The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and MarriagesAshton, John
History
The Fleet: Its Rivers, Prison, and Marriages
Ashton, John
Fleet Prison (London, England); Fleet, River (England)
Anent this escape, the _Times_ of February 16th has a paragraph such
as we can hardly imagine ever could have appeared in a paper so steady
and sober, as the _Times_ now is: "THE WARDEN OF THE FLEET--(From a
Correspondent). Yesterday a gentleman of some misfortune and of great
appearance, for he wore a wig, moustaches, and a Spanish Cloak, was
introduced as an inmate of Brown's Hotel, so called from the Warden
having a license to sell wines, beer, and ale to his prisoners,
through the 'patent never ending always improving Juddery spigot and
fawcet tap,' &c. In about half an hour the said bewhiskered gentleman
leaves cloak, wig, and moustaches in the room of a Mister Abrahams,
a prisoner, and walks quietly out, very politely bidding the turnkey
'good morning.' At night the excellent crier of the Prison, Mr. Ellis,
made the galleries echo, and the rooms re-echo, with his sometimes very
cheering voice (when he announces to those who wish such things as a
discharge, for it is not all who do), in calling, _altissimo voce_,
'Mr. Alfred Morrison! Mr. Alfred Morrison! Mr. Alfred Morrison!' but as
no Mr. Alfred Morrison answered to the interesting call, every room was
searched in the due performance of the crier's duty, but no Mr. Alfred
Morrison was to be found. And the Worthy and excellent warder, the
keeper of so many others in, is himself let in to the tune of £2,600;
some say more, none say less.
'Go it, ye cripples! crutches are cheap!
W. Brown is no longer asleep!'"
In a leading article in the _Times_ of November 13, 1838, upon juvenile
crime, and the incitors thereto, we read the following: "The Traders in
crime do not wholly confine their seductions to the young; they often
find apt scholars among the unfortunates of riper years, especially
in the _debtor's prison_. Mr. Wakefield[152] says he knows many such
victims; and he particularizes one 'Who was not indeed executed,
because he took poison the night before he was to have been executed,
who told me he had been, (and who I firmly believe was) first incited
to crime when a Prisoner in the _Fleet_ for debt. The crime into which
he was seduced was that of passing forged Bank of England Notes. He
was a Man of very showy appearance, and he had been a Captain in the
Army; a man of good family. He said this crime was first suggested
to him by persons who were Prisoners in the Fleet; but he afterwards
discovered, having been a Prisoner there more than once, that one of a
gang of Utterers of forged Notes lived constantly in the _Fleet_, and
for no other purpose but that of inducing reckless young men of good
appearance, who could easily pass notes, to take Notes from them, and
to dispose of them in transactions. I could hardly believe that that
was true, and I got some inquiries to be made for the person whom he
had pointed out to me as one of a Gang, and I found that that person
was constantly in the _Fleet_. The Gang committed a robbery upon a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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