a gaol, or place of confinement.

Lord Coke observes, that a prison is only a place of safe custody, salva custodia, not a place of punishment. If this be so, and it cannot be questioned, prisons ought not to be, what they are in most parts of Europe, loathsome dungeons. Any place where a person is confined may be said to be a prison; and when a process is issued against one, he must, when arrested thereon, either be committed to prison, or be bound in a recognizance with sureties, or else give bail, according to the nature of the case, to appear at a certain day in court, there to make answer to what is alleged against him. Where a person is taken and sent to prison, in a civil case, he may be released by the plaintiff in the suit; but if it be for treason or felony, he may not regularly be discharged, until he is indicted of the fact and acquitted. See Indictment, and the next article.