I subsequently had the use of a tin knife in Newgate, but even that, which used to be common in prisons, is now proscribed.

The only carving instruments allowed the guests in her Majesty's hotels is a wooden spoon, although the tin knife still lingers in the Houses of Detention.

Among other elaborate precautions against suicide, I found that the prisoners awaiting trial were furnished with quill pens.

Steel pens had been banished after the desperate exploit of one poor wretch, who had stabbed away at his windpipe with one, and inflicted such grave injuries that the officials had great difficulty in saying his life.
But _revenons a nos moutons_, or rather our forks.

We disposed of the vegetables somehow, and as for the meat, we were obliged to split and gnaw it after the fashion of our primitive ancestors.