This shews the inconveniency of the Keeper's having the advantage of the tap-house; since, to advance the rent thereof, and to consume the liquors, there vended, they not only encourage riot and drunkenness, but also prevent the needy prisoner from being supplied by his ifriends with the mere necessaries of life, in order to increase an exorbitant gain to their tenants. And these extortions, though small in the particulars, are very heavy upon the unhappy ¡ prisoners, many of whom are so poor, as to be committed for a debt of one shilling only; for, by the usage of the said Court of Record, pro cesses are issued for the smallest sums; and, though the cause of action is but one penny, a process is issued, the process is returned, and the proceedings are carried on, till such time as the costs amount to above 40s. and thereupon the debtor is thrown into prison; and, by adding the costs to the debt, the late act of parament, against frivolous and vexatious arrests, is eluded: Nor is it probable, that he can be from thence released; for if he was incapable before to pay the cause of action, he must be much more so, when the costs are added thereto; and, if his creditor then relents, he is detained for the gaoler's fees, and costs of suit, infinitely greater than the original debt. It appeared to the Committee, that there was no list of fees publicly hung up in any part of the Prison, though required by law: As to which the said John Darby being examined, he acknowledged, that no such list of late bad been hung up; but he delivered to the Conmittee a paper, which, he informed them, was a schedule of fees, established by the judges of the court of the king's Palace of Westminster the 17th of December, 1675, hereunto annexed in the first Appendix, marked with the letter A; which fees seem very exorbitant, in regard there are different fees paid by the same prisoner to the same officer, and the whole amounts to more, than is proportionable to the smallness of the sums, for which processes are issued out of that court. Upon inspection of the several parts of the said gaol, the Committee find, that the said gaol is divided into two divisions, viz. the master's side, and the common side; and that a part thereof is only fenced in with a few weak old boards: That there are several rooms on the master's side kept empty, some with but one or two persons in them, and others at the same time crouded to that degree, as even to make them unhealthy; particularly, in one of the rooms in a part of the Prison, called the Oake, nine men are laid in three beds, and each man pays 2s. 6d. per week; so that room singly produces 17. 2s. 6d. per week: But a more particular account of the numbers of prisoners in each room, and of the sums they are to pay for chamber rent, will appear by the annexed Appendix, B. It appeared to the Committee that the Gaoler of the said Prison, out of a view of gain, bath frequently refused to remove sick persons, upon complaint of those, who lay in the same bed with them; a particular instance of which follows. Mrs. Mary Trapps was prisoner in the Marshalsea, and was put to lie in the same bed with two other women, each of which paid 2s. 6d. per week chamber rent: She fell ill, and languished for a considerable time; and the last three weeks grew so offeusive, that the others were hardly able to bear the room: They frequently complained to the turnkeys, and officers, and desired to be removed; but all in vain: At last she smelt so strong, that the turnkey himself could not bear to come into the room, to hear the complaints of her bedfellows; and they were forced to lie with her, or on the boards, till she died. And the Committee, inspecting the various parts of the gaol, saw a prisoner, who kept his bed with a fistula, and two other persons obliged to lie with him in the same bed, though each paid 2s. 6d. per week; yet they even submitted to such rent, and usage, rather than be turned down to the common side. The common side is enclosed with a strong brick wall; In it are now confined upwards of 330 prisoners, most of them in the utmost necessity: They are divided into particular rooms, called wards; and the prisoners, belonging to each ward, are locked up in their respective wards every night; most of which are excessively crowded, thirty, forty, nay fifty, persons having been locked up in some of them, not sixteen foot square; and at the same tune that these rooms have been so crowded, to the great endangering the healths of the prisoners, the largest room in the common side hath been kept empty, and the room over George's ward was let out to a taylor, to work in, and no body allowed to lie in it, though all the last year there were sometimes forty, and never less than thirtytwo, persons locked up in George's ward every night, which is a room of sixteen by fourteen feet, and about eight feet high: The surface of the room is not sufficient to contain that number, when laid down; so that one half are hung up in hammocks, whilst the others lie on the floor under them: The air is so wasted by the nuinber of persons, who breathe in that narrow compass, that it is not sufficient to keep them from stifling, several having in the heat of summer perished for want of air: Every night, at eight of the clock in the winter, and nine in the summer, the prisoners are locked up in their respective wards, and from those hours, until eight of the clock in the morning in the winter, and five in the summer, they cannot, upon any occasion, come out; so that they are forced to ease nature within the room, the stench of which is noisome beyond expression, and it seems surprizing, that it hath not caused a contagion. The crowding of prisoners together in this manner is one great occasion of the gaol distemper; and, though the unhappy men should escape infection, or overcome-it, yet, if they have not relief from their friends, famine destroys them: all the support, such poor wretches have to subsist on, is an accidental allowance of pease, given once a week by a gentleman, who conceals his name, and about thirty pounds of beef, provided by the voluntary contribution of the judge and officers of the Marshalsea, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday; which is divided into very small portions, of about an ounce and an half, distributed with one fourth part of an half-penny loaf: each of the sick is first served with one of those portions, and those, that remain, are divided amongst the wards; but the numbers of the people in them are so great, that it comes to the turn of each man but about once in fourteen days, and of each woman (they being fewer) once in a week. When the miserable wretch hath worn out the charity of his friends, and consumed the money, which he hath raised upon his cloaths, and bedding, and hath eat his last allowance of provisions, he usually in a few days grows weak, for want of food, with the symptoms of a hectic fever; and, when he is no longer able to stand, if he can raise 3d. to pay the fee of the common nurse of the prison, he obtains the liberty of being carried into the sick ward, and lingers on for about a month or two, by the assistance of the above-mentioned prison portion of provision, and then dies. money; but have reason to believe, there ar many other sums, which the shortness of the time prevented the Committee from being able fully to discover. All the Charities belonging to the prison were formerly received by a steward, chose by the prisoners on the common side, and the said prisoners had a common seal belonging to them, kept by their said steward; and they were divided into six wards, each of which chose monthly a constable; and the said constable's signing a receipt, and sealing it with the said common seal, was a full discharge to the person paying the charities. In 1722 Matthew Pugh was chosen stewart by the prisoners, and, at their request, approve by sir John Bennet, then Judge of the Mar shalsea Court. Pugh discovered several chari ties, which had been before concealed, and applied them to the use of the prisoners; and in 1725 he acquainted the then constables, that John Darby, and his servants in the lodge, had got possession of the old common seal, and that Edward Gilbourne, Deputy Prothonotary of the said court, had the possession of another seal, with the same impression, which he had reason to believe was made use of to affix to receipts for charity money, to the great fraud and oppression of the poor prisoners: upon which the said constables agreed to be at the expence of making a new seal, with this addition, " Marshalsea Prison, 1725; " and they also bought a chest, with seven different locks and keys, so that the chest could not be opened without all the said seven keys, one of which was lodged in the hands of each constable, and the seventh in the hands of the steward; and they fixed the chest to the wall in the On the giving food to these poor wretches ward, called the Constables Ward, and locked (though it was done with the utmost caution, up the seal therein; and, whenever any receipt they being only allowed at first the smallest was to be sealed, the six constables, and the quantities, and that of liquid nourishment) one steward, were all concurring; and the money, died the vessels of his stomach were so disor-so received, was publicly known, and divided. dered, and contracted, for want of use, that But this public and just manner of receiving, they were totally incapable of performing their and distributing, the charities, was disliked by oflice, and the unhappy creature perished about the keeper, and his servants; and they com the time of digestion. Upon his body a coro-plained to the judge of the Palace Court, and ner's inquest sat (a thing which though required by law to be always done, hath for many years been scandalously omitted in this gaol) and the jury found, that he died of want. The Committee saw in the Womens Sick Ward, many miserable objects lying, without beds, on the floor, perishing with extreme want; and in the Mens Sick Ward yet much worse: for along the side of the walls of that ward boards were laid upon trestles, like a dresser in a kitchen; and under them, between those tresties, were laid on the floor one tire of sick men, aud upon the dresser another tire, and over them hung a third tire in hammocks. Those, who were not so far gone, on proper nourishment given them, recovered, so that not above nine have died since the 25th of March last, the day the Committee first met there, though, before, a day seldom passed without a death, and upon the advancing of the spring, not less than eight or ten usually died every 24 hours. The great numbers, who appeared to have perished for want, induced the Committee to enquire, what charities were given for the subsistence of the prisoners in this gaol: they have as yet been only able to come at full proof of 10. per annum, left by sir Thomas Gresham, and one pound per annum, paid by each county in England, commonly called exhibition gave information, that the said Pugh was a very turbulent fellow; and procured a rule (a copy of which is hereunto annexed in the Appendix marked C) by which it is ordered, that Matthew Pugh shall be no longer per mitted to have access to the said Prison, or Court; and the prisoners are allowed to chuse another steward: And accordingly John Grace, then clerk to the keeper, was chosen steward by those in the keeper's interest; but the constables, in behalf of the prisoners, refused to deliver up the keys of the chest, where their seal was, insisting, that all receipts should be sealed, as usual, in a public manner, that they might know, what money was received; and thereupon the said chest was broke down, and carried away, by the said William Acton and the said John Grace. The said William Acton, in his defence. against this charge, did not deny this fact: but said, he did it by order of the Court: And being required to produce such order; be said it was a verbal order, given him by the said Edward Gilbourne: And the said Edward Gilbourne, being examined in the presence of the said William Acton, denied, that he gave any such order. This transaction was about the time the act for relief of insolvent debtors, in 1725, took place; and the old prisoners, who knew this affair, being discharged by that act, those, who were newly comitted, being ignorant of their rights to charities, were defrauded thereof under this abuse. After the time of taking by violence possession of the prisoners seal, as before mentioned. the said seal was used in the Lodge, without the privity or consent of the prisoners, and was affixed to receipts for legacies, and charities, which the said Gilbourne received, and disposed of, as he pleased, in a very irregular and arbitrary manner, untill complaint thereof was made to sir John Darnall, judge of the Court; and then what was afterwards paid for the prisoners, was distributed regularly, but no account was given to the prisoners, by Gilbourne, of the monies he received, Till the turning out of Pugh, and the violent breaking open the prisoners said chest, the steward used to distribute the charity money among the prisoners equally and indifferently, without favour or affection, and accounted regularly to the prisoners, and never received any money without their privity, and orders; but since the said violence nothing hath been regularly done in respect of the charities: Sometimes the said Edward Gilbourne, at other times the said John Grace, distributed them, as they thought fit; and, since the said William Acton, butcher, hath rented the said gaol, there has been no steward, nor any account given of the said charities, he having taken upon himself to act as steward, without the choice, or consent, of the prisoners: And, upon his examination, he confessed, that, from May, 1728, to May 1729, he had received charity money for the poor prisoners, amounting to above 115l. of which he had kept no account, and took no notice thereof, till this Committee was appointed, to enquire into the State of the Gaols, not expecting to have been asked about it. He pretended, he had distributed the money among the prisoners directly, but produced no sort of vouchers for it. miserable wretches, who have perished in the said gaol with mere hunger. The Committee have reason to believe, that the charities, given by well disposed persons unknown, have been sufficient for the support and maintenance of the poor prisoners in this gaol; but the modesty of the donors concealing their alms, this too great fear of ostentation hath enabled the gaoler, and bis miscreants at the Lodge, to pervert the charity monies, and defraud the poor miserable prisoners thereof. The Committee have discovered some private charities (notwithstanding the industry of the donors to conceal them) particularly, that of his grace the duke of Dorset, the present lord steward of the household, who raised a fund of charity upon the destruction of that pernicious practice of selling offices. The present extreme want and necessity of the prisoners in the said gaol proceeds from the charities being grossly perverted, and not laid out in proper provisions, and divided into proper portions: For if 115l. a year (which Acton himself acknowledges he had received) had been laid out in bread only, it would have afforded each prisoner two pounds of bread per week, supposing the prisoners on the common side to have amounted, one time with another, to 300; which pittance, though very small, would have prevented the starving to death many Vol. VIII. The custom of this Court formerly was to sell all the places belonging thereto, and the very counsel, and attornies, purchased the liberty of pleading, and practising, in this Court; for which the first gave as far as 1,000l. the latter as far as 1,500l. each; one moiety of which sums was for the benefit of the lord. steward, and the other moiety for the knight marshal. As the present inquiry is not into the nature and practice of this Court (the Abuses of which will deserve a particular inquiry) the Committee do not enlarge upon the ill consequences of such corrupt sales; but cannot forbear to observe, that the first who stemmed this tide of corruption, was his grace the duke of Argyle, then lord steward: who, disdaining to share the spoils of the unfortunate, scorned to take any money arising from the sale of offices, and inade an excellent precedent (very much disliked by the practising part of the Court) that of appointing officers for their merit, not for their money. Upon the death of sir John Bennet, his grace, without fee or reward, appointed sir John Darnall judge of the Court, and followed the same method in disposing of the other offices of the Court. The duke of Dorset (now Lord Steward) was very much importuned by. the officers of the Court to permit the practice of selling, as formerly; but, being resolved not to give way to it, yet willing to be eased of their importunity, he let them know, that he would sell the place of one of the counsel, then vacant: The sum, he sold it for, was 100%. only, to George Ballard, Esq., which his grace ordered to be applied to discharge poor prisoners, and at the same time expressly directed Mr. Ballard to give no other money to any person whatsoever. The aforementioned Edward Gilbourne, deputy prothonotary, received the said money, and was two years in disposing of it, discharg ing such only, as he himself thought proper. In that time an act, for relief of insolvent debtors, took place, by virtue of which many persons were discharged out of the said prison, and others were at several times also discharged by private charities from persons unknown; 3 B com are generally a very desperate and aban- es but the names of those, thus released, cannot now be discovered, or compared with the List, delivered by the said Gilbourne, of the names of the prisoners, which, he pretends, were discharged by the duke of Dorset's said charity, It appeared to the Committee, that the keepers in the lodge have greatly imposed on the charitable persons, who, without discovering their names, have released prisoners, by paying their debts, and fees. These keepers have a set of idle fellows, employed by them as agents in carrying on their wicked designs, and whom they indulge in riot, and in abusing their fellow prisoners, and allow to go out, as messengers. These persons are voluntary prison-cape; to which hunger and extreme want being ers; and in the List, given in by John Darby. added, some of them became so desperate, be acknowledged 20, who chose rather to be that, after having fasted four days, and seeing confined, than at liberty. These the keepers no hope of relief, they attempted to break generally produce, as proper objects of cha- through the prison wall, and were taken in the rity, when pious persons, unknown, come to attempt. discharge poor prisoners in secret; and their pretended debts, and fees, being paid, as such objects, they, in form, go out of the prison, but in a little time return back again to the same wicked practice, to the scandalous abuse of such pious and excellent charities, and to the great fraud and oppression of the miserable, for whom they were intended. The abuse of the Begging Box is another great imposition. The prisoners have all along had a right to nominate persons, to go about with beggiug baskets, and boxes, and to give them deputations, under their hands and their common seal, to make such collections; but since that seal has been violently taken away, and kept in the Lodge, as aforesaid, these deputations are countersigned, and sealed, by the deputy marshal, or some of his agents, or servants; and the prisoners have been forced to submit to give to such persons, for their pains, all the monies collected by them, provided they bring in two baskets only of broken victuals per week, or, in lieu thereof, pay two shillings; and even this disadvantageous agreement is not complied with; for the prisoners are months together without hearing any thing at all of their basket men. So that the good and charitable intentions of mankind are wickedly perverted, and rendered useless, and of no avail, to the poor prisoners, who can neither come out to be relieved, nor can those, who come to relieve, have easy access to such poor wretches, nor distinguish the impostors from the unfortunate. The only effectual way to distribute such charity rightly seems to be, to see some prisoner of each ward, who is not in the keeper's interest, and from such prisoner to know the most necessitous. The abovementioned practice of farming and defrauding the begging box is not peculiar to this prison of the Marshalsea only: the poor prisoners in the Fleet Prison are abused in the same manner. In this prison of the Marshalsea pirates are kept, as well as debtors; and the first, who This gave the gaolers a pretence to exercise their greater cruelties. All the persons, so attempting to escape, were called into the lodge by the said Acton, one by one, and there examined. One of them was seen to go in perfectly well, and, when he came out again, he was in the greatest disorder: His thumbs were much swollen, and very sore; and he declared, that the occasion of his being in that condition was, that the keeper, in order to extort from him a confession of the names of those, who had assisted him, and others, in their attempt to escape, bad screwed certain instruments of iron upon his thumbs, so close, that they had forced the blood out of them, with exquisite pain: After this he was carried into the strong room, where, besides the other irons, which he had on, they fixed on his neck and hands an iron instrument, called a collar, like a pair of tongs: and, be being a large lusty man, when they screwed the said instrument close, his eyes were ready to start out of his head, the blood gushed out of his ears and nose, he foamed at the mouth, the slaber ran down, and he made several motions to speak, but could not: After these tortures he was confined in the strong room for many days with a very heavy pair of irons, called sheers, on his legs. It has been usual in this prison for the keepers unlawfully to assume to themselves a pretended authority of magistrates, and not only to judge and decree punishments arbitrarily, but also to execute the same unmercifully. Numberless are the instances of their immoderate beating poor debtors, at their pleasure, insomuch that the very name of the instrument hung up in the lodge, for beating the prisoners, became a terror to them. The various tortures and cruelties, before mentioned, not contenting these wicked keepers in their said pretended magistracy over the prisoners, they found a way of making within this prison a confinement, more dreadful than the strong room itself, by coupling the living with the dead; and have made a practice of locking up debtors, who displeased them, in the yard with human carcases. One particular instance of this sort of inhumanity was of a person, whom the keepers confined in that part of the lower yard, which was then separated from the rest, whilst there were there two dead bodies, which had lain there four days; yet was he kept there with them six days longer; in which time the vermin devoured the flesh from the faces, eat the eyes out of the heads of the carcases, which were bloated, putrified, and turned green, during the poor debtor's dismal confinement with them. The great business depending in the House of Commons, having often required the long at tendance of the members of this Commitee, the Committee have not been able to go through the examinations, which they had entered into, upon the various complaints, laid before them, of cruel beating, ironing, torturing, and murdering, debtors, too shocking, and too numeTous, to be thoroughly examined in so short a time, as the remainder of this session of parliament allows. One cruel and barbarous instance, among others, which appeared to the Committee, they cannot omit; viz. In the year 1726 Thomas Bliss, a carpenter, not having any friends to support him, was almost starved to death in the prison; upon which he attempted to get over the prison by a rope, lent him by another prisoner: In the attempts he was taken by the keepers, dragged by the heels into the lodge, barbarously beaten, and put into irons, in which he was kept several weeks. One afternoon, as he was quietly standing in the yard, with his irons on, some of the said Acton's men called him into the lodge where Acton was then drinking, and merry, with company. In about half an hour Bliss came out again crying; and gave an account, that, when he was in the lodge, they, for their diversion (as they called it) fixed on his head an iron engine, or instrument (which appears to be an iron scull cap) which was screwed so close, that it forced the blood out of his ears and nose. And he further declared, that his thumbs were at the same time put into a pair of thumb-screws, which were screwed so tight, that the blood started out of them: And from that time he continued disordered to the day of his death. He was let out of the prison, without paying his debt; and, at his going out, Acton desired, that all, that was past, might be forgot, and that he would not bear him any ill will. This miserable wretch was put into St. Thomas's Hospital for help, but died very 6000. The Committee observe, tify to the Committee, that the said prison of the Marshalsea was sufficient commodiously to contain the number of prisoners thereto committed: That the charities have not been accounted for, but have been scandalously perverted, while great numbers have perished in the prison through mere want: That many prisoners have died daily in the said prison, as well those in execution, as others, and no coroner's inquest hath sat upon their bodies. The said William Acton, being examined, at first denied, but, after being confronted with several witnesses, acknowledged, that he had had thumb-screws in his possession, and pretended, he had given them to the gaoler at York. He positively denied the having any iron instrument, or cap for the head and yet afterwards directed the turnkeys, where to find the iron scull cap before mentioned, and it was, produced to the Committee. The Committee also found several very heavy iron bars, shackles, fetters and handcuffs, for the miserable prisoners in the said Marshalsea prison. The unwarrantable letting to farm the he nefit of keeping these prisoners bath unjus tifiably increased the profits of the prison, to the greater oppression of the prisoners. The said William Acton (to whom the profits of the said prison are let by the said John Darby) hath, in this first year of his farming the same invented new oppressive methods, to make his profits double those of the preceding year. If the gaolers are not punished for these their wicked devices, and due care be not taken, to prevent the like barbarous practices for the future, the poor prisoners, who may happen to survive these cruelties, must be more miserable, than can be expressed. The Committee, apprehending the conclusion of this session to be now so near, as to prevent their proceeding to farther enquiries, have thought it their duty at this time to lay a state of these facts before the House; hoping, some effectual provision will be made in the next session of parliament, for remedying the great grievances before mentioned, for better regulation of gaols, and for inflicting proper punishments upon gaolers for cruelties to their pri soners. ing Resolutions; viz. And the Committee have come to the follow "Resolved, that it appears to this Commit"tee, That William Acton, clerk of the "prison of the Marshalsea, and farmer of the same gaol, and the profits thereof, by lease "from Mr. John Darby, the keeper of the "said prison, hath been guilty of many high That, though in this prison there are many tooms intirely empty, yet in other rooms the prisoners are crowded together, to the utter desstruction of their healths, and the endangering" crimes and misdemeanors in the execution of a general infection : That, notwithstanding thirty and forty prisoners were locked up together in one room, yet the said John Darby (the keeper) did cer "his office, and hath arbitrarily and unlawfully "loaded with irons, tortured, and destroyed, "in the most inhuman, cruel, and barbarous "6 manner, prisoners for debt under his care, in |