the good fortune to get
a hearing before the city judge, may consider himself under special
obligation to the county sheriff for the favor.

We noticed these cells were much cleaner than those below, yet there
was a fetid smell escaping from them. This we found arose from the tubs
being allowed to stand in the rooms, where the criminals were closely
confined, for twenty-four hours, which, with the action of the damp,
heated atmosphere of that climate, was of itself enough to breed
contagion. We spoke of the want of ventilation and the noxious fumes
that seemed almost pestilential, but they seemed to have become
habituated to it, and told us that the rooms on the south side were
lighter and more comfortable. Many of them spoke cheerfully, and
endeavored to restrain their feelings, but the furrows upon their
haggard countenances needed no tongue to utter its tale.

Hunger was the great grievance of which they complained; and if
their stories were true--and we afterward had strong proofs that they
were--there was a wanton disregard of common humanity, and an abuse of
power the most reprehensible. The allowance per day was a loaf of bad
bread, weighing about nine ounces, and a pint of thin, repulsive soup,
so nauseous that only the most necessitated appetite could be forced
to receive it, merely to sustain animal life. This was served in a
dirty-looking tin pan, without even a spoon to serve it. One man told us
that he had subsisted on bread and water for nearly five weeks-that
he had lain down to sleep in the afternoon and dreamed that he was
devouring some wholesome nourishment to stay the cravings of his
appetite, and awoke to grieve that it was but a dream. In this manner
his appetite was doubly aggravated, yet he could get nothing to appease
its wants until the next morning. To add to this cruelty, we found two
men in close confinement, the most emaciated and abject specimens of
humanity we have ever beheld. We asked ourselves, "Lord God! was it
to be that humanity should descend so low?" The first was a forlorn,
dejected-looking creature, with a downcast countenance, containing
little of the human to mark his features. His face was covered with
hair, and so completely matted with dirt and made fiendish by the tufts
of coarse hair that hung over his forehead, that a thrill of horror
invaded our feelings. He had no shoes on his feet; and a pair of ragged
pantaloons, and the shreds of a striped shirt without sleeves, se