A careful perusal of Dietary 4 will convince the reader that it is sufficiently generous to obviate any loss of weight, and yet, as a rule, prisoners fall away on it, (There are some extraordinary exceptions to this rule, and one man, a gentleman by birth, and an ex-officer in the army, increased two stone in a few months; the absolute half-starved vagrant also, of course, fattens on it.) I can only attribute it to the voracious way they bolt their food. It is stated of that eminent projector, the late Mr. Rumford, that he once submitted to the then Elector of Saxony a scheme whereby he might reduce the expense of maintaining his army, without impairing its efficiency, by a very simple method, namely, to reduce the amount, but compel his soldiers to masticate their food. I cannot say if the suggestion was acted on, but I am thoroughly convinced that if prisoners received less, and were compelled to eat slower, a considerable saving to the state and an improvement in the appearance of the men would be effected. Personally I found during the very few weeks I subsisted on this diet that it was more than I could possibly eat, and withal good. The gruel, I confess, is an acquired taste, and I was almost immediately permitted to substitute cocoa. The porridge was also a sad disappointment. I innocently hoped to have found the delicious composition associated with the land of cakes and immortal Burns, and could have burst into tears in recognising it as intensified gruel. Its nourishing powers, however, are not to be gainsaid; and to see malefactors shovelling it away, as I have, one would suppose they enjoyed it. The recitation of the substitutes for cooked beef I am compelled to characterise an official quibble. During the few months I spent at Coldbath I never heard—as I certainly should—of any beef being issued at all, the invariable substitute being Colonial meat served cold, except on one occasion, when salt fish was supplied. On the merits of this last item I cannot speak personally, for long before that I was on a daily diet of mutton and mutton broth, as I describe hereafter. For the preserved Colonial meat, however, I have nothing but praise. “Served,” as it was, under every disadvantage, I found it excellent; and as it can be purchased for seven-pence a pound, the marvel is that the poorer classes, who seldom or never taste butcher’s meat, do not patronise it more largely. I can only suppose its merits are unknown. The bedstead, or “plank-bed,” as it is termed, is the hardest couch I ever felt; with a mattress on it I could feel every grain in the wood, and shuddered to think of my companions, all of whom had to submit for a month to the board “pure and simple.” It is only raised three inches from the floor, and is two feet in breadth—a tight fit for twenty stone. I had now fairly settled down in my final destination for a month, and will describe the routine of the day:—