The Writing on the Wall
The Tower of London, writes E.A. Humphrey Fenn, contains on its walls an extensive collection of prisoners’ graffiti.
The habit of scribbling or drawing on walls and other suitable surfaces has prevailed among the people of many lands throughout the ages. Especially has it been indulged in by small boys, prisoners and by those ‘lewd fellows of the baser sort’ abhorred by Paul of Tarsus. Many ‘graffiti’, as these spontaneous and often crude markings are known, survive; either scratched upon the surface with some improvised instrument, or daubed upon it with coloured chalk or charcoal.
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