On 31 May, 1842, an Act (5 & 6 Vic., c. 22) was passed for the demolition of the Fleet prison, and on 30 Nov., the records, books, etc., and the remaining prisoners, seventy in number, were removed to the Queen’s prison. The Marshalsea was also closed, and its three prisoners were also transferred. The Fleet had been a prison ever since the time of William the Conqueror. Writing about the Fleet prison sets one thinking of the marriages solemnized within its rules, and there is an entry in one of the registers: “The Woman ran across Ludgate Hill in her shift.” In the _Times_ of 15 Dec., I find the following, copied from the _Boston Herald_: “GEDNEY.—A most extravagant exhibition took place here on Friday. A widow, named Farrow, having four children, was married to a man named David Wilkinson; and the woman having been told that if she was married, covered by nothing but a sheet, her husband would not be answerable for her debts, actually had the hardihood to go to church with nothing on but a sheet, sewn up like a sack, with holes in the sides for her arms, and in this way was married.” I have come across several instances of this vulgar error. On the 3rd Dec. was tried a famous gambling case which ended in the discomfiture of a notorious gaming-house keeper, named Bond. It was a case in the Court of Exchequer—Smith _v._ Bond. At the gaming house kept by the latter, the game played was, usually, “French Hazard”; and persons of rank were in the habit of staking large sums against the “bank” held by Bond, to whom reverted all the profits of the game; in one evening they amounted to £2,000 or £3,000. Considerable losses were sustained, on various occasions, by Mr. Bredall, Capt. Courtney, Mr. Fitzroy Stanhope, the Marquis of Conyngham, Lord Cantelupe and General Churchill. The action was brought under the Act 9th Anne, c. 14, to recover from Bond the sums alleged to have been unlawfully won. A verdict for the plaintiff was returned on five out of ten counts, with damages including the treble value of £3,508, the sum lost. Half the damages went to the parish. CHAPTER XIX. Murder of Mr. Drummond—Rebecca and her Daughters—Spread of the Movement through Wales—Its End—Rebecca Dramatised—Rebecca in London. The year opened badly, with the assassination of Edward Drummond, Esqre., the private secretary of Sir Robert Peel. Walking quietly down Parliament Street, he was suddenly fired at by a man named Daniel McNaughton. Poor Mr. Drummond did not die at once, but lingered for a few hours. It was believed by very many people, myself among the number, that it was a political assassination, the Secretary being taken for the Premier, but the man got off on a plea of insanity, a plea which was very fashionable in favour of criminals at that time, and highly conducive to their benefit.