‘As Debtors here are generally very poor, I was surprised to see, once, ten or twelve noisy men at skittles; but the Turnkey said they were only visitants. I found they were admitted here as at another public-house. No Prisoners were at play with them.’ At St. Catherine’s, without the Tower, was another small debtors’ prison. This parish was a ‘_peculiar_,’ the Bishop of London having no jurisdiction over it, and the place was under the especial patronage of the Queens of England ever since the time of Matilda, the wife of Stephen, who founded a hospital there, now removed to Regent’s Park. It was a wonderful little parish, for there people could take sanctuary--and there also were tried civil and ecclesiastical cases. Howard says that the prison for debtors had been rebuilt seven years before he wrote. It was a small house of two storeys; two rooms on a floor. In April, 1774, there was a keeper, but no prisoners. ‘I have since called two or three times, and always found the House uninhabited.’ No notice of debtors’ prisons would be complete without mention of the King’s Bench, which was in Southwark. Howard reports: ‘The Prisoners are numerous. At more than one of my visits, some had the Small Pox. It was so crowded this last summer, that a Prisoner paid five shillings a week for half a bed, and many lay in the chapel. In May, 1766, the number of Prisoners within the Walls was three hundred and ninety-five, and, by an accurate list which I procured, their wives (including a few only called so) were two hundred and seventy-nine, children seven hundred and twenty-five--total, one thousand and four; about two-thirds of these were in the Prison.’ The prisoners had, as in the Fleet, their weekly wine and beer clubs, and they also indulged in similar outdoor sports. The Marshalsea and Horsemonger Lane gaol complete the list of London debtors’ prisons. Howard’s description of the county prisons is something appalling. Gaol-fever, distemper, or small-pox being recorded against most of them. At Chelmsford there had been no divine service for above a year past, except to condemned criminals. At Warwick the debtors’ common day-room was the hall, which was also used as a chapel. At Derby a person went about the country, at Christmas-time, to gentlemen’s houses, and begged for the benefit of the debtors. The donations were entered in a book, and signed by each donor. About fourteen pounds were generally collected in this manner. Chesterfield gaol was the property of the Duke of Portland, and Howard describes it thus: