prison fare.  The majority being men in the early prime of life and in excellent health, suffered no ill effects, preferring to do with little or no food rather than touch that which was doled out to them; but to the others it was a rather serious thing.  There were several men between fifty and sixty years of age whose lives had been spent under favourable conditions.  There were some suffering from consumption, one from diabetes, one from fever, one from dysentery, and several others from less dangerous but sufficiently serious complaints.  All alike were compelled to sleep upon the floor, with two thin blankets for protection.  They were locked in at 6 p.m., and allowed out at 6 a.m.  Sanitary accommodation was represented by the presence of a couple of buckets in the sleeping room.  The air-space per man worked out at 145 cubic feet as against 900 feet prescribed by English prison regulations.  Ventilation was afforded on the one side by square holes cut in the corrugated iron walls of the shed,{35} and on the other (the buildings being lean-to’s against the permanent prison buildings) by grated windows opening into the native cells.  Needless to say, these grated windows were originally intended to afford ventilation to the native cells, but the buildings to accommodate the Reformers had been erected against the side-walls of the Kaffir quarters.  The stench was indescribable.  At 6 a.m. the prisoners were allowed out into the yard, where they had the option of exercising throughout the day.  The lavatories and bathing arrangements consisted of a tap in the yard and an open furrow through which the town water ran, the lower end of which was used as a wash-place by prisoners, white and black alike.  Within a foot or two of the furrow where alone washing of the person or of clothing was allowed stood the gaol urinals.  There was neither adequate provision in this department nor any attempt at proper supervision, the result being that through irregularities, neglect, and defective arrangement the ground on both sides of the water-furrow for six or eight yards was horribly stained and saturated by leakage.  Many of the prisoners could not approach this quarter without being physically ill.  Without further detail it may be stated that there were at that time over 250 prisoners, about 100 of whom were white.  There were three closets and six buckets for the accommodation of all, and removals took place sometimes once a day, sometimes once in every four days.  Nothing but the horror of such conditions, and the fact that they prevail still in Pretoria Gaol, and presumably in other gaols more removed from critical supervision, could warrant allusions to such a disgusting state of affairs.