Note 44 — Chapter IX

I have met with a Newspaper Cutting, with no clue to its authenticity or date. "Dreadful Ravages of the Influenza in the House of Correction.—Yesterday afternoon, Inquests were holden by William Baker, Esq., one of the Coroners for the County of Middlesex, at the House of Correction, Coldbath Fields, on no less than five individuals, namely, Peter Griffiths, Michael Hughes, James Jones, Thomas Lillie, and Ann Connard, all of whom had died from the effects of the present prevalent epidemic, or influenza, and who were inmates of that prison, and had been sentenced to different periods of imprisonment. It is a fact that, for the last two months, more prisoners have died in this prison, principally from the effects of influenza, than had died there during the whole of the preceding year." Possibly the poor Fleet River, at that time hardly degraded to the level of the Sewer—which now it is—may have had something to do with the unsanitary condition of the prison.—J. A.