IV. The Common Felons’ Side, which was adjacent to that for the common debtors, was evidently a foul disgrace to the prison and to those charged with the administration of the law. B. L. describes it as “a most terrible, wicked, and dreadful place.” In this side were five wards. The first, known as the Stone Hold (14), was an underground dungeon lying beneath the “middle ward,” which I fix somewhere near the Tangier Ward of the debtors’ common side. “The Stone Hold,” says the authority already quoted, “was a terrible, stinking, dark, and dismal place, situate underground, into which no daylight can come. It was paved with stone; the prisoners had no beds, and lay on the pavement, whereby they endured great misery and hardship. The unhappy persons imprisoned therein are such as at their unfortunate entrance cannot pay the customary fees of the gaol.” Alongside the Stone Hold was the “Lower Ward” (15), another large dungeon, in which were confined felons for non-payment of fines. The Middle Ward (16), on the floor above, was for those who had paid their bare fees, no more. Here also they had no beds, but the floor on which they lay was of oak, not stone. There were two wards for common female felons. The first, on this second floor, was called “Waterman’s Hall” (17), a very dark and stinking place; the floor is of oaken planks, which is all the bed allotted to its miserable inhabitants. Water was, however, well supplied to this ward. Close by it were other rooms applied to ghastly uses. One was the “press-room,” still used in the writer’s time for the execution of the frightful sentence of pressing to death culprits arraigned who refused to plead; another the Bilbows,[65] adjacent to the press room, also very dark, “and used as a refractory cell for such as occasioned quarrel or disturbance.” Near this again was the women’s condemned hold, “a small, dark, dismal dungeon, wherein is a barrack for the prisoners to lie on, but no fire-place, and it is therefore cold at all times. A second ward (18) for common side females existed on the third, or floor above all, “the highest part of the whole gaol in the north part thereof, and is of large extent, in which is one window only, and that very small.” Barracks were fixed on the walls on each side, but without any kind of bed whatsoever. “The persons imprisoned therein were generally those that lie for transportation, and they, knowing their time to be short here, rather than bestow one minute towards cleaning the same, suffer themselves to live far worse than swine, and, to speak the truth, the Augean Stable would bear no comparison to it, for they are almost poisoned by their own filth, and their conversation is nothing but one [Illustration: NEWGATE (1700). GROUND FLOOR. NEWGATE STREET GATE HOLBORN A. Press Yard. (Exercising Ground.) B. Part of Press Yard. C. Partner’s Room. D. Lodge. E. Part of Keeper’s House. (Under which was the Condemned Hold.)