82 



Milts jwe County dfoofe. 



By the Rev. Canon J. E. Jackson. 



PlJBpE discovery at Longleat of some old letters and papers 

 gBft relating to this subject, enables me to present to the public 

 some facts, hitherto unknown. 



In the oldest times about which we have any information, the 

 chief gaol of the county, the strong closet in which the Sheriff of 

 Wilts locked up his valuables, was at the Castle of Old Sarum. — 

 Any culprit, apparent or presumptive, who had to appear before 

 my Lord Judge at the Assize, was marched off "in Gaolum ad 

 Castrum Sarum." Old Sarum was a wonderful place, and every 

 one who has seen it must have made this remark, " How in the 

 world did it ever contain all that it is said to have contained ? " 

 We know of a castle, of barracks for soldiers, of a cathedral, of 

 houses for the cathedral clergy, and then there were streets and 

 houses for the inhabitants besides. Yet the whole space within 

 the walls was only about 27J acres. There was not, even for 

 honest men, much room to turn about, so that the rogues in the 

 cage must have had a pleasant time of it. 



Perhaps there was a golden age, and rogues were few. The 

 Roman Satirist Juvenal, who lived in Imperial days, when wicked- 

 ness abounded, refers, in lines which classical readers will remember, 

 to the more virtuous time3 of early Rome : — 



Felices proavorum atavos, felicia dicas 



Ssecula, quse quondam sub regions at que tribunis 



Viderunt uno contentam carcere Romam. 



which, for non-classical readers, may be thus applied : — 



" 0 happy were our sires, estranged from crimes, 

 And happy, happy, were the good old times, 

 Which saw, in Saxon or in Norman reign, 

 One black-hole Wiltshire's criminals contain ! " 



One of two things must have been the case. Either vagabonds 



were few, or in Old Sarum gaol they must have been packed like 



herrings in a cask. 



