Isaac Tyrrell’s 1904 book, From England to the Antipodes & India, 1846 to 1902, reveals harsh realities of life in Madras Central Prison and beyond during British rule. Tyrrell, a Suffolk man who served in the British army and later as a police officer, spent much of his career in prisons across Madras. His book details brutal punishments like the "cat of nine tails" whip used every Monday, and smuggling of tobacco, snuff, betel, and ganja into prison by staff and visitors. He describes the prison’s foul atmosphere, with sewers from Chintadripet emptying into the nearby Cooum river, which was also used as a public latrine. Crowds once gathered to watch public hangings near the prison, a grim spectacle of the times. Tyrrell also chronicles some progress, such as separating women and juveniles from men, a prison-run workshop, a vegetable garden selling surplus produce, and a printing press moved outside prison walls to connect inmates to the outside world. This rare account exposes the dark underbelly of colonial Madras often missed in conventional histories. Tyrrell’s observations remind us how some conditions, like the foul Cooum waters, have barely changed even after 150 years.