This prison belongs to the city of London, and its jurisdiction extends over five parishes. On entrance you come to the male felon's ward and yard, in which are both the tried and the untried—those in chains and those without them—boys and men—persons for petty offences, and for the most atrocious felonies; for simple assault, for being disorderly, for small thefts, for issuing bad notes, for forgery, and for robbery. They are mostly employed in some kind of gaming, and say they have nothing else to do. A respectable looking man, a smith, who had never been in prison before, said, on leaving it, that "the conversation always going on was sufficient to corrupt any body; that he had learned things there that he never dreamed of before."
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Source: Leigh's New Picture of London. Printed for Samuel Leigh, 18, Strand;
by W. Clowes, Northumberland Court. 1819