THE GLASGOW POLICE CELLS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume VII, Issue 423, 6 January 1875, Page 3

THE GLASGOW POLICE CELLS.

The special correspondent of the "Daily News" furnishes the following graphic description of what he terms the " drunk cells,'' " mad drunk cells," and " dead drunk cells " of the Glasgow Central Police Station : — Ascending to the second floor, we enter through a grating a corridor winch we find strongly patrolled, and are informed in explanation thifc two extra mcii are placed on duty here on Saturday night to watch that the prisoners don't fight or choke themselves. This corridor contains numerous cells of various sizes. Tiiis central station, it should have been said, has accommodation for over 400 prisoners. The turnkey opens cell No. 1, throwing his light into if. The floor is littered with five recumbent motionless forms, which" might be those of swine or of men for aught the spectator can distinguish, but that the material lying about is that of humanity, has become dimly apparent because of a groan or two and a muttered curse which vary the monotony of the gruntings and stupor. The next cell presents an aspect like that of the miscellaneous grave of a battlefield. The heap that cumbers its floor is a chaos which vaguely resolves itself into the form of some half-dozen men, but from the confusion of odd limbs it would be rash to affirm that there were not a few more than this number. In the the three next cells the scene was merely a repetition of what has been described ; but some of the inmates were too full of oaths and coarse language to sink into the drunken slumber which had overwhelmed their fellows. Then we came to the "cells containing the drunken women, who were nearly as numerous as the drunken men. Some lay like dead logs : others had laid aside the larger portion of their clouts and "rampaged" about their cells hideous travesties of womanhood. Wretches of all ages were thgre ; the shrivelled greyhaired crone, drunken and most foulmouthed of all, as she lay so near her grave that one shuddered lest she might die of old age before she could be released; young women, not uncomely spite of their whiskey- bleared eyes, bloated faces, and careless rags ; babies 'slumbering the sweet sleep of childhood on the bosoms of mothers whose motherhood and whose decency had been alike drowned in drink. One cell was pandemonium itself, a pit of raging, bedlamites. V woman yelled blasphemy and obscenity as she swung a babe carelessly in her arms, a girl stripped to the waist shrieked back at her, and an old woman sat crooning a maudlin song on the floor. Another cell resembled the description of the well of Cawnpore, a heap of the not-to-be-analysed disjecta membra! o{ womanhood miserable, whose Nana Sahib was whiskey. A few steps beyond these "drunken cells," and we were in the " dead cell " itself, a veritable^ deadhouse, tpnauted by three martyrs who had died in the service of their masted— the drink. There -lay the corpses, stiff, pale, and cold, while the odour of. the destroyer still faintly hung abouc the mortuary. One man had been run over when drunk ; a second had been found' dead in a court after a debauch ; and a third had died in the act of taking more s of that of which he had already taken, too much: Beyond the dead cell lay the " mad-drunk cells," each tenanted by a .single inmate, whose condition of drunkeness >had been frantic and' dangerous^on admission, and to whom had therefore been assigned quarters in the Bedlam ward of this huge hospital for the votaries of whiskey.