er wards were allowed to converse
with their friends, or if they wished to enter the room, or join the
revellers below, they were at liberty to do so, on payment of a small
fine. Thus, the same system of plunder was everywhere carried on. The
jailers robbed the prisoners: the prisoners robbed one another.

Two large wards were situated in the Gate; one of which, the Stone Ward,
appropriated to the master debtors, looked towards Holborn; the other
called the Stone Hall, from a huge stone standing in the middle of it,
upon which the irons of criminals under sentence of death were knocked
off previously to their being taken to the place of execution, faced
Newgate Street. Here the prisoners took exercise; and a quaint, but
striking picture has been left of their appearance when so engaged, by
the author of the English Rogue. "At my first being acquainted with the
place," says this writer, in the 'Miseries of a Prison,' "the prisoners,
methought, walking up and down the Stone Hall, looked like so many
wrecks upon the sea. Here the ribs of a thousand pounds beating against
the Needles--those dangerous rocks, credulity here floated, to and fro,
silks, stuffs, camlets, and velvet, without giving place to each other,
according to their dignity; here rolled so many pipes of canary, whose
bungholes lying open, were so damaged that the merchant may go hoop for
his money," A less picturesque, but more truthful, and, therefore, more
melancholy description of the same scene, is furnished by the shrewd and
satirical Ned Ward, who informs us, in the "Delectable History of
Whittington's College," that "When the prisoners are disposed to
recreate themselves with walking, they go up into a spacious room,
called the Stone Hall; where, when you see them taking a turn together,
it would puzzle one to know which is the gentleman, which the mechanic,
and which the beggar, for they are all suited in the same garb of
squalid poverty, making a spectacle of more pity than executions; only
to be out at the elbows is in fashion here, and a great indecorum not to
be threadbare."

In an angle of the Stone Hall was the Iron Hold, a chamber containing a
vast assortment of fetters and handcuffs of all weights and sizes. Four
prisoners, termed "The Partners," had charge of this hold. Their duty
was to see who came in, or went out; to lock up, and open the different
wards; to fetter such prisoners as were ordered to be placed in irons;
to distribute the a