The King's Bench was a national prison, in which were confined all debtors arrested for debt or for contempt of the court of the King's Bench. The population generally amounted to from five hundred to seven hundred, the accommodation being calculated for two hundred. Every new-comer was entitled to a "chummage" ticket, but did not always get it, being often obliged to pay a high rent for a bed at the coffee-house or in some room which was vacated by its regular occupant. No fixed rates or rules governed the hiring out of rooms or parts of a room, and all sorts of imposition was practised. The best, or at least the most influential prisoners, got lodging in the State House, which contained "eight large handsome rooms." Besides those actually resident within the walls, another two hundred more or less took advantage of "the rules," and lived outside within a circumference of two miles and a half. In these cases security was given for the amount of the debt, and a heavy fee at the rate of £8 per £100, with £4 for every additional hundred. Besides these, a number had the privilege of a "run on the key," which allowed a prisoner to go into the rules for the day. The foregoing rentals and payments for privileges, together with fees exacted on commitment and discharge, went to the marshal or keeper of the prison, whose net annual income thus entirely derived from the impecunious amounted to between three and four thousand pounds. The office of marshal had been hereditary, but in the 27th Geo. II. the right of presentation was bought by the Crown for £10,500. The marshal was supposed to be resident either within the prison or the rules. He seems to have felt no responsibility as to the welfare or comfort of those in charge, and out of whom he made all his money. The prison was always in "the most filthy state imaginable."[32] The half or wholly starved prisoners fished for alms or food at the gratings. When they were sick no more notice was taken of them than of a dog. A man dying of liver complaint lay on the cold stones without a bed or food to eat. Dissolute habits prevailed on all sides; drunkenness was universal, gambling perpetual. The yards were taken up with rackets and five courts, and here and there were "bumble puppy grounds," a game in which the players rolled iron balls into holes marked with numbers. How to make most profit out of the wretched denizens of the gaol was the marshal's only care. He got a rent for the coffee-house and the bake-house; the keeper of the large tap-room called the Brace, because it was once kept by two brothers named Partridge, also paid him toll. The sale of spirits was forbidden, but gin could always be had at the whistling shops, where it was known as Moonshine, Sky Blue, Mexico, and was consumed at the rate of a hogshead per week.