The prisons were formerly distinguished for their filth, and their bad ventilation; but the descriptions given by Howard of the worst prisons he visited in England (which he states were amongst the worst he had seen in Europe) were exceeded in every wynd in Edinburgh and Glasgow, inspected by Dr. Arnott and myself, in company with the municipal officers of those cities. More filth, worse physical suffering and moral disorder than Howard describes as affecting the prisoners, are to be found amongst the cellar population of the working people of Liverpool, Manchester, or Leeds, and in large portions of the metropolis. As a standard of the progress made in ameliorating the condition of prisoners, I refer to his general statement of the condition in which he found the prisons when he inspected them in England. “_Water._—Many prisons have _no water_. This defect is frequent in bridewells and town gaols. In the felons’ courts of some county gaols there is no water: in some places where there is water, prisoners are always locked up within doors, and have no more than the keeper or his servants think fit to bring them. “_Air._—And as to air, which is no less necessary than the two preceding articles, and given us by Providence quite gratis, without any care or labour of our own; yet, as if the bounteous goodness of heaven excited our envy, methods are contrived to rob prisoners of this genuine cordial of life, as Dr. Hales very properly calls it; I mean by preventing that circulation and change of the fluid without which animals cannot live and thrive. It is well known that air which has performed its office in the lungs is feculent and noxious. Writers upon this subject show that a hogshead of air will last a man only an hour: but those who do not choose to consult philosophers may judge from a notorious fact. In 1756, at Calcutta, in Bengal, out of 170 persons who were confined in a hole there one night, 154 were taken out dead. The few survivors ascribed the mortality to their want of fresh air; and called the place, Hell in Miniature. “From hence any one may judge of the probability there is against health and life of prisoners crowded in their rooms, cells, and subterraneous dungeons, for 14 or 15 hours out of the 24. In some of those caverns the floor is very damp; in some there is sometimes an inch or two of water; and the straw or bedding is laid on such floors, seldom on barrack bedsteads. Where prisoners are not kept in underground cells, they are often confined in their rooms, because there is no court belonging to the prisons; which is the case in many city and town gaols; because the walls round the yard are ruinous, or are too low[32] for safety; or because the gaoler has the ground for his own use. Prisoners confined in this manner are generally unhealthy.