I’ve heard a great deal of prisoners escaping, and from the penal establishments it is unquestionably practicable. At a prison conducted, however, on the Coldbath Fields’ principle such an idea is simply absurd. I do not refer to the impediments of locks and doors so much as to the full blaze of light system along the corridors. The constant countings, too, and patrols night and day would at once discover the truant, to say nothing of the 20-feet wall that surrounds the building. I have occasionally read descriptions of escapes from the Bastille, where prisoners with a yard of rope, a spare shirt, and an oyster knife, have burrowed and scaled and got clean off. I am not in a position to dispute these assertions, but I will willingly undertake to provide the most expert acrobat with a sack full of ropes, crowbars, and linen, _in_ his cell, and stake my existence that he does not proceed five feet beyond his premises without detection. The escape of a notorious burglar from Millbank Convict Prison last year gave rise at the time to considerable discussion amongst the officials at Coldbath Fields. That a man should be able to break through the roof of a cell during the early hours of morning without creating a disturbance seems incredible, and had the corridors had the same acoustic properties as those at Coldbath, would have been simply impossible without collusion. [Picture: Counting] So extraordinarily is sound conveyed in these vast and barren tunnels that every word spoken during the night at the other end of the passage is distinctly audible, whereas conversation close by is almost unintelligible, so great is the echo. I think Mr. Burglar Lovell may congratulate himself that he had not been relegated to Coldbath Fields, for he would most assuredly have derived less benefit there from his sixty feet of rope than he appears to have done at Millbank. A prisoner attempting to escape forfeits all the time he may have completed of his sentence—a sufficient deterrent for a sane man! A very disgusting adjunct to the convalescent ward is “Itch Bay,” and though comparatively distinct, is actually next door, and leads from it. It is devoted to those filthy creatures who, on admission, are found to abound in vermin, or who, after months in prison—as can be verified—have caught the disease (according to my theory) by using the universal bath. The treatment of this complaint can hardly be said to be a pleasant, although undoubtedly a very effectual one. A man is taken to “the bay,” made to strip off all his clothes, put into a separate cell, and smeared with a thick coating of mercurial ointment, and left to soak for three days at least, and often longer. His bedding may best be described as an ointment mattress, with “blankets to match,” so saturated is everything in this fearful quarter, the stench from which pervades the passage, and works into the convalescent ward.