#contextual entry

The rise of crime in London during the eighteenth century was of great concern for members of society that felt particularly threatened by it. This preoccupation reflected in the constant debate on punishments that could be more severe than death in texts such as Hanging Not Punishment Enough (1701) and George Ollyffe’s Essay … to Prevent Capital Crimes (1731) in order to lessen the amount of crime that was happening at the time. A correspondent of Wye's Letter expressed, "Daily experience shows us that hanging only signifies nothing, therefore the law in that particular is frustrated, and should be amended" (quoted in King 35). Of course, William Hogarth was also one of the figures involved in this discussion and published The Four Stages of Cruelty (1751), in which he depicts the life of a man whose cruelty increases and goes from hurting animals to people, including his lover; in the last plate, the body of the man is being publicly dissected. This form of punishment was greatly encouraged by the people engaged in this debate who thought, like Hogarth depicts in his series, that criminals had to paid for the cruelty with which they acted.

The use of sponging houses was one of several customary practices that existed as a problematic part of the system of debt imprisonment. They added to the inefficiency of the system as a tradition of imprisonment and accepted corruption that increased debtor expenses. However, they were deeply intertwined in the eighteenth-century imprisonment system. The name is a casual way in which bailiff’s houses came to be known as since they were designed to extract or “sponge” as much money as possible from the imprisoned debtor.

In order to accurately explain how sponging houses functioned, it is important to understand that debtors were not imprisoned as a punishment for not having paid their debt, but, instead, until they were compelled to do so. As it was, sometimes irrationally, inferred that they chose not to pay rather than them not being able to. Therefore, debtors’ freedom was temporarily taken as a way of coercion for them to solve what was supposedly keeping them from collecting the amount of money they owed. With this, it is evident that prisons were more related to the processes of credit than the legal mechanisms of common law.

There were several ways to sponge money from the debtors. Firstly, they were bullied into buying food and drink for the company of the house while getting very little of it to themselves, forcing them to pay for more if they wished to have a close to satisfactory portion. Secondly, debtors were charged an unreasonably high rent for a room or cage that sometimes lacked a place to lay on. Arresters would even purposefully obstruct communications with the outside to prolong the debtors’ stay, who would attempt to contact friends and solve their debt. The profits from the sponging houses were such that serjeant, bailiffs and prison yeoman would fight for the legal rights of arrest, which gave them power to decide whether, how and where to sponge.

Although it was possible to avoid imprisonment, there was no guarantee that help would arrive and the debtor continued to lose money to the sponger. In spite of having the power to insist on being taken to prison, debtors rarely did because bailiffs would tell horror stories about how terrible prison was and painted the sponging process as a favor to the debtor. However, according to pamphlets of the time, conditions in prison were better than in sponging houses and the cost of stay was cheaper. Still, most debtors were taken to prison until there was nothing left to be gained by the sponger, which took approximately a month of confinement.

Sponging houses were a threat to the institution of debt imprisonment, because they hampered debtors, creditors and prison managers. While they only benefited the already compensated bailiff, it was recognized that they reduced administrative costs. Sponging houses were made illegal in the 1720’s but they were a challenge to suppress during the next few decades.