It is properly the prison belonging to the court of Common Pleas. The keeper is called Warden of the Fleet, a place of very great benefit as well as trust; oeing allowed considerable fees from the prisoners for turning the key, for chamber rent, &c. The regulations adopted for the government and ordering of this prison are necessary to be known: "HILARY, 3d George II. 1729. 1. 2. 3. Warden or deputy to appoint turnkeys, &c. with arms: to stop persons bringing arms, and watch if an escape be in agitation. 4. Warden to distribute charity-money. He, or his agent, to keep one key of the box; and the prisoners another. "5. 6. 12. If a master-side debtor shall neglect for three months to pay his chamber-rent; the warden may not lock him up, but remove him to the common-side; delivering to him his goods by a witnessed inventory. After discharge, if legal dues be still unpaid, he may be detained in the common ward; the door of which is never to be shut but at night (summer at ten, winter at nine) and then a watchman must attend to open it for those who have any urgency of body, or danger of life, &c. "7. Such as attempt to escape, or greatly misbehave, may be shut up in a close room or dungeon. N. B. It was reported to the four judges, who made enquiry concerning it, to be "boarded, wholesome, and dry." HOWARD. "8. 18. Warden to repair the whole house, chapel, drain, &c. and keep all clean. To take care that Divine service be duly performed, and the sacrament administered. Prisoners to attend. 9. Against clandestine Fleet-marriages. "10. Those who blaspheme, curse, swear, or are disorderly, to be set in the stocks. "11. 13. Warden or deputy to dispose of the chambers, and tap and see that good order be observed in the public rooms, &c. "14. Warden to take effectual care no prisoner be carried to a spunging-house; and that no garnish be demanded from a new comer. "15. Warden to cause a table of gifts and bequests, written in a fair and legible hand, to be hung up in the hall. And to see that no prisoner be defrauded of his share. None of the servants to partake or distribute. 16. Every prisoner who swears in court or before a commissioner that they are not worth five pounds, and cannot subsist 4 without without charity, have the donations which are sent to the prison, the begging-box, and the grate. "17. Two rooms to be an infirmary for common-side debtors. No prisoner obliged to so sleep with one that is diseased. "19. Coroner's inquest upon the dead: and corpse to be delilivered to the friends, free of cost. "20. Warden not to remove a prisoner to the King's Bench by Habeas Corpus. “21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26. Warden to keep books, and register commitments, courts from whence, declarations, discharges, writs of Habeas Corpus. Tipstaff and judge's clerk to keep each a separate book of prisoners delivered up at a judge's chamber. 27. All those books, except the tipstaff's, to be kept in the public office of the clerk of the papers; accessible to all persons for copying, &c. "28. No clerk, officer, or servant of any judge to take a fee on occasion of a petition or complaint, founded upon the foregoing orders, or any misgovernment. “29. That the warden and his officers do treat the several prisoners in his custody with all tenderness and humanity: and that such prisoners do behave themselves toward the warden with that submission and regard which the law requires." Here is a neat chapel, where prayers and sermon are said every Sunday. The chaplain has the fee of One Guinea*. The premises are very airy, and there is a plentiful supply of excellent water. There are also two rooms appropriated, as before said, for an INFIRMARY, but without any established medical asristance. Upon à petition to Mr. Grey (now lord Howick,) from the prisoners of the King's Bench, in 1790, respecting this highly necessary appendage to prisons, that gentleman, in the House of Commons, moved for relief, which the le It appears by Paterson's Ecclesiastical State of London, that the duty of the Fleet chapel should be "Morning prayers on all ordinary days at eleven; on Sundays and holidays at ten, and in the evening at three; besides a Sermon every Sunday in the forenoon. And besides the first Sunday in the month, the Holy Sacrament was usually administered at Christmat, Easter day, Whitsunday, and before Michaelmas term." p. 85. The allowance to the chaplain was then 40%. per annum. gislature gislature would undoubtedly have granted, had not the in-. temperate conduct of a few individuals in that prison obstructed the intended benefit. We cannot, however, resist offering an opinion on this subject. The convicted felon has every advantage of medical aid, whenever afflicted with disease. If the humaity of government has extended itself to benefit the baser sort of the community, why is the unfortunate debtor excluded from similar consideration? LORD HOWICK is now in power; and the renewal of such a humane proposal, which would, no doubt, be acceded to, must redound to his honour, as well as preserve the healths of thousands of his fellow-creatures; more especially as the humane HOWARD constantly urges every caution in assistance to his fears respecting contagious distempers in prisons. The ground on which this prison, and the buildings to Skinner Street, formed the eastern shore of the town ditch, denominated FLEET DITCH. This was formed by the waters of Turnmill Brook, Old-bourne, from the confluence called Fleet. In 1307, it was of depth and width sufficient "that ten or twelve ships navies at once, with merchandizes, were wont to come to the bridge of Fleete."* The tide flowed as high as Holborn bridge, where there were five feet water at the lowest tide, and brought up barges of considerable burthen. There were flood gates erected in the year 1606; and after the Fire of London, it was, by order of the mayor and court of aldermen, cleansed, enlarged, and made navigable; the sides built of stone and brick, with warehouses on each side, which ran under the street, and were designed to be used for laying in of coals, and other commodities; the wharfs on each side of the channel were thirty-five feet broad; and were rendered secure from danger in the night by rails of oak being placed on each *Stow. It must be recollected, that at this period there were drawbridges upon London Bridge, through which ships of a certain size might pass, and discharge their cargoes at the mouth of the Fleet.-Pennant. VOL. III. No. 76. 4 K side. side. Over the canal were four bridges of Portland stone, at Bridewell, Fleet Street, Fleet Lane, and Holborn. The whole expence of sinking, clearing, wharfing, planking, and piling, with that of paving, posting, and railing, amounted to 27,7771. besides what was paid to the several proprietors, whose grounds were taken for the enlargement of the wharfs and keys. During the performance of this work, at the depth of fifteen feet, were found several Roman utensils; and a little deeper a great quantity of Roman coins, in silver, copper, brass, and other metals, but none of gold. At Holborn bridge were found two brazen lares, about four inches long; one a Bacchus, the other a Ceres. "It is a probable conjecture," says Mr. Pennant, "that these were thrown in by the afirighted Romans, at the approach of the enraged Boadicea, who soon took ample revenge on her insulting conquerors." Here were also found numbers of Saxon antiquities, spurs, weapons, keys, seals, &c.; also medals, crosses, &c. which might have been thrown in on occasion of similar alarm. The above expensive improvement did not answer its intention; the canal was neglected, and became such a nuisance, that POPE celebrates it in the following lines of his Dunciad. -by Bridewell all descend, (As morning pray'r and flagellation end) "Here strip my children! here at once leap in, Here prove who best can dash through thick and thin, Or dark dexterity of groping well. Who flings most filth, and wide pollutes around A pig of lead to him who dives the best; This pointed satire, proved the condemnation of the ditch, and the lord mayor and citizens obscured it from further obloquy, by arching it over in 1733, and covering it with Flect Market. However the nuisance existed till within memory, and an obelisk at the north end of New Bridge Strect, erected in the mayoralty of JOHN WILKES, Esq. 1775, marks the extent of its intrusion till that period, when it was "a genuine and muddy ditch, hid from the public street by a range of low buildings, which constituted a watch-house for the parish of St. Bridget. The fine opening to Blackfriars Bridge has completely metamor phosed the scene, and in its turn the Fleet Market has been declared a disagreeable obstruction to a fine street intended to be formed from the bridge towards Islington, and the great North road; the removal of which has been for some time in contemplation. TURNAGAIN, or, as it is called in antient records, Windagain Lane, was so called on account of its circuitous way to Turnmill Brook, and back again, without any passage over, An antient proverb was attached to this place. When any one took to wrong courses, which threatened his destruction, it was usual to say "he must take a house in Turnagain Lane," The upper end, northernly, of this lane, came opposite to Holborn Conduit, by Holborn Cross, first built in 1498, during the mayoralty of Sir John Percival. His widow gave twenty marks; Sir Thomas Knesworth, mayor, and Richard Shore, Esq. sheriff in 1505, gave also very li berally towards a second structure. But, in 1577, William Lamb, founder of Lamb's Chapel, caused water to be conveyed in lead, from various springs, to one head, and thence to this conduit, and waste of one cock at Holborn Bridge, more than two thousand yards in length, at the charge of 15007, This conduit stood facing Cock Lane, and was, within memory, distinguished by four lamps towards Holborn, Cow Lane, Cock Lane, and the upper part of Snow Hill. |