Page:Elizabeth Fry (Pitman 1884).djvu/43

Rh and the annals of Mrs. Fry's labours, amply enlighten us as to the result of this state of things.

In Bedford gaol the dungeons for felons were eleven feet below the ground, always wet and slimy, and upon these floors the inmates had to sleep. At Nottingham the gaol stood on the side of a hill, while the dungeons were cut in the solid rock; these dungeons could only be entered after descending more than thirty steps. At Gloucester there was but one court for all prisoners, and, while fever was decimating them, only one day-room. At Salisbury the prisoners were chained together at Christmas time and sent in couples to beg. In some of the gaols, open sewers ran through corridors and cells, so that the poor inmates had to fight for their lives with the vermin which flourished there. At Ely the prison was in such a ruinous condition that the criminals could not be safely kept; the warders, therefore, had had recourse to chains and fetters to prevent the escape of those committed to their charge. They chained prisoners on their backs to the floor, and, not content with this, secured iron collars round their necks as well as placed heavy bars across their legs. Small fear of the poor wretches running away after that! At Exeter the county gaol was the private property of a gentleman, John Denny Rolle, who farmed it out to a keeper, and received an income of twenty pounds per annum for it. Yet why multiply instances! In all of them, dirt, cruelty, fever, torture, and abuses reigned unchecked. Prisoners had no regular allowance of food, but depended on their means, family, or charity; the prisons were farmed by their keepers, some of whom were women, but degraded and cruel; many innocent prisoners were slowly rotting to death, because of their inability to 3 *