From ruins and death I proceeded to the living dead, who pine at the foot of the hill--the poor prisoners in the county jail. Externally their dwelling appears a palace. The interior has a very different aspect; and my heart ached for the poor devils who were to sit the whole winter through till March, in cells, which are clean, it is true, but chill and damp, only _on suspicion_; with the pleasant prospect, perhaps, of being hanged at the end. If they are acquitted, they have no indemnification to expect. In the court in which the debtors were allowed to walk, were two horses, a she-goat, and an ass. In all the rooms and cells I visited, I observed the greatest cleanliness and order. But the strangest peculiarity of this prison, was a sort of thieves' wardrobe, arranged with real elegance, like the wardrobe of a theatre. A jailor, whose head was considerably overloaded with drink, stammered out the following explanation: "Here you see the wigs of the famous Granby, which disguised him so, that for ten years he could never be caught. He was hanged here in 1786.--Here is the stake with which George Nayler was knocked down two years ago on the road to Doncaster. He was hanged here last spring.--Here is Stephen's 'knock-down,' with which he killed six people at once. He was hanged here likewise two years ago.--Here are the enormous iron leg-bolts, the only things that would hold Fitzpatrick. He escaped seven times out of the strongest prisons: but these leg-bolts, which I fastened on him myself, were a little too heavy for him. (They were complete beams of iron, which a horse could hardly have dragged along.) He did not wear them long, for two months afterwards, on the first of May,--a beautiful morning 'twas,--he was sent to another world.--Here are the machines with which Cook coined false money. He was quite the gentleman--hanged in 1810." "Pray," interrupted I, "what sort of a weapon is this immense wooden mallet?" "Oh!" grinned the old fellow, "that's innocent enough; that's only what I break sugar with when I make negus, He, he, he!--only I put it here ready." The wardrobe was immediately adjoining his room, and seemed an amateur collection, which owed its rise entirely to his own taste and zeal. How various are the hobby-horses of men! I am afraid you are already tired of this long walk, dear Julia; but you must follow me a little further; nay, you may even consent to climb from the depth to the highest height. I wished to see the whole panorama of my walk at a glance, and selected for that purpose a Gothic tower of the finest proportions. It is of the most beautiful, elaborate architecture from top to bottom; and behind the transparent tracery I had espied from a distance, with the aid of my opera-glass, ladders which extremely tempted me to mount.