As it is not mentioned in the official records, let us hope that one horrible story, told by a French prisoner, is untrue. He says that when the bakehouse was burned down on October 8th, 1812, and the prisoners refused to accept the bread sent in by the contractor, the whole prison went without food for twenty-four hours. The starving Romans fell upon the offal heaps as usual, and when the two-horse waggon came in to remove the filth, they resented the removal of their larder. In the course of the dispute, partly to revenge themselves upon the driver, partly to appease their famishing blood thirst, these wretches fell upon the horses with knives, stabbed them to death, and fastened their teeth in the bleeding carcases. This horror was too much for the stomachs of the other prisoners, who helped to drive them off. Occasionally the administration made an attempt to clothe them. In April 1813, fourteen who were entitled to a fresh issue were caught, scrubbed from head to foot in the bath-house, deprived of their filthy rags, and properly clothed, but on the very next day they had sold every garment, and were again seen in the yards with nothing to cover their nakedness but the threadbare blanket common to the tenants of the “Capitole.” In 1812 they were banished to No. 4 prison, and in order to keep them from annoying their fellow prisoners the walls were built which separated No. 4 and its yard from the rest of the prison, for it was hoped that where all were destitute, those who would sell their clothing, bedding and provisions would be unable to find a purchaser. But though new hammocks and clothing were given to them by charitable French prisoners as well as by the Government, they disposed of them all through the bars of the gate and went naked as before. Unquestionably, the greatest evil which Captain Cotgrave was called upon to face was the sale of rations. Serious crime could safely be left to the prisoners themselves to punish, but this inhuman traffic was the business of nobody but the persons who indulged in it. Each prisoner was served with rations every day, but if he chose to sell them instead of eating them, it was very difficult to interfere. Certain prisoners set up shops where they bought the rations of the improvident and sold them again at a profit. Gambling, of course, was at the bottom of the evil. To get a penny or two to stake at the tables, men who had sold all their clothes would hypothecate their rations for several days, and, having lost, and knowing that to beg would be useless, they would sit down to starve, until, in the last stage of weakness, they were carried to the infirmary to die. Sometimes these miserable creatures would forestall the end by hanging themselves to a hammock stanchion, rather than be forced out of their beds by the guards.