A more intimate acquaintance with the inner life of the Spanish gaols has been accorded by a modern writer, Don Rafael Salillas. He summarises all its evils in the single word "money." All disorders and shortcomings, the corruption, the absence of discipline, the cruelties perpetrated, the prevailing license, the shameful immorality constantly winked at or openly permitted, have had one and the same origin, the use and misuse of the private funds the prisoners have at their disposal. Until quite a recent date, everything, even temporary liberty, had its price in Spanish prisons. This vicious system dated from the times when the "alcaide" or head of an establishment, the primary purpose of which was the safe custody of offenders, bought his place and was permitted to recoup himself as best he could out of his charges. The same abominable practice was at one time almost a world-wide practice, but nowhere has it flourished so largely as in Spain. No attempt was made to check it; it was acknowledged and practically deemed lawful. In an ancient work on the prison of Seville, dating from the sixteenth century, the writer, Christobal de Chaves, classifies the interior under three heads; the spaces entered respectively by three doors of gold, silver or copper, each metal corresponding to the profits drawn from each. Imprisonment might be made more tolerable by payment regulated according to a fixed tariff. For a certain sum any prisoner might go home to sleep, he might purchase food where little, if any, was provided, he might escape fetters or purchase "easement of irons," as in the old English prisons. To enhance the value of the relief afforded worse hardships were inflicted at the outset. Restraint was made most irksome in the beginning of imprisonment. The fetters were then the heaviest and most varied, the deepest and vilest dungeons were the first quarters allotted. A plain hint of relaxation and alleviation was given, to be obtained at a price and the converse made equally certain. Increased pain and discomfort were the penalty for those who would not, or, worse still, who could not produce the extortionate sums demanded. Tasks imposed were rendered more difficult; it was a common practice to oil or grease the rope by which water was raised from a well, so that it should slip through the fingers and intensify the labour.