Until the end of the eighteenth century the harshness and cruelty of imprisonment for debt received little attention. The history of the debtors' prisons, the Fleet, the King's Bench, the Marshalsea and the City Compters, are pages of the story of our law that no one can read to-day without shame. Yet the Howards and Frys who called attention to the facts met with just as little encouragement and attention from the rulers of the country as anyone does to-day who desires to put the coping stones on the completed work, the foundations of which were laid by these great reformers. The extraordinary results that took place through imprisonment for debt as it existed in the eighteenth century are surely beyond parallel in any legal system. The plays and fictions of the time are full of instances. You remember when Roderick Random finds himself in the Marshalsea he meets with his old friend Jackson and asks him about his _amour_ with the lady of fortune: "You must know," replies Jackson, "that a few days after our adventure I found means to be married to that same fine lady you speak of and passed the night with her at her lodgings, so much to her satisfaction, that early in the morning, after a good deal of snivelling and sobbing, she owned that far from being an heiress of great fortune she was no other than a common woman of the town who had decoyed me into matrimony in order to enjoy the privilege of a _femme couverte_, and that unless I made my escape immediately I should be arrested for a debt of her contracting by bailiffs employed and instructed for that purpose." Upon hearing this poor Jackson escapes and serves for a few months as surgeon of a sloop, but, on his return, is arrested for a debt of his wife's and comes to live at the Marshalsea on half pay. Nor is there anything wildly improbable in the story. Smollett had been in a debtor's prison himself, and very likely had heard the story at first hand, for many equally extraordinary stories in real life are well authenticated. There was the strange case of the lady who married a man under sentence of death to get rid of her debts, and was greatly upset when her husband was respited and sent to the colonies. But perhaps one of the most curious stories is that of the dear old blind spinster of Clerkenwell, with a fortune of a thousand pounds, who took a deep interest in the career of an industrious shoemaker's apprentice and made him presents of clothes and a watch and lent him ten pounds. When he was out of his articles and was about to go home to Leicestershire and settle down there, he was arrested for the loan and the attorney's bill of costs and the "garnish" at the lock-up to which he was taken. After a few days the kind-hearted lady visited him and offered him three alternatives. He might pay the money; go to the debtor's prison for the rest of his life; or marry her. He chose the last alternative and was kept in the sponging house until his wedding day.