Of course they were seized with the fever; so that the culprit, in addition to his sentence, had to endure by "the regulations of the city a disease very dangerous in its nature," and ran the risk of a lingering and painful death.[64] At Guildford prison, which Mr. Buxton also visited in 1818, there was no infirmary, no chapel, no work, no classification. The irons, which nearly every one wore, were remarkably heavy; those double ironed could not take off their small clothes.[65] No prison dress was allowed, and half the inmates were without shirts or shoes or stockings. The diet was limited to dry bread, which was of the best certainly, and a pound and a half in weight. Matters were on much the same footing at St. Albans. They were far worse at Bristol, although at Mr. Buxton's visit a new gaol was in process of erection, the first step towards reform since Howard's visitation in 1774. In 1818 the old gaol was so densely packed that it was nearly impossible to pass through the yards for the throng. One hundred and fifty were lodged in a prison just capable of holding fifty-two. In the crowd, all of them persons who had "no other avocation or mode of livelihood but thieving," Mr. Buxton counted eleven children--children hardly old enough to be released from the nursery. All charged with felony were in heavy irons, without distinction of age. All were in ill health; almost all were in rags; almost all were filthy in the extreme. The state of the prison, the desperation of the prisoners, broadly hinted in their conversation and plainly expressed in their conduct, the uproar of oaths, complaints, and obscenity, "the indescribable stench," presented together a concentration of the utmost misery and the utmost guilt. It was "a scene of infernal passions and distresses," says Buxton, "which few have imagination sufficient to picture, and of which fewer still would believe that the original is to be found in this enlightened and happy country."