Those prisoners who knew any trade which could be carried on in the King's Bench were fortunate. The cobbler, the tailor, the barber, the fiddler, the carpenter, could get employment and were able to maintain themselves: some of them kept shops, and the principal building in the place, about 360 feet long, had its ground floor, looking out upon an open court, occupied by shops where everything could be bought except spirits, which were forbidden. They were brought in, however, secretly by the visitors. The open court was the common Recreation Ground: there was the Parade, a Walk along the front of the building: three pumps where were benches: these were three separate centres of conversation: there were racket and fives courts: a ground for the play called 'bumble puppy.' And in fine weather there were tables set out here and there, with chairs and benches, where the collegians drank beer and smoked tobacco.
Anybody might enter the Prison to visit an inmate or to look round: every day the place was thronged with visitors, chiefly to see the new comers: the time came when the newcomer was an old resident, who had worn out the kindness of his friends or had outlived them, and now lingered on, poor and friendless, in this living grave. All day long the children played in the court, shouting and running: they saw things that they ought not to have seen: they heard things which they ought not to have heard: they learned habits which they ought not to have learned. Can one conceive a worse school for a boy than the King's Bench Prison? Look at the Court on a fine and sunny afternoon. The whole College is out and in the open: some stroll up and down: in the Prison nobody ever walks: they all stroll: even, it may be said without unkindness, they slouch. The men wear coats which are mostly in holes at the elbows, with other garments that equally show signs of decay: they wear slippers because it is absurd to wear boots in a prison: the slippers are down at heel--never mind: no one cares here whether one is shabby or not: it is better to go ragged than to go hungry. If the men are ragged the women are slatternly: they have lost even the feminine desire to please: they please nobody, and certainly not their husbands: they are shrewish as to tongue and vicious as to temper. Look at their faces: there is this face and that face, but there is not a single happy face among them all. The average face is resentful, painted with strong drink, stamped with the seal of vice and self-indulgence. A vile place, which has imprinted its own vileness on the face of everyone who lives within its walls.