sessed of the traffic and operations of his country is said by those who knew him to be unequalled, and did not merely extend to the general outline, but to the detail of every manufacture and employment in the kingdom. His quickness and dexterity in managing the combinations of figures is said by those who transacted business with him to be great *.

"It is difficult to appreciate justly the talents of a mán, which we must either very much approve, or very much difapprove."

Both these great men died poor; the father a pensioner ; the son, like another Walsingham,+ involved in debt; and his will be revered as often as the answer which he memory made to insinuations that he had converted to his private use the public money, is recurred to: "I defy the House of Commons to prove that I have converted a farthing of the public money to my personal use!" His opponents were the encomiasts of his integrity. The motives of other ministers, their private conduct and character, have often induced unmerited suspicion on their public measures, even by those inclined to approve. The purity of motive was in all cases so well known and so completely admitted in the earl of Chatham and Mr. Pitt, as to give the highest credit and dignity to their measures. The nation increased in revenue, commerce, prosperity, industry and wealth; at the same time that the minister endured honourable indigence. Mr. Pitt was one of the most indefatigable and industrious men in national affairs that ever existed.

The GROCERS COMPANY Support FREE-SCHOOLS at Oundle in Northamptonshire, Colwal in Herefordshire, Topcliff, Yorkshire, and Witney in Oxfordshire. ALMSHOUSES, at

"I like to give my money to that young man," said Mr. Elwes, when he was in parliament, "he tells me how it goes by pounds, shillings and pence."

+ Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state to queen Elizabeth, was so far from raising a fortune, that he spent his patrimony in the service of the public, and was buried in the night, at the expence of his friends, who were apprehensive that his corpse might be arrested for debt.— Granger.

Oundle,

Oundle, and at Lullingstone in Kent. EXHIBITIONS for four scholars in Jesus College, Oxon, and for four scholars in each university. The company hold the advowsons of Northill, Bedfordshire; Alhallows Staining, and St. Stephen, Wal brook, London; and distribute from 700l. to 1000l. annually in charitable donations.

Returning through Grocers Alley, we enter the Poultry, a street extending from the end of Cheapside to the MansionHouse, and so called from the poulterers stalls along the street from Stocks Market. In the Poultry stood SCALDING ALLEY, formerly a large house in which fowls were scalded preparatory to being exposed for sale; this alley, since the removal of the market has changed its name and inhabitants, for it is at present covered by the handsome houses composing ST. MILDRED'S COURT.

The late excellent Mr. Howard remarked that, "however sanguinary the wishes of an angry creditor may be when he arrests and imprisons his debtor, there is no doubt but every one who listens, not to his passions, but to reason, must know, and will own, that it is a flagrant crime to take away the life of a man for debt; and as to felony, a gaol is not designed for the final punishment even of that; but for the safe custody of the accused to the time of trial; and of convicts till a legal sentence be executed upon them. The laws of England do not suffer private executions. No condemned malefactor may be secretly put to death, hör mur; dered in prison, directly or indirectly: much less ought those to be destroyed there whose sentence does not affect their life, Their destruction is not only unjust, it is inconsistent with prudence and sound policy. They might no doubt be use ful at home and abroad, if proper care were taken in prison to keep them healthy and fit for labour: but certain it is, that many of those who survive their long confinement, are by it rendered incapable of working. Some of them are grievously affected with scorbutic distempers; others have their toes mortified, or quite rotted from their feet, many instances of which I have seen.

"In order to redress these various evils, the first thing to be taken into consideration is the prison itself. Many county gaols and other prisons are so decayed and ruinous, or for other reasons so totally unfit for the purpose, that new ones must be built in their stead. Others are very incommodious, but may be improved upon the ground about them; and some need only a thorough repair." Mr. Howard, however, does not propose elegant or pleasant structures of this kind, but such plain and secure buildings as may equally conduce to the health and security of their unfortunate inhabitants.

1

With similar sentiments we are conducted under a low gateway, and through a long gloomy alley, to that dismal abode of wretchedness,

THE POULTRY COMPTER.

THIS consists of fifteen rooms between the inner and outer gates for debtors on the master's side. For common-side debtors there are six wards within the inner gate, of which two on the ground floor are called the King's and the Prince's Wards. Over these are Middle Ward and the Women's Ward. Above are the Upper Ward and the Jews Ward, for debtors of that persuasion. In each of these is a fire place; and the prisoners keep the apartments clean; but the Infirmary or sick room is dark and gloomy. The yard is small, but clean, on account of the constant running of water. The Tap is in the Court Yard, and adjoining is the DayRoom for felons; the Night Rooms for both sexes are up stairs. In this yard is the Chapel. The roof of the prison is surrounded by spacious leads, where the Master's-side prisoners are sometimes allowed to walk in company with the keeper. But the whole prison is in a very irreparable condition; and it is a grievous circumstance that this house of misery should be such a close neighbour to the chief magistracy of the city, the emporium of national treasure, and the centre of commerce!

The Chamber of London allows to the prisoners a penny loaf every day, and there are various legacies; besides which, this, as well as the other city prisons, have a proportion of

all

all civic entertainments, the, lord mayor and sheriffs solici benefactions in meat and money from the various markets on the eve of the great festivals of Christmas, &c. and the debtors have a weekly donation from Messrs. Calvert and Co. of the Peacock Brewhouse, of two barrels of small beer.

The keeper of this prison is appointed by the sheriffs, and pays a sort of rent to the city, which they refund in lieu of fees for the discharge of the poorest prisoners.

But with all these donations, allowances, privileges, or by what other name they may be called, we cannot but assent to the expression of the discriminating Earl of Mansfield, that "a month's loss of an Englishman's liberty is sufficient punishment for any debt;" and we dismiss this disagreeable article in the words of Sir James Bland Burges, Bart. formerly Under Secretary of State, and now Knight Marshal :

"Imprisonment for debt, considered as a punishment, is altogether distinct from imprisonment for debt considered as a means of security or vengeance. As such it must distinctly be investigated. That it often has been considered as a punishment is notorious: it is equally so, that at this day, many worthy and humane men think themselves not only justifiable, but even praise-worthy, for committing to prison, and for detaining in confinement such of their debtors as they believe to have acted unjustly towards them. When your lordship's late bill was depending, I happened to converse with a noble lord on the subject, who, as an argument against insolvent acts, told me, that the late Sir Gilbert Heathcote had asserted that no creditor ever arrested his debtor, unless he had defrauded him; as a proof of which the wealthy baronet declared, that, in the whole course of his dealings, which were of the most extensive nature, he had arrested only one man, who had grossly cheated him. I confess, that from this story, I draw a very different conclusion. I have by my own experience found that the premises were faulty; and, as to the deduction, it most pointedly proved, that the greatest and most enlarged mercantile transactions might be conducted without the intervention of imprisonment. If Sir

Gilbert

Gilbert Heathcote, who was the Mr. Long or the Mr. Neave of his day, and who carried on a commerce to every part of the globe, never arrested a debtor but once, and then not with a hope of recovering the debt, but with a view of punishing him, the necessity of permitting the practice of imprisonment must merely be very small." * Besides, it is not the (perhaps unfortunate) offender that suffers alone; his innocent wife and a numerous offspring partake of his misery, and are punished for crimes which they never intended, nor had the power to commit. In so great a metropolis as London, the loss of so many members of society must prove a material injury to her commercial interests; as it has been too often proved that the ingenious though successless speculator, rather than the fraudulent marauder has been consigned to imprisonment, when his abilities, duly patronized, might have benefited the commonwealth.

Near the Poultry Compter, is the parish church of

THE lady to whom this church is dedicated was daughter to Merowald, a Saxon prince, and Dompneva, a princess of the blood royal of Kent. Having, when very young, been sent to a nunnery in France, she became so devout and ex

emplary,