The petition alluded to is from debtors in the above prison, and the
Votes of the House state the following particulars, as set forth in the
petition:--
The said gaol is ill constructed, confined, and inconvenient, having
only twenty cells on the debtors’ side, half of which are appropriated
to the debtors, and the other half chiefly to smugglers and others for
notorious offences against the revenue laws, and to deserters from the
army.
The said cells for debtors are constructed of the same dimensions, and
in the same manner, as the cells for the felons, having no glazed
sash-windows, but merely iron-gratings, with the addition at night of an
ill-constructed wooden shutter, having a small square hole in the same
of about six inches diameter, in some instances glazed and in others
not, and by no means calculated to keep out the rain or cold during the
inclement season.
The cells are small, being only twelve feet by eight feet, and having no
fire-place or other means of being warmed.
The said cells are merely brick arches lime-whitened, with rough stone
pavement, and so exceedingly damp at times that the water condenses on
the walls, and runs down the sides thereof, and on to the floor, and
from thence into the common passage, which is so narrow, that when any
of the doors of the cells are open there is not room for one person
safely to walk, particularly as the passage is dark.
When the weather is wet, or otherwise inconvenient, the shutters of the
cells must necessarily be put up to exclude the same, thereby rendering
the cells so dark that the prisoners cannot conveniently see either to
read or write; and, therefore, when the prisoners wish to retire to read
or write they cannot do so, and are compelled to sit in the common
kitchen, which is small, and consequently crowded, and is the only place
for the cooking for all the prisoners and at the same time to
accommodate them for a sleeping ward and other purposes.
The fire-place is small and inconvenient, and very scantily supplied
with fuel, and when the prison is crowded, as it has lately been, it is
totally impossible for all the prisoners to have access to the fire, for
the required purposes of cooking or otherwise particularly when most
required, as in wet and inclement weather.
It sometimes happens that thirteen or more prisoners are obliged to
sleep in the said kitchen, and three in each bed in many of the cells.
To each cell is affixed an iron-grating door, and also a door made of
timber; and the debtors are locked up within their respective cells at
nine o’clock in the evening, having no access to them till seven o’clock
the next morning, so that any one being taken ill in the night might lay
and perish before his situation could be discovered or made known, or
any assistance rendered.
The prisoners are unlocked at seven o’clock in the morning, and are
allowed to go into the yard of the prison till eight, when they are
called in by means of a whistle until nine o’clock, and allowed to
remain in the yard again until twelve o’clock at noon, again locked into
the wards till one o’clock, and again in the same manner at five o’clock
in the afternoon for the night.
Respectable females are confined in the same ward with the smugglers and
others, and no female is appointed or employed to attend on them in any
case.
The state of the prison is in general filthy.
There is no sink or water-course, nor any water laid on to either of the
wards, nor any means of obtaining water after five o’clock in the
evening.
If any part or the whole of the prison is at any time cleaned, it is
done by some of the debtors.
There is no proper place for the reception of the dirty water or filth
from the wards, but the same is indiscriminately thrown out at the
iron-grating doors at the end of the passage to each ward, thereby
occasioning a great stench highly disagreeable and unwholesome to the
prisoners.
The prisoners are not allowed to see their respective friends or
solicitors within the walls of the prison, but are compelled to come
into a room in the gaoler’s house, and there meet their friends or
solicitors, subject to the continual interruption or presence of the
gaoler, his wife, or others, to the great annoyance of the prisoners and
their friends, and on the sabbath-day even this privilege is not
allowed.
No debtor is allowed to have any trunk, portmanteau, dressing-case, or
even a clothes-bag, with lock and key, within the prison, so that the
prisoners are obliged, whensoever they require any change of clothing,
to obtain leave to come into the room in the gaoler’s house before
mentioned, and there take them from their portmanteau, or otherwise; no
respectable prisoner can therefore have any article of convenience or
value with him, without being obliged either to carry it about his
person, or leave it exposed in his cell, or in an ill-constructed small
cupboard, where he is also obliged to keep his provisions, &c.; and so
great is the injustice in the prison, that smugglers not only receive
fourpence-halfpenny per day, but are also allowed a quart of strong beer
or ale each man, while the debtors are not permitted to have strong beer
or ale even by paying for it.
When a debtor is removed by a writ of habeas corpus to London, a
distance of thirty-six miles, and for which one shilling per mile is
allowed by law to the gaoler, the sum of two pounds five shillings has
been demanded and taken by the gaoler.
A marked inattention to the complaints or remonstrances repeatedly made
by various prisoners, together with the general bad state of the prison,
and the excessive and unnecessary harshness of the regulations, rendered
it imperative on the petitioners to attempt to lay their grievances
before the house, in the fervent hope that the house would be pleased to
cause inquiry to be made into the truth of the several allegations
contained in the petition, which the petitioners pledge themselves to
prove, if permitted, by affidavit or otherwise, as the house should
direct.
The petitioners humbly prayed, that a speedy remedy might be applied to
their complaints as to the house in its wisdom should seem meet.
[277] Fosbroke’s Ency. of Antiquities.
[278] Acts xxviii. 16, 20, 23, 30, 31.
[279] Fosbroke.
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