also.

Turning to the right, then, down the passage to which we just now
adverted, omitting any mention of intervening gates--for if we noticed
every gate that was unlocked for us to pass through, and locked again as
soon as we had passed, we should require a gate at every comma--we came
to a door composed of thick bars of wood, through which were discernible,
passing to and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women: the majority of
whom, however, as soon as they were aware of the presence of strangers,
retreated to their wards. One side of this yard is railed off at a
considerable distance, and formed into a kind of iron cage, about five
feet ten inches in height, roofed at the top, and defended in front by
iron bars, from which the friends of the female prisoners communicate
with them. In one corner of this singular-looking den, was a yellow,
haggard, decrepit old woman, in a tattered gown that had once been black,
and the remains of an old straw bonnet, with faded ribbon of the same
hue, in earnest conversation with a young girl--a prisoner, of course--of
about two-and-twenty. It is impossible to imagine a more
poverty-stricken object, or a creature so borne down in soul and body, by
excess of misery and destitution, as the old woman. The girl was a
good-looking, robust female, with a profusion of hair streaming about in
the wind--for she had no bonnet on--and a man's silk pocket-handkerchief
loosely thrown over a most ample pair of shoulders. The old woman was
talking in that low, stifled tone of voice which tells so forcibly of
mental anguish; and every now and then burst into an irrepressible sharp,
abrupt cry of grief, the most distressing sound that ears can hear. The
girl was perfectly unmoved. Hardened beyond all hope of redemption, she
listened doggedly to her mother's entreaties, whatever they were: and,
beyond inquiring after 'Jem,' and eagerly catching at the few halfpence
her miserable parent had brought her, took no more apparent interest in
the conversation than the most unconcerned spectators. Heaven knows
there were enough of them, in the persons of the other prisoners in the
yard, who were no more concerned by what was passing before their eyes,
and within their hearing, than if they were blind and deaf. Why should
they be? Inside the prison, and out, such scenes were too familiar to
them, to excite even a passing thought, unless of ridicule or contempt
for feelings which they had long since