Page:The Green Bag (1889–1914), Volume 06.pdf/349

 3i8

which gave to the said ministers of the King fees in some particular cases to be taken of the subject, " it is not credible what extortions and oppressions have thereupon ensued; whereas before, without any taking at all their office was done, now no office at all was done without taking, the officers being

the oppressions and extortions of gaolers, and feared that no remedy would be effec tual as long as they were suffered to buy and sell their places. He pointed out that swarms of miserable men, necessitous and withoutthe hope of redemption, after having suffered the penalty of the law for their crimes, were

A COMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE OF COMMONS INQUIRING INTO THE CRUELTIES INFLICTED IN THE FLEET PRISON, 1728. A/ler Hogartt*.

fettered with golden fees, as fetters to the suppression or subversion of justice." So, too, in the " Mirror of Justices," C. 5 Par. 1,n. 53, it is said : " It was an abuse that prisoners, or any of them, should pay any thing for their entrance into or coming out of gaol." Mr. Emlyn, in his interesting preface to the State Trials, written nearly fifty years before Howard's book, alluded to

obliged to undergo the severer punishment of perpetual imprisonment for the non-pay ment of fees, a debt forced upon them with out their consent, and often out of their power to discharge. " How much better," he suggested, " would it be for the public to allow the gaoler a reasonable salary instead of these perquisites, which arise from the miseries of the unfortunate, who are thereby