the hour of twelve
It is performed , too , in the dead heat of summer , when labor is slack , and the lower orders have sufficient leisure to undertake it ; and , I may add , when travelling on foot is most fatiguing ; they arrive , therefore , without a single exception , blown and jaded almost to death . The first thing they do , notwithstanding this , is to commence the fresh rigors of the station , which occupies them several hours . This consists in what I have already described , viz. , the pleasant promenade upon the stony spikes around the prison and the `` beds ; '' that over , they take their first and only meal for the day ; after which , as in my own case just related , they must huddle themselves in clusters , on what is barefacedly called a bed , but which is nothing more nor less than a beggarman 's shakedown , where the smell , the heat , the filth , and above all , the vermin , are intolerable to the very farthest stretch of the superlative degree . As soon as their eyes begin to close here , they are roused by the bell-man , and summoned at the hour of twelve -- first washing themselves as aforesaid , in the lake , and then adjourning to the prison which I am about to describe . There is not on earth , with the exception of pagan rites , -- and it is melancholy to be compelled to compare any institution of the Christian religion with a Juggernaut , -- there is not on earth , I say , a regulation of a religious nature , more barbarous and inhuman than this . It has destroyed thousands since its establishment -- has left children without parents , and parents childless . It has made wives widows , and torn from the disconsolate husband the mother of his children ; and is itself the monster which St. Patrick is said to have destroyed in the place -- a monster , which is a complete and significant allegory of this great and destructive superstition .