In Bedford jail the dungeons for felons were eleven feet below the ground, always wet and slimy, and upon these floors the inmates had to sleep. At Nottingham the jail stood on the side of a hill, while the dungeons were cut in the solid rock; these dungeons could only be entered after descending more than thirty steps. At Gloucester there was 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, without being called upon to defray any fees claimed by the jailer or sheriff; while the second bill authorized justices of the peace to see to the maintenance of cleanliness in the prisons. The first set at liberty hundreds of innocent persons who were still bound because they could not meet the ruinous fees demanded from them; while the second undoubtedly saved the lives of hundreds more. These were instalments of reform.