Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth centuryGriffiths, Arthur
History
Chronicles of Newgate, Vol. 1: From the twelfth to the eighteenth century
Griffiths, Arthur
Criminals -- Great Britain; Newgate (Prison : London, England); Prisons -- England; Punishment -- Great Britain
Incarceration in Newgate, however, was meted out promptly for other
offences than those against which the last-mentioned legislation was
directed. Priests guilty of loose living, Jews accused rightly or
wrongly, now of infanticide, of crucifying children, now of coining
and clipping, found themselves in the gaol for indefinite periods.
People, again, who adulterated or sold bad food were incontinently
clapped into gaol. Thus William Cokke of Hesse (or Hayes) was charged
with carrying a sample of wheat in his hand in the market within
Newgate, and following one William, the servant of Robert de la Launde,
goldsmith, about from sack to sack, as the latter was seeking to buy
wheat, telling him that such wheat as the sample could not be got for
less than twenty-one pence per bushel, whereas on the same day and at
the same hour the same servant could have bought the same wheat for
eighteen pence. Cokke, when questioned before the mayor, recorder,
and certain of the aldermen, acknowledged that he had done this to
enhance the price of wheat to the prejudice of all the people. He
was in consequence committed to gaol, and sentenced also to have the
punishment of the pillory. The same fate overtook Alan de Lyndeseye
and Thomas de Patemere, bankers, who were brought before the bench at
Guildhall, and with them "bread they had made of false, putrid, and
rotten materials, through which persons who bought such bread were
deceived and might be killed." The fear of imprisonment, again, was
before the eyes of all who sought to interfere with the freedom of the
markets. Thus it is recorded in the ordinances of the cheesemongers,
that "whereas the hokesters (hucksters) and others who sell such wares
by retail do come and regrate such cheese and butter before prime rung,
and before that the commonalty has been served, may it be ordained that
no such hokesters shall buy of any foreigner before the hour of prime
on pain of imprisonment at the will of the mayor." Similar penalties
were decreed against "regrating" fish and other comestibles for the
London markets.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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