You May Expel Me If You Please, But Any Attempt To Do
So Shall Be Resisted With All The Bodily Strength Of Which I Am
Possessed."
"Your worship is right," said the alcayde with a bow, but in a low
voice.
Sir George, on hearing of this affair, sent me a letter in which he
highly commanded my resolution not to leave the prison for the
present, at the same time begging me to let him know if there were
anything that he could send me from the embassy to render my
situation more tolerable.
I will now leave for the present my own immediate affairs, and
proceed to give some account of the prison of Madrid and its
inmates.
The Carcel de la Corte, where I now was, though the principal
prison of Madrid, is one which certainly in no respect does credit
to the capital of Spain. Whether it was originally intended for
the purpose to which it is at present applied, I have no
opportunity of knowing. The chances, however, are, that it was
not; indeed it was not till of late years that the practice of
building edifices expressly intended and suited for the
incarceration of culprits came at all into vogue. Castles,
convents, and deserted palaces, have in all countries, at different
times, been converted into prisons, which practice still holds good
upon the greater part of the continent, and more particularly in
Spain and Italy, which accounts, to a certain extent, for the
insecurity of the prisons, and the misery, want of cleanliness, and
unhealthiness which in general pervade them.
I shall not attempt to enter into a particular description of the
prison of Madrid, indeed it would be quite impossible to describe
so irregular and rambling an edifice. Its principal features
consisted of two courts, the one behind the other, intended for the
great body of the prisoners to take air and recreation in. Three
large vaulted dungeons or calabozos occupied three sides of this
court, immediately below the corridors of which I have already
spoken. These dungeons were roomy enough to contain respectively
from one hundred to one hundred and fifty prisoners, who were at
night secured therein with lock and bar, but during the day were
permitted to roam about the courts as they thought fit. The second
court was considerably larger than the first, though it contained
but two dungeons, horribly filthy and disgusting places; this
second court being used for the reception of the lower grades of
thieves. Of the two dungeons one was, if possible, yet more
horrible than the other; it was called the gallineria, or chicken
coop, and within it every night were pent up the young fry of the
prison, wretched boys from seven to fifteen years of age, the
greater part almost in a state of nudity. The common bed of all
the inmates of these dungeons was the ground, between which and
their bodies nothing intervened, save occasionally a manta or
horse-cloth, or perhaps a small mattress; this latter luxury was,
however, of exceedingly rare occurrence.
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