“When the chapel is filled, it is a most peculiar sight to behold near upon three hundred heads of convicts—and the heads only, the whole of the prisoner’s body being hidden by the front of the stalls…Nor are the heads there assembled such as physiognomical or phrenological prejudice would lead one to anticipate, for now that the mask-caps are off we see features and crania of every possible form and expression—almost from the best type down to the very lowest. True, as we have said, there is scarcely one bald head to be observed, and only two remarkable men with gray, or rather silver, hair—the latter, however, being extraordinary exceptions to the rule, and coming from a very different class from the ordinary convict stock. Nevertheless, the general run of the countenances and skulls assembled in Pentonville Chapel are far from being that of the brutal or semi-idiotic character, such as caricaturists love to picture as connected with the criminal race. Some of the convicts, indeed, have a frank and positively ingenuous look, whilst a few are certainly remarkable for the coarse and rudely-moulded features—the high cheek-bones and prognathous mouths—that are often associated with the hard-bred portion of our people. Still it has been noticed by others, who have had far better opportunities of judging than ourselves, that the old convict head of the last century has disappeared from our prisons and hulks; and certainly, out of the 270 odd faces that one seems assembled at Pentonville chapel, there is hardly one that bears the least resemblance to the vulgar baboon-like types that unobservant artists still depict as representative of the convict character. There are few countenances, be it remarked, that will bear framing in the Old Bailey dock, and few to which the convict garb—despite our study of Lavater and Gall—does not lend what we cannot but imagine, from the irresistible force of association, to be an unmistakably criminal expression. At Pentonville Chapel, however, as we have said, we see only the heads, without any of the convict costume to mislead the mind in its observations, and assuredly, if one were to assemble a like number of individuals from the same ranks of society as those from which most of our criminals come—such as farm-laborers, costermongers, sweeps, cabmen, porters, mechanics, and even clerks—we should find that their cast of countenances differed so little from those seen at the Model Prison, that even the keenest eye for character would be unable to distinguish a photograph of the criminal from the non-criminal congregation” (164)
specifically about Manchester. What type of language is used to describe the city and its residents? How does the author address the question of industrialization and factory work? What is the split between barbarism and intellect, and who is characterized by each respective quality? Is this a class division or something altogether different?
