Whose only Crime is being Unfortunate.
Are Jailors suffer'd in such Acts as these?
To strip the Wretch, who cannot pay his Fees?
Is there no kind Samaritan will lend
Relief, and save him from th' accursed Fiend?"
Respecting this practice let us hear what Howard in his "State of the Prisons in England and Wales," 1777, says, in his Chapter on "Bad Customs in Prisons." "A cruel custom obtains in most of our Gaols, which is that of the prisoners demanding of a new-comer Garnish, Footing, or (as it is called in some London Gaols) Chummage. 'Pay or strip' are the fatal words. I say fatal, for they are so to some; who having no money, are obliged to give up part of their scanty apparel; and, if they have no bedding or straw to sleep on, contract diseases, which I have known to prove mortal.
In many Gaols, to the Garnish paid by the new-comer, those who were there before, make an addition; and great part of the following night is often spent in riot and drunkenness. The gaoler or tapster finding his account in this practice, generally answers questions concerning it with reluctance. Of the Garnish which I have set down to sundry prisons, I often had my information from persons who paid it.... In some places, this demand has been lately waved: in others, strictly prohibited by the Magistrates" —so that we see that this custom was already in its death throes, in the last quarter of the eighteenth century.
But in the interval between Bambridge and Howard, the prison was not a pleasant place of residence, if we may judge from "The Prisoner's Song" published in 1738, of which I give an illustration and the Words.
THE FLEET PRISON.