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 jails, open
sewers ran through corridors and cells, so that the poor inmates had to
fight for their lives with the vermin which nourished 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 jail 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
pay the heavy fees exacted by their keepers; while the sleeping-rooms
were so crowded at times, that it was impossible for the prisoners to
lie down all together for sheer lack of space. Torture was prohibited by
the law of England, but many inhuman keepers used thumb-screws and iron
caps with obnoxious prisoners, for the amusement of themselves and their
boon companions. Several cases of this kind are recorded.

So hideous an outcry arose against these horrors, that at last
Parliament interfered, and passed two bills dealing with prisoners and
their treatment. The first of these provided that when a prisoner was
discharged for want of prosecution he should be immediately set free,