"Paul Clifford", Chapter 8, by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Common Sense. What is the end of punishment as regards the individual punished?

Custom. To make him better!

Common Sense. How do you punish young offenders who are (from their youth) peculiarly alive to example, and whom it is therefore more easy either to ruin or reform than the matured?

Custom. We send them to the House of Correction, to associate with the d—dest rascals in the country!

Dialogue between Common Sense and Custom. -Very scarce.

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in a trice: very quickly

Oakum is a preparation of tarred fibre used to seal gaps. The recycling of oakum from old tarry ropes and cordage, unravelling and reducing it to fiber, was apparently a common task in prisons and workhouses.

"The Prisoner of Chillon" was a poem written by Lord Byron in 1816 about François de Bonivard.

Pyramus and Thisbe are a pair of ill-fated lovers whose story forms part of Ovid's Metamorphoses.

brickbat: a piece of brick, typically when used as a weapon.

Parisina appears to be a reference to Parisina Malatesta. She had an affair with her illegitimate stepson, Ugo d'Este, and both were beheaded by her husband, Marquis Niccolò III d'Este of Ferrara. This story was turned into a poem by Lord Byron, except in the poem Parisina is not executed, but is forced to witness the execution of Ugo.

oil of palms: money

A footnote in the text on Augustus Tomlinson's selling of luxuries to other prisoners: "A very common practice at the Bridewell. The Governor at the Coldbath-Fields, apparently a very intelligent and active man, every way fitted for a most arduous undertaking, informed us, in the only conversation we have had the honour to hold with him, that he thought he had nearly or quite destroyed in his jurisdiction this illegal method of commerce."

The picture used is a print of Bridewell Prison as re-built after the Great Fire of London (1666). The prison was rebuilt 1666-7.

To follow along: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/7735/7735-h/7735-h.htm#link2HCH0008