Question E

[Jonetta]

Dorian is the penultimate scarred hero having suffered unspeakable horrors at the Newgate prison. Did you have any idea that they jailed boys as young as Dougan? Was his sexual violation a surprise? His aversion to touch make sense?

[Lauren]

Kudos to Byrne for her realistic portrayal of the English justice system in Victorian times. Yes, I knew they jailed boys as young as Dougan and even younger. Neither the abuse nor his PTSD came as a surprise.
Charles Dickens' works are a good introduction to the appalling treatment of children in the 19th century.

Here's an interesting article on child imprisonment in Victorian times. They were treated the same as adults.

[Robin]

That is an eye-opening article. I knew that children were imprisoned for various crimes, but I never knew that it happened so often.

[Anita]

I wasn't surprised by any of it, but it was very disturbing anyway. There were times I wondered if they could overcome what had happened to him.

[Jonetta]

Lauren wrote: "Kudos to Byrne for her realistic portrayal of the English justice system in Victorian times. Yes, I knew they jailed boys as young as Dougan and even younger. Neither the abuse nor his PTSD came as..."

Thank you for the link to that article, Lauren. This is a horrible legacy, hard to even imagine.

[Jonetta]

I can’t say that I was surprised given how much we learned about the fate of children in this era when we read the Sebastian St. Cyr series. However, I never considered that young children were sent to the Newgate prison and that actually stunned me. Knowing much about that dreaded institution, it stopped me in my reading. How utterly horrible.

[Lauren]

Jonetta wrote: "I can’t say that I was surprised given how much we learned about the fate of children in this era when we read the Sebastian St. Cyr series. "

I'd forgotten how much social criticism that series contains. The fact that it is Regency England and the situation did not improve until the late 19th early 20th century says a lot about how complacent people are over the suffering of others.

[Jonetta]

I know, and for children😢

[Karen ♐]

I remembered reading about children imprisoned at very young ages so it didn't really surprise me all that happened to them. And the PTSD he dealt with was so vivid. His aversion to touch made sense to me. I thought the author handled this part of the story so well.

[Charlene]

I was not surprised, however horrified I was, by these kinds of treatment. It is not surprising that a child -- who was sexually and otherwise abused -- would be repulsed by the idea of being touched. He was made to feel guilty as an innocent.