prisoners, retaining of his own accord in Newgate, and for years, felons who should have been sent beyond the seas. But, indeed, his whole rule was far too mild, and under this mistaken leniency the interior of the gaol was more like a bear-garden or the noisy purlieus of a public-house than a prison. It was the same old story--evil constantly in the ascendant, the least criminal at the mercy of the most depraved. Under the reckless contempt for regulations, the apathy of the authorities, and the undue ascendancy of those who, as convicted felons, should have been most sternly repressed, the most hardened and the oldest in vice had the best of it, while the inexperienced beginner went to the wall. Edward Gibbon Wakefield,[82] who spent three years in Newgate a little before the time of the inspectors' first report, said with justice that "incredible scenes of horror occur in Newgate." It was, moreover, in his opinion undoubtedly the greatest nursery of crime in London. The days were passed in idleness, debauchery, riotous quarrelling, immoral conversation, gambling, indirect contravention of parliamentary rules, instruction in all nefarious processes, lively discourse upon past criminal exploits, elaborate discussion of others to be perpetrated after release. No provision whatever was made for the employment of prisoners, no materials were purchased, no trade instructors appointed. There was no school for adults; only the boys were taught anything, and their instructor, with his assistant, were convicted prisoners. Idle hands and unoccupied brains found in mischief the only means of whiling away the long hours of incarceration. Gaming of all kinds, although forbidden by the Gaol Acts, was habitually practised. This was admitted in evidence by the turnkeys, and was proved by the appearance of the prison tables, which bore the marks of gaming-boards deeply cut into them. Prisoners confessed that it was a favourite occupation, the chief games being "shoving halfpence" on the table, pitch in the hole, cribbage, dominoes, and common tossing, at which as much as four or five shillings would change hands in an hour.