18301831183218331834
Number confined742700884746769
Number charged in Execution105136134126156

And the amount of the debt and costs for which each party was so charged varied from £2 to £18,017.

I look in vain in the Times for the paragraph to which the Warden alludes in the following letter:

"The Warden presents his compliments to the Editor of the Times, and begs to state, that a paragraph having appeared in the paper of this morning, stating that the Fleet Prison is very full, and that a guinea and a half a week is paid for a single room, and that four, five, and six persons are obliged to live in a small apartment.

"The Warden, not being aware of this, should it in any case exist, and which is contrary to the established regulations against any person so offending, the prison not being so full as in former years, there being considerably less, on an average, than two prisoners to each Room, and being also exceedingly healthy.

"The Warden has also to add, that the rest of the paragraph relating to the Fleet is totally without foundation.

"Fleet Prison, March 7, 1836."

In the outside sheet of the Times, February 21, 1838, occurs the following advertisement: "One Hundred Pounds Reward.—Escape.—Escaped from the Fleet Prison, on the evening of Wednesday the 14th day of February instant. Alfred Morris, late of 22 Dean Street, Tooley Street, Southwark. The said Alfred Morris is about 30 years of Age, about 5 feet 6 inches high, dark complexion, and of a Jewish Caste, prominent Nose, somewhat flat pointed, dark, irregular whiskers, stout figure, and rather bow legged," &c., &c.

Anent this escape, the Times of February 16th has a paragraph such as we can hardly imagine ever could have appeared in a paper so steady and sober, as the Times now is: "The Warden of the Fleet—(From a Correspondent). Yesterday a gentleman of some misfortune and of great appearance, for he wore a wig, moustaches, and a Spanish Cloak, was introduced as an inmate of Brown's Hotel, so called from the Warden having a license to sell wines, beer, and ale to his prisoners, through the 'patent never ending always improving Juddery spigot and fawcet tap,' &c. In about half an hour the said bewhiskered gentleman leaves cloak, wig, and moustaches in the room of a Mister Abrahams, a prisoner, and walks quietly out, very politely bidding the turnkey 'good morning.' At night the excellent crier of the Prison, Mr. Ellis, made the galleries echo, and the rooms re-echo, with his sometimes very cheering voice (when he announces to those who wish such things as a discharge, for it is not all who do), in calling, altissimo voce, 'Mr. Alfred Morrison! Mr. Alfred Morrison! Mr. Alfred Morrison!' but as no Mr. Alfred Morrison answered to the interesting call, every room was searched in the due performance of the crier's duty, but no Mr. Alfred Morrison was to be found. And the Worthy and excellent warder, the keeper of so many others in, is himself let in to the tune of £2,600; some say more, none say less.

'Go it, ye cripples! crutches are cheap!

W. Brown is no longer asleep!'"

In a leading article in the Times of November 13, 1838, upon juvenile crime, and the incitors thereto, we read the following: "The Traders in crime do not wholly confine their seductions to the young; they often find apt scholars among the unfortunates of riper years, especially in the debtor's prison. Mr. Wakefield[152] says he knows many such victims; and he particularizes one 'Who was not indeed executed, because he took poison the night before he was to have been executed, who told me he had been, (and who I firmly believe was) first incited to crime when a Prisoner in the Fleet for debt. The crime into which he was seduced was that of passing forged Bank of England Notes. He was a Man of very showy appearance, and he had been a Captain in the Army; a man of good family. He said this crime was first suggested to him by persons who were Prisoners in the Fleet; but he afterwards discovered, having been a Prisoner there more than once, that one of a gang of Utterers of forged Notes lived constantly in the Fleet, and for no other purpose but that of inducing reckless young men of good appearance, who could easily pass notes, to take Notes from them, and to dispose of them in transactions. I could hardly believe that that was true, and I got some inquiries to be made for the person whom he had pointed out to me as one of a Gang, and I found that that person was constantly in the Fleet. The Gang committed a robbery upon a Bank in Cornwall, and they were entirely broken up, and from that time forth the Person who had resided in the Fleet disappeared, though he was not one of the persons convicted, or suspected of that particular Crime. I never heard of him since, but the inquiries which I then made, convinced me that it was a fact that one of the Gang of what are termed 'family men,' that is, rich thieves and receivers of stolen goods, did reside continually in the Fleet, for the purpose of seducing young men into the commission of Crime. He was in and out of the Prison, but a Prisoner on a friendly arrest."

The time was coming, when imprisonment for debt was to be abolished. An Act of 1 & 2 Vict. cap. 110 had already abolished Arrest on Mesne Process in Civil Actions, so that no prisoners could be committed to the Fleet from the Courts of Chancery, Exchequer, and Common Pleas, and the Debtors and Bankrupts might as well be in the Queen's Bench. The Demolition of the Fleet was therefore confidently anticipated, as we find by the following paragraph from the Times, March 3, 1841. "Removal of Prisoners. On Saturday a deputation from the Woods and Forests, attended by the Marshal, visited the Queen's Bench Prison, preparatory to moving over the Debtors from the Fleet, which prison is about to be pulled down. By this arrangement the Country will save about £15,000 per annum, besides getting rid of an ugly object, and room being made for other contemplated improvements. It is supposed the Judges will find some difficulty in removing the Prisoners from the Fleet by Habeas Corpus, and that a short Bill will be necessary for that purpose. The expenses of the Queen's Bench Prison in its present profitless employment, is about £30,000 per annum to the Country."