Letter from Charles Dickens, London, to Douglas Jerrold, 1849 November 17 : autograph manuscript with the signature removed.

Taking issue with Jerrold's opposition to the proposal on the part of penal reformers that convicts be executed in private rather than public; i.e., "Will you consider whether all the improvements in prisons and punishments that have been made within the last twenty years have or have not been all productive of 'mystery?' I can remember very well when the silent system was objected to as mysterious, and opposed to the genius of English society. Yet there is no question that it has been a great benefit. The prison vans are mysterious vehicles; but surely they are better than the old system of marching prisoners through the streets chained to a long chain, like the galley-slaves in 'Don Quixote.' ... I wish I could induce you to feel justified in leaving that word to the platform people, on the strength of your knowledge of what crime was, and of what its punishments were, in the days when there was no mystery connected with these things, and all was as open as Bridewell when Ned Ward went to see the women whipped."