If, however, the Eton authorities had contented themselves with merely breaking the statutes in the way of malversation of funds and the like, no particular outcry would in all probability have arisen. It was Long Chamber, and the state of affairs within its walls, which excited such indignation amongst those who, denouncing it as a sort of Bastille, clamoured for reform. Originally all the seventy scholars seem to have slept in the long dormitory above Lower School, but after 1716 the number became limited to about fifty-two. In that year the Lower Master, Thomas Carter, having given up his two rooms at the east end, eighteen Collegers were located in the rooms in question, being henceforth known as Carter’s Chamber and Lower Chamber. [SN: LONG CHAMBER] Long Chamber, about 172 feet long and 15 feet high, was in winter warmed, or rather not warmed, by two fire-places which were put in in 1784; before that there were no fires at all. Along each wall was a range of old oaken bedsteads which had been there for centuries, and between every bedstead a high desk, with a cupboard beneath, for each boy. The desk and cupboard, painted lead colour, contained all their belongings. There was no system of lighting except candles, to hold which no provision was made. The leaf of a book torn off, doubled, and a hole cut in the centre, formed the only candlestick which the Colleger had. If he wished to read in bed, the candle was removed from the pasteboard candlestick and stuck against the back of the old bedstead. Even if sleep overcame a boy reading in bed, and his candle burnt down to the wood, no harm came of it, the bedstead being well striped with charcoal, an evidence of the incombustible nature of the old oak. [After Long Chamber had been done away with, some little models of these ancient bedsteads were made out of wood black with age. The Rt. Hon. Lewis Harcourt’s Eton collection contains one.] All that happened was that it would not be long before he would be awakened by the unpleasant smell of the wood, or by a good tweak of the nose from his next-door neighbour, who would be angry at the annoyance. In winter the boys shivered with cold, most of the glass in the windows being usually broken.