PRISON DISCIPLINE. 119 



and so the prisoner would very often have it in his 

 power to open his door, and the opposite one of course 

 also, and two prisoners would be at large in the room, 

 performing any practical jokes they liked on those who 

 were in the still secured compartments. Such prisoners 

 as were to be tried at the Assizes, and those accused of 

 very heinous crimes, were in close cells, but all opened 

 into one room. The drop or gallows Avas fixed on an 

 iron balcony running along and fronting the street in 

 advance of the three large centre windows of the County 

 Hall. The first ward was called the Old Gaol, and 

 there those accused of heinous crimes, and those who 

 were to be tried at the Assizes, were confined. Here 

 convicts awaiting the convenience of the authorities for 

 removal for transportation, and murderers, and per- 

 petrators of other terrible crimes who had been 

 acquitted on the ground of insanity, might be seen 

 side by side with some young man of great respect- 

 ability and good position, afterwards to be proved 

 by trial to be innocent, compelled to associate with 

 wretches like these, and to submit to the fellowship, 

 ribald conversation, or blasphemy of the vilest and most 

 hardened criminals. Then came the New Gaol for 

 those of lesser crimes, awaiting trial at Quarter Sessions ; 

 then the Datchet Ward, named after a number of 

 rioters from the village of that name once incarcerated 

 here ; and next came the Women's W^ard. There wxre 

 two larger wards called the Bridewell, for men under- 

 going various terms of imprisonment, and below these 

 were the Boys' Wards ; then the chapel, adjoining which 

 was the Debtors' Ward ; and lastl)- the infirmary. 



