subject of a special petition to the king, supported by a drawing, “with which His Majesty was much affected, and gave immediate orders for a proper inquiry and redress.” Loading prisoners with irons was very generally practised, although its legality was questioned even then. Lord Coke gave his opinion against the oppression. Bracton affirmed that a sentence condemning a man to be confined in irons was illegal, and in ‘Blackstone Commentaries’[176] is this passage: “The law will not justify jailers in fettering a prisoner unless when he is unruly, or has attempted an escape. In 1728 the judges reprimanded the warders of the Fleet prison, and declared that a jailer could not answer the ironing of a man before he was found guilty of a crime.” When a keeper pleaded necessity for safe custody to Lord Chief Justice King, the judge bade him “build higher his prison walls.” As Buxton observes, the neglect of this legal precaution was no excuse for the infliction of an illegal punishment. Prisoners should not suffer because authorities neglect their duty. “Very rarely is a man ironed for his own misdeeds, but frequently for those of others; additional irons on his person are cheaper than additional elevation to the walls. Thus we cover our own negligence by increased severity to our captives.”[177] The irons were so heavy that “walking, even lying down to sleep, was difficult and painful.” In some county gaols women did not escape this severity, Howard tells us, but London was more humane. But in the London prisons the custom of ironing even the untried males was long and firmly established. An interesting letter is extant from John Wilkes, dated 1771, the year of his shrievalty to the keeper of Newgate, Mr. Akerman. This letter expresses satisfaction with his general conduct, and admits his humanity to the unhappy persons under his care. But Wilkes takes strong exceptions to the practise of keeping the prisoners in irons at the time of arraignment and trial, which he conceives to he alike repugnant to the laws of England and humanity. “Every person at so critical a moment ought to be without any bodily pain or restraint, that the mind may be perfectly free to deliberate on its most interesting and awful concerns, in so alarming a situation. It is cruelty to aggravate the feelings of the unhappy in such a state of distraction, and injustice to deprive them of any means for the defence of supposed innocence by calling off the attention by bodily torture at the great moment when the full exertion of every faculty is most wanting. No man in England ought to be obliged to plead while in chains; we therefore are determined to abolish the present illegal and inhuman practice, and we direct you to take off the irons before any prisoner is sent to the bar, either for arraignment or trial.”[178]