Well did Lord Fitzgerald (I think) in a recent speech in the House of Lords describe this torture as the worst ever devised by the brain of man.

His lordship added that the Governor of a great prison told him that he never knew a man undergo twelve months of such punishment without severe suffering, or two years of it without being terribly shaken, or three years without being physically and mentally wrecked.

In the penal servitude establishments the discipline has to be relaxed, or the prisoners would die or go mad before their terms expired.

They work out of their cells in the daytime, and on certain occasions (Sundays, I believe) they are allowed to walk in couples and exercise their faculty of speech.
The poor fellow I refer to, fearing that he would die, and having learnt that I was a public man, managed to tell me something of his case.

He had been a warder in Coldbath Fields Prison, where he officiated as master-tailor.