The prisoners were to have separate cells, so as to prevent the promiscuous herding of all, which had previously produced such mischievous results, and these cells were to be light and airy. The convicts of both sexes were to _work_, and their food was to be apportioned to the work they had to do. Also--a very great step in the right direction--they were all to wear a prison uniform. Howard, philanthropist as he was, was very far from lenient to the rogue. He was fully aware of the value of _work_, and specially provided that his rogues, in their reformation, should pass through the purifying process of hard labour. In later times, the way of transgressors was hard in that place, and it became a terror to evildoers, being known by the name of the _English Bastile_--which, however, amongst its patrons, was diminished, until it finally was abbreviated into "the Steel" by which name it was known until its abolition.[42] This cognomen was so well known, that, in 1799, a book was written by "A Middlesex Magistrate" entitled "The Secrets of the English Bastile disclosed"--which was a favourable story of the management of the prison in Cold Bath Fields. Still, it was the subject of a Parliamentary inquiry, as we find in the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1798-9, under date of Dec. 31, 1798, p. 398, that, in the House of Commons, Sir Francis Burdett gave notice of his intention of moving, at some future day, for a report relative to the system practised in the prison, called the House of Correction, Cold Bath Fields, with regard to the persons therein confined. In the "Parliamentary History of England," vol. xxxiv. p. 566, we learn that on Mar. 6, 1799, Mr. W. Dundas moved that a Select Committee be appointed to inquire into the state of his Majesty's prison in Cold Bath Fields, Clerkenwell, and report the same, as it shall appear to them, together with their opinion thereupon, to the House; and a Committee was appointed accordingly. Unfortunately, the pages of what, afterwards, become _Hansard's_, do not record the result.