We lay so long in this dreadful place before a Gaol Delivery was made, that my wound, bad as it was, had ample time to heal, leaving only a great indented cicatrix, as though some Giant had forced his finger into my flesh, and of which I shall never be rid. Two more of our gang died of the Gaol Fever before Assize time; one was so fortunate as to break prison, file the irons off his legs, and get clear away; and another (who was always of a Melancholy turn) hanged himself one morning, in a halter made from strips of his blanket knotted together. The rest of us were knocked about by the Turnkeys, or abused by the Gaoleress, Mrs. Macphilader, pretty much as they liked. We were, however, not so badly off as some of the poor prisoners--sheep-stealers, footpads, vagrom men and women, and the like, or even as some of the poor Debtors--many of whom lay here incarcerate years after they had discharged the Demands of their Creditors against them, and only because they could not pay their Fees. We Blacks were always well supplied with money; and money could purchase almost any thing in a prison in those days. Roast meats, and wine and beer and punch, pipes and tobacco, and playing cards and song-books,--all these were to be had by Gentlemen Prisoners; the Gaoleress taking a heavy toll, and making a mighty profit from all these luxurious things. But there was one thing that money could not buy, namely, cleanly lodging; for the State Room, a hole of a place, very meanly furnished, where your great Smugglers or ruffling Highwaymen were sometimes lodged, at a guinea a day for their accommodation, was only so much better from the common room in so far as the prisoner had bed and board to himself; but for nastiness and creeping things--which I wonder, so numerous were they, did not crawl away with the whole prison bodily: but 'tis hard to find those that are unanimous, even vermin.--For all that made the Gaol most thoroughly hateful and dreadful, there was not a pin to choose between the State Room, the Common Side, and the Rat's Larder, Clink, or Dark Dungeon, where the Poor were confined in wantonness, and the Stubborn were kept sometimes for punishment; for Madam Gaoleress had a will of her own, and would brook no incivilities from her Lodgers; so sure is it, that falling out one day on the disputed Question of a bottle of Aquavitæ on which toll had not been paid, she calls one of the Turnkeys and bids him clap Mother Drum into the Stocks (that stood in the Prison Yard) for an hour or two, for the cooling of her temper. But this had just the contrary effect; for the whilom Hostess of the Stag o' Tyne, enraged at the Indignity offered to her, did so bemaul and bewray Madam Macphilader with her tongue, shaking her fist at her meanwhile, that the Gaoleress in a fury clawed at least two handfuls of M. Drum's hair from her head, not without getting some smart clapperclawing in the face; whereupon she cries out "Murther" and