"The Use of this Hospital now is for an House of Correction, and to be a Place where all Strumpets, Night-walkers, Pickpockets, vagrant and idle Persons, that are taken up for their ill Lives, as also incorrigible and disobedient Servants, are committed by the Mayor and Aldermen, who are Justices of the Peace within the said City; And being so committed are forced to beat Hemp in publick View, with due Correction of whipping, according to their Offence, for such a Time as the President and Court shall see Cause." Bridewell is well shown by Hogarth in the fourth picture of the "Harlot's progress," where both men and women are seen "beetling" hemp.[79] In a very rare tract called "Mr. William Fullers Trip to Bridewell" (1703) he gives a fairly graphic description of a prisoner's entry therein. "As soon as I came there, the Word was _Strip, pull off your Cloaths_, and with much intreaty, I prevail'd to keep on my Westcoat; then I was set to a Block, a punny of Hemp was laid thereon, and _Ralph Cumpton_ (a Journy Man in the Shop) presented me with a Beatle, bidding me knock the Hemp with that, as fast as I could. This Beatle is of Brazel,[80] and weigh'd about 12 pounds." Previously to this, poor Fuller had to stand twice in the pillory, on one of which occasions he was nearly killed by the mob, and when taken to Bridewell, all black and blue as he was, he had a whipping:--"My Hands were put in the Stocks, and then Mr. _Hemings_ the Whipper, began to noint me with his Instrument, that had, I believe, about a dozen Strings notted at the end, and with that I had Thirty Nine Stripes (so that according to a certain Almanack Maker, who reckoned Dr. _Oates's_ Stripes by every String, I had twelve times Thirty Nine). I had given the Rascal Half a Crown, but he afforded me very little favour, but struck home at every stroak; I confess I could not forbear bawling out, but good Sir _Robert_[81] knockt at last, and I was let out of the Stocks." The prisoners, if they chose, could find their own food, but they were kept strictly at work as is quaintly put by Fuller-- "I had, in each Shop, the Thieves for my Fellow-labourers, and the Journeymen, our Deputy Task Masters, were frequently calling to the Prisoners, _Why don't you Work there, strike hard_: Then threaten, and sometimes beat them with a small Cane. These Task-masters are so accustomed to keeping their Prisoners hard at Work, that I have heard themselves say, they have, frequently, (forgetting themselves) called out, when they had no Prisoner in the Shop, as before, _Why don't you work there_." Ward (in the "London Spy") gives an almost too graphic account of this prison, but expresses unmitigated disgust at the whipping of women, which took place there, and solemnly protested against its continuance. His description of a woman being flogged, is as follows:--