The next day I wrote to the Board of Magistrates to say that 'if visiting magistrates continued to question me before other prisoners, where the discipline of the gaol forbade adequate reply, I should refuse to answer.' In future I was always called out by myself and spoken with alone. Before my trial the same Mr. Jones told me that my friend, Mr. Richard Carlile, had died in London a very horrible death, recanting all his principles before he expired, and urged me to take warning by his example and do the same. Shortly after Mr. Jones was surprised to meet Mr. Carlile in the corridor of the gaol bringing me refreshments, which his experience assured him I needed. And it was not the least part of my pride on the day of my trial that he sat near me from morning till night, encouraging me by his presence, and assisting me by his wisdom. After my conviction he vindicated me assiduously through the press, addressed to me public letters, and wrote to Justice Erskine and Sir Robert Peel, threatening to renew his former war against the Church if my situation was not ameliorated--a very curious species of recantation it must be confessed, but a fair sample of the usual death-bed 'scenes' which the pulpits relate. My company as a prisoner was not of a very agreeable kind, I had to listen to recitals of depravity such as I never heard before, and do not wish to hear again. But this was not all. Sometimes a companion was filthy as well as wicked. One man sent in among us had the itch, and before I found it out he had held me by the wrists in some accidental wrestle--which misfortune might have subjected me to a taste of prison discipline which few will be able to imagine. When the surgeon finds that a prisoner has this disease he makes no remark, but shortly after, the man is called out by the turnkey, whom he has to follow through various corridors to remote cells at the top of the gaol, near the gallows. Upon entering one, he is told to take off his clothes. As soon as he is in a state of nudity, his clothes are taken away, and locked up. He is then shown a cask filled with brimstone, grease, and other mixture, of the consistence of pitch, and quite as offensive to the sight. With this he is made to smear his entire person over; when this is done, he is left locked up in the place. All he finds about him is a bed on which are two blankets, in which hundreds, smeared as he is, have lain before. When no longer able to endure the cold, he may lie in this place. Thick and chilly, these disgusting coverings adjust themselves to the body when softened by the warmth, where, without caution, the liquid will run into the eyes and the mouth. Here he remains some days and eats the uncut food which is brought to him as well as he can with his filthy fingers.