SO much has been written about this national Bastille, and so many have gone over the building, that one feels as if writing about “a tale that is told.” Nevertheless, I trust my narrative may describe things never before alluded to, and be found to contain matters of interest that came under my personal observation. The first thing at Newgate that a fresh arrival has to submit to is the indispensable bath, accompanied by a very minute and simultaneous search. I was at once ushered downstairs and into a very roomy and luxurious bath room, quite as good as any supplied for eighteenpence at West End establishments, and being invited to undress and get into the bath, had the gratification of observing my clothes undergo, one by one, a very thorough overhauling. Each item was severally manipulated, and I am convinced not a pin could have escaped detection. Meanwhile I was splashing and thoroughly enjoying myself, much as one has seen a duck that has been cooped up for a week when suddenly turned into a pond. I had not had such a revel for ten days, and in the ecstasy of the moment I felt as if it was almost worth the journey to Newgate for such a luxury. This periodical bath is one of the greatest “inflictions” the average prisoner has to submit to, and numerous instances came under my observation at a later period, of ingenuity displayed by frowzy malefactors to evade this regulation. Twenty minutes found me again “clothed and in my right mind,” and I was ushered into a cell on the same subterraneous floor. This cell was certainly the most empty I had ever seen; its entire furniture literally consisted of a camp stool and a thermometer, and this latter instrument caused me considerable annoyance, for I am not exaggerating when I assert that an absurd make-believe display of anxiety for one’s welfare involved a visit and calculation of the temperature every half-hour through the night. I utterly failed to fathom this custom, the more so as the turnkey who made the calculation probably understood as much about it as he did of astronomy, and can only attribute it to the inherent politeness developed in the officials who periodically have lodgers whom they begin by feeding up, and eventually end by launching into eternity with a hand shake, if we are to believe the papers. This idea is not my own, but was suggested to me by a terrible scamp and fellow lodger whom I shall presently introduce to the reader. An absurd habit that prevailed at Newgate, and which contrasted strangely with the other customs, was that of the chief warder as he finally counted us at night. This official, having glared at you with an expression such as the rattlesnake may be presumed to give the guinea-pig just before dinner, invariably said “Good night!” I was so struck by this unique and time-honoured custom that I asked my friend and valet—for he cleaned out my cell and did other jobs for me—Mr. Mike Rose what it meant. “Well,” he said, “they gets into a sort of perlite way like, ’cos whenever a cove swings they nigh allus shakes hands with ’im, and maybe this is ’ow they gits perlite like.” There was something so original in this logic that I could not but be impressed by it, and though I failed to discover the connection between the two circumstances, still I had realized that Mr. Mike Rose was a bit of a character and worth cultivation. Very shortly after my incarceration in the thermometer-furnished cell I was visited by the surgeon, and having obtained his permission to have a bed instead of a hammock, a wooden tressel was brought in with sheets, bolster, and blankets. I at once proceeded to make my couch, deeming bed the best place on such a cold and cheerless afternoon; and 6 o’clock P.M. found me in bed, vainly endeavouring to get warm, with my eye fixed on the thermometer, and muffled up to the chin with sheets and blankets, all of which were stamped in letters three inches long with the ominous words “NEWGATE PRISON.” I really believed that my first night’s experience at the “House of Detention” was sufficiently awful, but it was nothing to my sensations here. The associations of the place, the idea that many a murderer had probably occupied this very cell, and possibly slept in these identical bed-coverings, all forced themselves upon me.