described, viz., the pleasant promenade upon the stony spikes around the prison and the “beds;” that over, they take their first and only meal for the day; after which, as in my own case just related, they must huddle themselves in clusters, on what is barefacedly called a bed, but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman’s shakedown, where the smell, the heat, the filth, and above all, the vermin, are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree.  As soon as their eyes begin to close here, they are roused by the bell-man, and summoned at the hour of twelve—­first washing themselves as aforesaid, in the lake, and then adjourning to the prison which I am about to describe.  There is not on earth, with the exception of pagan rites,—­and it is melancholy to be compelled to compare any institution of the Christian religion with a Juggernaut,—­there is not on earth, I say, a regulation of a religious nature, more barbarous and inhuman than this.  It has destroyed thousands since its establishment—­has left children without parents, and parents childless.  It has made wives widows, and torn from the disconsolate husband the mother of his children; and is itself the monster which St. Patrick is said to have destroyed in the place—­a monster, which is a complete and significant allegory of this great and destructive superstition.  But what is even worse than death, by stretching the powers of human sufferance until the mind cracks under them, it is said sometimes to return these pitiable creatures maniacs—­exulting in the laugh of madness, or sunk for ever in the incurable apathy of religious melancholy.  I mention this now, to exhibit the purpose for which these calamities are turned to account, and the dishonesty which is exercised over these poor, unsuspecting people, in consequence of their occurrence.  The pilgrims, being thus aroused at midnight are sent to prison; and what think you is the impression under which they enter it? one indeed, which, when we consider their bodily weakness and mental excitement, must do its work with success.  It is this:  that as soon as they enter the prison a supernatural tendency to sleep will come over them, which, they say, is peculiar to the place; that this is an emblem of the influence of sin over the soul, and a type of their future fate; that if they resist this they will be saved; but if they yield to it, they will not only be damned in the next world, but will go mad, or incur some immediate and dreadful calamity in this.  Is it any wonder that a weak mind and exhausted body, wrought upon by these bugbears, should induce upon by itself, by its own terrors, the malady of derangement?  We know that nothing acts so strongly and so fatally upon reason, as an imagination diseased by religious terrors:  and I regret to say, that I had upon that night an opportunity of witnessing a fatal instance of it.