The monotonous recurrence of the roll-call and the visit of the doctors were daily incidents. Next would possibly come the daily ablutions, more or less extensive, probably performed, with the washing of the clothes, at the wooden troughs, represented in some of the plans, on either side of the wells, the ground around being paved with flagstones to obviate mud and dirt from the slopping. There was ample room in the airing-court for such amusements and sports as these poor cooped-up young fellows, many only boys (the separate prison for boys was a late addition to the Depot, it is only shown in MacGregor’s plan and in Foulley’s model) could devise, and in these courts was carried on much of the work in which so many of the prisoners were engaged, and which will be discussed later on. The domestic politics of the various prisons and the various blocks must have run high; the prisoners were of course under a despotism, but the choice of delegates for the market, for inspection of the food, etc., was in their own hands. The topic of conversation which must have most interested them must have been the prospect of their liberation, and the course of the war, as far as they could gather it, from the gossip of the turnkeys and from what little they could hear in the market. Each party of fresh arrivals would bring news. They would have accounts of the escape of prisoners from other prisons, and would have secret confidences and various schemes for their own escape; they would hear of the incessant plots for a general rising of all the prisoners in Britain, of the progress and failure of the negotiations for exchange, and they would discuss these matters with the intensity of men, over all of whom at all times hung the cloud of captivity, who all felt in a greater or less degree the longing for freedom. There was also the appointment by themselves of the delegates who were to attend with the stewards of the prison and inspect the bread, meat, and vegetables as they were delivered at the western gate, in order to make sure that the goods were of proper quality. One of the Prison Regulations speaks of “the turnkey or any other officer” as the head of the prison police. As from various returns we know that there was no part of the British staff of the Depot, except the turnkeys, who could be acting in the quadrangle as police, it is probable that there was some scheme imposing on individual prisoners the duties of assisting the turnkeys in enforcing the regulations. The brigade-major could apparently march a patrol where he thought it was needed. In case of any violence or resistance, the turnkey called in the assistance of the sentries or a squad from the barracks.