earth. In low rooms, not sixteen feet square,
as many as fifty miserable sinners were locked
up from eight to eight, and upon no occasion
whatever could any of them get out.  Some
slept on the floor, but as all could not sleep
there, they had an aërial tier of hammocks; by
which ingenious contrivance many died for want
of fresh air, as they did in the Black Hole of
Calcutta.  The sick wards were worse. "Along
the walls of each room boards were laid upon
trestles, 'like a dresser in a kitchen;' and under
these boards, between the trestles, one tier
of sick men lay upon the floor; on the 'dresser'
was another tier; and overhead a third in
hammocks."  When a poor prisoner had no more
money, and had exhausted his friends, and eaten
up his possessions, if he could raise a final and
funereal threepence, which was the nurse's fee,
he was carried into the sick ward, where he
lingered till he died.  A day never passed without
a death; and in spring time from eight to
ten prisoners died every twenty-four hours.
Many people left money for the poor debtors,
but the jailer and the lodge-keepers got the
benefit of the donation; so they did with the
begging-box; and so they did when good
Samaritans came, as was the custom, to discharge
certain of the poor debtors.  For the lodge-keepers
had always a gang of idle hangers-on,
who were their messengers and tools—voluntary
prisoners who got free quarters for their
dirty work, and had as much liberty as they
wanted; and when there was to be a release,
these men were put forward, and their pretended
debts and fees paid by the Samaritan dupes who
knew no better, to the jollification of the
butcher and his comrades.  Some of the debts
for which men were confined in those days were
very small: perhaps a shilling; but the fees to
the jailer, and the "garnish" to be paid to the
other prisoners, and the fines for every possible
occasion, were tremendous; and to be arrested
for a trifle was with many to be ruined for life.
When any poor fellow could not pay these fees
and garnishes, he was mobbed by the others,
who stripped him of his clothes—"let the black
dog walk," they called it—and otherwise
ill-treated him.  Once Acton put the thumb-screw
on one man, then carried him to the strong-room,
and all but strangled him.  For all of these and
worse infamies he was tried, the indictment charging
him with murder; but, strange to say, he,
too, was acquitted, like his brothers in crime and
office.  Though not all, nor perhaps very much,
yet something was done by Oglethorpe's
committee for the amelioration of these loathsome
dens; and magistrates were appointed to meet
during the recess to adjust the fees of every
debtors' prison, and to make other useful laws.
Mr. Wright does not say to what result; and
we all know what Howard found when he undertook
to cleanse the Augean stables—sadly in
want of ventilation and flushed sewers.

His experience of what poor debtors underwent
turned Oglethorpe's attention to the
unemployed, impecunious class generally, and
perhaps originated the second great work
undertaken for the good of his generation, and
the well-being of society at large.  A Tory, yet
as much of a free trader as perhaps was
possible in those days, he opposed the bill of the
Commons, introduced for protecting the West
Indian sugar trade, by prohibiting all commerce
between the French islands of the Pacific and
our North American colonies.  "Our colonies
are all a part of our dominions," he said, with
more common sense than his hearers possessed.
"The people in every one of them are our own
people, and we ought to show an equal respect
to all. I remember, sir, that there was once a
petition presented to this House by one county,
complaining that they were very much injured
in their trade, as to the sale of beans, by
another; therefore they modestly prayed that the
other county should be prohibited to sell any
beans!"  "Ote-toi que je m'y mets," said
the Frenchman, unconsciously epitomising the
whole theory of protection, as instanced by
this story of the beans.  He was also on the
side of Poor Jack, and wrote a pamphlet called
"The Sailor's Advocate," exposing the evils of
impressment, and the abuses of the Admiralty;
and in many other ways showed himself a sturdy
philanthropist and practical reformer.  And
then, in 1732, he and twenty-one associates
petitioned the throne for an act of incorporation,
and obtained a charter, dated June 9,
1732, for establishing the colony of Georgia, in
America, on the south-eastern frontier of South
Carolina—with the Spaniards in Florida as
troublesome neighbours, the Indians thick in
the forests round about, and runaway negroes
banded together under arms, as the three active
enemies to be encountered.  At present these
troubles fell upon the South Carolinians;
wherefore they were extremely anxious that a
new British colony should be planted between
them and the recognised limits of the Spanish
possessions.

A new colony between South Carolina and
Florida had long been a subject of thought and
consideration, but as yet no one had seen the
way to any practical solution of the difficulties
attending.  Sir Robert Montgomery, of
Skelmorley, had drawn out a magnificent scheme
for a settlement to be called the Margravate
of Azilia; but the margravate, with its
magnificent cities and parks, did not get under
weigh somehow; and then Oglethorpe took up
the question, and proposed his scheme of simple
colonisation—as much for straitened gentlefolks
as for labourers, for the poor fellows who
else would fall into the hands of Bambridges,
or the Actons of the Fleet, or the Marshalsea.
The scheme took; parliament approved, and
the public supported.  The new colony was
organised by trustees who were bound by their
charter to receive no fees, perquisites, salary,
nor profits from the undertaking—who might
not hold land, either openly or by proxy, and
who were simply guardians and promoters of
the cause.  Large subscriptions were made,
and parliament gave them a grant of ten
thousand pounds.  On the 6th of November,