Note 87 — PART FIRST. (continued 5)

Sir John Pringle, from Stowe’s Chronicle, gives the following account of these assizes. “On the 4th, 5th and 6th days of July were the assizes held at Oxon, where was arraigned and condemned Rowland Jenkins, for a seditious tongue; at which time there arose amidst the people such a damp, that almost all were smothered. Very few escaped that were not taken. Here died in Oxon three hundred persons; and sickened there, but died in other places, two hundred and odd.

“The sessions at the Old Bailey in Westminster, in 1650, proved also fatal to many; of which Sir John also gives an account. ‘I have been informed (says he) that, at those Sessions, about a hundred were tried, who were all kept in close places as long as the court sat; and that each room was but 14 feet by 11, and seven feet high. The bail-dock is also a small room taken off one of the corners of the court, and left open at the top: in this, during the trials, are put some of the malefactors who have been under the closest confinement. The hall in the Old Bailey is a room of only 30 feet square. Now whether the air was most tainted from the bar by some prisoners then ill of the jail distemper, or by the general uncleanliness of such persons, is uncertain; but it is probable that both causes concurred. And we may easily conceive how much it might have been vitiated by the foul steams of the bail-dock, and of the two rooms opening into the court in which the prisoners were the whole day crowded together till they were brought out to be tried. It appeared afterwards, that these places had not been cleaned for some years. The poisonous quality of the air was aggravated by the heat and closeness of the court, and by the perspirable matter of a number of people of all sorts, penned up for the most part of the day, without breathing the free air, or receiving any refreshment. The bench consisted of six persons, whereof four died, together with two or three of the counsel, one of the under sheriffs, several of the Middlesex jury, and others present to the amount of above forty; without making allowance for those of a lower rank, whose death may not have been heard of; and without including any that did not sicken within a fortnight after the sessions.’” (Pringle’s Observations p. 329 & seq.)