Too much at present is left to the turnkeys. They are, indeed, the channel of communication and the only official with whom the ordinary prisoner comes in contact. The chief warder deputes details to the principal warders of divisions, who in their turn confide them to the warders of wards, who again leave the carrying out to the turnkeys of flights. It is not fair that so much should be left to these assistants—which, despite any assertion to the contrary, is the case—and who, though counting in their ranks many highly respectable men, have also some desperate rascals—vindictive, deceitful, and utterly unfit for any discretionary powers, and who would stick at no degree of brutality if capable of being indulged in with impunity. The use of the same baths by prisoners and men previous to medical examination cannot be too strongly deprecated. That a clean man should be compelled to risk contagion with one suffering from itch or covered with vermin is as filthy as it is disgraceful. With all the space at their disposal the wonder is a swimming bath has never commended itself. Every warder in charge of a ward has a prisoner allotted to him, who performs such necessary duties as cleaning his office and assisting him in his multifarious returns. These men are generally selected from the clerk or tradesman class, and have great facilities for knowing everything that passes through the office. I have found, indeed, that they know and hear a great deal too much. Thus a descriptive return containing every particular about one from one’s youth up, and supposed to be a confidential document, is carefully studied by these cleaners, and facts likely to be of general interest—especially about “celebrities”—go the round of the prison. These documents should either _not_ be in the warders’ charge, or if so, should be carefully locked up. In my opinion they would be more appropriately assigned to the care of the principal warders of divisions. These cleaners, if dishonestly or greedily inclined, appropriate considerably more than their share of the daily rations. In one ward I seldom, or ever, got my supply of Monday bacon, which had either been filched or bitten in half; and as the original supply does not exceed the proportions of a postage stamp, it can ill afford this wholesale reduction.