodging in these rooms was one shilling per night for each man, but in particular cases a much higher price was charged. It frequently happened that four or five men slept together in one bed, each individual still paying the rent of one shilling, which at the close of the week was collected by Mrs. Hawkins, wife of the gaoler. Prisoners unable to meet these demands were immediately dragged to a damp subterranean dungeon, about 12 feet square and eight high, which had no light except that which was admitted through a common sewer, which ran close by it, carrying off all the filth and ordure of the prison, and rendering the atmosphere almost insupportable. In this noisome oubliette, called the “Nunnery,” from being the place where abandoned females apprehended by the watch were regularly lodged, frequently 14 and sometimes 20 persons were crowded together, and there robbed and abused by criminals, who, although under sentence of transportation, were admitted to mix among the debtors; and if any person attempted to come up stairs in the day time, to obtain air or light, he was menaced, insulted, and driven down again by Hawkins, or his satellite, Martin Coffey, the turnkey of the gaol. Among the many instances of the brutality of Hawkins, we may mention his treatment of Edmond Donnelly, a gentleman who was arrested on a sheriff’s writ for £400 while confined to bed with a broken leg. Notwithstanding Donnelly’s offer to pay any requisite number of bailiffs to guard him until his health was restored, and despite the representations of the surgeon, he was carried at 9 p.m. from Church-street, in his bed supported by chair poles upon men’s shoulders, and laid at the door of the “Black Dog,” whence he was dragged to the “Nunnery,” where his leg was again broken in passing down the winding stairs; and in this dungeon he lay for two months, during which the water frequently rose to the level of his bed, which consequently rotted under him. Surgeon John Audouin, of Wood-street, executed in 1729 for the murder of a servant-woman, was known to have expended £300 in the “Black Dog,” during the six weeks which elapsed between his conviction and execution; the greater part of which sum was paid to prevent Hawkins from executing his daily threat of loading him with irons, and transferring him to New-gate. On the night before Audouin’s execution, his money and valuables were seized by the gaoler, who subsequently demanded £100, and received 30 guineas for the dead body.

Persons committed by the Judges of the King’s Bench, the Lord Mayor, or Justices of the Peace for the city, were lodged in Newgate, where, by the collusion of the gaoler with the constables, they were frequently detained for many days without a committal. From these, 4*d. per night was exacted for not being confined in the felons’ room, and 1s. 4d. *for a “penny pot;” those who refused being stripped of their clothes by the common executioner, beaten, and, in some cases, chained. The management of this department of the establishment was committed to Isaac Bullard, the under-keeper, who exacted his fees in a most merciless manner. When the prisoners’ money was exhausted, they were stripped and turned into the felons’ room, the stench of which was insupportable; and into which persons in violent fevers were known to have been thrown, stripped quite naked, because they could not pay eight pence for a nights lodging elsewhere. In 1729 the prisoners in Newgate numbered 160: in the felons’ room a multitude of malefactors were to be seen lying naked upon the ground, groaning with cold and hunger, and many died there from absolute want, being frequently left without food for several days.

The following parliamentary document illustrates the mode in which the affairs of the gaol were conducted by Hawkins and his wife *

“An Estimate of the Yearly Chamber Rent, Fees, and Perquisites, received by John Hawkins, as Keeper of Newyate, and the Black Dog Prison. *

Per Annum

£ s. d.

Chamber rent at £7 16s. per week 406 18 0

Fees on persons committed by theWatch and Staff, at three per night, and 1s. 6d. each 82 2 6

Fees on persons committed on committals from Justices of the Peace, at least 1,000 per year, at 4s. 6d. each 225 0 0

Fees on persons committed on warrants from ditto, moderately computed at a medium of 1,000 per year, at 2s 6*d. *each 125 0 0

Fees on persons committed by the Sheriff, at two per week, many whereof are charged with ten committals; but allowing at a medium three committals to each person 104 0 0

Fees on persons tried for murders, treasons, felonies, assaults, as well in the city as county of Dublin, at 240 indictments in the year, allowing he remits one-fourth of his fees at the King’s Bench 60 0 0

Fees on persons tried at the Quarter Sessions, at the like number 60 0 0

The benefit of his ale-cellar, at 360 barrels yearly, at 5*s. *profit on each barrel, not including his profits on wine, brandy, rum, and other liquors

Salary from the city at 10 0 0

Total £1,163 0 6

Besides infinite extortions on all the above articles, and on Crown prisoners, for permitting them to lie in the Black Dog gaol, and not turning them over to Newgate, and loading them with irons; premiums for stolen goods, and other private perquisites, peculiar to his employment, not to be computed or valued.”

The conduct of Hawkins having at length attracted the attention of the Legislature, the House of Commons, in November, 1729, passed a resolution, that “John Hawkins, Keeper of His Majesty’s gaol of Newgate, and Sheriff’s Marshalsea of the city of Dublin, had been guilty of the most notorious extortion, great corruption, and other high crimes and misdemeanors, in the execution of his said offices; had arbitrarily and unlawfully kept in prison, and loaded with irons, persons not duly committed by any magistrate, till they had complied with the most exorbitant demands; and had put into dungeons and endangered the lives of many prisoners for debt under his care, treating them, and all others in his custody, with the utmost insolence, cruelty, and barbarity, in high violation and contempt of the laws of this kingdom.” Hawkins, with his accomplices, Isaac Bullard and Martin Coffey, were consequently committed to the custody of the Serjeant-at-Arms attending the House; and although he was dismissed from his office, the gaol continued in a wretched state, and being generally filled with the outcasts of society, riots were perpetually occurring within its walls. The only prisoner of rank confined in Newgate in the last century appears to have been Henry, fourth Lord Santry, of whose trial for murder, in 1739, a description will be given in our account of the Parliament House.

Wesley preached to the prisoners in Newgate in 1747, but observed that he “found no stirring at all among the dry bones:” and, speaking of another visit in the same year to the gaol, he says, “I preached in Newgate at two in the common hall, the Jailor refusing us the room where we used to preach: but that is not the worst. I am afraid our Lord refuses his blessing to this place: all the seed seems to fall to the way side. I see no fruit of our labours.”

About 1750 Newgate was improved and altered, and a commodious foot-path laid out on its southern side. In 1767 it was found to be in a very bad condition, the walls being ruinous, the roof decayed, and a constant communication existing between the male and female prisoners, owing to there being but one pair of stairs in the building. 120 was the average number of prisoners in the gaol, which did not contain adequate accommodation for more than 70, and it was in consequence repeatedly visited by gaol fevers, to such an extent that the Court of King’s Bench in 1750 appointed a surgeon to inspect the state and health of the prisoners in Newgate whilst confined there, before being put upon their trials, in order to prevent contagious disorders being brought into court.

Although Parliament was apprized that the gaol was in a “very ruinous, bad condition,” and that it was not “large enough for the number of prisoners usually confined there,” no important remedial steps appear to have been taken until the year 1773, when the foundation of a new prison was laid on the northern side of the city.

In 1775 the prisoners in Newgate formed a plot to escape, in the concoction of which they determined to poison Connell, the turnkey, by infusing rat’s-bane and aqua regia in some mulled claret, of which they invited him to partake. Their plans were, however, discovered by their intended victim, who, at the risk of his life, deprived them of their fire-arms and other implements with which they had cut their fetters, window frames, and bolts. Later in the same year, at about 8 p.m., a number of prisoners, who had contrived to remove their irons, attacked the sentries at the outside of the gaol door, and three of the felons effected their escape after a desperate struggle, in which one of the sentinels and a woman were dangerously wounded.

That there was but too much foundation for Wesley’s remarks on the impiety of the denizens of the prison, appears from the fragments extant of gaol songs written in the slang peculiar to the Dublin Newgate. A song entitled “The Night before Larry was stretched,” the most celebrated of these compositions, details how a felon, on the night before his execution, was visited by his friends, who had pawned all the disposable portions of their wardrobe to procure funds for their carousal

“The boys they came crowding in fast;*

*They drew their stools close round about him;

Six glims on his trap-case they placed -

He couldn’t be well wak’d without ‘em.

I asked if he was fit to die,

Without having duly repented?

Says Larry, ‘That’s all in my eye,

And all by the clergy invented,

To make a fat bit for themselves.’

“Then the cards being called for, they played,

Till Larry found one of them cheated;

Quick he made a hard rap at his head -

The lad being easily heated,

‘So you cheat me because I’m in grief,

Oh, is that, by the Holy, the reason,

Soon I’ll give you to know, you d-d thief!

That you’re cracking your jokes out of season,

And scuttle your nob with my fist.’

“Then in came the Priest with his book,

He spoke him so smooth and so civil;

Larry tipp’d him a Kilmainham look,

And pitched his big wig to the Devil;

Then raising a little his head,

To get a sweet drop of the bottle,

And pitiful sighing he said,

‘Oh! the hemp will be soon round my throttle,

And choke my poor windpipe to death!’”

The general punishment for petty offences in the last century was a whipping from Newgate either to College-green or to the Toll-house in James’-street. Criminals do not appear to have been executed at the old Newgate, but were generally drawn thence in a cart to the gallows, the punishment of which was styled, in the gaol patois, “dancing the last jig,” or capering the “Kilmainham minuet.” Thus a song on the execution of Luke Caffrey commences as follows:-

“When to see Luke’s last jig we agreed,

We tipp’d all our gripes in a tangle;

And mounted our trotters wid speed,

To squint at the Snub as he’d dangle,

For he was de smart on de gap,

He boozied de Bull-dog and Pinners,

And when dat he milled a fat slap,

He merrily melted de winners,

To snack wid de boys of de pad.

“In a giffee we blink’d at de spud,

Where de Quod its glum phiz did exhibit;

Wid a facer we coddled our blood,

For de wind it blows cold from de gibbet;

De boy he had travell’d afore,

Like rattlers we after him pegg’d it;

For to miss us would grieve him full sore,

Bekase why, as a favour he begg’d it,

We’d tip him de fives ‘fore his det.

“When we came to de man-trap, and saw

Poor Luke look so blue in de gabbard;

To save him I taut I could draw

My toaster from out of de scabbard:

‘Oh! Luky,’ ses I, do you see!

Be de iron and steel in me daddles,

If I taut I could once set you free,

De scarlets should smoke in dir saddles,

Your gullet to save from de noose.’”

Some cases having occurred of criminals being restored to life by blood-letting immediately after their execution, it became a general practice for the friends of a deceased felon to have him cut down from the gallows as soon as possible, and to carry him to some adjacent tavern, where they made an incision in his jugular vein, in the hope, as they expressed it, of “cheating Jack the breath-stopper.” In allusion to this custom a notorious convict is introduced addressing his friends as follows, at the gallows:-

“When I dance tuxt do ort and de skies,

Do Clargy may bleat for de Struggler;

But when on do ground your friend lies,

Oh! tip me a snig in de jugler:

Oh! you know dat id is my last hope,

As de surgints of otomy tell us;

Dat when I’m cut down from de rope,

You’ll bring back de puff to my bellows,

And set me once more on my pins.”

The song entitled “Larry’s stiff,” a sequel to the first composition referred to, details the proceedings of the confreres of the deceased immediately after his execution

“Poor Larry was now a gone chuck,

De bloody teeves taut for to get him,

To bring to do College to cut;

Be de Hoky, our boys wou’dn’t let ‘em;

On our shoulders we hois’d him along,

And wou’dn’t lot one of dem neer us;

Our kebbles we dash’d thro’ de throng,

And made all de slim ones to fear us,

For in no time we’d flatten dir smellers.

When we got to de end of de lane,

De girls dey all gother round us;

Dey began for to cry and to keen,

Wid dir damnable clack to confound us;

But soon dey began to be hush’d,

As de polis was coming among us;

Dey taut for to kick up a dust,

And den to take poor Larry from us:

But one got a chalk on de phiz, anoder a hook’m snivy on do back, and den dey set to dir pumps, as if dey were pursued by de gost of do brave Tommy Fox, formerly de Long Lane hero, your souls.

We den bet de hoof until night,

To kick up do cole for to wake him;

We left Paddy Foy dere to fight,

If de black boys should offer to take him;

But when we all came back again,

It’s den we’d such fun and such faddle;

If any of de people look’d glum,

We fiatten’d dir y-ear with our daddle,

To keep up de fun at de stiff.”

The failure of the attempts at revivification by phlebotomy was attended by the deceased obtaining what his friends styled “a barbarous long Protestant lease of the sanctified sod,” in allusion to the penal enactments which at that period prohibited Roman Catholics from acquiring landed property.

The new prison in Green-street was opened in September, 1780, but the old gaol in Corn-market, of which a portion still exists at the corner of “Lamb-alley,” appears to have been continued in use for some years subsequent to that date, and in 1783 Sir Jeremiah Fitzpatrick, M.D., gave the following evidence on the state of the “Black Dog:” - “Black Dog, in the city of Dublin, is a most unwholesome situation in New-hall Market, surrounded with every exhalation necessary to promote putrefaction; it has neither yard or necessary, except in the cellar, to which none have access save those on the first floor. The Prison is four stories high, wainscoted; and in a most ruinous condition; there is no medical assistant to this jail; there were on the 3rd instant, five venereal female patients, and eight labouring under an inveterate itch in one room, when he visited it.”

The evidence of the Gaoler of the prison was as follows:-

“Mr. George Pallen sworn, says, he is Keeper of the Black Dog prison, takes in all kind of Prisoners, is under the appointment of the city of Dublin, and has no salary; his Jail is rather at present a reception for Debtors than criminals, but he receives both; has been Keeper of the said prison one year last August; those that are committed to his care and give bail, pay 3s. 4d., those not sworn against pay 1s., never detained one 24 hours for fees due to himself, but has known persons detained for their fees due to other Officers, but very few; says the Jail is in a very ruinous condition; thinks there may be 40 or 50 Prisoners confined in the Black Dog at present; there is no tap room in the prison; he sells no liquors himself or suffers others to sell the like in the Jail; the Prisoners are all at liberty to send for necessaries without restriction; never bailed any prisoner out himself nor enlarged any committed to his care, without an order from a Magistrate. There is no back ground to the Prison; the necessary is in the cellar; water is supplied plentifully from the main pipes, and also from a pump; admits Doctor Fitzpatrick’s state of the Prison, to which he refers. Commitments directed to him are generally from the Sheriff; Approvers are sent to him to keep them separate from other prisoners; gives £4,000 security for Debtors to the Sheriff; he charges 1s. per night to prisoners that are able to pay; sets his rooms from 2*s. *83 d. to 5s. per week; has many Prisoners now in want of medical assistance, there being no person whose duty is to attend them.”

In 1794 the erection of a new Sheriffs’ Prison in Green-street was commenced, on the completion of which the use of the “Black Dog,” as a marshalsea, was finally abandoned.

The removal of Newgate, and the consequent opening of the street, together with the extensive alterations on its northern side, have completely changed the appearance of this locality, which, however, still retains its old name, although more than a century has elapsed since it was used as the Dublin Corn-market.