[157] Notes and Queries, 4th ser. XII. 346. Jenkinson, who was a Minister under George II., was reputed to have set an example of stopping up windows in his mansion near Croydon:
You e’en shut out the light of day
To save a paltry shilling.
Others had boards painted to look like brickwork, which could be used to cover up windows at pleasure.
[158] Petition, undated, but placed in a collection in the British Museum among broadsides of the years 1696-1700. In 1725 the imprisoned debtors at Liverpool petitioned Parliament for relief, alleging that they were reduced to a starving condition, having only straw and water at the courtesy of the serjeant. Commons’ Journals, XX. 375.
[159] Commons’ Journals, 20 March, 1728/29, 14 May, 1729, 24 March, 1729/30.
“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 offensive 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 on the boards, till she died.”
[160] Political State of Great Britain, XXXIX. April, 1730, pp. 430-431, 448.
[161] Gent. Magaz., XX. 235. This authority is twenty years after the event, the incident having been recalled in 1750, on the occasion of the Old Bailey catastrophe.
[162] Huxham.
[163] See the former volume of this History, pp. 375-386.