To the credit of present manners, our modern jailors are in general men of feeling, and wherever it is discovered that they act with cruelty they are immediately dismissed from their office. This was not the case in former days, for they were in general the most hard-hearted of men, and callous even to the distresses of the aged, and crying infant at the breast.
The following Plate, pourtraying a Jailor of those times, will sufficiently convey an idea of the morose gluttony of such a character. It was copied from a rare tract, entitled, "Essayes and Characters of a Prison and Prisoners, by Geffray Mynshul, of Grayes Inne, Gent. with new additions, 1638." On the right side of the figure is written, "Those that keepe me, I keepe; if can, will still." On the left hand, "Hee's a true Jaylor strips the Divell in ill." The following extracts from this curious work will shew the estimation in which the author held a Jailor:
"As soone as thou commest before the gate of the prison, doe but think thou art entring into Hell, and it will extenuate somewhat of thy misery, for thou shalt be sure not only to find Hell, but fiends and ugly monsters, which with continuall torments will afflict thee; for at the gate there stands Cerberus, a man in shew, but a dogge in nature, who at thy entrance will fawne upon thee, bidding thee welcome, in respect of the golden croft which he must have cast him; then he opens the doore with all gentlenes, shewing thee the way to misery is very facile, and being once in, he shuts it with such fury, that it makes the foundation shake, and the doore and windows so barricadoed, that a man so loseth himself with admiration that he can hardly finde the way out and be a sound man.
"Now for the most part your porter is either some broken cittizen who hath plaid jack of all trades, some pander, broker, or hangman, that hath plaid the knave with all men; and for the more certainty his emblem is a red beard, to which sacke hath made his nose cousin-german.
"If marble-hearted Jaylors were so haplesse happy as to be mistaken, and be made Kings, they would, instead of iron to their grates, have barres made of men's ribs, Death should stand at doore for porter, and the Divell every night come gingling of keyes, and rapping at doores to lock men up.