Re: Newgate
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 14 Oct 1997 16:52:08 -0100
My dear Mr Gregory,
The things that I hated, exposed in Pip's first response to London, were
the squalid, overcrowded and cruel beast market of Smithfield, and the
public executions which, in my younger days, were performed in front of
Newgate Gaol.
I added my voice to many others, in a campaign to remove the beast market
and the slaughterhouses to the suburb of Islington, where animals might be
treated humanely in clean and healthy conditions. Our campaign succeeded,
and Smithfield eventually became a market for carcases only.
I also spoke against the barbarity of public execution, and this too
ceased in my lifetime.
"Great Expectations" is set early in the nineteenth century, before Queen
Victoria ascended the throne. On his first arriving in London, Pip is
confronted by the unreformed market, and the atrocity of public hangings in
Old Bailey. It marks London for him.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>Dear Sir,
> I noticed in Great Expectations how when Pip is first in
>London, how disgusting he finds some aspects of it. He clearly shows how when
>he sees the gallows and the blood and fat of the slaughtered animals at
>Smithfield, that he clearly does not like it.
> When you wrote this, were you showing a hate you had of these sort of
>things, through Pip?
>
> Yours Sincerely Gregory Batchelor.
>
>
======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author