[Illustration: AUTOGRAPH DONE AT THE PARLOUR NO 1, PALAIS DE LA FLETE, THIS 24 DAY JUNE.]
"The Vestry Clerk said, relief must be given out of the County rate.
"Sir C. Marshall said he would take time to consider the Point, but he thought a sufficient relief should be afforded out of the County rate."
[Footnote 149: "_Memoirs of the Right Villanous John Hall_," &c.]
In a Return of the number of persons in the several Gaols of England, confined for Debt, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, May 13, 1835, we have an "Account of the Number of Persons confined for Debt in the Fleet Prison during the following Years:
1830 1831 1832 1833 1834 Number confined 742 700 884 746 769 Number charged in Execution 105 136 134 126 156
And the amount of the debt and costs for which each party was so charged varied from £2 to £18,017.
I look in vain in the _Times_ for the paragraph to which the Warden alludes in the following letter:
"The Warden presents his compliments to the Editor of the _Times_, and begs to state, that a paragraph having appeared in the paper of this morning, stating that the Fleet Prison is very full, and that a guinea and a half a week is paid for a single room, and that four, five, and six persons are obliged to live in a small apartment.
"The Warden, not being aware of this, should it in any case exist, and which is contrary to the established regulations against any person so offending, the prison not being so full as in former years, there being considerably less, on an average, than two prisoners to each Room, and being also exceedingly healthy.
"The Warden has also to add, that the rest of the paragraph relating to the Fleet is totally without foundation.
In the outside sheet of the _Times_, February 21, 1838, occurs the following advertisement: "ONE HUNDRED POUNDS REWARD.--Escape.--ESCAPED from the Fleet Prison, on the evening of Wednesday the 14th day of February instant. ALFRED MORRIS, late of 22 Dean Street, Tooley Street, Southwark. The said Alfred Morris is about 30 years of Age, about 5 feet 6 inches high, dark complexion, and of a Jewish Caste, prominent Nose, somewhat flat pointed, dark, irregular whiskers, stout figure, and rather bow legged," &c., &c.