intricate windings, guarded in their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose appearance is sufficient to dispel at once the slightest hope of escape that any newcomer may have entertained; and the very recollection of which, on eventually traversing the place again, involves one in a maze of confusion." The old Newgate which the Gordon rioters sacked was a horrible place. The cells were mere black caves, which riddled the tremendous masonry like a stone honeycomb. In these at one time, while a contagious fever was raging, 800 prisoners were confined. The captives were packed in these dens like slaves in the hold of their prison-ship. Mrs. Frye describes the women as "swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, dancing, drinking, and dressing up in men's clothes," and as late as 1838 gambling with cards, dice and draughts was common among the male prisoners. Jail distempers now and then purged this sink of vileness of a portion of its inmates, till at last, in 1858, the reconstruction of its cellular system was completed. Even with that, however, Newgate is anything but a perfect jail. In the earlier Dickens era it preserved many of its ancient characteristics. In "Great Expectations," when Wemmick takes Pip to visit it, we read: "At that time gaols were much neglected, and the period of exaggerated reaction consequent on all public wrong-doing--and which is always its longest and heaviest punishment--was still far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), and seldom set fire to their prisons with the excusable object of improving the flavor of their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick took me in; and a potman was going his rounds with beer; and the prisoners behind the bars in the yards were buying beer, and talking to friends; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was." The earlier description, "A Visit to Newgate," in the Boz "Sketches," thus depicts the women's side of the jail: