One of them declared, that in the three first days of his arrest he employed himself in counting the number of vermin which he destroyed on his body they amounted to thirty thousand! Another deputy assured me, that when allowed to change his linen, it had on every occasion become so pestiferous, that nothing which he could offer would induce any individuals, however poor, to receive it into their houses; and it was washed from time to time by a benevolent and respectable lady, who, in her open balcony, undertook a task which her lowest menial had refused to perform."

"In truth, no sufferings can be conceived more intolerable than those of many a prisoner confined in former times in the gaols of the peninsula. In a moist, miserable,

* An extract from a recent publication on Prisons, by Dr. Jacobo Villanova y Jordan, one of the Spanish Judges, may here be added:

"In 1814, the King, for the first time, visited the prisons of Madrid. At this period those frightful chains were in use, which he ordered to be destroyed. There, also, were to be seen the cells, under ground, destitute of ventilation, where, to the ruin of health and morals, many poor wretches were obliged to sleep together, and respire the most impure and noisome atmosphere; and the courts whence, at the close of day, legions of immense rats issue forth, spreading into every corner, robbing the poor prisoner of his scanty allowance, and disturbing his rest. The criminal, the lover, and the murderer, the debtor and the robber, the forger and the ruffian, were herded indiscriminately together, and he who was guiltless along with them. Among the keepers, some were found who hardly knew the persons of their prisoners. In the prison called the Town Gaol (which is shortly to be abolished, and the prisoners sent to that termed 'De la Corte'), there was a square room, about eight yards in length, and nine feet high; it was en. tered by an extremely dark and narrow passage, at each end of which were two doors. The prisoner confined within this space never saw the light of heaven. The pavement was of sandstone, and in the centre there was an iron collar, with a chain to confine the prisoner down to it. CHRIST. OBSERV. APP,

I

and dreary dungeon, oppressed with heavy chains, without a book to console him by day, without even a handful of straw on which to stretch himself at night; supplied with bad and insufficient food; shut out from all notice, from all sympathy, and in the hands of those whose hearts were as cold and as hard as the walls that inclosed him-what situation can be more terrible? once noticed, on the walls of a Spanish prison, an admirable picture, drawn with charcoal, of an old and exhausted victim (pourtrayed perhaps by the sufferer himself), his beard unshorn, his body wasted, his countenance betokening despair, his fetters insupportable; and beneath were four lines which may be thus translated :

"O deem not, in a world like this,

That the worst suffering is to die! No! dying were a privileged bliss To the tired sons of misery." And to such sons of misery, death must have been a blessing.

Immediately after the re-establishment of the Constitutional Government in Spain, the first Cortes occupied themselves in applying remedies to some of the most obvious evils of the prison system. They speedily decreed that no prisoner whatever should, on any pretence whatever, be confined in any unwholesome or subterraneous dungeon, or in any place not visited by the natural light of day. They also ordered, that no chains or fetters of any sort should, on any occasion, be employed; and I confess it was no small satisfaction to me, in my progress through Spain, to witness the destruction of those dismal cells which had been the scenes of so much calamity. The Cortes proceeded to form a Prison Committee, whose attention is especially directed to the state of the Spanish gacls;

and several writers have

"Such are the gloom and insalubrity of the prisons of the kingdom. -In Andalusia, there is not one which humanity can approve. Of the 1,285 towns of the chancelleria of Valladolid, only 167 have safe and wholesome prisons, ('this is said only by way of contrast; there is no prison that can be called wholesome'); so that 1,118 towns are without prisons, or possess such as are unhealthy and insecure; and almost all are without sufficient means of subsistence. In Grenada, there are but twenty-two prisons which can be called capacious, secure, and tolerably salubrious; there are four hundred and ninety-one small, insecure prisons, dependent on charity. Those of Gallicia are in the worst condition. In Asturias, there is not one which is safe, nor which possesses the means of serving food to the prisoners. In Estremadura, there are only a few, and those unhealthy. In Arragon, the only secure and healthy prisons are those of Alcaniz, Calatayud, and Zaragoza: the rest are so bad, that it is impossible to say which is the worst among them; and there are 1,280 towns and villages without any priIn the whole kingdom of Valencia, where there are a million of inhabitants, there is scarcely one secure and wholesome prison. In Catalonia, there are many districts without prisons: the number of tolerably safe and healthy prisons is forty-five; but they have no funds

son.

"The loss of liberty, and the punishment imposed by the law, are surely enough for the unfortunate criminal. What right has society, by its neglect or indifference, to superadd these horrors; to confirm all that is atrocious in vice; to eradicate every thing that is left of virtue; to mingle the swindler with the homicide, the young and timid practitioner with the old and daring and irreclaimable criminal; and in a situation where, to do them any justice, every individual prisoner requires an individual guard?

"It is, indeed, high time that such scenes of outrage should exist no longer; that such horrors should be blotted from the very memory of man. It is, indeed, high time that the light of civilization should penetrate those deadly dungeons-dungeons unvisited as yet by the pure light of day, or the beams of the vivifying sun.

"For the Cortes this work was reserved, and to them its glory will belong; and it will bear their memory down to future grateful generations. "Is it possible," said some of the prisoners in the Madrid gaol, to one of the Committee who visited them; "is it possible that the fathers of the country are already assembled in the sanctuary of the laws, and that they will not meliorate our situation? We ask no pardon for our crimes; we will suffer with resignation the penalties of the law; but why this unnecessary bitterness ;--why these anticipated punishments, worse than death itself? If crimes have made us responsible to the law; if error, if ignorance, if a defective education, have dragged us into crimes, it is just that we should pay the price of our excesses; but it is not just that we should be

treated with inhumanity and barbarity. Whatever our crimes have been, we were born men, and ought Still to be looked on with the respect due to human nature. We are Spaniards! Our blood is your blood; -we are of one religion with you; -we are part of our country's great family." The Committee could not but sympathise with such expressions of misery; they request that Government do immediately meliorate the state of the prisons, giving ventilation to the apartments, abolishing all subterranean dungeons: and they recommend the adoption of the central inspection plan; that the prisoners be always within sight; that no light and air be wanting; that there be a classification of crimes and sexes; that the internal arrangements be simplified; that idleness be succeeded by industry; that food, cleanliness, and clothing be provided for the prisoners; and that every prison contain an apartment for the arrested before committal, a hall of audience, an hospital, and a chapel.

"Hitherto, by a barbarous and criminal custom, the prisons of Spain have been a pecuniary possession, let out to the best bidder, who, in ill-treatment and exactions on the prisoners, made their fortunes by the miseries they created. The taxes on entering, for exemptions from irons, for better or worse apartments, and on leaving the prison, made the criminal the victim of injustice in innumerable forms."'"

"In this spirit of humanity, did the Committee discharge their duty. The multiplicity of business which crowded on the Cortes prevented the adoption or the discussion of their plan; but the present Cortes will be engaged ere long in carrying into effect the benevolent schemes of their predecessors."

Mr. Bowring afterwards remarks, that during subsequent discussions in the Cortes on the penal code, several of the most distinguished members proposed, that the punishment of death should be wholly abolished.

It was not abolished; but the number of crimes to which it was applied were very few. "And in Spain," adds Mr. Bowring, "as in every country which has fallen under my notice, the diminution of the severity of punishment has universally led to the diminution of crime. That which is taken from the harshness of the penal law is, in a vast number of cases, added to the certainty of its infliction, and, in consequence, to the salutary dread excited in the minds of the evildisposed. Spain is a country in which, in the course of half a century, Lexpect that the humanity of the Tuscan code, which abolished capital punishment, will obtain a permanent establishment. In Portugal, the abolition has already taken place."

The foregoing statements are confirmed by Mr. Bowring's description of the gaols of Madrid, Cordova, Seville, and Cadiz, which he minutely inspected. The following is his account of the prison discipline of the neighbouring kingdom of Portugal.

"The great prison of the Limoeiro, at Lisbon, is a horrible place of confinement. It is a representation, on a grander scale, of all the filth and misery of which I have given some details in speaking of the Spanish gaols. Its situation is on one of the mountainous streets in the Portuguese capital, and was formerly the archbishop's palace. There is nothing to prevent constant communication with the street through the double iron bars; and, in fact, through these, the meals of the prisoners are served. A great proportion of the crimes committed in Lisbon are plotted between the confined and the unconfined criminals, by whom a constant, unchecked, and unobserved communication is kept up. Through these bars any thing can be conveyed,food, raiment, liquors, weapons, tools,-whatever, in a word, can pass through a square several inches in extent. The number of prisoners has been as great as 700: the usual number is 400. The state of the apartments in which the prisoners