There are three slate baths, about six feet long, two feet broad, and two feet and a half deep, provided with footboards. They are heated by means of pipes communicating with the boiler in the engine-room. Two of them are fitted up in one cell, with a dressing-room adjoining.
The other bath is in a long room, where there is a fireplace and a large metal vessel heated by steam, to cleanse the prisoner’s clothes from vermin and infection. This resembles a large copper, and is about two and a half feet in diameter and three feet deep, with an ample lid screwed down so firmly that no steam can escape.
The clothes are put into it and subjected to the action of the steam for about a quarter of an hour, when the vermin are destroyed. The clothes are not in the slightest degree injured.
This vessel is heated by means of a steam-pipe connected with the boiler in the engine room. The bath is similar to the others already noticed.
The dark cells are situated at the extremity of the new wing on the basement. They are six in number, and are of the same dimensions as the other cells. No light is admitted into them, but they are well ventilated.
The furniture of each consists of a wooden bench, to serve as a bed—though it is a hard one—and a night utensil; and the flooring is of stone.
There are two doors on each cell. When shut, they not only exclude a single beam of light, but do not admit the slightest sound.
The deputy-governor remarked—
“There are very few punishments inflicted in this prison. Sometimes the prisoners infringe the prison rules by insolence to their officers or making away with their oakum instead of picking it. We have only had two persons in the dark cells for the past two years.”
Opposite the bath-room is an engine-room, fitted up with two immense boilers for heating the whole of the prison and keeping the baths supplied with hot water. The engineer informed us that, during the winter, nearly a ton of coals is consumed per day.