If you bent them you threw your body forward, and ran the risk of contracting round shoulders.

Whenever I wanted a little ease, especially after dinner, when a V-shaped body is not conducive to digestion, I used to rest against the upright plank bed, extend my legs luxuriously, and dream of the cigar which was just the one thing required to complete a picture of comfort.
Such was the furniture of my apartment in Her Majesty's Holloway Hotel.
Scantier appointments were impossible.

Yet, to my surprise, an officer came in one day with an inventory, to see if anything was missing.
Rather a superfluous check, when the iron cell door was constantly locked and there was no opening to the window! A prisoner could hardly bury his furniture in a concrete floor, and the most ferocious appetite would surely quail before deal planks and tin pans.
The cell itself was similar to the one I have already described.

The ventilation was provided by an iron grating over the door, communicating with a shaft that carried off the foul air; and another iron grating under the window, which admitted the fresh air from outside.

This grating, however, did not communicate _directly_ with the atmosphere, for the prison is built with double walls.