Page:The histories of Launceston and Dunheved, in the county of Cornwall.djvu/327

 HOWARD'S VISITS. 295 prisoners under sentence of death to ye Sheriff for execu- tion." This stone was fixed in the road, which he names " a passage from the town to ye Castle," but which we know as Castle Street, in front of the railings outside Mr. Dingley's " Eagle House," exactly on the line of the outer edge of the ancient ditch. Tradition asserts that the piece of granite now at the end of the seat within the Castle Green, by the Doomsdale wall, is the historical stone men- tioned by Mr. Leach. The lately destroyed prison-house, which became useless when the county assizes ceased to be holden at Launceston, was visited several times by Howard, the philanthropist. He relates, in 1774, that Coryndon Carpenter, Esq., the mayor, was constable of the Castle, and gaoler, and that John Mules was his deputy. He then gives some statistics concerning the number of felons, their diet, the officers and their salaries, and adds : This gaol, though built in the large green belonging to the old ruinous Castle, is very small, house and court measuring only 52 ft. by 44 ft., and the house not covering half that ground. The prison is a room or passage 23J ft. by l ft., with only one window 2 ft. by i£ ft, and three dungeons or cages on the side opposite the window; these are about 6£- ft. deep, one 9 ft. long, one about 8, one not 5 ; this last for women. They were all very offensive. No chimney, no water, no sewers, damp earth floors, no infirmary. The court not secure, and prisoners seldom permitted to go out to it. Indeed the whole prison is out of repair, and yet the gaoler lives distant. I once found the prisoners chained two or three together. Their provision was put down to them through a hole (9 inches by 8) in the floor of the room above (used as a chapel;, and those who served them there often caught the fatal fever. At my first visit I found the keeper, his assistant, and all the prisoners but one (an old soldier) sick of it, and heard that a few years before many prisoners had died of it, and the keeper and his wife in one night. I learned that a woman who was discharged just before my first visit by the grand jury making a collection for her fees [13s. 4d. were required for a