 they might know him again at first
sight; and then he was turned loose into the place called the master's side,
having given a valuable consideration for that privilege. This is a large range
of building, containing some hundreds of lodging-rooms for the convenience of
the prisoners, who pay so much per week for that accommodation. In short, this
community is like a city detached from all communication with the neighbouring
parts, regulated by its own laws, and furnished with peculiar conveniences, for
the use of the inhabitants. There is a coffee-house for the resort of gentlemen,
in which all sorts of liquors are kept, and a public kitchen, where any quantity
of meat is sold at a very reasonable rate, or any kind of provision boiled and
roasted gratis, for the poor prisoners: nay, there are certain servants of the
public, who are obliged to go to market, at the pleasure of individuals, without
fee or reward from those who employ them: nor are they cooped up, so as to be
excluded from the benefit of fresh air, there being an open area of a
considerable extent adjacent to the building, on which they may exercise
themselves in walking, skittles, bowls, and variety of other diversions,
according to the inclination of each.
    Our adventurer being admitted a denizen of this community, found himself
bewildered in the midst of strangers, who, by their appearance, did not at all
prepossess him in their favour; and after having strolled about the place with
his friend Cadwallader, repaired to the coffee-house, in order to be further
informed of the peculiar customs which it was necessary for him to know.
    There, while he endeavoured to pick up intelligence from the bar-keeper, he
was accosted by a person in canonicals, who very civilly asking if he was a
new-comer, and being answered in the affirmative, gave him the salutation of
welcome to the society, and, with great hospitality, undertook to initiate him
in the constitutions of the brotherhood. This humane clergyman gave him to
understand, that his first care ought to be that of securing a lodging; telling
him, there was a certain number of apartments in the prison let at the same
price, though some were more commodious than others; and that when the better
sort became vacant, by the removal of their possessors, those who succeeded in
point of seniority, had the privilege of occupying the empty tenements,
preferable to the rest of the inhabitants, howsoever respectable they might
otherwise be: that when the jail was very much crowded, there was but
