“We passed through the Lodge, where some fetters were hanging up, on the bare walls among the prison rules, into the interior of the jail. At that time jails 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 flavour 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 bars in yards were buying beer and talking to friends; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly, depressing scene it was.” Again, it may be remarked that things have much improved since the good old days. _Inter alia_, the principles and rules of prison management and discipline have greatly changed for the better. In the tale of “Barnaby Rudge” is the narrative of the burning of Newgate and the liberation of the prisoners by the rioters (1780), on which occasion it will be remembered that our old friend Gabriel Varden was somewhat roughly handled. For full particulars, see chapter 64. Immediately south of Newgate is the adjacent Central Criminal Court of The Old Bailey, the scene of Charles Darnay’s trial in “The Tale of Two Cities.” At the time there described (1775)— “The Old Bailey was famous as a kind of deadly Inn yard, from which pale travellers set out continually, in carts and coaches, on a violent passage to the other world, traversing some two miles and a half of public street and road, and shaming few good citizens, if any. So powerful is use, and so desirable to be good use in the beginning. It was famous, too, for the pillory, a wise old institution, that inflicted a punishment of which no one could foresee the extent; also for the whipping-post, another dear old institution, very humanising and softening to behold in action; also for extensive transactions in blood-money, another fragment of ancestral wisdom.” Facing eastward from Newgate Street is the _Holborn Viaduct_, which has for many years superseded the old ascending and descending road of Holborn Hill. The Saracen’s Head, the old coaching-house on Snow Hill, with which we have been familiar from the days of “Nicholas Nickleby,” as the headquarters of Mr. Squeers, has disappeared since 1868, having been pulled down long ago, with many other buildings of this neighbourhood, giving room to the great improvements which have taken place in this part of London. Hereabouts it stood, on a lower level, not far from St. Sepulchre’s Church— “Just on that particular part of Snow Hill where omnibus horses going eastward seriously think of falling down on purpose, and horses in hackney cabriolets going westward not unfrequently fall by accident.”