Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/348

 English Gaols a Century Ago. as to whom a grand jury ignored a bill, the price was six shillings and four pence. In some of the circuits, as the Norfolk and Ox ford Circuits, the charges were still higher. Until these charges were paid, the wretches were detained in prison, although the Act of 14 Geo. III. directed that acquitted pris-

317

effectual efforts at reform, strange proof of the stubbornness of British conservatism. As to gaoler's fees, Fortescue, in his work De Laudibus Legnm Angliac declared that it was a part of the oath of a sheriff upon entering into his office that he shall receive or take nothing of any other man than the

THE TORTURE OF THE BOOT AS APPLIED AT THE PRISON OF THE GRAND CHATELET, IK PARIS, IN 1777. Tin Original Print U tn tht Collectton Uennin.

oners " shall be immediately set at large in open court." It is not necessary to enter into further detail. Such was the actual condition of prisons at the time Howard wrote. It will be in teresting to turn back and ascertain from some of the older authorities how long such a state of affairs had existed, not indeed with out protest or remark, but without any

A'ing by means or colour of his office. Lord Coke called it a fundamental maxim of the Common Law, to avoid all extortion and grievance of the subject, that no sheriff, coroner, gaoler, or other of the King's min isters ought to take any fee or reward for any matter touching their offices but of the King only, 2 Co. Inst. 74, 176, 209. He adds that after this rule of the Common Law was altered by some Acts of Parliament,