CHAPTER XII.
Saint Giles's Round-house.
Saint Giles's Round-house was an old detached fabric, standing in an angle of Kendrick Yard.

Originally built, as its name imports, in a cylindrical form, like a modern Martello tower, it had undergone, from time to time, so many alterations, that its symmetry was, in a great measure, destroyed.

Bulging out more in the middle than at the two extremities, it resembled an enormous cask set on its end,--a sort of Heidelberg tun on a large scale,--and this resemblance was increased by the small circular aperture--it hardly deserved to be called a door--pierced, like the bung-hole of a barrell, through the side of the structure, at some distance from the ground, and approached by a flight of wooden steps.

The prison was two stories high, with a flat roof surmounted by a gilt vane fashioned like a key; and, possessing considerable internal accommodation, it had, in its day, lodged some thousands of disorderly personages.

The windows were small, and strongly grated, looking, in front, on Kendrick Yard, and, at the back, upon the spacious burial-ground of Saint Giles's Church.