only one of many instances of their
brutality which might be mentioned.[149] "There has lately been the
most shocking scene of murder imaginable; a parcel of _drunken_
constables took it into their heads to put the laws in execution
against _disorderly_ persons, and so took up every woman they met till
they had collected five or six and twenty, all of whom they thrust into
St. Martin's round house, where they kept them all night, with doors
and windows closed. The poor creatures, who could not stir or breathe,
screamed as long as they had any breath left, begging at least for
water; one poor wretch said she was worth eighteen-pence, and would
gladly give it for a draught of water, but in vain! So well did they
keep them there, that in the morning four were found stifled to death;
two died soon after, and a dozen more are in a shocking way. In short,
it is horrid to think what the poor creatures suffered. Several of them
were beggars, who, from having no lodging, were necessarily found in
the street, and others honest labouring women. One of the dead was a
poor washer-woman, big with child, who was returning home late from
washing. * * * These same men, the same night, broke into a bagnio in
Covent Garden, and took up Jack Spencer, Mr. Stewart, and Lord George
Graham, and would have thrust them into the round-house with the poor
women if they had not been worth more than eighteen-pence!"

Keepers of prisons bought their places with the distinct purpose of
making money by extortions from the prisoners. The following is an
account of the means pursued by Bainbridge, Warden of the Fleet, to
extort money from one Solas, a poor man, imprisoned for debt[150]:
"Bainbridge caused him to be turned into the dungeon, called the Strong
Room of the Master's side. This place is a vault, like those in which
the dead are interred, and wherein the bodies of persons dying in the
said prison are usually deposited till the coroner's inquest hath
passed upon them; it has no chimney nor fireplace, nor any light but
what comes over the door, or through a hole of about eight inches
square. It is neither paved nor boarded; and the rough bricks appear
both on the sides and top, being neither wainscotted nor plastered;
what adds to the dampness and stench of the place, is its being built
over the common sewer, and adjoining to the sink and dunghill where all
the nastiness of the prison is cast. In this miserable place the poor
wretch was kept by t