ght happen to be within the walls. So, passing hastily
down the yard, and pausing only for an instant to notice the little
incidents we have just recorded, we were conducted up a clean and
well-lighted flight of stone stairs to one of the wards. There are
several in this part of the building, but a description of one is a
description of the whole.

It was a spacious, bare, whitewashed apartment, lighted, of course, by
windows looking into the interior of the prison, but far more light and
airy than one could reasonably expect to find in such a situation. There
was a large fire with a deal table before it, round which ten or a dozen
women were seated on wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides of the
room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, a row of large hooks
were fixed in the wall, on each of which was hung the sleeping mat of a
prisoner: her rug and blanket being folded up, and placed on the shelf
above. At night, these mats are placed on the floor, each beneath the
hook on which it hangs during the day; and the ward is thus made to
answer the purposes both of a day-room and sleeping apartment. Over the
fireplace, was a large sheet of pasteboard, on which were displayed a
variety of texts from Scripture, which were also scattered about the room
in scraps about the size and shape of the copy-slips which are used in
schools. On the table was a sufficient provision of a kind of stewed
beef and brown bread, in pewter dishes, which are kept perfectly bright,
and displayed on shelves in great order and regularity when they are not
in use.

The women rose hastily, on our entrance, and retired in a hurried manner
to either side of the fireplace. They were all cleanly--many of them
decently--attired, and there was nothing peculiar, either in their
appearance or demeanour. One or two resumed the needlework which they
had probably laid aside at the commencement of their meal; others gazed
at the visitors with listless curiosity; and a few retired behind their
companions to the very end of the room, as if desirous to avoid even the
casual observation of the strangers. Some old Irish women, both in this
and other wards, to whom the thing was no novelty, appeared perfectly
indifferent to our presence, and remained standing close to the seats
from which they had just risen; but the general feeling among the females
seemed to be one of uneasiness during the period of our stay among them:
which was very brief. No