"N.B. The smallest Benefaction from their fellow Citizens and other liberal minded persons, will at all times be thankfully received, particularly at this inclement season of the year."—(Times, Dec. 29, 1794.)
"The unfortunate DEBTORS, in Ludgate Prison, beg leave to return their grateful Thanks, to the Right Hon. the LORD MAYOR, for 448 lbs. of Beef and Mutton of the best sort, which he has sent them since the 10th day of Nov., also for two Chaldron, and an half, of Coals sent yesterday."—(Times, Jan. 1, 1795.)
"As the Debtor and Creditor Bill comes on to-morrow, it is recommended to its noble framer, to try the pulse of the Law Lords, by introducing a clause which shall interdict the Marshal of the King's Bench, and the Warden of the Fleet, from taking a shilling per week from each debtor for his bed, unless as the very foundation, and cause of this fee originally was, that the Keeper of the Prison furnishes the Debtor with furniture to the amount of £30. The Keepers have very handsome salaries, and therefore, there should be no exactions from the prisoners. Indeed the nature of their imprisonment interdicts such a practice, for how is the insolvent man to find money? ex-nihilo, nihil fit."—(Times, May 8, 1793.)
"Were any one Lord in the House of Peers to move that the Royal Assent to Acts of Parliament should be given in plain English, and not in old Norman French, the House would unanimously adopt the idea of banishing, in future, the barbarous language of that Country."—(Times, May 10, 1793.)
"A curious matter was heard yesterday before the Borough Police, respecting the wife of a gentleman at Sheerness, who had eloped with a black servant. They were pursued to the Nags Head in the Borough on Sunday, where Blackey fired a pistol at his pursuers, for which he was taken up and committed. The Lady had two children by her husband. The matter, we understand is made up."—(Times, Feb. 11, 1794.)
"The manner in which the Black business was settled, in the Borough, was this:—The husband took her two children, and all the property he found in the coach, desired his wife to go where she pleased, (after she said she'd live with no one but the Black) and Mungo was taken by a press gang, and put on board the tender."—(Times, Feb. 12, 1794.)
"Monday last two Bailiff's followers made a seizure for rent at a house in Kingswood, near Bristol: an alarm being given, they were surrounded by a number of colliers, who conveyed them to a neighbouring coal-pit, and let them down, where they were suffered to remain till about two the next morning, when they were had up, and, each having a glass of gin, and some gingerbread, given him, were immersed again into the dreary bowels of the earth, where they were confined, in all, near twenty four hours. On being released they were made to pay a fine of 6s. 8d. each, for their lodging, and take an oath never to trouble, or molest, any of them again."—(Times, April 25, 1795.)
"The friends of an apprentice to a stocking-weaver, at Lambeth, brought the lad to this office (Public Office, Bow St.) to shew one of the modes of punishment adopted by the master, when the boys committed any fault. It consisted of an iron collar, fastened round the neck, by a padlock. The lad said that he had worn it for above a month, and that he understood it was his master's intention he should wear it till he was out of his time. The master living in the county of Surrey, Mr Bond could not interfere in the business, but advised the parties to go to Union-Hall, in the Borough. The master of the apprentice alluded to, we understand, has got between 60 and 70 boys, most of whom he has had from the different workhouses in the county of Surrey."—(Times, Aug. 27, 1795.)
"Owing to the high price of victualling, the demand for shipping and risque of capture, or the price of insurance, the contract for conveying the last convicts from Great Britain, and Ireland, to Botany Bay, was £80 per man; and the expence exceeding all the good that could arise to either country, from the banishment, or the evil that could arise from the continuance in either country, of the miscreants.
"It is a known fact, that so far are the miscreants, who usually come under sentence of transportation, from considering it a punishment, that they laugh at the joke, and consider it a very great benefit.—Adventurous spirits like those, averse to all manner of industry, insensible to ignominy, and totally unconscious of any such feelings as the amor patriæ, delight in nothing more, than shifting the scene, and being conveyed to a distant country, from that in which they have no hope of existing, but at the perpetual risk of the gallows.