Sometimes the authorities hired private dwellings to serve as prisons, or laid hands on whatever they could find. At Granada a slice of the Court House was used, a dark triangle to which air came only from the interior yard. The prison of Allariz at Orense was on the ground floor of a house in the street, having two windows looking directly on to it, guarded by a grating with bars so far apart that a reasonably thin man could slip through. One of the worst features of many of these ancient prisons was their location in the very heart of the towns with communication to the street. Friends gathered at the _rejas_ outside, and the well known picture of flirtation at the prison window was drawn from life. A common sight also was the outstretched hand of the starving prisoner imploring alms from the charitable, for there was no regular or sufficient supply of provisions within. Free access was also possible when the domestic needs of the interior took the prisoners to the public well in the street. The Carmona gaol in Seville was for years half in ruins; no sunlight reached any part of it with the exception of two of the yards; the dungeons had no ventilation except by a hole in their doors; an open sewer ran through the gaol, the floors were always wet, fleas abounded, as also rats, beetles and cockroaches; cooking was done in one corner of the exercising yard and clothes were washed in the other. The removal of the gaol was ordered and plans for a new building prepared in 1864, but they were pigeon-holed until 1883, then sent back to be revised, and the project is still delayed. The Colmenar prison of Malaga was always under water in heavy rain, and although simple repairs would have rectified this, nothing was done. The prison of Leon was condemned in 1878 as unfit for human habitation, and its alcalde (governor) stated that it had been reported for a century or more that it wanted light, air and sanitary arrangements; typhoid was endemic and three alcaldes had died of zymotic disease in a few years. It was generally denounced as "a poisonous pesthouse, a judicial burial ground." The Totana prison of Murcia was not properly a prison, but only a range of warehouses and shops fit for the storage of grain and herbs, but wholly unsuitable to lodge human beings. The district governor speaking of the Infiesto prison at Oviedo in 1853 wrote: "Humanity shudders at the horrible aspect of this detestable place."