commissioners reported to Parliament between 1815 and 1818, male prisoners were paying five shillings and sixpence, increased to eight shillings and sixpence by the time the anonymous witness was writing in 1833. Women were asked for a smaller sum. The fee allowed prisoners to use the snuggery, where water could be boiled and meals cooked, and candles and newspapers obtained. Prisoners failing to pay were declared defaulters by the prison crier, had their names written up in the kitchen, and were sent to Coventry. After paying garnish, prisoners were given a "chum ticket", which told them which room was theirs and which prisoners they would be chumming with. They would often spend the first night in the infirmary until a room could be made ready, and sometimes three or four nights walking around the yard before a chum could be found, although they were already being charged for the room they did not have. According to Dickens specialist Trey Philpotts, the newest arrival was usually placed with the youngest prisoner who was living alone. A wealthier prisoner could pay his roommate to go away—"buy out the chum"—for half-a-crown a week in 1818, while the outcast chum would sleep in the tap room or find another room to rent in the prison. The only prisoners not expected to pay chummage were debtors who had declared themselves insolvent by swearing an oath that they had assets worth less than 40 shillings. If their creditors agreed, they could be released after 14 days, but if anyone objected, they remained confined to the poor side of the building, near the women's side, receiving a small weekly allowance from the county and money from charity. Admiralty prisoners The Admiralty division housed a few prisoners under naval courts-martial for mutiny, desertion, piracy, and what the deputy marshal preferred in 1815 to call "unnatural crimes", a euphemism for sex between men. Unlike other parts of the prison that had been built from scratch in 1811, the Admiralty division—as well as the northern boundary wall, the dayroom and the chapel—had been part of the old Borough gaol and were considerably run down. The cells were so rotten they were barely able to confine the prisoners; in 1817 one actually broke through his cell walls. The low boundary wall meant that Admiralty prisoners were often chained to bolts fixed to the floor in the infirmary. They were supposed to