The inner life of the Penitentiary went on much as usual in the early days of the epidemic. There are at first only the ordinary entries in the governor’s Journal. Prisoners came and went; this one was pardoned, that received from Newgate or some county gaol. Repeated reports of misconduct are recorded. The prisoners seemed fretful and mischievous. Now and then they actually complained of the want of food. One prisoner was taken to task for telling his father, in the visiting cell, that six prisoners out of every seven would die for want of rations. But at length the blow fell. On the 14th February, 1823, Ann Smith died in the infirmary at half-past nine. On the 17th, Mary Ann Davidson; on the 19th, Mary Esp; on the 23rd, William Cardwell; on the 24th, Humphrey Adams; on the 28th, Margaret Patterson. And now, by order of the visitor, the prisoners were allowed more walking exercise. Then follow the first steps taken by Drs. Roget and Latham. The governor records, on the 3rd March, that the doctors recommend each prisoner should have daily four ounces of meat and three oranges; that their bread should be divided into three parts, an orange taken at each meal. Accordingly the steward was sent to Thames Street to lay in a week’s consumption of oranges. An entry soon afterwards gives the first distinct reference to the epidemic. “The medical gentlemen having begged for the bodies of such prisoners as might die of the disorder now prevalent in the prison, in order to make post-mortem examinations, the same was sanctioned if the friends of the prisoner did not wish to interfere.” Deaths were now very frequent, and hardly a week passed without a visit from the coroner or his deputy. On the 25th of March the governor, Mr. Couch, who had been ailing for some time past, resigned his charge into the hands of Captain Benjamin Chapman. Soon afterwards there were further additions to the dietary—on the 26th of April two more ounces of meat and twelve ounces of boiled potatoes; and the day after, it was ordered that each prisoner should drink toast-and-water,—three half-pints daily. Lime, in large tubs, was to be provided in all the pentagons for the purpose of disinfection.