Hunt, Henry, 1773-1835; Social reformers -- Great Britain -- Biography
Unlike some other gaolers, the marshal of the King's Bench was not above
his business; he never for a moment neglected his duty to the prisoners.
He did not act, as if he felt it to be his only business to tyrannize
over, to harrass, to oppress, to punish, and to torture those unfortunate
persons who were committed to his custody. On the contrary, he took
especial care to protect his prisoners from insult, imposition, or
cruelty. Instead of employing his time to devise means of annoyance
against those who were placed in his custody, he occupied it in a very
different manner. He knew that it was his duty (and he acted up to the
letter and spirit of it) to take every means in his power to make each
prisoner as comfortable as his situation would admit, and, above all, to
shield him from any insult or ill treatment from the officers of the
prison; and to take care that the prisoners were not imposed upon by those
who served them with provisions and necessaries. He made a point of going
frequently into the prison during market time, and if he found any bad
meat, butter, or other provisions, brought into the prison, he would, for
example sake, have it seized and destroyed; and he frequently, without
previous notice, went round with his officers to examine the weights and
measures, so that his prisoners were completely guarded from imposition
and extortion; and a man in the King's Bench prison could lay out the
little money he had to spend, to as much advantage as he could in any
market in the kingdom. In fact, Mr. Jones, the marshal, was a humane as
well as a charitable man, and he encouraged the prisoners to make
excellent and just regulations for their own government; but the
refractory, those who would not be governed by the rules of well regulated
society, and who violated all moral obligations, were made to feel the
weight of his power. He was a magistrate of the county of Surrey, it,
therefore, was not necessary for him to perform the farce of sending for a
_visiting magistrate_. Any ungovernable delinquent was brought before him,
and after a fair hearing, if it appeared upon oath that he merited it, he
was committed for a month to Horsemonger Lane prison, or sentenced to be
confined in the refractory room. I do not remember a single instance of
any one being punished by him unjustly. When it was necessary for the
marshal to use severity against any man, it generally had the sanction of
an immense majority of that man's fellow-prisoners. The only one that was
punished, during the six weeks that I was there, was a drunken captain,
who, in one of his paroxysms, had smashed all the chapel windows, and
committed several other depredations upon the property of his fellow
prisoners. He was put into the strong room till the next day, when he was
brought up, and after an open and patient hearing, it being found that he
had nothing to urge in his defence except drunkenness, he was sent to
Horsemonger Lane for a month.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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