In the inspectors' fourth report, dated 1839, they return to the charge, and again call the corporation to task for their mismanagement of Newgate. Abuses and irregularities, which had been partially remedied by the reform introduced in 1837, were once more in the ascendant. "In our late visits," they say, "we have seen manifest indications of a retrograde movement in this respect, and a tendency to return to much of that laxity and remissness which formerly marked the management of this prison." Again the following year the inspectors repeat their charge. "The prominent evils of this prison (Newgate)--evils which the alterations made within the last four years have failed to remove--are the association of prisoners, and the unusual contamination to which such association gives rise. For nearly twenty-two hours out of the twenty-four the prisoners are locked up, during which time no officer is stationed in the ward with them." They go on to say--"Newgate is only less extensively injurious than formerly because it is less crowded. The effects of the imprisonment are to vitiate its inmates, to extend their acquaintanceship with each other, to corrupt the prisoner charged with an offence of which he may be innocent, and to confirm in guilt the young and inexperienced offender."
The reports as the years flow on reiterate the same complaints. Much bitterness of feeling is evidently engendered, and the corporation grows more and more angry with the inspectors. The prison officials appear to be on the side of the inspectors, to the great dissatisfaction of the corporation, who claimed the full allegiance and support of its servants. In a resolution passed by the Court of Aldermen on 18th March, 1842, I find it ordered "that the ordinary of Newgate be restricted from making any communications to the Home Office or the Inspectors of Prisons, and that he be required wholly to confine himself to the performance of his duty as prescribed by Act of Parliament." The inspectors were not to be deterred, however, by any opposition from the earnest discharge of their functions, and continued to report against Newgate. In their tenth report they state that they are compelled by an imperative sense of duty to advert in terms of decided condemnation to the lamentable condition of the prisons of the city of London,--Newgate, Giltspur St. Compter, and the City Bridewell,--in which the master evil of gaol association and consequent contamination still continues to operate directly to the encouragement of crime. "The plan adopted for ventilating the dining-room on the 'master's side' and that of the middle yard is very inefficient; it consists of several circular perforations, about two inches in diameter, slanting downwards from the top of the walls to the outside adjoining the slaughter-houses of Newgate market; and occasionally, in hot weather, instead of ventilating the apartments, they only serve to convey the offensive effluvia arising from the decaying animal matter into the dining-rooms. Sometimes the stench in hot weather is said to be very bad. Many rats also come through these so-called ventilators, as they open close to the ground at the back of the prison." At the same time the inspectors animadvert strongly upon the misconduct of prisoners and the frequency of prison punishments, both offences and punishments affording a sufficient index to the practices going forward; and they wind up by declaring that a strict compliance with their duties gave them no choice "but to report matters as we found them, and again and again to protest against Newgate as it at present exists."