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diff --git a/34112-h/34112-h.htm b/34112-h/34112-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..eb00c98 --- /dev/null +++ b/34112-h/34112-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,6471 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"> +<html> +<head> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of In Jail with Charles Dickens, by Alfred Trumble</title> +<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { text-align: justify; } + +div.main_text { max-width: 40em; margin: 1em auto; padding: 0 3.5em 0 1.5em; } + +div.transcribers_note { margin: 2em; padding: 1em; border: 2px dashed #666; font-size: 90%; } + +div.booktitle { text-align: center; font-size: 150%; font-family: fantasy; margin: 1em; } + +div.cover_page { text-align: center; font-size: 120%; border: thick solid; margin: 1em; padding: 1em; } +div.cover_page h1 { font-size: 200%; font-weight: bold; font-variant: small-caps; margin: 1em 0; } +div.cover_page div.author { margin: 2em 0; } +div.cover_page div.publisher { font-size: 80%; } +div.cover_page div.special { font-family: fantasy; margin: 1em 0; } +div.cover_page div.special img { width: 1.5em; } +div.cover_page span { font-size: 150%; } + +div.copyright { text-align: center; margin: 1em; font-variant: small-caps; } + +table.contents { margin: 0 auto; } +table.contents td { font-variant: small-caps; } +table.contents td + td { text-align: right; font-variant: normal; } +table.contents td.head { text-align: center; padding-top: 1em; font-variant: normal; } + +h2 { text-align: center; margin: 2em 0 1em 0; font-size: 120%; font-weight: bold; } +h2 span { font-size: 90%; margin-top: 1em; display: block; } + +p { text-indent: 1em; margin: 0; } +p.no_indent { text-indent: 0; } + +div.signature { margin: 1em; text-align: right; font-weight: bold; } +div.signature div.date { text-align: left; font-weight: normal; } + +blockquote { margin: 0.5em 1.053em; font-size: 95%; } + +table { margin: 1em 0; } +table th { font-weight: normal; font-variant: small-caps; } +table td { vertical-align: text-top; border-spacing: 1em; padding-right: 0.5em; } +table td + td { padding-right: 0em; padding-left: 0.5em; } + +div.end { text-align: center; margin: 2em 0; } + +div.illustration { text-align: center; margin: 1em 0; } + +img.drop_cap { height: 2em; float: left; margin: 0 0.5em 0 0; } +span.first_word { text-transform: uppercase; margin-left: -0.5em; } +span.first_word span { display: none; } + +span.page_anchor { font-size: 85%; position: absolute; right: 0.5em; z-index: -1; font-style: normal; text-indent: 0; } +span.page_anchor:before { content: 'p. '; } +span.no_p:before { content: ''; } + +ins { text-decoration:none; border-bottom: thin dotted gray; } + +</style> +<!--[if !IE]><!--> +<style type="text/css"> +span.page_anchor { line-height: 0.3; } +</style> +<!--<![endif]--> +<!--[if lte IE 6]> +<style type="text/css"> +div.main_text { width: 40em } +</style> +<![endif]--> +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's In Jail with Charles Dickens, by Alfred Trumble + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In Jail with Charles Dickens + +Author: Alfred Trumble + +Release Date: October 21, 2010 [EBook #34112] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN JAIL WITH CHARLES DICKENS *** + + + + +Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<div class="main_text"> + +<div class="transcribers_note"> + +<h2>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE</h2> + +<p class="no_indent">The <a href="#contents">Contents</a> are placed after the +<a href="#introductory">Introductory</a>.</p> + +<p>The numbers in the right margin refer the page numbers of the original +printed book, they appear just where the corresponding page begins, e.g., the +original <a href="#pg_113">page 113</a> contains the text between the labels +“p. 113” and “p. 114” in this version.</p> + +<p>Changes to the original publication (possible typographic errors or +inconsistencies) have been marked with <ins title="Example of change">a dotted +underline</ins>, and the printed text usually appears in a “pop-up box” when +hovering the cursor on it.</p> + +</div> + +<span id="pg_0" class="page_anchor no_p"> </span> + +<div class="booktitle"> +In Jail with Charles Dickens. +</div> + +<span id="pg_i" class="page_anchor">i </span> + +<div class="cover_page"> + +<h1>IN JAIL WITH<br> +<span>Charles Dickens</span></h1> + +<div class="author"> +BY<br> +<span>ALFRED TRUMBLE</span><br> +EDITOR OF “THE COLLECTOR” +</div> + +<div class="special"> +Illustrated +</div> + +<div class="special"> +<img src="images/ill-00.png" alt=""> +</div> + +<div class="publisher"> +London<br> +<span>SUCKLING & GALLOWAY</span><br> +1896 +</div> + +</div> + +<span id="pg_ii" class="page_anchor">ii </span> + +<div class="copyright"> +Copyright, 1896,<br> +By<br> +FRANCIS P. HARPER.<br> +</div> + +<p class="no_indent">Printed in America.</p> + +<span id="pg_frontispiece" class="page_anchor no_p">frontispiece </span> + +<div class="illustration"> +<a href="images/ill-01.jpg"><img src="images/min-01.jpg" alt="The Mob destroying & Setting Fire to the KING’S BENCH PRISON & HOUSE of CORRECTION in St. George’s Fields"></a> +</div> + +<span id="pg_iii" class="page_anchor">iii </span> + +<h2 id="introductory">INTRODUCTORY.</h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-r.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>R</span>eaders</span> of Charles Dickens must all +have remarked the deep and abiding +interest he took in that grim accessory to civilization, +the prison. He not only went jail hunting +whenever opportunity offered, but made a +profound study of the rules, practices and +abuses of these institutions. Penology was, in +fact, one of his hobbies, and some of the most +powerful passages in his books are those which +have their scene of action laid within the +shadow of the gaol. It was this fact which led +to the compilation of the papers comprised in +the present volume.</p> + +<p>The writer had been a student of Dickens +from the days when the publication of his +novels in serial form was a periodical event. +When he first visited England, many of the +landmarks which the novelist had, in a manner, +made historical, were still in existence, but of +the principal prisons which figure in his works +Newgate was the only one which existed in +<span id="pg_iv" class="page_anchor">iv </span> +any approximation to its integrity. The Fleet +and the King’s Bench were entirely swept +away; of the Marshalsea only a few buildings +remained, converted to ordinary uses. In this +country, however, the two jails which interested +him, still remain, with certain changes +that do not impair their general conformance +to his descriptions.</p> + +<p>These papers, therefore, consist of personal +knowledge, as a voluntary visitor, be it understood, +of Newgate. The Tombs in New York, +and the Eastern District Penitentiary in +Philadelphia, supplemented by references to +the records. For the Fleet, Marshalsea, and +Kings Bench, the writer is indebted to the +chronicles and descriptions of Peter Cunningham, +John Timbs, Leigh Hunt, and other ingenious +and interesting historians of the London +of the early Victorian era. In connection +with the paper relating to the Eastern District +Penitentiary of Philadelphia, his thanks +are due for the assistance and information +rendered by Mr. Michael J. Cassidy, the Warden.</p> + +<div class="signature"> +ALFRED TRUMBLE. +<div class="date"> +New York, March 1896. +</div> +</div> + +<span id="pg_v" class="page_anchor">v </span> + +<h2 id="contents">CONTENTS.</h2> + +<table class="contents" summary=""> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-1">CHAPTER I.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-1">Newgate Without</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_1">1</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-2">CHAPTER II.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-2">Newgate Within</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_40">40</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-3">CHAPTER III.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-3">The Fleet Prison</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_73">73</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-4">CHAPTER IV.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-4">The Marshalsea</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_106">106</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-5">CHAPTER V.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-5">The King’s Bench</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_134">134</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-6">CHAPTER VI.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-6">The New York Tombs</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_161">161</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td colspan="2" class="head"><a href="#chapter-7">CHAPTER VII.</a></td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td><a href="#chapter-7">Philadelphia’s Bastile</a>,</td> + <td><a href="#pg_177">177</a></td> + </tr> +</table> + +<span id="pg_vi" class="page_anchor">vi </span> +<br> +<span id="pg_1" class="page_anchor">1 </span> + +<div class="booktitle"> +In Jail with Charles Dickens. +</div> + +<h2 id="chapter-1">CHAPTER I.<br> +<span>NEWGATE WITHOUT.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-n.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>N</span>ewgate</span> was the first prison to which +Charles Dickens gave any literary attention. +An account of a visit to it appears among +the early “Sketches by Boz.” It is also the only +one of the London jails of which he has left us +graphic descriptions, or briefer, spirited sketches, +which preserves to-day so much of its +original character as to be identifiable in detail +by the student of his works. The Fleet and +the King’s Bench have disappeared. The Marshalsea +may only be recognized by slight surviving +landmarks. But the sombre and sullen +bulk of Newgate rears itself in the heart of +London, a sinister monument to the horrors +bred by a civilization rotten of its own over-ripeness, +in the forcing-bed of the most magnificent, +<span id="pg_2" class="page_anchor">2 </span> +wonderful and monstrously terrible +city of the world.</p> + +<p>If external gloom could exercise an influence +to deter anyone from the commission of crime +of which it is a part of the penalty, Newgate +would never have any inmates. Surrounded at +the time of my introductory visit to it, as an +accidental but not legally involuntary visitor, +by low public-houses, poor shops and a tumble-down +market, all bearing the grime of age and +the marks of decay, as if the frown of the great +jail had blighted them; with the foul, miry +lane of Newgate street, and the scarcely-cleaner +Old Bailey, alive with muddy carts and shabby +people, skulking roughs, draggled women and +squalling children, no man who had no business +there would care, once having seen it, to seek +it out again. Being then new in London, I +had been begriming myself among the old +books of St. Paul’s Churchyard until I was tired +and thirsty, and strolling along Ludgate Hill in +quest of refreshment, turned into the second +street I came to. A few steps more and I +found myself stopping at another street corner +to look at an immense and grim mass of gray +stone towering loftily in the fog, with little +<span id="pg_3" class="page_anchor">3 </span> +windows here and there along its frowning +wall. They were so small that they might have +been mere spaces where the builders had forgotten +to put in a block of granite, if it had +not been for the strong, rusty bars that crossed +them. I asked a man who came out of a +public-house wiping his mouth on the back of +his hand what place that was. He stared at me +in evident amazement for a minute, and then +said, shortly, in an aggravated tone of voice, +poking a finger, still moist from his libation, at +it, like a dagger:</p> + +<p>“Newgate, that is.”</p> + +<p>He went along, shaking his head in a dubious +way and looking back several times at me, +clearly either suspicious of the genuineness of +my stupendous ignorance, or unable to comprehend +how anyone could be ignorant of the +identity of the famous jail. I have no doubt +that it was vastly stupid of me. In fact, I experienced +a certain feeling of contempt for myself, +now that I knew what the place was, and +that it was the place of which I had read so +much that I almost had its history by heart; +but after all, London is a “very considerable-sized +town,” as I once had a Chicago acquaintance +<span id="pg_4" class="page_anchor">4 </span> +generously admit, and one could scarcely +be expected to know it like a guide-book, within +forty-eight hours after making first acquaintance +with its bitter beer, its bloody beef, and its +beds into whose coverlids the essence of the +fog seemed to have penetrated, if, indeed, the +sheets were not woven out of the fog itself.</p> + +<p>Newgate, in its external appearance, at least, +is an ideal prison. Its aspect, whether purposely +or through the adaptation of its construction +to its uses, is thoroughly jail-like. +The few openings in the walls, the empty blind +niches, which might have been left there for +statues of great felons never set up in them; +the entrance, with its festooned fetters carved +in stone as an ornament to the gloomy and +forbidding portal, all are appropriate to and a +significant part of it. Within a few feet of +where I stood when I viewed it first was the +spot where the scaffold used to be put up. +Here, on the occasion of an execution, as one +may read in Chapter 52 of “Oliver Twist,” the +space before the prison was cleared, and a few +strong barriers painted black thrown across +the road to break the pressure of the crowd, +while the more favored portion of the audience +<span id="pg_5" class="page_anchor">5 </span> +occupied every post of vantage, at windows and +housetops, that commanded a view of the ghastly +show. Here, as Oliver noted when he came +away from his last interview with Fagin at the +dawn of day: “A great multitude had already +assembled; the windows were filled with people +smoking and playing cards to beguile the time; +the crowd was pushing, quarreling and joking. +Everything told of life and animation, but one +dark cluster of objects in the very centre of all—the +black stage, the crossbeam, the rope, and +all the hideous apparatus of death.”</p> + +<p>Prisoners of old were executed on Tyburn +Hill in public, or on some occasions, when it +was especially desired to enforce an example, +as close as possible to the scene of guilt. Those +who were punished for participation in the +Gordon Riots of 1780 were swung off in the +various parts of the city where their crimes +were committed. In 1793 the common places +of execution were changed to the Old Bailey, +in front of Newgate. There the first culprit +was executed on December 9 of that year. +Hanging was brisk when George <ins title="Note: “III.” in the original">III</ins> was king. +Between February and December, 1785, ninety-six +persons suffered by the trap arrangement +<span id="pg_6" class="page_anchor">6 </span> +now in common use the world over, which was +then known as the “new drop.” Previous to +that time it had been the custom to perch the +candidates for the halter on a cart, which was +driven from under them at the fatal signal, +while someone hung on to their legs to choke +them more speedily and surely—an expeditious +practice quite frequently resorted to by +Judge Lynch in America in after years, and still +not entirely out of use for extemporaneous +executions. In “Barnaby Rudge” (volume 2, +chapter 19) Dickens gives the most detailed +description of a Newgate execution which occurs +in his works. The passage is well worth +quoting at length:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The time wore on. The noises in the streets +became less frequent by degrees until the silence +was scarcely broken, save by the bells in +the church towers marking the progress, softer +and more stealthily while the city slumbered, +of that Great Watcher with the hoary head, +who never sleeps or rests. In the brief interval +of darkness and repose which feverish towns +enjoy, all busy sounds were hushed; and those +who awoke from dreams lay listening in their +beds, and longed for dawn, and wished the dead +of the night were passed.</p> + +<p>“Into the street, outside the gaol’s main wall, +<span id="pg_7" class="page_anchor">7 </span> +workmen came straggling, at this solemn hour, +in groups of two or three, and, meeting in the +centre, cast their tools upon the ground and +spoke in whispers. Others soon issued from +the gaol itself, bearing on their shoulders +planks and beams: these materials being all +brought forth, the rest bestirred themselves, +and the dull sound of hammers began to echo +through the stillness.</p> + +<p>“Here and there among this knot of laborers, +one with a lantern or a smoky link stood by +to light his fellows at their work; and by its +doubtful aid some might be seen dimly, taking +up the pavement of the road, while others held +upright great posts, or fixed them in holes thus +made for their reception. Some dragged slowly +on toward the rest an empty cart, which they +brought rumbling from the prison yard, while +<ins title="Note: “other” in the original">others</ins> erected strong barriers across the street. +All were busily engaged. Their dusky figures +moving to and fro at that unusual hour, so +active and so silent, might have been taken +for those of shadowy creatures toiling at midnight +on some ghostly, unsubstantial work, +which, like themselves, would vanish with the +first gleam of day, and leave but morning mist +and vapor.</p> + +<p>“While it was yet dark a few lookers-on collected, +who had plainly come there for that purpose +and intended to remain; even those who +had to pass the spot on their way to some other +<span id="pg_8" class="page_anchor">8 </span> +place, lingered, and lingered yet, as though the +attraction of that were irresistible. Meanwhile +the noise of the saw and mallet went on +briskly, mingled with the clattering of boards +on the stone pavement of the road, and sometimes +with the <ins title="Note: “workmens’” in the original">workmen’s</ins> voices as they called +to one another. Whenever the chimes of the +neighboring church were heard—and that was +every quarter of an hour—a strong sensation, +instantaneous and indescribable, but perfectly +obvious, seemed to pervade them all.</p> + +<p>“Gradually a faint brightness appeared in the +East, and the air, which had been very warm +through the night, felt cool and chilly. Though +there was no daylight yet, the darkness was +diminished, and the stars looked pale. The +prison, which had been a mere black mass, with +little shape or form, put on its usual aspect; +and ever and anon a solitary watchman could +be seen upon its roof, stopping to look down +upon the preparations in the street. This +man, from forming, as it were, a part of the gaol, +and knowing, or being supposed to know, all +that was passing within, became an object of +much interest, and was eagerly looked for, and +as awfully pointed out as if he had been a spirit.</p> + +<p>“By and by the feeble light grew stronger, +and the houses, with their signboards and inscriptions, +stood plainly out in the dull gray +of the morning. Heavy stage-wagons crawled +from the inn yard opposite, and travelers +<span id="pg_9" class="page_anchor">9 </span> +peeped out, and, as they rolled sluggishly away, +cast many a backward look toward the gaol. +And now the sun’s first beams came glancing +into the street, and the night’s work, which in +its various stages and in the varied fancies of +the lookers-on had taken a hundred shapes, +wore its own proper form—a scaffold and +gibbet.</p> + +<p>“As the warmth of the cheerful day began +to shed itself upon the scanty crowd the murmur +of tongues was heard, shutters were +thrown open, the blinds drawn up, and those +who had slept in rooms over against the prison, +where places to see the execution were let at +high prices, rose hastily from their beds. In +some of the houses people were busy taking +out the window-sashes for the better accommodation +of the spectators; in others, the spectators +were already seated, and beguiling the time +with cards, or drink, or jokes among themselves. +Some had purchased seats upon the +housetops, and were already crawling to their +stations from parapet and garret window. Some +were yet bargaining for good places, and stood +in them in a state of indecision, gazing at the +slowly-swelling crowd, and at the workmen as +they rested listlessly against the scaffold—affecting +to listen with indifference to the proprietor’s +eulogy of the commanding view his +house afforded, and the surpassing cheapness +of his terms.</p> + +<span id="pg_10" class="page_anchor">10 </span> + +<p>“A fairer morning never shone. From the +roofs and the upper stories of the buildings the +spires of the city churches and the great cathedral +dome were visible, rising up beyond the +prison into the blue sky, and clad in the color of +light summer clouds, and showing in the clear +atmosphere their every scrap of tracery and +fretwork, and every niche and loophole. All was +lightness, brightness and promise, excepting in +the street below, into which (for it lay yet in the +shadow) the eye looked down into a dark trench, +where, in the midst of so much life and hope +and renewal of existence, stood the terrible +instrument of death. It seemed as if the very +sun forbore to look upon it.</p> + +<p>“But it was better, grim and sombre in the +shade, than when, the day being more advanced, +it stood confessed in full glare and glory of the +sun, with its black paint blistering and its +nooses dangling in the light like loathsome garlands. +It was better in the solitude and gloom +of midnight, with a few forms clustering about +it, than in the freshness and the stir of the morning, +the centre of an eager crowd. It was better +haunting the street like a spectre, when men +were in their beds, and influencing, perchance, +the city’s dreams, than braving the broad day, +and thrusting its obscene presence upon the +waking senses.</p> + +<p>“Five o’clock had struck—six, seven and +eight. Along the two main streets, at either +<span id="pg_11" class="page_anchor">11 </span> +end of the crossway, a living stream had now +set in, rolling to the marts of gain and business. +Carts, coaches, wagons, trucks and +barrows, forced a passage through the outskirts +of the throng and clattered onward in +the same direction. Some of these, which +were public conveyances, and had come from +a short distance in the country, stopped, and +the driver pointed to the gibbet with his +whip, though he might have spared himself +the pains, for the heads of all the passengers +were turned that way without his help, +and the coach windows were stuck full of staring +eyes. In some of the carts and wagons +women might be seen, glancing fearfully at the +same unsightly thing; and even little children +were held up above the peoples’ heads to see +what kind of a toy a gallows was and to learn +how men were hanged.</p> + +<p>“Two rioters were to die before the prison, +who had been concerned in the attack upon it; +and one directly after in Bloomsbury Square. +At nine o’clock a strong body of military +marched into the <ins title="Note: “stret” in the original">street</ins>, and formed and lined a +narrow passage into Holborn, which had been +indifferently kept all night by constables. +Through this another cart was brought (the +one already mentioned had been employed +in the construction of the scaffold), and +wheeled up to the prison gate. These preparations +made, the soldiers stood at ease; +<span id="pg_12" class="page_anchor">12 </span> +the officers lounged to and fro in the alley +they had made, or talked together at the +scaffold’s foot; and the concourse which +had been rapidly augmenting for some hours, +and still received additions every minute, +waited with an impatience which increased +with every chime of St. Sepulchre’s clock for +twelve at noon.</p> + +<p>“Up to this time they had been very quiet, +comparatively silent, save when the arrival of +some new party at a window, hitherto unoccupied, +gave them something to look at or to talk +of. But, as the hour approached, a buzz and +a hum arose, which, deepening every moment, +soon swelled into a roar, and seemed to fill the +air. No words, or even voices, could be distinguished +in this clamor, nor did they speak +much to each other; though such as were better +informed on the topic than the rest would tell +their neighbors, perhaps, that they might know +the hangman when he came out, by his being +the shorter one; and that the man that was to +suffer with him was named Hugh; and that it +was Barnaby Rudge who would be hanged in +Bloomsbury Square.</p> + +<p>“The hum grew, as the time drew near, so +loud that those who were at the windows could +not hear the church clock strike, though it was +close at hand. Nor had they any need to hear +it either, for they could see it in the peoples’ +faces. So surely as another quarter chimed +<span id="pg_13" class="page_anchor">13 </span> +there was a movement in the crowd—as if something +had passed over it—as if the light upon +them had been changed—in which the fact was +readable as on a brazen dial, figured by a giant’s +hand. Three-quarters past eleven. The murmur +now was deafening, yet every man seemed +mute. Look where you would among the crowd, +you saw strained eyes and lips compressed; +it would have been difficult for the most vigilant +observer to point this way or that, and say that +yonder man had cried out. It were as easy to +detect the motion of the lips in a sea-shell.</p> + +<p>“Three-quarters past eleven. Many spectators +who had retired from the windows came +back refreshed, as though their watch had just +begun. Those who had fallen asleep aroused +themselves; and every person in the crowd +made one last effort to better his position, which +caused a press against the sturdy barriers that +made them bend and yield like twigs. The officers, +who until now had kept together, fell into +their several positions, and gave the words of +command. Swords were drawn, muskets shouldered, +and the bright steel, winding its way +among the crowd, gleamed and glittered in the +sun like a river. Along this shining path two +men were hurrying on, leading a horse, which +was speedily harnessed to the cart at the prison +door. Then a profound silence replaced the +tumult that had so long been gathering, and +a breathless pause ensued. Every window was +<span id="pg_14" class="page_anchor">14 </span> +now choked up with heads; the housetops +teemed with people clinging to chimneys, peering +over gable-ends, and holding on where the +sudden loosening of any brick or stone would +dash them down into the street. The church-tower, +the church-roof, the churchyard, the +prison-leads, the very waterspouts and lampposts, +every inch of room swarmed with human +life.</p> + +<p>“At the first stroke of twelve the prison bell +began to toll. Then the roar, mingled now with +cries of ‘Hats off!’ and ‘Poor fellows!’—and, +from some specks in the great concourse, with +a shriek or groan—burst forth again. It was +terrible to see—if anyone in that distraction +of excitement could have seen—the world of +eager eyes all strained upon the scaffold and +the beam.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The Newgate gallows in “Barnaby Rudge” +was set up for the ruffian Hugh, the bastard +of Sir John Chester and his gypsy light-o-love, +and for Dennis the hangman, who had +been concerned as leaders in the attack on the +prison by the Gordon Rioters. “Two cripples—both +were boys—one with a leg of wood, one +who dragged his twisted body along with the +help of a crutch, were hanged in Bloomsbury +Square, where they had helped to sack Lord +Mansfield’s house, and other rioters in other +<span id="pg_15" class="page_anchor">15 </span> +parts of the town, in despoiling which they had +been conspicuous.” It may be recalled that +the mother of Hugh herself had died on the +scaffold, at Tyburn, for the crime of passing +forged notes. To descend from the realm of +romance to that of reality, the most memorable +executions in the Old Bailey were those of Mrs. +Phipoe, the murderess, in 1797; of Governor +Wall of Trinidad, for murder, on Jan. 28, 1802; +of Halloway and Haggerty, the murderers, on +Feb. 22, 1807, when thirty spectators were +trampled to death; of Bellingham, the assassin +of a member of Parliament, Percival, on May +18, 1812; of the Cato Street Conspirators, who +were cut down and decapitated on the scaffold +in the presence of the multitude, on May 1, +1820; of Fauntleroy, the banker, hanged for +forging in 1824; of the assassin Greenacre, in +1837; of Courvoiser, who murdered Lord William +Russell, in 1840; and of Franz Müller, the +railway murderer, who was extradited from +this country, as will doubtless be remembered +by many, and sent to his doom in 1864. That +same year seven pirates were also suspended +in the Old Bailey. Since then executions have +been carried out privately within the walls of +the prison.</p> + +<span id="pg_16" class="page_anchor">16 </span> + +<p>A contemporary of Dickens, in the “Ingoldsby +Legends,” has given us a picture, in a different +vein, of the same period and subject. He +has told us, in his own rattling verse, how my +Lord Tomnoddy, having nothing to do, and +being deucedly bored, learned from his faithful +Tiger Tim that Greenacre was to be hanged +at Newgate; here was indeed a sensation for +His Lordship: “To see a man swing, at the end +of a string, with his neck in a noose, will be +quite a new thing.” So he hires the whole first +floor of the Magpie and Stump, opposite the +jail, and invites his friends to come and help +him see a man die in his shoes. They help him +so effectually during the night, what with “cold +fowl and cigars, pickled onions in jars, Welsh +rabbits and kidney, rare work for jaws, and very +large lobsters with fine claws,” and the like, +not to mention gin-toddy and cold and hot +punch, that they fall asleep and lose the show +after all, when, as they cannot have the man +hung over again, they go home to bed in hackney +coaches and a state of deep disgust. Another +contemporary, of more ample renown, Thackeray +to wit, gave some attention to the matter. +In July, 1840, he published, in Frazer’s Magazine, +<span id="pg_17" class="page_anchor">17 </span> +a paper called “Going to see a man hanged.” +The man was Courvoiser; and Thackeray, +unlike Lord Tomnoddy, did not fall asleep +over the feast, and so did see him mount the +scaffold.</p> + +<p>Surgeons’ Hall used to stand close to Newgate +and the Old Bailey, and the victims of the +halter were handed over to the doctors for dissection. +The corpse of wicked Lord Ferrers, +who was executed in 1760 at Tyburn for murdering +his steward, was taken in his own <ins title="Note: “landeau” in the original">landau</ins> +and six to the Burgeons’ Theatre to be cut +up. After having been disemboweled, in conformance +with the sentence, the body of the +bad lord was put on show in the first floor window, +to be hissed and hooted at by the mob. +The account of the Ferrers execution, by the +way, provides a curious picture of the time. +Ferrers dressed himself in his wedding suit to +be hanged. He had the harness of his horses +decorated with ribbons. On the way to Tyburn +from the Tower, my Lord intimated a desire for +some wine, being thirsty. The Sheriff, who was +in the coach with him, declined to allow him to +refresh himself. “Then,” said the Earl, taking +a bite of pigtail tobacco from a plug which he +<span id="pg_18" class="page_anchor">18 </span> +had in his pocket, “I must be content with +this.” He harbored no malice against the Sheriff, +however, for he presented him with his +watch as they neared Tyburn. To the Chaplain +he gave five guineas, and to the executioner +the same sum. The executioner had to pull +him by the legs to effectually strangle him, and +while the body swung for an hour on the gallows, +the sheriffs and their friends had luncheon +on the platform within reach of it. “The +executioners fought for the rope,” says the +chronicler, “and the one who lost it, cried.”</p> + +<p>But we have wandered far from Newgate in +this wicked company. Old Newgate, upon a +portion of whose site the present jail stands, +was built in the reign of King John. It derived +its name from the fact that London was then a +walled city, and the jail was erected close to +the newest gate in the fortification. It was, in +fact, at first a mere tower or appendage of the +gate. Newgate was used as a State prison long +before the Tower. One of the many captives of +this sort which it held was William Penn. The +founder of Pennsylvania spent six months +there for the atrocious offense of street preaching. +Defoe spent some time here on account of +<span id="pg_19" class="page_anchor">19 </span> +a political tract, and wrote several others while +in confinement. Dr. Dodd wrote his successful +comedy, “Sir Roger de Coverly,” in Newgate. +One of the last persons confined here for +political offense was Mr. Hobhouse, afterward +Lord Broughton. The street used to be filled +with people when he took his exercise on the +roof, who watched and cheered at his hat, +which was all they could see of him above the +wall. An odd circumstance about Mr. Hobhouse’s +imprisonment is that Byron had prophesied +it in the remark that “having foamed +himself into a reformer, he would subside in +Newgate.” Among the famous prisoners +here we find Savage, the poet, for murder; Jack +Sheppard, whose remarkable escape, very +much exaggerated upon fact, you may have +read of from Mr. Ainsworth’s pen; and Jonathan +Wild, who, by the by, once lived nearly opposite +the court-house, in the Old Bailey; Catherine +Hayes, the abandoned heroine of Thackeray’s +novel; Mrs. Brownrigg, the fiend who +tortured her serving-maids; Astlett, the Bank +of England clerk, who committed forgeries for +over $1,500,000, and many more. Lord George +Gordon, familiar to all who have read “Barnaby +<span id="pg_20" class="page_anchor">20 </span> +Rudge,” died in 1793, of gaol-fever, in one +of the cells of Newgate, after several years of +confinement, for libelling the Queen of France. +The poor, mad lord, whose rioters had turned +the jail into a ruin once, found it strong enough +to hold him and his fantastic visions securely in +the end. Here is Dickens’s description of the +attack upon the prison, caused by him, commencing +in the second volume of “Barnaby +Rudge,” Chapter Fifth.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It was about six o’clock in the evening when +a vast mob poured into Lincoln’s Inn Fields by +every avenue, and divided, evidently in pursuance +of a previous design, into several parties. +It must not be understood that this arrangement +was known to the whole crowd, but that +it was the work of a few leaders, who, mingling +with these men as they came upon the ground, +and calling to them to fall into this or that party, +effected it as rapidly as if it had been determined +on by a council of the whole number, and +every man had known his place.</p> + +<p>“It was perfectly notorious to the assemblage +that the largest body, which comprehended +about two-thirds of the whole, was designed for +the attack on Newgate. It comprehended all +the rioters who had been conspicuous in any of +their former proceedings; all those whom they +recommended as daring hands and fit for the +<span id="pg_21" class="page_anchor">21 </span> +work; all those whose companions had been +taken in the riots; and a great number of people +who were relatives or friends of the felons +in the gaol. This last class included not only +the most desperate and utterly abandoned villains +in London, but some who were comparatively +innocent. There was more than one woman +there, disguised in man’s attire, and bent on +the rescue of a child or a brother. There were +the two sons of a man who lay under the sentence +of death, and who was to be executed, +along with three others, the next day but one. +There was a great party of boys, whose fellow +pickpockets were in the prison; and, at the +skirts of all, a score of miserable women, outcasts +from the world, seeking to release some +other fellow creature as miserable as themselves, +or moved by general sympathy, perhaps, +God knows, with all who were without hope +and wretched.</p> + +<p>“Old swords, and pistols without ball or powder; +sledge-hammers, knives, axes, saws, and +weapons pillaged from the butcher shops; a +forest of iron bars and wooden clubs; long <ins title="Note: “ladlers” in the original">ladders</ins> +for scaling the walls, each carried on the +shoulders of a dozen men; lighted torches, tow +smeared with pitch, and tar, and brimstone; +staves roughly plucked from a fence and paling; +and even crutches taken from crippled +beggars on the streets composed their arms. +When all was ready, Hugh and Dennis, with Simon +<span id="pg_22" class="page_anchor">22 </span> +Tappertit between them, led the way. +Roaring and chafing like an angry sea, the +crowd pressed after them.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>They halt upon the way to drag Gabriel +Varden from his shop, in order to compel him +to pick the lock of the prison gate. They march +him at the head of the mob to the jail. They +find that their visit was not wholly unexpected, +“for the governor’s house, which fronted the +street, was strongly barricaded, the wicket of +the prison gate was closed up, and at no loophole +or grating was any person to be seen.” The +governor, inspecting the mob from the roof of +his house, is summoned to surrender his charge. +He refuses. The rabble call on the locksmith +to pick the locks. He defies them, and is +dragged away barely in time to save his life by +Joe Willets and Edward Chester, who are +in the mob in disguise. Then the assault on the +jail begins.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Hammers began to rattle on the walls, and +every man strove to reach the prison and be +among the foremost rank. Fighting their +way through the press and struggle as desperately +as if they were in the midst of the enemies +rather than their own friends, the two men +retreated with the blacksmith between them, +<span id="pg_23" class="page_anchor">23 </span> +and dragged him through the very heart of the +concourse.</p> + +<p>“And now the strokes begin to fall like hail +upon the gate and on the strong building; for +those who could not reach the door spent their +fierce rage on any thing, even on the great +blocks of stone, which shivered their weapons +into fragments, and made their hands and arms +tingle as if the walls were active in their resistance +and dealt them back their blows. The +clash of the iron ringing upon iron mingled +with the deafening tumult, and sounded high +above it, as the great sledge-hammers rattled +on the nailed and plated door; the sparks flew +off in showers; men worked in gangs, and at +short intervals relieved each other, that all +their strength might be devoted to the work; +but there stood the portal still, as grim and +dark and as strong as ever, and, saving for the +dints on its shattered surface, quite unchanged.</p> + +<p>“While some brought all their energies to bear +upon this toilsome task, and some, rearing ladders +against the prison, tried to clamber to the +summit of the walls they were too short to +scale; and some, again, engaged a body of police, +and beat them back and trod them under +foot by force of numbers; others <ins title="Note: “beseiged” in the original">besieged</ins> the +house on which the gaoler had appeared, and, +driving in the door, brought out his furniture +and piled it up against the prison gate to make +a low fire which should burn it down. As +<span id="pg_24" class="page_anchor">24 </span> +soon as this device was understood, all those +who had labored hitherto cast down their tools +and helped to swell the heap, which reached +half way across the street, and was so high that +those who threw more fuel on the top got up +by ladders. When all the keeper’s goods were +flung upon this costly pile to the last fragment, +they smeared it with pitch and tar and rosin +they had brought, and sprinkled it with turpentine. +To all the woodwork round the prison +doors they did the like, leaving not a joist or +a beam untouched. This infernal christening +performed, they fired the pile with lighted +matches and with blazing tow, and then stood +by and waited the result.</p> + +<p>“The furniture being very dry, and rendered +more combustible by wax and oil, besides the +arts they had used, took fire at once. The +flames roared high and fiercely, blackening the +prison wall and twining up its lofty front like +burning serpents. At first they crowded +around the blaze, and vented their exultation +only in their looks; but when it grew hotter and +fiercer; when it crackled and leaped, and roared +like a great furnace; when it shone upon the +opposite houses, and lighted up not only the +pale and wondering faces at the windows, but +the inmost corners of each habitation; when +through the deep red heat and glow the fire was +seen sporting and toying with the door, now +clinging to its obdurate surface, now gliding +<span id="pg_25" class="page_anchor">25 </span> +off with fierce inconstancy and roaring high into +the sky, anon returning to fold it in its burning +grasp and lure it to its ruin; when it shone and +gleamed so brightly that the church clock of +St. Sepulchre’s, so often pointing to the hour +of death, was legible as in broad day, and the +vane upon its steeple-top glittered in the unwonted +light like some thing richly jeweled; +when blackened stone and sombre brick grew +ruddy in the deep reflection, and windows shone +like burnished gold, dotting the longest distance +in the fiery vista with their specks of +brightness; when wall and tower and roof and +chimney-stack seemed drunk, and in the flickering +glare appeared to reel and stagger; when +scores of objects, never seen before, burst out +upon the view, and things the most familiar +put on some new aspect, then the mob began to +join the whirl, and with loud yells and shouts +and clamor, such as is happily seldom heard, bestirred +themselves to feed the fire and keep it +at its height.</p> + +<p>“Although the heat was so intense that the +paint on the houses over against the prison +parched and crackled up, and swelling into +boils, as it were, from an excess of torture, +broke and crumbled away; although the glass +fell from the window sashes, and the lead and +iron on the roofs blistered the incautious hand +that touched them, and the sparrows in the +eaves took wing, and, rendered giddy by the +<span id="pg_26" class="page_anchor">26 </span> +smoke, fell fluttering down upon the blazing +pile, still the fire was tended increasingly by +busy hands, and round it men were going always. +They never slackened in their zeal or +kept aloof, but pressed upon the flames so hard +that those in front had much ado to save themselves +from being thrust in; if one man swooned +or dropped, a dozen struggled for his place, and +that, although they knew the pain and thirst +and pressure to be unendurable. Those who +fell down in fainting fits and were crushed or +hurt were carried to an inn yard close at hand +and dashed with water from a pump, of which +<ins title="Note: “bucketsfull” in the original">buckets full</ins> were passed from man to man +among the crowd; but such was the strong desire +of all to drink, and such the fighting to be +first, that, for the most part, the whole contents +were spilled upon the ground, without +the lips of a man being moistened.</p> + +<p>“Meanwhile, and in the midst of all the roar +and outcry, those who were nearest to the pile +heaped up again the burning fragments that +came toppling down, and racked the fire about +the door, which, although a sheet of flame, was +still a door, fast locked and barred, and kept +them out. Great pieces of burning wood were +passed, besides, above the people’s heads to +such as stood above the ladders, and some of +these, climbing up to the topmost stave, and +holding on with one hand by the prison wall, +exerted all their skill and force to cast these +<span id="pg_27" class="page_anchor">27 </span> +firebrands on the roof or down into the yards +within. In many instances their efforts were +successful, which occasioned a new and appalling +addition to the horrors of the scene, for the +prisoners within, seeing from between their +bars that the fire caught in many places and +thrived fiercely, and being all locked up in +strong cells for the night, began to know that +they were in danger of being burnt alive. This +terrible fear, spreading from cell to cell and +from yard to yard, vented itself in such dismal +cries and wailings, and in such dreadful shrieks +for help, that the whole gaol resounded with +the noise, which was loudly heard even above +the shouting of the mob and roaring of the +flames, and was so full of agony and despair +that it made the boldest tremble.</p> + +<p>“It was remarkable that these cries began in +that quarter of the gaol which fronted Newgate +street, where it was well known that the +men who were to suffer death on Thursday +were confined. And not only were these four, +who had a short time to live, the first to whom +the dread of being burnt occurred, but they +were, throughout, the most importunate of all; +for they could be plainly heard, notwithstanding +the great thickness of the walls, crying that +the wind set that way, and that the flames +would shortly reach them; and calling to officers +of the gaol to come and quench the fire +from a cistern which was in their yard, and full +<span id="pg_28" class="page_anchor">28 </span> +of water. Judging from what the crowds from +without the walls could hear from time to time, +these four doomed wretches never ceased to call +for help; and that with as much distraction, +and in as great a frenzy of attachment to existence, +as though each had an honored, happy life +before him, instead of eight-and-forty hours of +miserable imprisonment, and then a violent and +shameful death.</p> + +<p>“But the anguish and suffering of the two sons +of one of these men, when they heard, or fancied +they heard, their father’s voice, is past description. +After wringing their hands, and rushing +to and fro as if they were stark mad, one +mounted on the shoulders of his brother, and +tried to clamber up the face of the high wall, +guarded at the top with spikes and points of +iron. And when he fell among the crowd he +was not deterred by his bruises, but mounted +up again, and fell again, and when he found the +feat impossible began to beat the stones and +tear them with his hands, as if he could in that +way make a breach in the strong building and +force a passage in. At last they cleft their way +among the mob about the door, though many +men, a dozen times their match, had tried in +vain to do so, and were seen in, yes in, the fire, +striving to pry it down with crowbars.</p> + +<p>“Nor were they alone affected by the outcry +from within the prison. The women who were +looking on shrieked loudly, beat their hands together, +<span id="pg_29" class="page_anchor">29 </span> +stopped their ears and many fainted; +the men who were not near the walls and active +in the siege, rather than do nothing, tore up the +pavement of the street, and did so with a haste +and fury that could not have been surpassed if +that had been their gaol and they were near +their object. Not one living creature in the +throng was for an instant still. The whole great +mass were mad.</p> + +<p>“A shout! Another! Another yet, though few +knew why or what it meant. But those around +the gate had seen it slowly yield and drop from +its topmost hinge. It hung on that side but by +one, but it was upright still, because of the bar +and its having sunk of its own weight into the +heap of ashes at its foot. There was now a gap +at the top of the doorway through which could +be descried a gloomy passage, cavernous and +dark. Pile up the fire!</p> + +<p>“It burnt fiercely. The door was red hot and +the gap wider. They vainly tried to shield their +faces with their hands, and standing, as if in +readiness for a spring, watched the place. Dark +figures, some crawling on their hands and +knees, some carried in the arms of others, were +seen to pass along the roof. It was plain that +the gaol could hold out no longer. The keeper +and his officers and their wives and children +were escaping. Pile up the fire!</p> + +<p>“The door sank down again; it settled deeper +in the cinders, tottered, yielded, was down.</p> + +<span id="pg_30" class="page_anchor">30 </span> + +<p>“As they shouted again they fell back for a +moment and left a clear space about the fire that +lay between them and the gaol entry. Hugh +leaped upon the blazing heap, and scattering a +train of sparks into the air, and making the +dark lobby glitter with those that hung upon +his dress, dashed into the gaol.</p> + +<p>“The hangman followed. And then so many +rushed upon their track that the fire got trodden +down and thinly strewed about the street; but +there was no need of it now, for, inside and out, +the prison was in flames.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The rioters celebrated the capture of Newgate +in roaring style. They commanded and +compelled the citizens all around the place to +illuminate their houses from bottom to top, as +if for a glorious national event, and at a time of +public gayety and joy. “When this last task +had been achieved the shouts and cries grew +fainter; the clank of the fetters, which had resounded +on all sides as the prisoners escaped, +was heard no more; all the noises of the crowd +subsided into a hoarse and sullen murmur as it +passed into the distance; and when the human +tide had rolled away, a melancholy heap of +smoking ruins marked the spot where it had +lately chafed and roared.” Among the spectators +of the capture of Newgate was the poet +<span id="pg_31" class="page_anchor">31 </span> +Crabbe, then a young man seeking his fortune +in London, and he has left a description of it in +his journal. Dr. Johnson records the fact that +“on Wednesday I walked with Dr. Scott (Lord +Stowell) to look at Newgate and found it in +ruins, with the fire yet glowing. As I went by, +the Protestants were plundering the Sessions +House in the Old Bailey. There were not, I believe, +a hundred; but they did their work at +leisure, in full security, without sentinels, without +trepidation, as men lawfully employed, in +full day.”</p> + +<p>At the period of the Gordon Riots, Newgate +was in the course of reconstruction. The present +prison was designed by George Dance, R. +A., the architect of the Mansion House and +other public buildings. The famous Lord Mayor +Beckford, father of the author of “Vathek,” +laid the foundation stone on May 23, 1770, this +being his last public act. Work seems to have +progressed slowly on it, for the newer portion +was only in part completed when the Gordon +mob stormed the older sections. This event +served as a warning, however. Within two +years Newgate was in stronger shape than +ever; and substantially in the shape which, +<span id="pg_32" class="page_anchor">32 </span> +after the passage of more than a century, it still +presents to the world.</p> + +<p>Newgate serves to London the purpose of a +reception prison for offenders awaiting trial +and for those condemned to death, and the executions +of the great city are performed within +its walls. The Old Bailey Court, which is an +adjunct to it, is practically a part of the mountain +of masonry which sends its bleak shadow +over Newgate street and the Old Bailey. It is +separated from it only by a yard, across which +prisoners are led to be tried. The court-house, +known colloquially, in London, as the Old Bailey, +and politely as the Central Criminal Court, +was built in 1773, was destroyed with Newgate +in the Gordon Riots, but rebuilt and enlarged +in 1809 by the taking in of Surgeons’ Hall. The +Court is a square hall, with a gallery for visitors. +At one side is the chief seat for the +judge, with a canopy overhead surmounted by +the royal arms, and a gilded sheathed sword on +the crimson wall. Opposite is the prisoners’ +dock, with the stairs descending into the covered +passageway, which gives access by the +way of the Press Yard to Newgate. To the left +of the dock is the witness-stand, and further to +<span id="pg_33" class="page_anchor">33 </span> +the left the jury box. The counsel occupy the +body of the court below. The Old Bailey Court +formerly sat at seven in the morning, but now +sittings do not commence until ten. It tries +crimes of every kind, from treason to petty larceny +and offenses on the high seas, but only the +heaviest ones are brought to judgment before +this branch of the Sessions. What is called the +New Court, adjoining the old one, sits upon +the lighter misdemeanors. The Judges at the +Old Bailey are nominally the Lord Mayor, who +is, in fact, only a gorgeous dummy to open the +court with true dignity, the Sheriff, the Lord +Chancellor, and a long list of Judges, Aldermen, +Recorders and so on. Of these the real +Judges are the Recorder and Common <ins title="Note: “Sargeant” in the original">Sergeant</ins>, +and the Judge of the Sheriff’s Court. The +law Judges take part when knotty legal questions +come in dispute, or when the trial is for +a capital offense which may cost the prisoner +his life. A curious old custom at the Bailey is +that one Alderman must be present at every +sitting of the Court.</p> + +<p>Above the Old Court is a stately dining-room +where, during the Old Bailey sittings, the Sheriffs +used to give Judges and Court officials, and +<span id="pg_34" class="page_anchor">34 </span> +a few privileged visitors, dinners of rump steak +and marrow puddings, according to a bill of +fare provided by custom. The custom, I believe, +is kept up still. There are two dinners, at +3 and 5 o’clock respectively, and a historic +court chaplain is told of who for ten years ate +both of these meals each day.</p> + +<p>There is a reverse to this pleasant picture of +the Old Bailey. For many years it was a most +unhealthy place to hold court in. The jail fevers +which decimated Newgate’s population always +found their way into the court room. In 1750 +the fever caused the death of several judges +and Lord Mayor Pennant himself, and whenever +there was an epidemic there are records of +its effect among the potentates of the Old Bailey. +In Chapter 7 of “A Tale of Two Cities,” in +connection with the trial of Charles Darnay, +Dickens writes of the Old Bailey Court: “They +hanged at Tyburn in those days, so the street +outside of Newgate had not obtained the infamous +notoriety that has since attached to it. +But the gaol was a vile place, in which most +kinds of debauchery and villainy were practiced, +and where dire diseases were bred, that +came into the Court with the prisoners, and +<span id="pg_35" class="page_anchor">35 </span> +sometimes rushed straight from the dock at my +Lord Chief Justice himself, and pulled him off +the bench. It had more than once happened +that the judge in the black cap pronounced his +own doom as certainly as the prisoner’s, and +even died before him.” In the course of the +same chapter he describes the accused as +standing quiet and attentive, with his hands +resting on the slab of wood forming the shelf of +the prisoner’s dock, “so composedly that they +had not displaced a leaf of the herbs with which +it was strewn. The Court was all bestrewn +with herbs, and sprinkled with vinegar, as a +precaution against gaol air and gaol fever.” In +1770, Mr. Ackerman, one of the keepers, testified +before the House of Commons, which had +the question of rebuilding the prison before it, +that in the spring of 1750, the jail distemper +had spread to the Sessions House, now the Old +Bailey, and had caused the death, in addition to +two Judges, and the Lord Mayor already alluded +to, of several of the jury and others to the +number of over sixty persons.</p> + +<p>The surroundings of Newgate are full of historical +memories. Just off Giltspur street, but +a step away, is Cock lane, where the ghost walked. +<span id="pg_36" class="page_anchor">36 </span> +Along Newgate street, going from the Old +Bailey to Cheapside, was the noble old charity +of Christ’s Hospital, otherwise famous as the +Blue-Coat School, rich in works of art and richer +in the recollections of such scholars within +its cloisters as Coleridge, Charles Lamb, Leigh +Hunt, Richardson, who wrote “Clarissa Harlowe,” +and many more. Along the same street +opens Queen’s Head Passage, in which Dolly’s +chop-house, which is a part of the commercial +history of England, stands, and Ivy Lane, +where Dr. Johnson established his club of that +name. Newgate Market, between Newgate +street and Paternoster Row, is the great meat +market of London. It is what is known as the +carcass market, and for many years was the +chief source of slaughtered meat supply to the retail +butchers of London. At a certain hour of the +morning Newgate street was a veritable butchers’ +exchange. Newgate market was originally +a meat market, but its convenient proximity to +Smithfield, which lies on the other side of Newgate, +only a few streets off, led to its conversion +to its later uses. Smithfield was the historic +cattle market of London. Here in the past +were slaughtered beasts for food, and men and +<span id="pg_37" class="page_anchor">37 </span> +women for their opinions. The beasts had the +better part of the bargain. They were killed +before they were cooked. The human victims +of Smithfield Shambles were roasted and boiled +alive. In chapter 21 of “Oliver Twist” we find +a description of Smithfield when Sykes is +carrying Oliver off to assist in the burglary +at Chertsey.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It was market morning. The ground was +covered nearly ankle deep with filth and mire, +and a thick steam perpetually rising from the +reeking bodies of the cattle, and mingling with +the fog, which seemed to rest upon the chimney +tops, hung heavily above. All the pens in the +centre of the large area, and as many temporary +ones as could be crowded into the vacant +space, were filled with sheep; tied up to posts +by the gutter side were long lines of beasts and +oxen three or four deep. Countrymen, butchers, +drovers, hawkers, boys, thieves, idlers, vagabonds +of every low grade, were mingled together +in a dense mass; the whistling of the +drovers, the barking of the dogs, the bellowing +and the plunging of the oxen, the bleating of the +sheep, the grunting and the squeaking of the +pigs, the cries of the hawkers, the shouts, oaths, +and quarreling on all sides, the ringing of bells +and roar of voices that issued from every public +house, the crowding, pushing, driving, beating, +<span id="pg_38" class="page_anchor">38 </span> +whooping, yelling, the hideous and discordant +din that resounded from every corner of the +market, and the unwashed, unshaven, squalid +and dirty figures constantly running to and fro, +and bursting in and out of the throng, rendered +it a stunning and bewildering scene which +quite confounded the senses.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It may be remembered too, vide “Great Expectations,” +chapter 20, that when Pip came +up to London to find his guardian, Mr. Jaggers, +he beguiled that time while awaiting +his return to his office by wandering about the +neighborhood, and so “came into Smithfield, +and the shameful place being all asmear with +filth and fat and blood and foam, seemed to +stick to me. So I rubbed it off with all possible +speed by turning into a street where I saw +the great black dome of St. Paul’s bulging at +me from behind a grim stone building which a +bystander said was Newgate prison.” Whenever +he writes of the jail, he does so in the same +spirit. His earliest impressions of it struck the +keynote for his whole life’s view of it. What +those early impressions were one may discover +in that paper of the “Sketches by Boz” which, +in their collected shape, bears the number 24, +and has for title, “Criminal Courts.”</p> + +<span id="pg_39" class="page_anchor">39 </span> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“We shall never forget the mingled feelings +of awe and respect with which we used to gaze +on the exterior of Newgate in our schoolboy +days. How dreadful its rough, heavy walls, +and how massive the doors appeared to us—the +latter looking as if they were made for the express +purpose of letting people in and never letting +them out again. Then the fetters over the +debtor’s door, which we used to think were a +bona fide set of irons just hung up there for convenience +sake, ready to be taken down at a moment’s +notice and rivetted on the limbs of some +refractory felon. We were never tired wondering +how the hackney coachman on the opposite +stand could cut jokes in the presence of +such horrors, and drink pots of half-and-half so +near the last drop.</p> + +<p>“Often have we strayed here in session’s time +to catch a glimpse of the whipping place or +that dark building on one side of the yard in +which is kept the gibbet with all of its dreadful +apparatus, and on the door of which we half +expected to see a brass plate with the inscription, +‘Mr. Ketch,’ for we never imagined that +the distinguished functionary could by possibility +live anywhere else. The days of those +childish dreams have passed away, and with +them many other boyish ideas of gayer nature. +But we shall retain so much of our original +feeling that to this hour we never pass the +building without something like a shudder.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<span id="pg_40" class="page_anchor">40 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-2">CHAPTER II.<br> +<span>NEWGATE WITHIN.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-t.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>T</span>he</span> entrance to Newgate is through the +keeper’s lodge, which, with the house in +which the keeper lives, occupies the centre of +what has been well called “this vast quarry of +stone.” It fronts on the Old Bailey. The prisoner’s +quarters are in the wings, which extend +from either side of the keeper’s quarters. In +the gloomy office, men with that indescribable +prison air all such officials bear, lounge about, +and come and go on business. There is iron +everywhere, from the huge bolts on the outer +doors, and the door inside of them, to the barred +windows and other doors beyond number, +that open and shut with a sullen clangor that +goes echoing through the stone passages as if +it would never die away. The smell of the jail +is as powerful in its way as these evidences of +its actual strength. It blows into your face in +a strong breath when the door opens for you, +and you find it lingering about you hours after +<span id="pg_41" class="page_anchor">41 </span> +your visit has been made. Some scientist +ought to analyze this odor of the prison. It is +unique. A soldier’s barracks, a hospital, a +ship’s forecastle—all places, in short, where +men live in close quarters—have an odor that +tells of their origin; but the scent of the jail is +different from all, and as horrible as the thing +it recalls to you whenever you breathe it, or +fancy you do.</p> + +<p>“What London pedestrian is there,” writes +Dickens, in chapter 24 in the “Sketches by +Boz,” “who has not, at some time or other, cast +a hurried glance through the wicket at which +the prisoners are admitted into this gloomy +mansion, and surveyed the few objects he could +discern, with an <ins title="Note: “indiscribable” in the original">indescribable</ins> feeling of curiosity. +The thick door, plated with iron, and mounted +with spikes just low enough to enable you to +see leaning over them an ill-looking fellow, +in a broad-brimmed hat, Belcher handkerchief +and top-boots; with a brown coat, something +between a great-coat and a ‘sporting’ jacket, +on his back, and an immense key in his left +hand. Perhaps you are lucky enough to pass +just as the gate is being opened; then, you +see on the other side of the lodge another gate, +<span id="pg_42" class="page_anchor">42 </span> +the image of its predecessor, and two or three +more turnkeys, who look like multiplications +of the first one, seated around a fire, which +just lights up the white-washed apartment +sufficiently to enable you to catch a glimpse of +these different objects.” In the next paper +of the same series, he conducts us within the +lodge. “One side is plentifully garnished with +a choice collection of heavy sets of irons, +including those worn by the redoubtable Jack +Sheppard—genuine; and those said to have +been graced by the sturdy limbs of the no less +celebrated Dick Turpin—doubtful. From this +lodge a heavy oaken gate, bound with iron, +studded with nails of the same material, and +guarded by another turnkey, opens on a few +steps, if we remember right, which terminate +in a narrow and dismal stone passage, running +parallel with the Old Bailey and leading +to the different yards, through a number +of tortuous and intricate windings, guarded in +their turn by huge gates and gratings, whose +appearance is sufficient to dispel at once the +slightest hope of escape that any newcomer +may have entertained; and the very recollection +of which, on eventually traversing the place +again, involves one in a maze of confusion.”</p> + +<span id="pg_43" class="page_anchor">43 </span> + +<p>The old Newgate which the Gordon rioters +sacked was a horrible place. The cells were +mere black caves, which riddled the tremendous +masonry like a stone honeycomb. In these at +one time, while a contagious fever was raging, +800 prisoners were confined. The captives +were packed in these dens like slaves in the +hold of their prison-ship. Mrs. Frye describes +the women as “swearing, gaming, fighting, singing, +dancing, drinking, and dressing up in men’s +clothes,” and as late as 1838 gambling with +cards, dice and draughts was common among +the male prisoners. Jail distempers now and +then purged this sink of vileness of a portion +of its inmates, till at last, in 1858, the reconstruction +of its cellular system was completed. +Even with that, however, Newgate is anything +but a perfect jail. In the earlier Dickens era +it preserved many of its ancient characteristics. +In “Great Expectations,” when Wemmick +takes Pip to visit it, we read: “At +that time gaols were much neglected, and the +period of exaggerated reaction consequent on +all public wrong-doing—and which is always +its longest and heaviest punishment—was still +far off. So, felons were not lodged and fed +<span id="pg_44" class="page_anchor">44 </span> +better than soldiers (to say nothing of paupers), +and seldom set fire to their prisons with the +excusable object of improving the flavor of +their soup. It was visiting time when Wemmick +took me in; and a potman was going his +rounds with beer; and the prisoners behind the +bars in the yards were buying beer, and talking +to friends; and a frowsy, ugly, disorderly, +depressing scene it was.” The earlier description, +“A Visit to Newgate,” in the Boz “Sketches,” +thus depicts the women’s side of the jail:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The buildings in the prison—or in other +words the different wards—form a square, of +which the four sides abut respectively on the +Old Bailey, the old College of Physicians (now +forming a part of <ins title="Note: “NewgateMarket” in the original">Newgate Market</ins>), the Sessions +House and Newgate street. The intermediate +space is divided into several paved +yards, in which the prisoners take such air +and exercise as can be had in such a place. +These yards, with the exception of that in which +the prisoners under the sentence of death are +confined, run parallel with Newgate street, and +consequently from the Old Bailey, as it were, +to Newgate Market. Turning to the right, we +came to a door composed of thick bars of wood, +through which were discernible, passing to +and fro in a narrow yard, some twenty women. +One side of this yard is railed at a considerable +<span id="pg_45" class="page_anchor">45 </span> +distance, and formed into a kind of iron cage, +about five feet and ten inches in height, roofed +at the top, and defended in the front by iron +bars, from which the friends of the female +prisoners communicate with them. Two or +three women were standing at different parts of +the grating conversing with their friends, but a +very large portion of the prisoners appeared to +have no friends at all, beyond such of their old +companions as might happen to be within the +walls. We were conducted up a clean and well +lighted flight of stone steps to one of the wards. +A description of one is a description of the +whole.</p> + +<p>“It was in a spacious, bare, whitewashed +apartment, lighted, of course, by windows looking +into the interior of the prison, but far more +light and airy than one could reasonably +expect to find in such a situation. There was +a large fire, with a deal table before it, round +which ten or a dozen women were seated on +wooden forms at dinner. Along both sides of +the room ran a shelf; below it, at regular intervals, +a row of large hooks were fixed in the wall, +on each of which was hung the sleeping mat +of a prisoner; her rug and blanket being folded +up, and placed on the shelf above. At night +these mats are placed upon the floor, each +beneath the hook on which it hangs during the +day; and the ward is made to thus answer the +purposes both of a day room and a sleeping +<span id="pg_46" class="page_anchor">46 </span> +apartment. Over the fireplace was a large +sheet of pasteboard, on which were displayed +a variety of texts from Scripture, which were +also scattered about the room in scraps about +the size and shape of the copy slips which are +used in schools. On the table was a sufficient +provision of a kind of stewed beef and brown +bread, in pewter dishes which are kept perfectly +bright, and displayed on shelves in great order +and regularity when not in use.</p> + +<p>“In every ward of the female side a wards-woman +is appointed to preserve order, and a +similar regulation is adopted among the males. +The wards-men and wards-women are all +prisoners, selected for good conduct. They +alone are allowed the privilege of sleeping on +bedsteads: a small stump bedstead being placed +in every ward for the purpose.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This, in itself, was a vast improvement on +the style of the last century in Newgate. +Then the prisoner had no comfort unless he +paid roundly for it. His cell contained a stone +bench or two, on which the first comer might +make his bed. The rest slept on the floor. +Once in a great while a truss of straw was +tossed in to them, as it might have been to a +beast in a stall. This straw remained until it rotted +to a pulp. Then another truss was used to +scatter over it. So, in time, the prisoners slept +<span id="pg_47" class="page_anchor">47 </span> +on a veritable dunghill, the compost being generally +left to fester till it bred a fever, when +it would be carted off, to disseminate the germs +of disease which it had engendered, outside +the jail walls; and the same process was begun +over again. In the matter of cleanliness a +change for the better had been made in Dickens’s +time; but one great evil of the jail was the +herding together of the prisoners in the wards. +Here the possibly innocent learned evil lessons +from the guilty; the depraved could deprave +those not yet wholly debased; the gaol became, +in short, not so much a place of punishment for +crime as a powerful breeder of it, and many +a man and boy, and woman and girl, who went +into Newgate for a trivial offense, emerged from +it a full-fledged and incorrigible lawbreaker. So +outrageous did this condition of things become +that many thoughtful men began seriously to +question whether the means of restricting +crime, as practiced in Newgate, were not really +worse than the crime itself. In the sketch +already quoted, Dickens says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“They (the men’s wards) are provided, like the +wards of the women’s side, with mats and rugs, +which are disposed of in the same manner during +<span id="pg_48" class="page_anchor">48 </span> +the day; the only very striking difference +between their appearance and that of the wards +inhabited by the women is the utter absence of +employment. Huddled on two opposite forms +by the fireside sit twenty men, perhaps; here +a boy in livery; there a man in a rough great-coat +and top-boots; further on, a desperate-looking +fellow in his shirtsleeves, with an old +Scotch cap upon his shaggy head; near him +again, a tall ruffian in a smock-frock; next to +him a miserable being of distressed appearance, +with his head resting on his hand—all alike +in one respect, all idle and listless; when they +do leave the fire, sauntering moodily about, +lounging in the windows, or leaning against the +wall, vacantly swinging their bodies to and fro. +With the exception of an old man reading a +newspaper, in two or three instances this was +the case in every ward we entered. The only +communication these men have with their +friends is through two close iron gratings, with +an intermediate space of about a yard in width +between the two, so that nothing can be handed +across, nor can the prisoner have any communication +by touch with the person who visits him. +The married men have a separate grating at +which to see their wives, but its construction is +the same.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>When the prisoners had visitors a keeper +always sat in the space between the gratings, +so that private communication was practically +<span id="pg_49" class="page_anchor">49 </span> +impossible. The only exception was made in +favor of lawyers in visiting their clients; but +prisoners of note could secure the privilege of +privacy through the pressure of official influence +on the head keeper. In fact, during later +years an effort, only partially successful, was +made in Newgate to grade the prisoners according +to their criminal standard, and to keep the +classes apart. So, persistent and desperate +offenders were assigned to one ward and those +less confirmed in crime to another, while boys +and youths were separated from the older prisoners, +whose influence on them could not be but +for evil. Under the more humane management +of the present century Newgate was even provided +with a school. “A portion of the prison,” +says Boz, in his “Visit,” “is set apart for +boys under fourteen years of age.” “In a tolerable +sized room, in which were writing materials +and some copybooks, was the school-master +with a couple of his pupils; the remainder +having been fetched from an adjoining apartment, +the whole were drawn up in a line for +our inspection. There were fourteen of them +in all, some with shoes, some without; some +in pinafores without jackets, others in jackets +<span id="pg_50" class="page_anchor">50 </span> +without pinafores, and one in scarce anything +at all. The whole number, without an exception, +we believe, had been committed for trial +on charges of pocket-picking; and fourteen +such terrible little faces we never beheld. There +was not a glance of honesty, not a wink expressive +of anything but the gallows and the +hulks, in the whole collection. As to anything +like shame or contrition, that was +entirely out of the question. They were evidently +quite gratified at being thought worth +the trouble of looking at; their idea appeared +to be that we had come to see Newgate as a +grand affair, and that they were an indispensable +part of the show; and every boy as +he ‘fell in’ to the line actually seemed as pleased +and important as if he had done something excessively +meritorious in getting there at all.”</p> + +<p>Dickens had made a close study of this type +of London gamin, as we have discovered in +his Artful Dodger, Master Bates, and other +demoralizing and diverting characterizations. +In the Boz sketch called “Criminal Courts” +he describes the trial of such an imp at the Old +Bailey court:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“A boy of thirteen is tried, say, for picking +<span id="pg_51" class="page_anchor">51 </span> +the pocket of some subject of Her Majesty, +and the offense is about as clearly proved as an +offense can be. He is called upon for his +defence, and contents himself with a little declamation +about the jurymen and his country; +asserts that all the witnesses have committed +perjury, and hints that the police force generally +have entered into a conspiracy against +him. However probable his statement may be, +it fails to convince the Court, and some such +scene as the following takes place:</p> + +<p>“Court: Have you any witnesses to speak for +your character, boy?</p> + +<p>“Boy: Yes, my Lord; fifteen gen’lm’n is a +vaten outside, and vos avaten all day yesterday, +vich they told me the night afore my trial vos +a coming on.</p> + +<p>“Court: Inquire for these witnesses.</p> + +<p>“Here a stout beadle runs out, and vociferates +for the witness at the very top of his voice; for +you hear his cry grow fainter and fainter as he +descends the steps into the courtyard below. +After an absence of five minutes he returns, +very warm and hoarse, and informs the Court +of what he knew perfectly well before—namely, +that there are no such witnesses in attendance. +Hereupon the boy sets up a most awful +howling, screws the lower part of the palms +of his hands into the corners of his eyes, and +endeavors to look the picture of injured innocence. +The jury at once find him ‘guilty,’ +<span id="pg_52" class="page_anchor">52 </span> +and his endeavors to squeeze out a tear are +redoubled. The governor of the gaol then +states, in reply to an inquiry from the bench, +that the prisoner has been under his care +twice before. This the urchin resolutely denies +in some such terms as: ‘S’elp me, gen’lm’n, I +never vos in trouble afore—indeed, my Lord, +I never vos. It’s all a howen to my having a +twin brother, vich has wrongfully got into +trouble, and vich is so exactly like me, that no +one ever knows the difference atween us.’</p> + +<p>“This representation, like the defence, fails +in producing the desired effect, and the boy is +sentenced, perhaps, to seven years’ transportation. +Finding it impossible to excite compassion, +he gives vent to his feelings in an imprecation +bearing reference to the eyes of ‘old big +vig,’ and as he declines to take the trouble +of walking from the dock, is forthwith carried +out, congratulating himself on having succeeded +in giving everybody as much trouble as +possible.<ins title="Note: absent in the original">”</ins></p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In a similar vein, when the Artful Dodger +falls into the toils (“Oliver Twist,” Chapter 43) +he asserts himself.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling +into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked +up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his +hat in his right hand, preceded the gaoler, with +a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and taking +<span id="pg_53" class="page_anchor">53 </span> +his place in the dock, requested in an +audible voice to know what he was placed in +‘that ’ere disgraceful situation for.’</p> + +<p>“‘Hold your tongue, will you?’ said the gaoler.</p> + +<p>“‘I’m an Englishman, ain’t I?’ rejoined the +Dodger. ‘Where are my privileges?’</p> + +<p>“‘You’ll get your privileges soon enough,’ +retorted the gaoler, ‘and pepper with ’em.’</p> + +<p>“‘We’ll see what the Secretary of State for +the Home Affairs has got to say to the beaks, +if I don’t,’ replied Mr. Dawkins.</p> + +<p>“‘Now then. Wot is this here business? I +shall thank the madg’strates to dispose of this +little affair, and not to keep me while they read +the paper, for I’ve got an appointment with a +gentleman in the city, and as I’m a man of my +word and very punctual in business matters, +he’ll go away if I ain’t there to my time, and +then p’raps there won’t be an action for damages +against them as kept me away. Oh, no, +certainly not.’</p> + +<p>“At this point the Dodger, with a show of being +very particular with a view to the proceedings +to be had thereafter, desired the gaoler to +communicate ‘the names of them two files as +was on the bench,’ which so tickled the spectators, +that they laughed almost as heartily as +Master Bates could have done if he had heard +the request.</p> + +<p>“‘Silence there,’ cried the gaoler.</p> + +<span id="pg_54" class="page_anchor">54 </span> + +<p>“‘What is this?’ inquired one of the magistrates.</p> + +<p>“‘A pocket-picketing case, your worship.’</p> + +<p>“‘Has the boy ever been here before?’</p> + +<p>“‘He ought to have been, a many times,’ +replied the gaoler. ‘He has been pretty well +everywhere else. I know him well, your worship.’</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, you know me, do you?’ cried the Artful, +making a note of the statement. ‘Werry good<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins> +That’s a case of deformation of character, any +way.’</p> + +<p>“Here there was another laugh, and another +cry for silence.</p> + +<p>“‘Now then, where are the witnesses?’ said +the clerk.</p> + +<p>“‘Ah, that’s right,’ added the Dodger. ‘Where +are they? I should like to see ’em.<ins title="Note: absent in the original">’</ins></p> + +<p>“This wish was immediately gratified, for a +policeman stepped forward who had seen the +prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown +gentleman in the crowd, and indeed take a +handkerchief therefrom, which, being a very +old one, he deliberately put back again, after +trying it on his own countenance. For this +reason he took the Dodger into custody as soon +as he could get near him, and the said Dodger +being searched, had upon his person a silver +snuff-box, with the owner’s name engraved upon +the lid. This gentleman had been discovered +upon reference to the Court Guide, and being +<span id="pg_55" class="page_anchor">55 </span> +then and there present, swore that the snuff-box +was his, and that he had missed it on the +previous day, the moment he had disengaged +himself from the crowd before referred to. He +had also remarked a young gentleman in the +throng, particularly active in making his way +about, and that the young gentleman was the +prisoner before him<ins title="Note: “.”” in the original">.</ins></p> + +<p>“‘Have you anything to ask this witness, +boy?’ said the magistrate.</p> + +<p>“‘I wouldn’t abase myself by descending to +hold no conversation with him,’ replied the +Dodger.</p> + +<p>“‘Have you anything to say at all?’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you hear his worship ask if you’ve anything +to say?’ inquired the gaoler, nudging the +silent Dodger with his elbow.</p> + +<p>“‘I beg your pardon,’ said the Dodger, looking +up with an air of abstraction.</p> + +<p>“‘Did you mean to say anything, you young +shaver?’</p> + +<p>“‘No,’ replied the Dodger, ‘not here, for this +ain’t the shop for justice; besides which, my attorney +is a breakfasting this morning with the +Wice-President of the House of Commons; but +I shall have something to say elsewhere, and so +will he, and so will a wery numerous and ’spectable +circle of acquaintances as’ll make them +beaks wish they’d never been born, or that +they’d got their footman to hang ’em up to their +<span id="pg_56" class="page_anchor">56 </span> +own hat-pegs afore they let ’em come out this +morning to try it upon me. I’ll——’</p> + +<p>“‘There. He’s fully committed,’ interposed +the clerk. ‘Take him away.’</p> + +<p>“‘Oh, ah. I’ll come on,’ replied the Dodger, +brushing his hat with the palm of his hand. +‘Ah (to the bench) it’s no use your looking +frightened; I won’t show you no mercy, not +a ha’porth of it. You’ll pay for this, my fine +fellers. I wouldn’t be you for something; I +wouldn’t go free now, if you was to fall down on +your knees and ask me. Here, carry me off to +prison. Take me away.’</p> + +<p>“With these last words, the Dodger suffered +himself to be led off by the collar, threatening, +till he got into the yard, to make a parliamentary +business of it, and then grinning in the +officer’s face with glee and self approval.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>To such scholars as these, all the schools that +could be crowded into Newgate would be of +no avail. Their biographies are summed up +by Magwitch, in “Great Expectations,” who, +blandly admitting to have been brought up to +be “a warmint,” says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“‘In gaol and out of gaol, in gaol and out of +gaol, in gaol and out of gaol. That’s my life. +I’ve been done everything to, pretty well—except +hanged. I’ve been locked up as much +as a silver tea-kettle. I’ve been carted here +<span id="pg_57" class="page_anchor">57 </span> +and carted there, and put out of this town +and put out of that town. I’ve no more notion +where I was born than you have, if so much. +I first became aware of myself down in Essex, +a-thieving turnips for a living. Summun had +run away from me—a man, a tinker—and he’d +took the fire with him and left me very cold.</p> + +<p>“‘I knowed my name to be Magwitch, christened +Abel. How did I know it? Much as I +knowed the birds’ names in the hedges to be +chaffinch, sparrer, thrush. I might have +thought that it was all lies together, only, as +the birds’ names come out true, I suppose mine +did<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins></p> + +<p>“‘So fur as I could find, there warn’t a soul +that see young Abel Magwitch, with as little +on him as in him, but what caught fright at +him, and either drove him off or took him up. +I was took up, took up, took up, to that extent +that I reg’larly growed up took up.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>One of the most curious episodes of Newgate +is connected with the hanging of the Rev. W. +Dodd, for forgery, on Friday, June 6, 1777. The +clerical malefactor preached his own funeral +sermon in the chapel of the prison before he was +led out to die, the text being from Acts XV, 23. +The theatre of this remarkable valedictory +went up in the smoke of the Gordon Riots, but +there is a chapel in the reconstructed jail: “situated,” +<span id="pg_58" class="page_anchor">58 </span> +says Boz, “at the back of the governor’s +house; the latter having no windows looking +into the interior of the prison. Whether the +associations connected with the place—the +knowledge that here a portion of the burial is, +on some dreadful occasions, performed over +the quick and not over the dead—cast over it a +still more gloomy and sombre air than art has +imparted to it, we know not, but its appearance +is very striking. The meanness of its appointments—the +bare scanty pulpit, with the paltry +painted pillars on either side—the women’s +gallery with its great heavy curtains—the +men’s with its unpainted benches and dingy +front—the tottering little table at the altar, +with the commandments on the wall above it, +scarcely legible through lack of paint, and dust +and damp—so unlike the velvet and gilding, +the marble and the wood of a modern church—are +strange and striking. There is one object, +too, which rivets the attention and fascinates +the gaze, and from which we may turn horror-stricken +in vain, for the recollection of it will +haunt us waking and sleeping for a long time +afterward. Immediately below the reading +desk, on the floor of the chapel, and forming +<span id="pg_59" class="page_anchor">59 </span> +the most conspicuous object in the little area, +is the ‘condemned <ins title="Note: “pen” in the original">pew</ins>’: A <ins title="Note: “hugh” in the original">huge</ins> black pen in +which the wretched people, who are singled +out for death, are placed on the last Sunday +preceding their execution, in sight of all their +fellow prisoners, from many of whom they may +have been separated but a week before, to hear +prayers for their own souls, to join in the responses +of their own burial service, and to listen +to an address warning their recent companions +to take example by their own fate and urging +themselves, while there is yet time—nearly +four-and-twenty hours—to ‘turn and flee from +the wrath to come.’ At one time—and at no +distant period either—the coffins of the men +about to be executed, were placed in that +pew, upon the seat by their side, during the +whole service.” The chapel has been rearranged +since the time in which Boz wrote, and +the ghastliest part of its show done away with.</p> + +<p>In the condemned ward Boz found “five-and-twenty +or thirty prisoners, all under sentence +of death, awaiting the result of the recorder’s +report—men of all ages and appearances, +from a hardened old offender with +swarthy face and grizzly beard of three days’ +<span id="pg_60" class="page_anchor">60 </span> +growth, to a handsome boy not fourteen years +old, and of singularly youthful appearance even +for that age, who had been condemned for burglary.” +It must be remembered that they +hanged men for all sorts of offenses in England +then, which made the population of the condemned +ward abundant around sessions time, +when the trials were on. The death penalty +was as common then as it is now rare in its infliction. +“The room was large, airy and clean. +One or two decently dressed men were brooding +with a dejected air over the fire; several +little groups of two or three had been engaged +in conversation at the upper end of the room, +or in the windows; and the remainder were +crowded around a young man seated at a table, +who appeared to be engaged in teaching the +younger ones to write. On the table lay a Testament, +but there were no tokens of its having +been in recent use. In the press-room below +were the men, the nature of whose offense +rendered it necessary to separate them, even +from their companions in guilt. It is a long +sombre room, with two windows sunk in the +stone wall, and here the wretched men are pinioned +on the mornings of their execution, before +moving toward the scaffold.”</p> + +<span id="pg_61" class="page_anchor">61 </span> + +<p>“A few paces up the yard,” he goes on, “and +forming a continuation of the building, lie the +condemned cells. The entrance is by a narrow +and obscure staircase, leading to a dark passage, +in which a charcoal stove casts a lurid +light over the objects in its immediate vicinity, +and diffuses something like a warmth around. +Prior to the recorder’s report being made, all +the prisoners under the sentence of death are +removed from the day room at five o’clock in +the afternoon, and locked up in these cells, +where they are allowed a candle until ten +o’clock; and here they remain until seven the +next morning. When the warrant for the prisoner’s +execution arrives, he is removed to the +cells, and confined in one of them until he leaves +it for the scaffold. He is at liberty to walk in +the yard; but both in the walks and in his cell, +he is constantly attended by a turnkey, who +never leaves him on any pretence.” The cell +was “a stone dungeon eight feet long by six +feet wide, with a bench at the upper end, under +which were a common rug, a Bible and a +prayer-book. An iron candle-stick was fixed +into the wall at the side; and a small high +window at the back admitted as much air and +<span id="pg_62" class="page_anchor">62 </span> +light as could struggle in between a double row +of heavy, crossed iron bars.” It was in one of +these dens (“Oliver Twist,” Chapter 52) that +Fagin spent his last hours.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“They led him through a paved room under +the court, where some prisoners were waiting +till their turns came, and others were talking +to their friends, who crowded around a gate +which looked into the open yard. There was +nobody there to speak to him; but, as he passed, +the prisoners fell back to render him more visible +to the people who were clinging to the bars; +and they assailed him with opprobrious names, +and screeched and hissed. He shook his fist, +and would have spat upon them; but his conductors +hurried him on, through a gloomy passage +lighted by a few dim lamps, into the interior +of the prison.</p> + +<p>“Here he was searched, that he might not +have about him the means of anticipating the +law; this ceremony performed, they led him to +one of the condemned cells, and left him there—alone.</p> + +<p>“He sat down on a stone bench opposite the +door, which served for a seat and bedstead; +and casting his bloodshot eyes upon the ground, +tried to collect his thoughts. After a while, he +began to remember a few disjointed fragments +of what the judge had said; though it seemed +to him, at the time, that he could not hear a +<span id="pg_63" class="page_anchor">63 </span> +word. These gradually fell into their proper +places, and by degrees suggested more; so that +in a little time he had the whole almost as it +was delivered. To be hanged by the neck, till +he was dead—that was the end. To be hanged +by the neck till he was dead.</p> + +<p>“As it came on very dark, he began to think of +all the men he had known who had died upon +the scaffold; some of them through his means. +They rose up, in such quick succession, that he +could hardly count them. He had seen some +of them die—and had joked, too, because they +died with prayers upon their lips. With what +a rattling noise the drop went down; and how +suddenly they changed from strong and vigorous +men to dangling heaps of clothes.</p> + +<p>“Some of them might have inhabited that +very cell—sat upon that very spot. It was +very dark; why didn’t they bring a light? The +cell had been built for many years. Scores of +men must have passed their last hours there. +It was like sitting in a vault strewn with dead +bodies—the cap, the noose, the pinioned arms, +the faces that he knew, even beneath that hideous +veil. Light—Light.</p> + +<p>“At length, when his hands were raw with +beating against the heavy door and walls, two +men appeared: one bearing a candle, which he +thrust into an iron candle-stick fixed against +the wall; the other dragging a mattress on +<span id="pg_64" class="page_anchor">64 </span> +which to pass the night; for the prisoner was +to be left alone no more.</p> + +<p>“Then came night—dark, dismal, silent night. +Other watchers are glad to hear the clocks +strike, for they tell of life and coming day. To +the Jew they brought despair. The boom of +every iron bell came laden with one deep, hollow +sound—Death. What availed the noise +and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated +even there, to him? It was another +form of knell, with mockery added to its warning.</p> + +<p>“The day passed off—day. There was no day; +it was gone as soon as come—and night came +on again; night so long, and yet so short, long +in its dreadful silence, and short in its fleeting +hours. At one time he raved and blasphemed; +and at another howled and tore his hair. Venerable +men of his own persuasion had come to +pray beside him, but he had driven them away +with curses. They renewed their charitable +efforts, and he beat them off.</p> + +<p>“Saturday night. He had only one more +night to live, and as he thought of this, the day +broke—Sunday.</p> + +<p>“It was not until the night of this last awful +day, that a withering sense of his helpless, <ins title="Note: “desperate, +desperate” in the original">desperate</ins> state came in its full intensity +upon his blighted soul; not that he had ever +held any defined or positive hope of mercy, but +that he had never been able to consider more +<span id="pg_65" class="page_anchor">65 </span> +than dim probability of dying so soon. He +had spoken little to either of the two men, who +relieved each other in attendance upon him; +and they, for their parts, made no efforts to +arouse his attention. He sat there, awake, but +dreaming. Now he started up, every minute, +and with gasping mouth and burning skin, hurried +to and fro in such a paroxysm of fear and +wrath that even they—used to such sights—recoiled +from him with horror. He grew so +terrible, at last, in all the tortures of his evil +conscience that one man could not bear to sit +there, eyeing him alone; and so the two kept +watch together.</p> + +<p>“He cowered down upon his stone bed, and +thought of the past. He had been wounded +with some missiles from the crowd on the day of +his capture, and his head was bandaged with a +linen cloth<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins> His red hair hung down upon his +bloodless face; his beard was torn and twisted +into knots; his eyes shone with a terrible light; +his unwashed flesh crackled with the fever that +burnt him up. Eight—nine—ten. If it was not +a trick to frighten him, and those were the real +hours treading on each other’s heels, where +would he be, when they came around again? +Eleven! Another struck, before the voice of +the previous hour had ceased to vibrate. At +eight, he would be the only mourner in his own +funeral train; at eleven——</p> + +<p>“Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which had +<span id="pg_66" class="page_anchor">66 </span> +hidden so much misery and unspeakable anguish, +not only from the eyes, but, too often +and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never +held so dreaded a spectre as that. The few who +lingered as they passed, and wondered what +the man was doing, who was to be hung to-morrow, +would have slept but ill that night if they +could have but seen him.</p> + +<p>“From early in the evening until nearly midnight, +little groups of two and three presented +themselves at the lodge-gate, and inquired, +with anxious faces, whether any reprieve had +been received. These being answered in the +negative, communicated the welcome intelligence +to the clusters in the street, who pointed +out to one another the door from which he must +come out, and showed where the scaffold would +be built, and, walking with unwilling steps +away, turned back to conjure up the scene. +By degrees they fell off, one by one; and for an +hour in the dead of the night, the street was +left to solitude and darkness.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>When Mr. Brownlow and Oliver appeared +at the wicket, and presented an order of admission +to the prisoner, signed by one of the +Sheriffs, they were immediately admitted to the +lodge.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The condemned criminal was seated on his +bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a +countenance more like that of a snared beast +<span id="pg_67" class="page_anchor">67 </span> +than the face of a man. His mind was evidently +wandering to his old life, for he continued to +mutter, without appearing conscious of their +presence otherwise than as a part of his vision.</p> + +<p>“‘Fagin,’ said the gaoler.</p> + +<p>“‘That’s me,’ cried the Jew, falling, instantly +into the attitude of listening he assumed upon +his trial. ‘An old man, my Lord; a very old +man.’</p> + +<p>“‘Here,’ said the turnkey, laying his hand upon +his breast to keep him down. <ins title="Note: ““” in the original">‘</ins>Here’s somebody +wants to see you, to ask you some questions, +I suppose. Fagin, Fagin, are you a +man?’</p> + +<p>“‘I shan’t be one long,’ replied the Jew, looking +up with a face retaining no human expression +but rage and terror. ‘Strike them all +dead! What right have they to butcher me?’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Since hanging by wholesale went out in England, +Newgate has had no use for condemned +wards, nor for its great number of condemned +cells. The former are now broken up into cells, +or used as exercise rooms or offices. Most of +the latter are now punishment cells, in which +refractory prisoners are confined. The demoralizing +system of confinement in gangs has been +done away with also, the cells in which the prisoners +froze in cold weather have been made +comfortable, and the standard of the management +<span id="pg_68" class="page_anchor">68 </span> +of the jail raised in every way. Such +prisoners as may be condemned to death—there +are only a few a year now, where in Dickens’s +boyhood there were several every week—are +kept apart from their fellows and from each +other. They are confined in an ordinary cell +until they are convicted. Then they are transferred +to a strong cell in the old condemned +cell ward, and thence they travel to the scaffold.</p> + +<p>Between the Old Bailey Court House and the +condemned ward of Newgate is a yard called +the Press Yard. The name has a hideous origin. +This spot was for many years the scene +of one of the most terrible tortures ever inflicted +by the cruelty of man upon his kind, the +awful torture of “Pressing to Death.” This +torture was imposed on prisoners held for +higher crimes, like treason and felonies, who +refused to answer in court. Nowadays, this +would be construed into contempt of court. Until +a century ago it was held an offense so hideous +as to warrant death by torture. Nowadays +we do not ask a prisoner to criminate himself. +Then, if he did not, he was tortured; if +he did he was punished anyway. The prisoner +<span id="pg_69" class="page_anchor">69 </span> +condemned to be pressed was stripped naked, +except, for decency’s sake, a cloth around the +loins, and laid on his back on the pavement. +Then iron weights were piled upon a board +placed on his body, in increasing number, and +on a diet of three morsels of bread a day and +three draughts of water, he was left to perish +miserably. He never needed a full day’s rations. +Sometimes he lasted for hours, and at +others, as in the case of Mayor Strangeways, +who was pressed for the murder of John Fussel +in 1659, he died in a few moments. This poor +wretch was stoned by the mob in the prison +yard while undergoing the torture. Highwaymen, +house-breakers, forgers, utterers of forged +and counterfeit money, as well as murderers +and traitors, were pressed to death. Brutal +and callous as the era was, the shocking practice +excited such denunciation in time that the +victims were finally subjected to the torture +privately in the room known as the Press +Room whose door opens into the Press Yard. +But the practice of pressing was kept up until +as late as 1770.</p> + +<p>The Press Yard to this day is devoted to quite +as gloomy and deadly, if less revolting, service +<span id="pg_70" class="page_anchor">70 </span> +under sanction of the law. It is here that the +executions of Newgate are performed. The +gallows is set up close to the door out of which +the prisoner is brought. There is no march to +the gibbet through a throng of spectators as in +most of our own jails. The doomed man gets +his last glimpse of the sky through a stone funnel +down which no ray of sunlight ever finds its +way. As far as I remember, from my London +days, the only sign the outer world has of the +work going on within the prison walls is the +hoisting of a black flag over the lodge, and I +know not if even this ceremonial is still observed. +From the gallows to the grave in Newgate +used to be but a step. There was an old +burying ground in the prison, now disused, +which was opened in 1820. Thistlewood and +the other Cato Street Conspirators were the +first criminals buried in it. They were buried +in the night on the day of their execution, without +services, and many others like them in after +years. A pit and a shroud of quicklime +were the appropriate Newgate epitaph.</p> + +<p>The ingenious fancy of Mr. Ainsworth has +made Jack Sheppard’s escape from Newgate one +of the chief episodes of his famous book. The +<span id="pg_71" class="page_anchor">71 </span> +simple facts of his hero’s evasion from the gaol +are much less romantic, considering the number +of prisoners it held. The escapes from Newgate +were very few, and in almost every instance +they owed a great measure of their success +to the connivance of officials within the +walls. Until the tidal wave of prison reform +swept it clean of its old, corrupt practices, +Newgate was managed largely for the benefit +and profit of its guardians, from the keeper +down. Each official was an adept at the art of +extortion, and every palm that held a key was +troubled with the itch. The prisoner could purchase +most things he might desire, and even the +chance of liberty was not beyond price. It was +only the chance to be sure; his keeper would +wink at the effort, but he must take the risk of +being stopped upon his way by others, unless he +could fairly buy his passage from his dungeon +to the lodge gate. A few—a very few—did +this, and got away. Generally the escapes were +mere attempts, frustrated before the last barrier +was passed. The most remarkable escape +made from the prison, because it was accomplished +without aid within or without the +walls, was that of the Sweep. This ruffian, from +<span id="pg_72" class="page_anchor">72 </span> +practice in his trade of climbing chimneys, actually +contrived to scale the rough stone wall +in an angle of one of the jail yards, by working +himself up with his back and feet, until he +reached the leads, over which he made his way +to the roof of a house in Newgate street, which +he entered through the scuttle, and so went +down stairs and into the street. Since that time +the inner walls of Newgate have been smoothed, +so that even a fly could not crawl up them, +and spiked at the top to make assurance doubly +sure.</p> + +<span id="pg_73" class="page_anchor">73 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-3">CHAPTER III.<br> +<span>THE FLEET PRISON.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-h.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>H</span>alf</span> a century ago, a stroller about the +London streets whose loiterings carried +him to the Fleet Market, could not but notice +in the brick wall that extended along what is +now entitled Farringdon street, facing the market, +a wide-grated window, set in a framework +of granite blocks. Under the arched top of the +framework, between it and the grating, a stone +slab or panel bore the carved inscription: +“Please Remember Poor Debtors, Having No +Allowance.” Through the grating one might +look into a squalid, dark room, with a rough +wooden bench fastened to one wall, and during +the hours of daylight some miserable human +creature, like a caged and starved beast, always +glared from behind the bars upon the +street, repeating, in the voice of wheedling +mendicancy, the appeal cut in the stone above +his head. There was a broad sill to the window, +and an opening in the bars, like those of the +<span id="pg_74" class="page_anchor">74 </span> +counter windows in a modern bank, through +which the jailed beggar could pass out and +draw in a wooden box, in which the charitably +inclined might drop an obolus as they passed +by.</p> + +<p>This was what was called “the grate” of the +Fleet Prison, one of the wickedest and most +pestilential gaols that ever cursed the earth; +and the grimmest satire upon this jail into +which men were thrust for not paying money +which they owed, was that among these debtors +there were many whose absolute inability +to pay was demonstrated by the fact that they +would, literally, have starved there but for the +chance charity of the public. Apropos of this +point Dickens, in chapter xiv, volume II, of +“Pickwick,” says:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The poor side of the debtors’ prison is, as its +name imports, that in which the most miserable +and abject class of debtors are confined. A +prisoner, having declared upon the poor, pays +neither rent nor chummage. His fees upon entering +and leaving the gaol are reduced in +amount, and he becomes entitled to a share of +some small quantities of food—to provide +which a few charitable persons have, from time +to time, left trifling legacies in their wills. Most +of our readers will remember that, until a very +<span id="pg_75" class="page_anchor">75 </span> +few years past, there was a kind of iron cage in +the wall of the Fleet Prison, within which was +posted some man who, from time to time, rattled +a money box, and exclaimed in a mournful +voice: ‘Pray remember the poor debtors.’ The +receipts of this box, when there were any, were +divided among the poor prisoners, and the men +on the poor side relieved each other in this degrading +office.</p> + +<p>“Although this custom has been abolished and +the cage is now boarded up, the miserable and +destitute condition of these unhappy persons +remains the same. We no longer suffer them +to appeal at the prison gates to the charity and +compassion of the passers-by; but we still have +unblotted on leaves of our statute-book, for the +reverence and admiration of the succeeding +ages, the just and wholesome law which declares +that the sturdy felon shall be fed and +clothed, and that the penniless debtor shall be +left to die in starvation and nakedness. This +is no fiction. Not a week passes over our heads +but, in every one of our prisons for debt, some +of these men must inevitably expire in the slow +agonies of want, if they were not relieved by +their fellow prisoners.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The custom of beggary at the prison gate, it +may as well be remarked here, was a relic of the +ancient prison of the Fleet, to which allusion is +made in several of the old English comedies. +<span id="pg_76" class="page_anchor">76 </span> +Leigh Hunt, in his pleasant <ins title="Note: “divigations” in the original">divagations</ins> upon +London called “The Town,” remarks upon the +practice in connection with Ludgate Prison, +and, indeed, it was common to all the town jails +in which debtors were incarcerated, without +municipal provisions for their support. In the +last century, as John Timbs tells us, there was +additional provision for the relief of the paupers +of the prison, in what was known as the +“Running Box.” In this case a man ran to and +fro in the neighboring streets to the prison, +shaking a box, and begging passengers to put +money into it for the poor prisoners in the +Fleet, while on his back he carried a capacious +covered basket, to hold such broken victuals as +the charitable might choose to spare for him.</p> + +<p>Hard by the paupers’ grating of the Fleet was +a grimy and gloomy doorway, heavily framed in +stone, which, like the brick of the prison wall, +sweated a sort of fungoid scum, originally a +rank, unhealthy green in color, but, thanks to +London fogs and soft-coal smoke, soon converted +into the semblance of a thin glaze or varnish +of liquid soot. The door stone was worn as +smooth as glass, and even in the fairest weather +<span id="pg_77" class="page_anchor">77 </span> +was perilously greased with street slime. On +either panel of the doorway was carved a huge +numerical figure. The rude wit of the town +called this the “Fleet Halter,” which, once it +was about a man’s neck, held him almost as +tight and fast as its rival noose at Tyburn. Fastidious +debtors who <ins title="Note: “prefered” in the original">preferred</ins> to preserve a fiction +of respectability in their correspondence, +were wont to have their letters addressed to +them at 9 Fleet Market, for 9 was the halter-hinting +number of the gateway to the gaol.</p> + +<p>It was through this gateway that the tipstaff +preceded Mr. Pickwick, as you may read in +chapter xii. of the second volume which chronicles +that immortal gentleman’s adventures, +“looking over his shoulder to see that his +charge was following close at his heels;” and in +the gate-lodge, which they entered through a +door at the left, Mr. Pickwick sat for his portrait +to the assembled turnkeys, so that he +might be remembered should he take the fancy +to stroll out of the doors without a license. +There was in this lodge “a heavy gate guarded +by a stout turnkey with the key in his hand,” +and when Mr. Pickwick’s likeness was completed, +he passed through this inner gate, and +<span id="pg_78" class="page_anchor">78 </span> +down a short flight of steps, and “found himself, +for the first time in his life, within the +walls of a debtor’s prison.”</p> + +<p>The Fleet in those days consisted principally +of one long brick pile, which ran parallel with +the Fleet Market, now Farringdon street, with +an open court around it, bounded by a lofty +wall, over which, here and there, one could see +the sooty chimney-tops and the smoky sky. The +buildings were four stories in height above the +ground, with a story half under ground among +the foundations. No architectural art had been +wasted on the exterior of the structure, and no +sanitary ingenuity or sentimental seeking after +the comfort of the inmates had been expended +upon the interior. The one aim of the constructors +had been to so divide the space as to cram +within it the greatest possible number of persons. +To this end, each floor was traversed by +a single hallway or passage, “a long narrow gallery, +dirty and low, and very dimly lighted by +a window at each remote end,” on either hand of +which opened doors of innumerable single +rooms, which rarely, however, failed to do duty +as lodgings for less than several tenants. The +floors, as Mr. Tom Roker explained to Mr. +<span id="pg_79" class="page_anchor">79 </span> +Pickwick when he inducted him into the prison, +were distinguished as the hall flight, the +coffee-room flight, the third flight and the top +flight. All the rooms on these floors were let +by the week, at prices adjusted to their presumed +desirability and the capacity of the lessee’s +purse, and governed by the number of tenants +who entered upon them.</p> + +<p>The basement rooms, even, formed a source +of revenue to the warden. This sunken story, +which received its light from the low-browed +windows whose sills were level with the slabs +of the prison yard, was known as Bartholomew +Fair. Here misery might welter in its +offal at the fee of one-and-threepence a week if +it still held itself above the abject degradation +of the Common Side, whose inmates took their +turn at begging at the grate. The Common +Side was a building apart from the main range, +which latter was known as the Warden Side. +Here there was no rent to pay. The prisoners +bunked in gangs, like emigrants on an ocean +passage. As to Bartholomew Fair, let Dickens +describe it himself (vide “Pickwick,” chapter +xiii, volume II):</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“‘Oh!’ replied Mr. Pickwick, looking down +<span id="pg_80" class="page_anchor">80 </span> +a dark and filthy staircase which appeared to +lead to a range of damp and gloomy stone +vaults beneath the ground, ‘And these, I suppose, +are the little cellars where the prisoners +keep their small quantities of coals? Unpleasant +places to have to go down to, but very convenient, +I daresay.’ ‘Yes, I shouldn’t wonder +if they was convenient,’ replied Mr. Roker, +‘seeing that a few people live there pretty +snug. That’s the Fair, that is!’ ‘My friend,’ +said Mr. Pickwick, ‘you don’t really mean to +say that human beings live down these wretched +dungeons?’ ‘Don’t?’ replied Mr. Roker, +with indignant astonishment; ‘why shouldn’t +I?’ ‘Live down there?’ exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. +‘Live down there? Yes, and die down +there, too, wery often.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Nominally, each prisoner in the Fleet on the +Warden Side was entitled to a room at the +charge of 1s. 3d<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins> a week. Actually, however, +he never got one on any floor above the level of +Bartholomew Fair. Each room was made to +quarter from two to four tenants in the space designed +for one, so that it, at full seasons, actually +produced at least a crown a week rental. +This system, which was excused on the plea of +overcrowding of the jail by commitments of the +courts, was called “chummage,” and the system +produced another curious practice of prison +<span id="pg_81" class="page_anchor">81 </span> +life. If one or more prisoners occupied a +room and another was “chummed” on them, +they could buy him off by paying him a few shillings +a week, and so keep the room to themselves. +He, out of the money they paid him, +paid in his turn for inferior quarters elsewhere. +Thus, a prisoner who was willing to pay full +rent for a room to the warden, and buy off anyone +who might be chummed upon him, could +have a dirty box of a chamber to himself, at +the average cost of a first-class parlor and bedroom +outside the walls. Prisoners who had +been a certain number of years in the jail had +a prescriptive right to a room to themselves, +and most of these rented their apartments at +good rates to new comers, and took beds for +themselves in the common lodgings.</p> + +<p>When Mr. Pickwick entered the Fleet as a +resident (vide volume II, chapter xiv) he was +chummed on “27 in the third,” whose door was +to be distinguished by the likeness of a man +being hung and smoking a pipe the while, done +in chalk upon the panel. Not liking his company +of three here he, as may be recalled, rented +the room of a chancery prisoner, in which he +settled down. For the use of this room he +<span id="pg_82" class="page_anchor">82 </span> +paid £1 a week, and for the furniture, which he +hired from a keeper, £1 3s. more. These figures +may serve as an indication of the rates +prevailing in the Fleet fifteen years before it +was demolished. The episode of Mr. Pickwick’s +investigatory experiences in this connection +is worth quoting, as a part of the panorama +of prison life. There was only one man +in the room upon which he was chummed, and he +“was leaning out of the window as far as he +could without overbalancing himself, endeavoring, +with great perseverance, to spit upon the +crown of the hat of a personal friend upon the +parade below.” He expressed his disgust at +having had the newcomer chummed upon him, +and summoned his two room-mates, who were +a bankrupt butcher and a drunken chaplain +out of orders, the expectoratory gentleman himself +being a professional blackleg.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“‘It’s an aggravating thing, just as we got +the beds so snug,’ said the chaplain, looking at +the dirty mattresses, each rolled up in a blanket, +which occupied one corner of the room during +the day, and formed a kind of slab on which +were placed an old cracked basin, ewer and +soap-dish of common yellow earthenware with +a blue flower; ‘very aggravating.’</p> + +<span id="pg_83" class="page_anchor">83 </span> + +<p>“Mr. Martin (the butcher) expressed the same +opinion, in rather stronger terms.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Simpson (the ’leg) after having let a +variety of expletive adjectives loose upon society, +without any substantive to accompany +them, tucked up his sleeves and began to wash +greens for dinner.</p> + +<p>“While this was going on Mr. Pickwick had +been eyeing the room, which was filthily dirty +and smelt intolerably close. There was no +vestige of either carpet, curtain or blind. There +was not even a closet in it. Unquestionably, +there were but few things to put away if there +had been one, but, however few in number, or +small in individual amount, still, remnants of +loaves, and pieces of cheese, and damp towels, +and scraps of meat, and articles of wearing +apparel, mutilated crockery, and bellows without +nozzles, and toasting-forks without prongs, +do present somewhat of an uncomfortable +appearance when they are scattered about the +floor of a small apartment, which is the common +sitting and sleeping room of three idle men.</p> + +<p>“‘I suppose that this can be managed somehow,’ +said the butcher, after a pretty long +silence. ‘What will you take to go out?’</p> + +<p>“‘I beg your pardon,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, +‘what did you say? I hardly understood you.’</p> + +<p>“‘What will you take to be paid out?’ said the +butcher. ‘The regular chummage is two-and-six; +will you take three bob?’</p> + +<span id="pg_84" class="page_anchor">84 </span> + +<p>“‘And a bender,’ suggested the clerical gentleman.</p> + +<p>“‘Well, I don’t mind that; it’s only a twopence +apiece more,’ said Mr. Martin; ‘What do +you say now? We’ll pay you out for three-and-sixpence +a week; come!’</p> + +<p>“‘And stand a <ins title="Note: “galllon” in the original">gallon</ins> of beer down,’ chimed +in Mr. Simpson. ‘There!’</p> + +<p>“‘And drink it on the spot,’ said the chaplain; +‘NOW!’</p> + +<p>“After this introductory preface the three +chums informed Mr. Pickwick, in a breath, that +money was in the Fleet just what money was +out of it; that it would instantly procure him +almost anything he desired; and that supposing +he had it, and had no objection to spend it; +if he only signified his wish to have a room to +himself, he might take possession of one, furnished +and fitted to boot, in half an hour’s +time.</p> + +<p>“With this the parties separated, very much +to their mutual satisfaction, Mr. Pickwick +once more retracing his steps to the lodge, and +the three companions adjourned to the coffee-room, +there to expend the five shillings which +the clerical gentleman, with admirable prudence +and foresight, had borrowed of him for +the purpose.</p> + +<p>“‘I knowed it,’ said Mr. Roker with a chuckle, +when Mr. Pickwick stated the object with +which he had returned. ‘Lord, why didn’t you +<span id="pg_85" class="page_anchor">85 </span> +say at first that you was willing to come down +handsome?’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Those who could afford to sleep well in the +Fleet, as sleeping went in such places, might +feed well enough, too. They could be served +in the coffee-room, and if they preferred to eat +in privacy, there was a cookshop in the prison; +and there were, besides, messengers who could +be sent on errands of purchase outside the walls. +In every case the charges were extortionate, +for the one object of the prison was to squeeze +the debtor dry by fair means or foul. But +when the law sanctions such outrages as the +Fleet itself, the minor offenses by which the +greater burden is mitigated to its victims may +be condoned. There was a taproom in the +prison where beer and wine were to be had, but +the traffic in spirits was forbidden, and even +the conveyance of them to the prisoners from +without prohibited under heavy penalties; +“and such commodities being highly prized by +the ladies and gentlemen confined therein” +(“Pickwick” volume II, chapter xvii), “it had +occurred to some speculative turnkey to connive, +for certain remunerative considerations, +at two or three prisoners retailing the favorite +<span id="pg_86" class="page_anchor">86 </span> +articles of gin for their own profit and advantage.” +The spirit dispensaries were known in +the jargon of the jail as “whistling-shops,” and +what with the strong waters they provided, +and the malt liquors of the taproom, it was +safe to assume that the bulk of such prisoners +in the Fleet as were not dying for the want of +sufficient food were perishing of a superfluity +of drink.</p> + +<p>The poor debtors who still had the price of +“a chamber-pot of coals” and a scrag of mutton, +could have it in from the market and cook it +for themselves in their rooms or, for a penny +or two, at the common kitchen in the prison-yard. +In default of sufficient capital to this +end they must live off bread and cheese, or +cold meat, or hope, or, as many doubtless did, +on the porter from the taproom. To secure the +means of subsistence and indulgence they +begged from the visitors. The sharper old residents +borrowed from the shallower newcomers, +and, as a matter of course, theft went hand in +hand with mendicancy. Of this shadowy side of +a picture, dark enough, in all conscience, in +its lightest spots, Dickens gives us a glimpse in +chapter xiv of volume II, where Mr. Pickwick +<span id="pg_87" class="page_anchor">87 </span> +encounters Mr. Alfred Jingle on the Common +Side, and Mr. Jeb Trotter, returning from +pawning his master’s last coat, with a scrap of +meat for his dinner. And Mr. Jingle’s own +summary of the prevailing state of things at +that period and place may serve as a description +of the condition and prospects of his +neighbors.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“‘Lived on a pair of boots—whole fortnight. +Silk umbrella—ivory handle—week. Nothing +soon—lie in bed—starve—die—inquest—little +bone-house—poor prisoner—common necessaries—hush +it up—gentlemen of jury—warden’s +tradesmen—keep it snug—natural +death—coroner’s order—workhouse funeral—serve +him right—all over—drop the curtain.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>In 1749 the son of the architect, Dance, who +built old Buckingham House and Guy’s Hospital, +was imprisoned in the Fleet for debt. He +wrote and published a poem called “The Humors +of the Fleet,” which has an interest for comparison +with what the prison became later. +The book had a frontispiece showing the prison-yard, +a newcomer treating the jailer and cook +and others to drink; racket-players at their +game; and in one corner of the yard a pump +and a tree. When the Fleet was rebuilt after +<span id="pg_88" class="page_anchor">88 </span> +the riots, there were two exercise grounds within +the walls. One, the smaller, was on the side +toward Farringdon street, denominated and +called “The Painted Ground,” from the fact of +its walls having once displayed the “semblances +of various men-of-war in full sail, and other +artistical effects, produced, in bygone days, by +some imprisoned draughtsman in his leisure +hours.” On the other side of the prison was +the larger yard where racket was played and +games of skittles bowled beneath a shed. Here +might be seen the characterless “characters” +of the place, in which every prison is sure to +abound. Smokers and other idlers loitered +about the steps leading to the racket ground, +draining their pots as they watched the game. +Here Mr. Smangle “made a light and wholesome +breakfast on a couple of cigars” Mr. +Pickwick had paid for, and here Mr. Weller, +with a pint of beer and the day before yesterday’s +paper, divided his time between dipping +into the news and the noggin, the skittle game +and the affections of a young lady who was +peeling potatoes at one of the jail windows, on +that memorable morning when Mr. Stiggins +called upon him and sampled the port wine +<span id="pg_89" class="page_anchor">89 </span> +in the coffee-room snuggery. Here you might +hear the roar of the great babel without; and +from the same point see one or two of its +churches aspiring above the ‘chevaux-de-frise’ +of the prison walls. There was a torrent-like +fury about the busy hum of the town in contrast +with the stagnant life within the brick walls; +and, as if to keep up the mockery, they verged +upon the yard of the Belle Sauvage Inn, where +travelers constantly came and went on their +journeys, free, if they chose, to roam around +the world. In chapter xvii of volume II, Dickens +sketches a vivid picture of the daily scene +in the jail-yard.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Sauntering or sitting about, in every possible +attitude of listless idleness, were a number +of debtors, the major part of whom were +waiting in prison until their day of ‘going +up’ before the Insolvent Court should arrive, +while others had been remanded for various +terms, which they were idling away as they +best could. Some were shabby, some were +smart, many dirty, a few clean; but there they +all lounged, and loitered, and slunk about, with +as little spirit or purpose as the beasts in the +menagerie. Lolling from the windows which +commanded a view of this promenade were a +number of persons, some in noisy conversation +<span id="pg_90" class="page_anchor">90 </span> +with their acquaintances below, and others +playing bat all with some adventurous throwers +outside, and others looking on at the racket +players, or watching the boys as they cried the +game. Dirty, slipshod women passed and +repassed on their way to the cooking house in +one corner of the yard; children screamed, and +fought, and played together in another; the +tumbling of the skittles and the shouts of the +players mingled perpetually with these and a +hundred other sounds, and all was noise and +tumult.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>To this picture of the Fleet by day, it is worth +while to add one of the after dark, from chapter +xii, of volume II.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“It was getting dark; that is to say, a few +gas jets were kindled in this place, which was +never light, by way of compliment to the evening +which had set in outside. As it was rather +warm some of the tenants of the numerous little +rooms which opened into the gallery on either +hand set their doors ajar. Mr. Pickwick peeped +into them, as he passed along, with curiosity +and interest. Here, four or five great hulking +fellows, just visible through a cloud of +tobacco smoke, were engaged in noisy and +riotous conversation over half-emptied pots of +beer, or playing at all fours with a very greasy +pack of cards. In the adjourning room some +solitary tenant might be seen poring, by the +<span id="pg_91" class="page_anchor">91 </span> +light of a feeble tallow candle, over a bundle of +soiled and tattered papers, yellow with dust, +and dropping with age, writing, for the hundredth +time, some lengthened statement of his +grievances for the perusal of some great man +whose eyes it would never reach, or whose +heart it would never touch. In a third a man +and his wife and a whole crowd of children +might be seen making up a scanty bed on the +ground, or upon a few chairs for the younger +ones to pass the night in. And in a fourth, +and a fifth, and a sixth, and a seventh the +noise, and the beer, and the tobacco smoke, +and the cards all came over again in greater +force than before. In the galleries themselves, +and more especially on the staircases, there +lingered a great number of people who came +there, some because their rooms were foul and +hot, and the greater part because they were +restless and uncomfortable and not possessed +with the secret of knowing exactly what to do +with themselves. There were many classes of +people here, from the laboring man and his +fustian jacket to the broken-down spendthrift +in his shawl dressing-gown, most appropriately +out at the elbows; but there was the same air +about them all—a sort of listless, gaol-bird, +careless swagger; a vagabondish, who’s-afraid +sort of bearing which is wholly indescribable in +words, but which any man can understand in +a moment, if he wish, by setting foot in the +<span id="pg_92" class="page_anchor">92 </span> +nearest debtors’ prison, and looking at the very +first group of people he sees there.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The Fleet Prison was staggering along on its +last legs, like some gouty monster whose swollen +joints were rotting asunder of internal corruption, +when Dickens gave it a place in the fiction +of picturesque fact. But it had a long history +behind it, a history dating from the time when +the Fleet creek, now a noisome sewer under the +foundations of the jail, was a pretty little river, +winding down from a verdant and fertile +country. When the town had grown toward +and around it, the Fleet river had become silted +and clogged up into a foul and sluggish stream, +and was such a nuisance that it was arched +over, and a market built upon the arches. But +below the market it still remained an open +stream, where colliers’ barges unloaded their +cargoes at Sea-Coal lane, and what is now +Bridge street was a sluggish, polluted canal, +whose reek infected the air. The gaol took its +name from the stream upon whose banks it was +built. The exact date of its foundation is unknown, +but by various records it was formerly +held in conjunction with the Manor of Leveland, +in Kent, and with “the King’s House at +<span id="pg_93" class="page_anchor">93 </span> +Westminster,” the whole being a part of the +ancient possessions of the See of Canterbury, +traceable in a grant from the Archbishop Lanfranc, +soon after the accession of William the +Conqueror. The wardenship or sergeantcy of +the prison was anciently held by several eminent +personages, who also had custody of the +king’s palace at Westminster. It was “a +place,” in the worst sense of the phrase, for, +as long ago as 1586, the persons to whom the +warden had underlet it were guilty of cruelty +and extortion, crimes, however, quite characteristic +of the Court of Star Chamber, of which +the Fleet was at this time the prison. Up to +this period its history is little better than a +sealed book, the burning of the prison by the +followers of <ins title="Note: “Watt” in the original">Wat</ins> Tyler seeming to have been +the only very noticeable event during the above +interval. In the reigns of Edward VI and of +Mary, the Fleet was tenanted by several victims +of religious bigotry. One of the most venerated +of British martyrs, Bishop Hopper, was +twice committed to the Fleet, which he only +quitted in 1555 for the stake and the fire, in the +chief town in his diocese, Gloucester. His +captivity was truly wretched; he slept upon “a +<span id="pg_94" class="page_anchor">94 </span> +little pad of straw” with a rotten covering; +“his chamber was vile and stinking,” just as it +might have been had he been a poor debtor in +1825.</p> + +<p>The fees belonging to the warden of the Fleet +and his officers, in the reign of Elizabeth, were +very heavy. An archbishop, duke or duchess +had to pay for a commitment fee and the first +week’s “dyett,” £21 10s.; a lord, spiritual or +temporal, £10 5s. 10d.; a knight, £5; an esquire, +£3 6s<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins> 8d.; and even a poor man in the wards, +“that hath a part at the box, to pay for his fee, +having no dyett, 7s<ins title="Note: absent in the original">.</ins> 4d.” The warden’s charge +for lawful license “to go abroad” was 20d. per +diem. Thus, as may be seen, the fleecing and +flayings, the inhumanities and the injustices +which characterized the later years of the prison +were hereditary to it.</p> + +<p>From the reign of Elizabeth to the sixteenth +year of King Charles I, 1641, the Star Chamber +Court was in full activity, and several bishops +and other persons of distinction were imprisoned +in the Fleet for their religious opinions. +Thither, too, were consigned political +victims of the Star Chamber, two of the most +interesting cases of this period being those of +<span id="pg_95" class="page_anchor">95 </span> +Prynne and Lilburne. Prynne was taken out +of the prison, and, after suffering pillory, branding, +and mutilation of the nose and ears, was +remanded to the Fleet. Lilburne—“Freeborn +John”—and his printer were committed to the +Fleet for libel and sedition; and the former was +“smartly whipped” at the cart’s tail, from the +prison to the pillory place between <ins title="Note: “Westminister” in the original">Westminster</ins> +Hall and the Star Chamber; and he +was subsequently “doubled ironed” in the +prison wards. Another tenant of the Fleet at +this period was James Howel, the author of the +“Familiar Letters,” several of which are dated +from the prison. From a letter “To the Earl +of B——,” from the Fleet, Nov. 20, 1643, we +gather that Howel was arrested “one morning +betimes” by five men armed with “swords, pistols +and bils,” and some days after committed +to the Fleet; and he says, “as far as I see, I must +lie at anchor in this Fleet a long time, unless +some gentle gale blow thence to make me +launch out.” Then we find him consoling himself +in the reflection that the English “people” +are in effect but prisoners, as all other islanders +are. There <ins title="Note: word missing in original, guessed here">are</ins> other letters by Howel, dated from +the Fleet in 1645–1646 and 1647.</p> + +<span id="pg_96" class="page_anchor">96 </span> + +<p>The prison was burnt on September 4, 1666, +during the Great Fire, when the prisoners were +removed to Carom or Caroon House, in South +Lambeth, until the Fleet was rebuilt on the +original site. After the abolition of the Star +Chamber, in 1641, the Fleet had become a prison +for debtors only, and for contempt of the Court +of Chancery, Common Pleas and Exchequer. +It appears that the prison had been used for +the confinement of debtors from the 13th century, +at least, a petition from John Trauncy, +a debtor in the Fleet, A. D. 1290, being still +preserved. When the Star Chamber was +abolished, the warden’s power of exacting +enormous fees by putting in irons does not +appear to have ceased also, for the wardens +continued to exercise their tyranny, “not only +in extorting exorbitant fees, but in oppressing +prisoners for debt, by loading them with irons, +worse than if the Star Chamber were still +existing.” In 1696 the cruelties and the extortions +of the wardens were made public, but it +was not until 1727 that the enormity of the +system of mismanagement came fully before +the public, and indescribable was the excitement +and horror it caused. A Parliamentary +<span id="pg_97" class="page_anchor">97 </span> +committee was then appointed, and the result +of their labors was the committal of Wardens +Bambridge and Huggins, and some of their +servants, to Newgate. They were tried for +different murders, yet all escaped by the verdict +of “Not Guilty.” Hogarth has, however, made +them immortal in their infamy, in his picture +of Bambridge under examination, whilst a +prisoner is explaining how he has been tortured. +Twenty years after, it is said, Bambridge cut +his throat. In consequence of these proceedings +the Court of Common Pleas, January 17, +1729, established a new list of fees to be taken, +and modified the rules and orders for the +government of the Fleet. The rents, perquisites, +and profits of the office at the above +period were £4,632 18s. 8d. per annum. James +Gambier succeeded Bambridge in the wardenship, +was succeeded by John Garth, and to him +followed John Eyles, and in 1758 Eyles’s son +succeeded him in the office, which he held for +sixty-two years. He was succeeded in 1821 by +his deputy, Nixon, who died in 1822. The +next appointed was W. R. H. Brown, he being +the last of the wardens of the prison.</p> + +<p>In the riots of 1780 the Fleet was destroyed +<span id="pg_98" class="page_anchor">98 </span> +by fire, and the prisoners liberated by the mob; +consequently a great part of the papers and +prison records were lost, though there remain +scattered books and documents of several centuries +back. Although he does not deal specifically +with the attack on the prison at this +period, Dickens in “Barnaby Rudge” (volume +II, chapter ii) gives a brief but picturesque description +of the surroundings of the gaol as they +were at the time of the Gordon riots.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“Fleet Market at that time was a long, irregular +row of wooden sheds and pent houses occupying +the centre of what is now called Farringdon +street. They were jumbled together +in a most unsightly fashion in the middle of the +road to the great obstruction of the thoroughfare +and the annoyance of passengers who were +fain to make their way as best they could +among the carts, barrows, baskets, trucks, +casks, hulks, and benches, and to jostle with +porters, hucksters, wagoners and a motley +crowd of buyers, sellers, pickpockets, vagrants +and idlers. The air was perfumed with the +stench of rotten leaves and faded fruit, the +refuse of the butchers’ stalls, and offal and garbage +of a hundred kinds. It was indispensable +to most public conveniences in those days that +they should be public nuisances likewise, and +Fleet Market maintained the principle to +admiration.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<span id="pg_99" class="page_anchor">99 </span> + +<p>Further on, in chapter ix of the same work, +he summarizes a peculiar episode in the history +of the gaol at the same period.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The gates of the King’s Bench and the Fleet +Prison, being opened at the usual hour, were +found to have notices affixed to them announcing +that the rioters would come that night to +burn them down. The wardens, too well +knowing the likelihood there was of this promise +being fulfilled, were fain to set their prisoners +at liberty, and gave them leave to move their +goods; so all day such of them as had any +furniture were occupied in conveying it, some +to this place, some to that, and not a few to the +brokers’ shops, where they gladly sold it for +any wretched price those gentry chose to give. +There were some broken men among these +debtors who had been in gaol so long, and were +so miserable and destitute of friends, so dead +to the world, and utterly forgotten and uncared +for, that they implored their gaolers not to +set them free, and to send them, if need were +to some other place of custody. But they +refusing to comply, lest they should incur the +anger of the mob, turned them into the streets +where they wandered up and down, hardly +remembering the ways untrodden by their feet +so long, and crying—such abject things those +rotten-hearted gaols had made them—as they +slunk off in their rags and dragged their slipshod +feet along the pavement.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<span id="pg_100" class="page_anchor">100 </span> + +<p>In spite of the concession of the Warden, the +mob, as has been stated, burned the Fleet down, +and it was in the successor to the den which +had risen on the ruins left by the great +fire of 1666 that Mr. Pickwick prosecuted his +studies of prison life and character.</p> + +<p>Among the curiosities of the London Archives +are over a ton of books registering the Fleet +Marriages between 1686 and 1754, which are +in the Registry Office of the Bishop of London, +where they were deposited by the Government, +which purchased them in 1821. These +Fleet Marriages were the scandal and disgrace +of their time. While they lasted the debtor’s +gaol was the Gretna Green of London. There +were no end of hard-living parsons flung into +the Fleet for debt, and as these men were +always paupers in purse, they were put to +strange shifts to keep themselves in meat and +drink—especially the latter. The idea to convert +clandestine marriages into a source of +gain, once originated, with men who had neither +money, character or liberty to lose, was not +long in spreading. At first the ceremony was +performed within the prison chapel. Then +they became too numerous and the business +<span id="pg_101" class="page_anchor">101 </span> +too extensive for the confines of the gaol, +and every tavern around the prison had its +marriage mill, and a parson who in the rules +of the prison was permitted to go at large +within certain limits, to grind the mill for anyone +who listed. These clerical vagabonds +employed touts, who roved about the market +and the adjacent streets drumming up custom +for the parson, who sat swigging while he +waited for trade, very much as the slop-shop +salesman of to-day seeks for custom passing on +the sidewalk. Tennant relates that in walking +the street in his youth, on the side next to +this prison: “I have often been tempted by +the question, ‘Sir, will you be pleased to walk +in and be married.’” Along this most lawless +space was frequently hung up the sign +of a male and female hand conjoined, with +“Marriages Performed Within” written beneath. +A dirty fellow invited you in. The +parson was seen walking before his shop, a +squalid, profligate figure, clad in a tattered +plaid night-gown, with a fiery face, and ready +to couple you for a dram of gin or roll of +tobacco. “The Grub Street Journal,” in January, +1735, says: “There are a set of drunken, +<span id="pg_102" class="page_anchor">102 </span> +swearing parsons, with their myrmidons, who +wear black coats and pretend to be clerks and +registers of the Fleet, and who ply about +Ludgate Hill, pulling or forcing people to some +peddling ale-house or brandy shop to be +married; even on a Sunday stopping them as +they go to church and almost tearing the +clothes off their backs.”</p> + +<p>Competition in the business was fierce. +While the Fleet parsons sent their pullers-in +forth to scour the streets, they hung their +signs out in the windows under the shadow <ins title="Note: “of +of” in the original">of</ins> the prison wall. Thus at one corner might +be seen a window, “Weddings performed here +cheap.” The business was advertised in the +newspapers. The marriage taverns lined Fleet +Lane and Fleet Ditch. Two of them—the +Bull and Garter and the King’s Head—were +kept by warders of the prison. The parson +and the landlord divided the fee between them, +after deducting a shilling for the tout who +brought the customers in. If a marriage was desired +to be secret it was not entered on the +register of the house. Otherwise it was, for +a small fee, written down in a book which each +tavern kept. Thus a profligate man could victimize +<span id="pg_103" class="page_anchor">103 </span> +a confiding girl with impunity. Men and +women might commit bigamy at will, since any +name they chose to give, along with their fee, +satisfied the parson, and they could have the +“ceremony” kept unregistered, or dated back +as they chose. The law held a married woman +free of the responsibility of her debts, while a +single woman could be arrested and locked up +for them. All a woman of free life had to do +to defraud her creditors was to get some man +to marry her at the Fleet. Then she could not +be prosecuted. As for the man, the creditors +had to find him before they could proceed +against him.</p> + +<p>Women of quality who had led extravagant +lives did not hesitate at the same shift. There +were parsons who kept husbands in hire at five +shillings each. There is record of one fellow +having been “married” to four women in one +day. There is also a record of women, dressed +as men, being hired out as mock husbands for +the occasion. All classes were fish for the Fleet +parson’s net. Drunken sailors and soldiers +were united to the gin-perfumed fairies of the +market; roués fetched their silly, girlish victims +in coaches to the altar reeking of stale +<span id="pg_104" class="page_anchor">104 </span> +beer and brandy; and great men of the realm +utilized the functions of the clerical mountebanks +to a similar result. In five months—from +October, 1704, to February, 1705—2,954 marriages +were recorded at the Fleet. How many +went unrecorded can only be surmised. The +church strove in vain to eradicate the scandal, +and it required an Act of Parliament to put an +end to it in 1754.</p> + +<p>The Fleet marriages provided Dickens with +no material, although other and less distinguished +romancers have found use for them, +with more or less effect. In fact, Dickens rarely +wrote without a distinct object, and in “Pickwick,” +desultory and irregular as the thread of +the narrative is, he had such a purpose when he +took the Fleet in hand. At the time he wrote +of it (1836) the monstrosity was at its worst. +The prevalent system of imprisonment for debt +rendered the hideous gaol a tool at the hands of +a vengeful enemy, and in those of a rapacious +and dishonest man. The outrages to which it +lent itself, at the call of swindling lawyers and +commercial extortioners, had commenced to attract +public attention. That the chapters on +the Fleet in “Pickwick” bore a share in arousing +<span id="pg_105" class="page_anchor">105 </span> +the general indignation which forced the +Government into action cannot be questioned. +They shaped the popular sentiment and gave it +a war-cry. But the good work was not to be +done in a day. It required an Act of Parliament, +debated on and contested with the usual ponderous +procrastinativeness, to rid the earth of +the Fleet. The Act was at last passed in 1842, +and by it the prison was abolished, and its inmates +were drafted into the Queen’s Prison. +The Fleet was later sold to the Corporation of +the City of London, and in the spring of 1846 it +was razed to the ground. Its site to-day is +marked by business buildings, whose ceaseless +industry makes a strange monument for the +stagnant and idle life of which the spot was +once the scene.</p> + +<span id="pg_106" class="page_anchor">106 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-4">CHAPTER IV.<br> +<span>THE MARSHALSEA.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-i.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>I</span>t</span> was a good seven years—or an evil seven—for +many a poor debtor, after the Fleet was +legislated out of existence, before its younger +brother on the other side of the river followed +it. The Marshalsea was not officially abolished +until 1849, and even then it escaped the doom +of extinction meted out to the Fleet, and prolonged +its material existence into our own +day. What had been a frowsy jail became a +frowsy shelter for a community scarcely poorer +than that which had once inhabited it; albeit +this newer community enjoyed the advantage +of being miserable in freedom from the restrain +of barred windows and spike-topped walls.</p> + +<p>Of the prison, Dickens sketches a good description +in Chapter 6 of the first volume of +“Little Dorrit.” “Thirty years ago,” he says, +“there stood, a few doors short of the church of +St. George, in the borough of Southwark, on the +left-hand side of the way going southward, +<span id="pg_107" class="page_anchor">107 </span> +the Marshalsea Prison. It was an oblong +pile of barrack buildings, partitioned into +squalid rooms standing back to back, so that +there were no back rooms; environed by a narrow +paved yard, hemmed by high walls duly +spiked on the top. Itself a close and confined +prison for debtors, it contained within it a +much closer and more confined gaol for smugglers. +Offenders against the revenue laws, +and defaulters to the excise or customs, who +had incurred fines which they were unable +to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind +an iron-plated door, closing up a second +prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and +a blind alley some yard and a half wide, +which formed the mysterious termination of the +very limited skittle ground in which the Marshalsea +debtors bowled down their troubles. +Supposed to be incarcerated there, because +the time had rather outgrown the strong cells +and the blind alley. In practice they come to +be considered a little too bad, though in +theory they were quite as good as ever; which +may be observed to be the case at the present +day with other cells that are not at all +strong, and with other blind alleys that are +<span id="pg_108" class="page_anchor">108 </span> +stone blind. Hence the smugglers habitually +consorted with the debtors (who received them +with open arms) except at certain constitutional +moments when somebody came from +some office, to go through the form of overlooking +something, which neither he nor anybody +else knew anything about. On these +truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, +made a feint of walking into the strong cells +and the blind alley, while this somebody pretended +to do his something, and made a reality +of walking out again as soon as he hadn’t +done it—nearly epitomising the administration +of the most of the public affairs in our own +right, tight little island.”</p> + +<p>The Marshalsea had several notable neighbors +in its own line of trade. One of these +was Horsemonger Lane Gaol, the county jail +for Surrey. It was a sturdy, thick-set prison, +with a massive-looking lodge and powerful +walls. Executions took place on the roof of +the lodge, the gallows being set up there, and +the drop cut in the roof itself. These hangings +were a popular show in their day, and the +tenants of the houses across the way from +the jail used to reap a harvest by letting +<span id="pg_109" class="page_anchor">109 </span> +their front windows to sightseers. It is said +that they would commonly make a year’s rent, +and often more, out of the morbid curiosity +of the town on one of these occasions. What +the occasions were like, Dickens has left us +an idea in his famous letter to the “Times,” +on the occasion of the execution of the Mannings, +husband and wife, on November 13, 1849. +Dickens and John Foster attended this ghastly +raree-show. Here is a description of it:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I was a witness to the execution of the +Mannings in Horsemonger Lane. I went there +with the intention of observing the crowd +gathered to behold it, and I had excellent +opportunities of doing so; at intervals all +through the night, and continuously from +daybreak until the spectacle was over. I believe +that a sight so inconceivably awful as the +wickedness and levity of the immense crowd +collected at that execution could be imagined +by no man, and could be presented in no heathen +land under the sun. The horrors of the gibbet +and of the crime which brought these wretched +murderers to it, faded in my mind before the +atrocious bearing, looks and language of the +assembled spectators. When I came upon the +scene, at midnight, the shrillness of the cries +and howls that were raised from time to time, +denoting that they came from a concourse of +<span id="pg_110" class="page_anchor">110 </span> +boys and girls already assembled in the best +places, made my blood run cold. As the +night went on, screeching and laughing and +yelling, in strong chorus of parodies on negro +melodies, with substitutions of ‘Mrs. Manning’ +for ‘Susannah,’ and the like, were added +to these. When the day dawned, thieves, low +prostitutes, ruffians and vagabonds of every +kind flocked on to the ground, with every +variety of offensive and foul behaviour. +Fightings, faintings, whistlings, imitations of +Punch, brutal jokes, tumultuous demonstrations +of indecent delight when swooning +women were dragged out of the crowd by the +police with their dresses disordered, gave a +new zest to the general entertainment. When +the sun rose brightly, as it did, it gilded the +thousands upon thousands of upturned faces, +so inexpressibly odious in their brutal mirth +or callousness, that a man had cause to feel +ashamed of the shape he wore, and to shrink +from himself, as fashioned in the image of +the devil. When the two miserable creatures +who attracted all this ghastly sight about them +were turned quivering into the air, there was +no more emotion, no more pity, no more thought +that two immortal souls had gone to judgment, +no more restraint in any of the previous +obscenities than if the name of Christ had +never been heard in the world, and there was +no belief among men but that they perished +<span id="pg_111" class="page_anchor">111 </span> +like beasts. I have seen, habitually, some of +the sources of general contamination and corruption, +and I think there are not many phases +of London life that could surprise me. I am +solemnly convinced that nothing that ingenuity +could devise to be done in this city, in the same +compass of time, could work such ruin as one +public execution, and I stand astounded and +appalled by the wickedness it exhibits. I do +not believe that any community can prosper +where such a scene of horror and demoralization +as was enacted this morning outside +Horsemonger Lane Gaol is presented at the +very doors of the good citizens, and is passed by +unknown or forgotten.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This letter created a tremendous sensation, +and started a whole flood of literature, condemnatory +and demanding the abolishment of +public hangings; but they were not finally +done away with until nearly twenty years later. +Apropos of Horsemonger Lane, readers of +“Little Dorrit” may recall that it was here +that John Chivery resided, assisting his +mother “in the conduct of a snug tobacco +business, which could usually command a neat +connection within the college walls”—the college +being a polite title for the Marshalsea, +whose inmates were, by natural association, +<span id="pg_112" class="page_anchor">112 </span> +technically known among themselves as collegians.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The tobacco business around the corner +of Horsemonger Lane was carried on in a rural +establishment one story high, which had the +benefit of the air from the yards of the +Horsemonger Lane Gaol, and the advantage +of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant +establishment. The business was of too +modest a character to support a life-sized Highlander, +but it maintained a little one on the +bracket on the door post, who looked like a +fallen cherub that had found it necessary to +take to a kilt.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It was from the stock of this establishment +that John Chivery produced the cigars of +which he made a Sunday offering on the altar +of the Father of the Marshalsea, who not +only “took the cigars and was glad to get +them,” but “sometimes even condescended +to walk up and down the yard with the donor, +and benignantly smoke one in his society.” It +was also from this establishment that he issued +forth on the memorable Sunday, “neatly +attired in a plum-colored coat, with as large a +collar of black velvet as his figure could carry; +a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden +sprigs, a chaste neckerchief much in vogue in +<span id="pg_113" class="page_anchor">113 </span> +that day, representing a preserve of lilac +pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons, so +highly decorated with side stripes that each +leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state, +very high and hard,” not to mention a pair +of white kid gloves, and a cane like a little finger +post, surmounted by an ivory hand, to propose +to Little Dorrit on the Iron Bridge.</p> + +<p>Another of the famous Southwark gaols was +the King’s Bench, but in justice to Mr. +Micawber, it demands a chapter to itself. To +return to the Marshalsea, it may be remarked +that Dickens knew it by such early experience +that he was qualified to write about it, even +more exhaustively than he did in “Little Dorrit.” +While he was still a boy, in 1822, his +father endured a period of compulsory retirement +behind its lock, and the future chronicler +of the jail lodged in a cheap garret near by, +an episode of his life which he has introduced +in “David Copperfield,” in connection with the +Micawbers and the King’s Bench. Every +morning, as soon as the gates were opened, +the boy went to the Marshalsea, where his +mother had joined his father, to breakfast. +In the evening he would go to the jail from +<span id="pg_114" class="page_anchor">114 </span> +the blacking factory, where he was employed, +to get his supper. The family got along quite +gayly while the elder Dickens’s affairs were in +the courts. He had an income on which they +lived and kept a servant, a workhouse girl, +from whom the novelist is said to have drawn +his character of The Marchioness in “Old +Curiosity Shop.” The girl and the boy had to +leave the prison before ten, when the gate was +locked for the night, and they became great +friends. On holidays he would go to the seminary +on Tenterden street, where his sister Fanny +was at school, and fetch her to spend the day +in the family circle, escorting her back in the +evening. How freely he used his Marshalsea +experiences in “David Copperfield,” and transferred +to Mr. Micawber the actualities of his +own family life, may be appreciated from the +passage, written by himself and quoted by Foster, +relating to his first visit to his father in the +jail:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“My father was waiting for me in the lodge, +and we went up to his room (on the top story +but one) and cried very much, and he told me, +I remember, to take warning by the Marshalsea, +and to observe that if any man had twenty +pounds a year, and spent nineteen pounds nineteen +<span id="pg_115" class="page_anchor">115 </span> +shillings and sixpence, he would be happy; +but that a shilling spent the other way would +make him wretched. I see the fire we sat before +now, with two bricks in the rusted grate, +one on each side to prevent its burning too +many coals. Some other debtor shared the +room with him, who came in by-and-by; and, as +the dinner was a joint-stock repast, I was sent +up to Captain Porter in the room overhead, +with Mr. Dickens’s compliments, and I was his +son, and could he, Captain P., lend me a knife +and fork. Captain P. lent me a knife and +fork, with his compliments in return. There +was a very dirty lady in his room, and two wan +girls, his daughters, with shock heads of hair. +I thought I should not have liked to borrow +Captain Porter’s comb. The Captain himself +was in the last extremities of shabbiness, +and if I could draw at all, I would draw an accurate +portrait of the old, old brown great-coat +he wore, with no other coat below it. His whiskers +were large. I saw his bed rolled up in a +corner, and what plates and dishes and pots he +had on a shelf; and I knew (God knows how) +that the two girls with the shock heads were +Captain Porter’s natural children, and that +the dirty lady was not married to Captain P. +My timid, wondering station on his threshold +was not occupied more than a couple of minutes, +I daresay; but I came down into the room +<span id="pg_116" class="page_anchor">116 </span> +below with all this as surely in my knowledge +as the knife and fork were in my hand.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It was into this familiar scene that Dickens +introduced Mr. William Dorrit, a very amiable +and very helpless middle-aged gentleman, +who was “going out again directly. Necessarily +he was going out again directly, because +the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor +who was not. He brought in a portmanteau +with him, which he doubted it worth while +to unpack, he was so perfectly clear—like all +the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said—that +he was going out again directly. He +was a shy, retiring man, well-looking, though +in an effeminate style; with a mild voice, curling +hair, and irresolute hands—rings upon the +fingers those days, not one of which was left” +upon them a little while after—when the +drunken doctor, fetched in haste, ushered Little +Dorrit into the world, with the assistance +of Mrs. Bangham and the brandy bottle. The +doctor was a type of one class of tenants to be +found in every debtors’ prison. He lived in a +wretched, ill-smelling room under the roof, +with a puffy, red-faced chum, who helped to +pass the time playing all fours, with pipe and +<span id="pg_117" class="page_anchor">117 </span> +brandy trimmings. “The doctor’s friend was +in the positive stage of hoarseness, puffiness, +all fours, tobacco, dirt and brandy; the doctor +in the comparative—hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, +more all foury, tobaccoer, dirtier and +brandier. The doctor was amazingly shabby +in a torn, darned, rough weather sea jacket, out +at the elbows, and eminently short of buttons +(he had been in his time the experienced surgeon +carried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest +white trowsers conceivable by mortal man, carpet +slippers and no visible linen. ‘Childbed?’ +said the doctor (to Mr. Dorrit, who had come +to summon him) ‘I’m the boy!’ With that the +doctor took a comb from the chimneypiece, and +stuck his hair upright—which appeared to be +his way of washing himself—produced a professional +case or chest, of the most abject appearance, +from the cupboard where his cup and +saucer and coals were, settled his chin in a +frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a +ghastly medical scarecrow.”</p> + +<p>To enter the public establishment of which +he was destined to become the patriarch, Mr. +William Dorrit had passed through an open +outer gate on High street in the Borough, to +<span id="pg_118" class="page_anchor">118 </span> +give Southwark its more familiar name; had +crossed a little court-yard, ascended a couple of +stone steps, traversed a narrow entry, and been +admitted by a string of locked doors into the +prison lodge. Here he had waited, as the form +and practice of the proceeding required, until +his arrival was registered, and the tipstaff, who +had kindly guided and guarded his feet to this +harbor of refuge from the cares of the world +which works for a living, had received a receipt +for his safe delivery. Through another door at +the rear of the lodge, which was built in the +wall of the jail itself, he was conducted to what +was to be his home for half the lifetime allotted +to mortal man. Before him was the jail court, +the aristocratic court, where the pump was; +and facing the lofty wall which divided it from +the street, the barrack, on the next to the top +floor of which he found the shabby room in +which the child of the Marshalsea was to be +born. Debtors were playing at racket and skittles +in the court, and grouped around the entrance +to the snuggery or tap-room at the further +end of the barrack. There were “the collegian +in the dressing gown, who had no coat, +the stout greengrocer collegian in the corduroy +<span id="pg_119" class="page_anchor">119 </span> +kneebreeches, who had no cares, the collegian +in the seaside slippers, who had no shoes, and +the lean clerk collegian in buttonless black, +who had no hopes; the man with many children +and many burdens, whose failure astonished +everybody; the man of no children and large +resources, whose failure astonished nobody; +the people who were always going out to-morrow, +and always putting it off; the slatternly +women at the windows, gossiping shrilly, the +smudgy children playing noisily; all those people +in fine who belong to such a place, not forgetting +the nondescript messengers, go-betweens +and errand runners, who formed a class +by themselves.”</p> + +<p>Every debtors’ prison had its corps of such +attendants, who came and went in the service +of the inmates whose liberty ended at the lodge +door. “The shabbiness of these attendants +upon shabbiness, the poverty of the insolvent +waiters on insolvency, was a sight to see. Such +threadbare coats and trowsers, such fusty +gowns and shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, +such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and +walking sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. +All of them wore the cast-off clothes of other +<span id="pg_120" class="page_anchor">120 </span> +men and women; were made up of patches and +pieces of other peoples’ individuality, and had +no sartorial existence of their own proper. +Their walk was the walk of a race apart. They +had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking around +the corner, as if they were eternally going to +the pawnbroker’s. When they coughed, they +coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten +on the doorsteps and draughty passages, +waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, +which gave the recipients of those manuscripts +great mental disturbance and no satisfaction. +As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed +him with borrowing eyes—hungry, sharp, speculative +as to his softness if they were accredited +to him, and the likelihood of his standing +something handsome. Mendicity on commission +stooped in their high shoulders, shambled +in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned +and darned and dragged their clothes, frayed +their button-holes, leaked out of their figures +in dirty ends of tape, and issued from their +mouths in alcoholic breathings.”</p> + +<p>In spite of occasional touches such as this, +the comparative brightness of Dickens’s picture +of the Marshalsea, as contrasted with the +<span id="pg_121" class="page_anchor">121 </span> +gloom and horror of his delineation of the +Fleet, has been frequently commented upon, +but there was a reason for this in fact. Squalid +and miserable enough the Marshalsea was, but +it was still more merciful and humane a house +of confinement than the other. Extortions were +common to all such places, but they were carried +to their worst extent at the Fleet. The +Marshalsea, moreover, was a smaller prison, its +population came and went at shorter intervals +than that of the Fleet, and it did not include so +heavy a percentage of the baser elements of society +as festered in the social cesspool opposite +the Fleet Market. Very few debtors remained +in the gaol for an extended period. The average +generation of a Marshalsea prisoner was, +as Dickens himself says, three months. The +case of the Father of Marshalsea—which, by +the way, was based on that of a real prisoner in +the last century—was unique. “The affairs of +this debtor were perplexed by a partnership of +which he knew no more than that he had invested +money in it, by legal matters of assignment +and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance +there, suspicion of unlawful preference +of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious +<span id="pg_122" class="page_anchor">122 </span> +spiriting away of property in that.” In +short, Mr. William Dorrit’s affairs were so +tangled up that even the lawyers could not untwist +them, and finally they gave him up, and +in the inextricable entanglement he remained +fettered to the Marshalsea as if he had never +been a part of any world beyond its confining +wall. “Crushed at first by his imprisonment” +(vide Chapter 6, Volume I, “Little Dorrit”), “he +had soon found a dull relief in it. He was under +lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him +in kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had +been a man with strength of purpose to face +these troubles and fight them, he might have +broken the net that held him, or broken his +heart; but, being what he was, he languidly +slipped into this smooth descent and never took +one step upward. He had unpacked the portmanteau +long ago; and his elder children played +regularly about the yard, and everyone knew +the baby and claimed a kind of proprietorship +in her.” The title conferred upon him by a turnkey +he came to hear with pride, and under it he +levied the tribute of selfish and ungrateful beggary +upon the goodnatured subjects over whom +he presumed to rule.</p> + +<span id="pg_123" class="page_anchor">123 </span> + +<p>There was a certain snugness about the Marshalsea +which was not to be found in the Fleet. +There the company was too numerous and heterogeneous +to form any social combination. In +the smaller prison a specie of club system was +kept up. The tap-room, or snuggery, was a +public room where meat and drink might be +procured, and where a fire was maintained for +the use of the prisoners who did not wish to +cook in their rooms. The furnace was kept fed +by assessment of those who used it. At the +club, which met nightly, each man paid his own +scot. The requisite for membership was the +possession of the price of the potations served +to the member. The club was of indefinite proportions +and individuality. Its members came +with the tipstaves and went with the orders of +release issued by the courts. The general form +of its management was that which used to be +known as the “free and easy.” If any person +present was a mimic, a singer, a musician, or +otherwise gifted with a pleasing or popular accomplishment, +he might be called upon to display +it for the general good. Poor debtors, +who could do something to amuse, might have +their beer free at the charge of the more solvent +<span id="pg_124" class="page_anchor">124 </span> +collegians whom they consented to divert. +There is a legend of a comedian, broken down +by drink, who was sent to the Marshalsea and +who lived off the fat of the jail for several years, +until he died of it, all through the discreet application +of his mimetic and comic powers in +the snuggery club. Once in a while the club +would perform a piece of serious business. +Sometimes it would draft a memorial against +imprisonment for debt to the Throne or Judges, +which neither Throne nor Judges saw or read, +of course. Sometimes it would issue patriotic +manifestoes to Parliament, of which Parliament +remained equally ignorant. When a +popular member secured his release the club +would present him with a memorial, properly +engrossed and framed, of its esteem. Mr. +Dorrit received such a memorial when he came +into his fortune and resigned his paternal supremacy +over the college; and in return he +treated the whole jail to a refection in the Pump +Yard, as you may read in the last chapter of the +first volume of the record of his prison patriarchy. +But one drop of bitterness flavored the +cup of the Marshalsea Club. Its festivities +were limited by the public hours of the prison. +<span id="pg_125" class="page_anchor">125 </span> +The clangor of the jail bell announced the closing +of the gates at ten o’clock at night, and +warned all visitors to retire or be locked in until +morning. Such experience befell Mr. Arthur +Clennam when he <ins title="Note: “maade” in the original">made</ins> his first visit to +the Dorrits’ at home.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The stoppage of the bell, and the quiet in the +prison, were a warning to depart. But he had +remained too late. The inner gate was locked +and the lodge closed. This brought them to the +tavern establishment at the upper end of the +prison, where the collegians had just vacated +their social evening club. The apartment on +the ground floor in which it was held was the +Snuggery: the presidential tribune of the chairman, +the pewter pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco +ashes and general flavor of members were still +as that convivial institution had left them on +its adjournment. The Snuggery had two of +the qualities popularly held to be essential for +grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and +strong; but in the third point of analogy, requiring +plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective; being +but a cooped-up apartment.</p> + +<p>“The unaccustomed visitor from the outside +naturally assumed everybody to be prisoners—landlord, +waiter, barmaid, potboy and all. +Whether they were or not did not appear; but +they all had a weedy look. The keeper of the +chandler’s shop in the front parlor, who took in +<span id="pg_126" class="page_anchor">126 </span> +gentlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making +the bed. He had been a tailor in his time, +and had kept a phaeton, he said. It was evident, +from the general tone of the whole party, +that they had come to regard insolvency as the +normal state of mankind, and the payment of +debts a disease that occasionally broke out. +In this strange scene, and with these strange +spectres flitting about him, Arthur <ins title="Note: “Clenham” in the original">Clennam</ins> +looked on the preparations as if they were a +part of a dream. Pending the while the long +initiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of the +Snuggery’s resources, pointed out the common +kitchen fire maintained by subscription of the +collegians, the boiler for hot water, supported +in the same manner, and other premises generally +tending to the deduction that the way to +be healthy, wealthy and wise was to come to the +Marshalsea.</p> + +<p>“The two tables put together in a corner were, +at length, converted into a very fair bed; and +the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, +the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, +sawdust, pipelights, spittoons and repose. But +the last item was long, long, long in linking +itself to the rest. The novelty of the place, +the coming upon it without preparation, the +sense of being locked up, kept him waking and +unhappy. Speculations, too, bearing on the +strangest relations towards the prison, but +always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares +<span id="pg_127" class="page_anchor">127 </span> +through his mind while he lay awake. +Whether coffins were kept ready for people who +might die there, where they were kept, how +they were kept, where people who died in +prison were buried, how they were taken out, +what forms were observed, whether an implacable +creditor could arrest the dead? As to +escaping, what chances were there of escape? +Whether a prisoner could scale the walls with +a cord and grapple? How he would descend +on the other side; whether he could alight on a +housetop, steal down a staircase, let himself +out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? As +to fire in the prison, if one were to break out +while he lay there?</p> + +<p>“The morning light was in no hurry to climb +the prison wall and look in at the Snuggery +windows; and when it did come, it would have +been more welcome if it had come alone, instead +of bringing a rush of rain with it. But the equinoctial +gales were blowing out at sea, and the +impartial southwest wind, in its flight, would +not neglect even the narrow Marshalsea. +While it roared through the steeple of St. +George’s church, and twirled all the cowls in +the neighborhood, it made a swoop to beat the +Southwark smoke into the gaol; and, plunging +down the chimneys of the few collegians who +were yet lighting their fires, half suffocated +them.</p> + +<p>“Heartily glad to see the morning through little +<span id="pg_128" class="page_anchor">128 </span> +rested by the night, he turned out as soon +as he could distinguish objects about him, and +paced the yard for two heavy hours before the +gaol was opened. The walls were so near to one +another, and the wild clouds hurried over them +so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning +of seasickness to look up at the gusty +sky. The rain, carried aslant by flaws of wind, +blackened that side of the central building +which he had visited last night, but left a narrow +dry trough under the lee of the wall, +where he walked up and down among the waifs +of straw and dust and paper, the waste droppings +of the pumps and the stray leaves of +yesterday’s greens. It was as haggard a view +of life as a man need look upon.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>By the arrangement of the walls, all that the +prisoners in the Marshalsea could see out of +doors was the sky. The view from the barred +windows of the uppermost rooms was cut off +by the higher line of the wall topped with its +chevaux-de-frise. But Little Dorrit’s own +room, being in the Warden’s house, had a somewhat +freer prospect. “A garret and a Marshalsea +garret without compromise was Little Dorrit’s +room,” but “the housetops and the distant +country hills were discernible over the walls +in the clear morning.” Since the prison has +<span id="pg_129" class="page_anchor">129 </span> +been put to ordinary uses, such of the wall as +is left has been lowered so that the view except +from the lower windows is not obstructed. The +sharp and cruel spikes that reddened in the sunrise +like the bloody fangs of a savage beast, +are gone. Poverty looks out of the old windows +without having to peep between iron bars, and +in the prison where the smugglers did not +abide a factory is busy. The place, when I saw +it, had changed but little since Dickens himself +visited it in 1857, and wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I found the outer front court-yard, often +mentioned here, metamorphosed into a butter +shop; and I then almost gave up every brick of +the gaol for lost. Wandering, however, down +a certain adjacent ‘Angel Court, leading to +Bermondsey,’ I came to <ins title="Note: absent in the original">‘</ins>Marshalsea Place,’ +the houses in which I recognized; not only the +great block of the former prison, but as preserving +the rooms that arose in my mind’s eye +when I became Little Dorrit’s biographer. A +little further on, I found the older and smaller +wall, which used to inclose the pent-up inner +prison, where nobody was put except for +ceremony. But whosoever goes into Marshalsea +Place, turned out of Angel Court, leading +to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very +paving stones of the extinct Marshalsea Gaol; +will see its narrow yard to the right and to the +<span id="pg_130" class="page_anchor">130 </span> +left, very little altered, if at all, except that the +walls were lowered when the place got free; +will look upon the rooms in which the debtors +lived; and will stand among the crowding +ghosts of many years.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The Marshalsea has a history nearly as +ancient as the Fleet. Stow tells us that it was +so called as “pertaining to the Marshalls of +England.” In it were confined all manners of +marauders, with a special tendency towards +persons who had been guilty of piracy and other +offenses on the high seas. Some authorities +place its foundation as far back as the Twelfth +Century. It was a prison of considerable extent +in 1377, when a mob of sailors broke into +it and murdered a gentleman who had been +incarcerated there for killing one of their comrades +in a pot-house brawl. Three years +later, Wat Tyler, in the course of his rebellion, +seized and hanged the Marshal of the Marshalsea. +The official title of the Warden of the +prison was, by the way, Marshal. When +Bishop Bonner was deprived of his see of London +for his adherence to the Church of Rome, +he was sent to the Marshalsea. He lived there +ten years, and there dying, in 1569, he was +buried at midnight in St. George’s Church hard +<span id="pg_131" class="page_anchor">131 </span> +by. This ancient prison occupied another +site on the same street as the later structure. +Under Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth, it +was the second prison in importance in London, +being inferior only to the Tower. Here Christopher +Brooke, the poet, was confined for being +concerned in the wedding of Dr. Donne, and +here George Wither was a prisoner for one of +his satires against the Government aggressions +and the abuse of the royal prerogative. +The Nonconformist confessors were divided +up among the Southwark prisons, and the Marshalsea +received its share of them. John +Udall, the Puritan martyr, fell a victim to +its gaol fever. Its blight extended through +many generations, and the shadow of its walls +darkened many useful lives for no crime worse +than the accident of failure that may come to +any man. A false system ground its abject +shabbiness, its haggard anxiety, and hopeless +stupor of energies, into natures that might, +but for it, have triumphed over care, and converted +the defeat of to-day into the victory +of to-morrow. “Changeless and barren, looking +ignorantly at all seasons with its fixed, +pinched face of poverty and care, the prison +<span id="pg_132" class="page_anchor">132 </span> +had not a touch of any of these beauties in it. +Blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore +uniformly the same dead crop.”</p> + +<p>Long before “Little Dorrit” was projected, +Dickens introduced the Marshalsea to his +readers; even before he introduced the Fleet, +indeed. The ceremony was performed in +Volume I chapter 21 of the “Pickwick Papers,” +in the sketch called “The Old Man’s Tale about +the Queer Client.” Here is the passage:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In the Borough High street, near St. +George’s Church, and on the same side of the +way, stands, as most people know, the smallest +of our debtors’ prisons—the Marshalsea. +Although in later times it has been a very +different place from the sink of filth and dirt +it once was, even its improved condition holds +out but little temptation to the extravagant +or consolation to the improvident. The condemned +felon has as good a yard for air and +exercise in Newgate as the insolvent debtor in +the Marshalsea Prison.</p> + +<p>“It may be my fancy, or it may be that I cannot +separate the place from the old recollections +associated with it, but this part of London +I cannot bear. The street is broad, the +shops are spacious, the noise of the passing +vehicles, the footsteps of a perpetual stream +of people—all the busy sounds of traffic resound +<span id="pg_133" class="page_anchor">133 </span> +in it from morn to midnight, but the +streets around are mean and close; poverty and +debauchery lie festering in the crowded alleys; +want and misfortune are penned up in the narrow +prison; an air of gloom and dreariness +seems, in my eyes at least, to hang about the +scene, and to impart to it a squalid and sickly +hue.</p> + +<p>“Many eyes that have long since closed in the +grave, have looked around upon that scene +lightly enough, when entering the gate of the +old Marshalsea Prison for the first time; for despair +seldom comes with the first severe shock +of misfortune. A man has confidence in untried +friends, he remembers the many offers of assistance +so freely made by his boon companions +when he wanted them not, he has hope—the +hope of happy inexperience—and however he +may bend beneath the first shock, it springs +up in his bosom, and flourishes there for a brief +space, until it droops beneath the blight of disappointment +and neglect. How soon have +those same eyes, deeply sunken in the head, +glared from faces wasted with famine, and +sallow from confinement, in days when it was +no figure of speech to say that the debtors rotted +in prison, with no hope of release, and no prospect +of liberty. The atrocity in its full extent +no longer exists, but there is enough of it left +to give rise to occurrences that make the heart +bleed.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<span id="pg_134" class="page_anchor">134 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-5">CHAPTER V.<br> +<span>THE KING’S BENCH.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-i.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>I</span>n</span> the “Pickwick Papers” the Fleet Prison +was made to serve as an important feature +of the story. In “Little Dorrit,” the story as +far as its human interest, humor and pathos +are concerned, centres in the Marshalsea. The +introduction of the King’s Bench into “David +Copperfield” is entirely episodic, but it makes +one of the most brilliant chapters in the book, +and, from its personal connection with the author’s +own life, one of the most important. That +Dickens drew largely on his own experience +for the material in “David Copperfield” has +been abundantly shown by many commentators. +Without being an autobiography, the +book gives one many glimpses into the real life +of its author. He transfers scenes and changes +names a trifle, as he was fond of doing, but +the private memoranda furnished by him of +his early toil and trials afford a key to much +that one reads in “Copperfield” in the flimsy +<span id="pg_135" class="page_anchor">135 </span> +disguise of fiction. Thus, he adapts the knowledge +of the Marshalsea, which he acquired +while his father was a prisoner there, to the +fictitious figure and fortunes of old Dorrit; +and he bestows on Mr. Micawber, in the King’s +Bench, the traits displayed by his father in the +Marshalsea. A recent compiler of odds and +ends of Dickens personalia, sapiently undertakes +to show that the elder Dickens must +have been incarcerated in the King’s Bench +and not in the Marshalsea, because Mr. Micawber +was locked up there. Unfortunately for +this arrangement, Dickens himself had distinctly +disproved it in advance. Some years +before he wrote “Copperfield”—probably before +he even thought of writing it—he jotted +down a number of personal facts, many of which +were used in Forster’s biography. These notes +demonstrate positively that in it, as in “Dorrit,” +he pursued his favorite plan of interchanging +occurrences, scenes and characters, without, +however, departing from the main facts, which +he had grafted in this fashion on the inventions +of his fantasy. At the very commencement +of the King’s Bench interlude in “David Copperfield” +this becomes apparent.</p> + +<span id="pg_136" class="page_anchor">136 </span> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“At last Mr. Micawber’s difficulties came to a +crisis, and he was arrested one morning and +carried over to the King’s Bench Prison in the +Borough. He told me, as he went out of +the house, that the God of day had now gone +down upon him—and I really thought his heart +was broken, and mine too. But I heard, afterwards, +that he was seen to play a lively game +of skittles before noon.</p> + +<p>“On the first Sunday after he was taken there +I was to go and see him and have dinner with +him. I was to ask my way to such a place, +and just short of that place I should see such +another place, and just short of that I should +see a yard, which I was to cross, and keep +straight on until I saw a turnkey. All this I +did, and when at last I did see a turnkey (poor +little fellow that I was), and thought how, when +Roderick Random was in a debtor’s prison, +there was a man there with nothing on but +an old rug, the turnkey swam before my dimmed +eyes and my beating heart.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Micawber was waiting for me within +the gate, and we went up to his room (top story +but one) and cried very much. He solemnly +conjured me, I remember, to take warning by +his fate; and to observe that if a man had +twenty pounds a year for his income, and spent +nineteen pounds, nineteen shillings and sixpence, +he would be happy, but that if he spent +twenty pounds one he would be miserable. +<span id="pg_137" class="page_anchor">137 </span> +After which he borrowed a shilling from me for +porter<ins title="Note: absent in the original">,</ins> gave me a written order on Mrs. Micawber +for the amount and put away his pocket +<ins title="Note: “handerchief” in the original">handkerchief</ins> and cheered up.</p> + +<p>“We sat before a little fire, with two bricks +put within the rusted grate, one on each side, +to prevent its burning too many coals until +another debtor, who shared the room with Mr. +Micawber, came in from the bakehouse with a +loin of mutton, which was our joint stock repast. +Then I was sent up to ‘Captain Hopkins,’ +in the room overhead, with Mr. Micawber’s +compliments, and I was his young friend, and +would Captain Hopkins lend me a knife and +fork.</p> + +<p>“Captain Hopkins lent me a knife and fork +with his compliments to Mr. Micawber. There +was a very dirty little lady in his little room, +and two wan girls, his daughters, with shock +heads of hair. I thought it was better to borrow +Captain Hopkins’s knife and fork than Captain +Hopkins’s comb. The Captain himself was in +the last extremity of shabbiness, with large +whiskers, and an old, old brown great coat, +with no other coat below it. I saw his bed +rolled up in a corner; and what plates and +dishes and pots he had, on a shelf; and I +divined (God only knows how) that though the +two girls with the shock heads of hair were +Captain Hopkins’s children, the dirty little +lady was not married to Captain Hopkins. My +<span id="pg_138" class="page_anchor">138 </span> +timid station on the threshold was not occupied +more than a couple of minutes at most; +but I came down again with all this in my +knowledge as surely as the knife and fork were +in my hand.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Compare this with Dickens’s description of +his actual visit to his father in the Marshalsea. +The difference is only that of a slight +rounding off or modifying of a sentence in the +“Copperfield” version. In the case of Captain +Hopkins, whose real name was Captain Porter, +one may note how the actual suggested the +fictitious title. The association between porter +and hops is evident and direct. The real experiences +of the Dickens’s, at this period, in +and out of jail, parallel those credited to the +Micawbers. Mrs. Dickens and the family +camped in Gower street just as Mrs. Micawber +and the children camped in Windsor Terrace. +The Dickenses even had a workhouse girl for +servant, like the Micawbers, and little Charles +made journeys to the pawnshop and the old +book-stall in real life, just as David did in the +story. Throughout this portion of biography +and book the entries go side by side. For example:</p> + +<span id="pg_139" class="page_anchor">139 </span> + +<table summary=""> + <tr> + <th>Charles Dickens.</th> + <th>David Copperfield.</th> + </tr> + <tr> + <td> +<p>“At last my mother +and her encampment in +Gower street north, +broke up and went to +live in the Marshalsea. +The key of the house +was sent back to the +landlord, who was very +glad to get it; and I +(small Cain that I was, +except that I had never +done harm to anyone) +was handed over as a +lodger to a reduced old +lady, long known to our +family, in Little College +street, Camden +town. I felt keenly living +so cut off from my +parents, my brothers +and sisters. One +Sunday night I remonstrated +with my father +on this head, so pathetically +and with so +many tears, that his +kind nature gave +away. A back attic +was found for me at +the house of an insolvent +<span id="pg_140" class="page_anchor">140 </span> +court-agent, who +lived in Lant street, in +the Borough, where +Bob Sawyer lodged +many years afterwards. +A bed and +bedding were sent +over for me and made +up on the floor. The +little window had a +pleasant prospect of a +timber yard; and when +I took possession of +my new abode I +thought it was a paradise.”</p> + </td> + <td> +<p>“At last Mrs. Micawber +resolved to move +into the prison, where +Mr. Micawber had +now secured a room <ins title="Note: “to +to” in the original">to</ins> himself. So I took +the key of the house +to the landlord, who +was very glad to get +it; and the beds were +sent over to the King’s +Bench, except mine, +for which a little room +was hired outside the +walls in the neighborhood +of that institution, +very much +to my satisfaction, +since the Micawbers +and I had become too +used to one another +in our troubles to +part. The Orfling +was likewise accommodated +with an inexpensive +lodging in the +same neighborhood. +Mine was a quiet back +garret, with a sloping +roof, commanding +a pleasant prospect of +a timber yard; and +when I took possession +of it, with the reflection +that Mr. Micawber’s +troubles had +come to a crisis at +last, I thought it quite +a paradise.”</p> + </td> + </tr> +</table> + +<p>As Dickens told Forster, his family had no +want of bodily comforts in the Marshalsea. +His father’s income, still going on, was amply +sufficient for that; and in every respect, indeed, +but elbow room, they lived more comfortably +in prison than they had done for a long time +while out of it. As he told the public in “David +Copperfield”: “I was now relieved of much +of the weight of Mr. and Mrs. Micawber’s cares; +for some relatives or friends had engaged to +help them at their present pass, and they lived +more comfortably in the prison than they had +<span id="pg_141" class="page_anchor">141 </span> +lived for a long time out of it.” As Forster tells +us, directly from Dickens’s own statements to +him: “They were waited on still by the maid-of-all-work +from Bayham street, the orphan +girl of the Chatham workhouse, from whose +sharp little worldly and also kindly ways he +took his first impression of the Marchioness in +the ‘Old Curiosity Shop.’ She also had a lodging +in the neighborhood that she might be early +on the scene of her duties; and when Charles +met her, as he would do occasionally, in his +lounging place by London bridge, he would +occupy the time before the gates opened by telling +her quite astonishing fictions about the +wharves and the Tower.” As David Copperfield +tells us:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“I used to breakfast with them, now, in virtue +of some arrangement, of which I have forgotten +the details. I forget, too, at what hour +the gates were opened in the morning, admitting +of my going in, but I know that I was +often up at six o’clock, and that my favorite +lounging place in the interval was the old +London Bridge, where I was wont to sit in one +of the stone recesses, watching the people go +by, or to look over the balustrades at the sun +shining in the water, and lighting up the +golden flame on the top of the Monument. The +<span id="pg_142" class="page_anchor">142 </span> +Orfling met me here sometimes, to be told some +astonishing fictions respecting the wharves +and the Tower; of which, I can say no more +than I hope I believed them myself. In the evening +I used to go back to the prison, and walk +up and down the parade with Mr. Micawber; +or play casino with Mrs. Micawber and hear +reminiscences of her mamma and her papa.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Charles Dickens’s father’s “attempts to avoid +going through the courts having failed, all +needful ceremonies had to be undertaken to +obtain the benefit of the Insolvent Debtors’ +Act.” Mrs. Micawber informed David that +“her family had decided that Mr. Micawber +should apply for his release under the Insolvent +Debtors<ins title="Note: “,” in the original">’</ins> Act, which would set him free, she +expected, in about six weeks.” The elder +Dickens, while awaiting his discharge from +the Marshalsea, had drawn up a petition to +the throne for the appropriation of a sum of +money to enable the prisoners to drink His +Majesty’s health on His Majesty’s forthcoming +birthday. “I mention the circumstance,” writes +Dickens in his autobiographical jottings, “because +it illustrates to me my early interest in +observing people. When I went to the Marshalsea +of a night, I was always delighted to +<span id="pg_143" class="page_anchor">143 </span> +hear from my mother what she knew about the +histories of the different debtors in the prison; +and when I heard of this approaching ceremony, +I was so anxious to see them all come in, +one after another (though I knew the greater +part of them already, to speak to, and they me), +that I got leave of absence on purpose, and +established myself in the corner near the petition. +It was stretched out, I recollect, on a +great ironing board, under the window, which +in another part of the room made a bedstead at +night. The internal regulations of the place, +for cleanliness and order, and for the government +of a common room in the ale-house, +where hot water and some means of cooking, +and a good fire, were provided for all who paid +a very small subscription, were excellently +administered by a governing committee of +debtors, of which my father was chairman for +the time being. As many of the principal officers +of this body as could be got into the small +room without filling it up supported him, in +front of the petition; and my old friend, Captain +Porter (who had washed himself to do +honor to the solemn occasion), stationed himself +close to it, to read it to all who were +<span id="pg_144" class="page_anchor">144 </span> +unacquainted with its contents. The door was +then thrown open, and they began to come in, +in long file, several waiting on the landing +outside, while one entered, affixed his signature, +and went out. To everybody in succession +Captain Porter said: ‘Would you like to +hear it read?’ If he weakly showed the least +disposition to hear it, Captain Porter, in a loud, +sonorous voice, gave him every word of it. I +remember a certain luscious roll he gave to +such words as Majesty—gracious Majesty—your +gracious Majesty’s unfortunate subjects—your +Majesty’s well-known munificence—as +if the words were something real in his mouth, +and delicious to taste; my poor father meanwhile +listening with a little of an author’s +vanity, and contemplating (not severely) the +spikes on the opposite wall. Whatever was +comical in this scene, and whatever was pathetic, +I sincerely believe I perceived in my +corner, whether I demonstrated it or not, quite +as well as I should perceive it now. I made out +my own little character and story for every +man who put his name to the sheet of paper. +I might be able to do that now, more truly; not +more earnestly or with closer interest. Their +<span id="pg_145" class="page_anchor">145 </span> +different peculiarities of dress, of face, of gait, +of manner, were written indelibly upon my +memory. I would rather have seen it than the +best play ever played; and I thought about it +afterwards over the pots of paste-blacking, often +and often. When I looked, with my mind’s +eye, into the Fleet prison during Mr. Pickwick’s +incarceration, I wonder whether half-a-dozen +men were wanting from the Marshalsea +crowd that came filing in again to the sound of +Captain Porter’s voice.” Here is the same +scene, transferred to the King’s Bench.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“By way of going in for anything that might +be on the cards, I call to mind that Mr. Micawber, +about this time, composed a petition to +the House of Commons, praying for an alteration +of the law of imprisonment for debt. I +set down this remembrance here, because it is +an instance to myself of the manner in which I +fitted my old books to my altered life, and +made stories for myself out of the streets, and +out of men and women; and how some main +points in the character I shall unconsciously +develop, I suppose, in writing my life, were +gradually forming all the time.</p> + +<p>“There was a club in the prison, in which Mr. +Micawber, as a gentleman, was a great authority. +Mr. Micawber had stated his idea of this +<span id="pg_146" class="page_anchor">146 </span> +petition to the club, and the club had strongly +approved the same. Wherefore Mr. Micawber +(who was a thoroughly good-natured man, +and as active a creature about anything but his +own affairs as ever existed, and never so happy +as when he was busy about something that +could never be any profit to him) set to work at +the petition, invented it, engrossed it on an immense +sheet of paper, spread it out on the table, +and appointed a time for all the club, and +all within the wall if they chose, to come up to +his room and sign it.</p> + +<p>“When I heard of this approaching ceremony, +I was so anxious to see them all come in, +one after another, though I knew the greater +part of them already, and they me, that I got +an hour’s leave of absence from Murdstone +and Grinby’s, and established myself in a corner +for that purpose. As many of the principal +members of the club as could be got into the +small room without filling it supported Mr. +Micawber in front of the petition, while my old +friend Captain Hopkins (who had washed himself +to do honor to the solemn occasion) stationed +himself close to it, to read it to all who +were unacquainted with its contents. The door +was then thrown open, and the general population +began to come in, in a long file; several +waiting outside, while one entered, affixed his +signature, and went out. To everybody in succession +Captain Hopkins said: ‘Have you read +<span id="pg_147" class="page_anchor">147 </span> +it?’ ‘No.’ <ins title="Note: absent in the original">‘</ins>Would you like to hear it read?’ +If he weakly showed the least disposition to +hear it, Captain Hopkins, in a loud, sonorous +voice, gave him every word of it. The Captain +would have read it 20,000 times if 20,000 people +would have heard him, one by one. I remember +a certain luscious roll he gave to such +phrases as; ‘the peoples’ representatives in Parliament +assembled,’ ‘your petitioners therefore +approach your honorable house,’ ‘His Gracious +Majesty’s unfortunate subjects,’ as if the words +were something real in his mouth and delicious +to taste, Mr. Micawber, meanwhile, listening +with a little of an author’s vanity and contemplating +(not severely) the spikes on the opposite +wall.</p> + +<p>“As I walked to and fro daily between Southwark +and Blackfriars, and lounged about at +meal times in obscure streets, the stones of +which may, for anything I know, be worn at +this moment by my childish feet, I wondered +how many of these people were wanting in the +crowd that used to come filing before me in review +again, to the echo of Captain <ins title="Note: “Hopkin’s” in the original">Hopkins’s</ins> +voice. When my thoughts go back now to +that slow agony of my youth, I wonder how +much of the histories I invented for such people +hangs like a mist of fancy over well-remembered +facts. When I tread the old ground, I +do not wonder that I seem to see and pity, going +on before me, an innocent romantic boy, +<span id="pg_148" class="page_anchor">148 </span> +making his imaginative world out of such +strange experiences and sordid things.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The fortunate acquisition of a legacy of considerable +amount released the elder Dickens +from the Marshalsea. “In due time Mr. Micawber’s +petition was ripe for hearing, and that +gentleman was ordered to be discharged under +the Act. Mr. Micawber returned to the King’s +Bench when his case was over, as some fees +were to be settled, and some formalities observed, +before he could be actually released. +The club received him with transport, and held +a harmonic meeting that evening in his honor; +while Mrs. Micawber and I had a lamb’s fry in +private, surrounded by the sleeping family.” +But you may read all there is to be read of the +Micawbers and the King’s Bench in the first +volume of “David Copperfield,” Chapters 11 +and 12, and compare it, if you choose, with the +early passages of “The Life of Charles Dickens,” +by John Forster, Volume I.</p> + +<p>Dickens’s presentations of the Fleet and the +Marshalsea had, it will be noted, the interest of +description as well as of personal association +with the characters of the stories for which +they provided a part of the scenario. The King’s +<span id="pg_149" class="page_anchor">149 </span> +Bench is an entirely personal episode. The figure +of Mr. Micawber obscures all view of the +prison. It poses on the merest suggestion of a +background of barred windows and spiked +walls. For this there are two reasons to be +found. In the first place, all of the debtors’ +prisons of London were alike in their general +features. They differed only in degrees and details +of misery. In the Fleet and in the Marshalsea +Dickens had exposed all that fell within +his vocation to expose. Moreover, the necessity +for invoking public obloquy upon the dens +had passed away with the revision of the laws +for debt. To have elaborated the material details +of the life in the King’s Bench would have +been to repeat a twice-told tale. Apart from +this, Dickens had made no special study of the +King’s Bench Prison. His memories of the +Marshalsea were indelibly imprinted on his +mind. It had been a part of his own life. He +had explored the Fleet with the purpose of +lending what aid he could toward its abolishment. +His boyish wanderings had made him +familiar enough with the external aspect of the +King’s Bench, and he had visited it on at least +one occasion when an acquaintance was incarcerated +<span id="pg_150" class="page_anchor">150 </span> +there. But, after the Fleet and Marshalsea, +its familiar features made no appeal +to him. What could he say or write of it that +had not been said or written by him already?</p> + +<p>The King’s Bench Prison of Micawber’s time +stood in the Borough Road. It was much more +roomy and endurable than the Marshalsea, and +much less wretched than the Fleet. It was enclosed +by a wall thirty-five feet high, garnished +with the usual chevaux-de-frise, and was entered +through a stone lodge three stories in +height. The jail buildings themselves carried +four stories, and were broken up into nearly 250 +rooms, with a chapel, and out-buildings for officials +and for cookery and other necessities. +The courtyard was comparatively spacious, and +was especially famous for its racket games. +Some champion scores of the day were scored +by the collegians at the King’s Bench, who certainly +had time enough for practice to perfect +themselves in the sport. Like the Fleet and the +Marshalsea, the King’s Bench had its tap-room +and its coffee-room, its poor side and its pay +side, and its club, which nightly, over a pipe and +pot, forgot for a few hours that the jail yard +was not all out-of-doors. The prison derived +<span id="pg_151" class="page_anchor">151 </span> +its title from the fact that it was the gaol of +the High Court of Justice, over which royalty +was supposed to sit as supreme judge. So it +became the Queen’s Bench when England was +ruled by a queen, and under the Commonwealth, +when royalty was not recognized, bore +the name of the Upper Bench Prison.</p> + +<p>The original King’s Bench Prison was situated +in Southwark as early as the reign of +Richard II. It was broken into and sacked +by the Kentish rebels under Wat Tyler, who, +on this occasion, performed a similar service to +the old Marshalsea close at hand. It was to +the King’s Bench that Chief Justice Gascoigne +so intrepidly committed the Prince of Wales, +afterward Henry V; and down to the time of +Oldys the room in which the wild young crony +of Sir John Falstaff spent his term in gaol, was +known as the Prince of Wales’s Chamber. The +old King’s Bench seems to have been a decidedly +easy-going jail. In 1579 we learn from the +chronicles that the prisoners used to eat in a little +low parlor next the street, and that they always +had an audience staring at them through +the barred windows, such as nowadays honors +the repasts of the wild beasts in the zoo. During +<span id="pg_152" class="page_anchor">152 </span> +this year the prisoners petitioned for an enlargement +of the prison and for a chapel, both +of which requests seem to have been granted. +Defoe, who sampled the King’s Bench as well +as Newgate and the Fleet, describes it as “not +near so good” as the latter little prison, and +complained that “to a man who had money the +Bench was only the name of a prison.” Indeed, +the license of the seventeenth and the eighteenth +centuries in the King’s Bench would be +hardly credible to persons accustomed only to +the rigid discipline of modern jail management. +In all the debtors’ gaols of this period, the gambler +and the swindler, the pickpocket, and even +the footpads, who robbed by violence, plied +their trades. Drunkenness was universal, and +the commitment of loose women and the freedom +of entry from without made worse debaucheries +than those of the bottle easy of indulgence. +At certain periods of their history +the prisons seem to have been nothing less than +vast bagnio-taverns, only the restriction upon +the egress of the debtors distinguishing them +from the common resorts of the town. The authorities +of the jail were not supersensitive in +their morality, provided their purses were kept +<span id="pg_153" class="page_anchor">153 </span> +filled. Wealth might riot, if it paid the piper, +as readily and freely as poverty might rot for +the wherewithal to buy a crust of bread. Roderick +Random’s naked debtor shivering in a +scrap of worn-out carpet was no fiction of the +King’s Bench, nor Captain Blazer’s banquets +to his fair friends from over the river a romance.</p> + +<p>Smollet knew the Bench well enough. He +had spent a term of probation behind its walls, +and wrote “Sir Launcelot Greaves” within its +rules. John Wilkes lay by the heels for one of +his libels under its smoky roof, and hither came +the mob to release him in 1768. The mob assembled +in St. George’s Field for the purpose, +and thus in 1780 the Gordon Rioters gathered, +who, a few days later, burst the prison gates +and turned 700 prisoners loose before they put +the <ins title="Note: “rotton” in the original">rotten</ins> and reeking old jail to the torch. +Combe was a prisoner under the rules of the +King’s Bench when he wrote “Dr. Syntax,” and +Haydon drew his idea of “The Mock Election” +from a burlesque enacted among the prisoners +while he was locked up in the jail for debt. A +volume could be filled with the curious and +characteristic events and personal episodes of +<span id="pg_154" class="page_anchor">154 </span> +the prison from the days of Wat Tyler down to +1862, when the last debtor passed out at the +lodge gate, and the brief career of the King’s +Bench as a military prison began. Its history +covered really that of two prisons, for after the +attack of 1780 by the rioters, the old site was +abandoned and another chosen for the rebuilding +of the jail. In one of Dickens’s last strolls +in Southwark, he noticed the fact that no vestige +of the King’s Bench remained, but that a +<ins title="Note: “hugh” in the original">huge</ins> structure devoted to model homes for +workingmen redeemed its unlamented grave +from the uselessness which had made it a blight +during many centuries. In Chapter 14 of Volume +2 of “Nicholas Nickleby,” by the way, Dickens +adverts to a feature of the law of which the +King’s Bench was one of the outgrowths, in +connection with the first visit of Nicholas to +Madeline Bray.</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The place to which Mr. Cheeryble had directed +him was a row of mean and not over +cleanly houses, situated within the ‘Rules’ of +the King’s Bench Prison, and not many hundred +paces distant from the obelisk in St. +George’s Fields. The Rules are a certain liberty +adjoining the prison, and comprising some +dozen streets in which debtors who can raise +<span id="pg_155" class="page_anchor">155 </span> +money to pay large fees, from which their creditors +do not derive any benefit, are permitted to +reside by the wise provisions of the same enlightened +laws which leave the debtor who can +raise no money to starve in gaol, without food, +clothing, lodging, or warmth, which are provided +for felons convicted of the most atrocious +crimes that can disgrace humanity. There are +many pleasant fictions of the law in constant +operation, but there is not one so pleasant or +practically humorous as that which supposes +every man to be of equal value in its impartial +eye, and the benefits of all laws to be equally +obtainable by all men, without the smallest reference +to the furniture of their pockets.</p> + +<p>“To the row of houses indicated to him by Mr. +Charles Cheeryble, Nicholas directed his steps +without much troubling his head about such +matters as these; and at this row of houses—after +traversing a very dirty and dusty suburb +of which minor theatricals, shell-fish, ginger-beer, +spring vans, green grocery and brokers’ shops +appeared to compose the main and most +prominent features—he at length arrived with +a palpitating heart. There were small gardens +in the front which, being wholly neglected in all +other respects, served as little pens for the dust +to collect in, until the wind came around the corner +and blew it down the road. Opening the +rickety gate which, dangling on its broken +hinges, before one of these, half admitted and +<span id="pg_156" class="page_anchor">156 </span> +half repulsed the visitor, Nicholas knocked at +the street door with a faltering hand.</p> + +<p>“It was, in truth, a shabby house outside, +with very dim parlor windows and very small +show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtain +dangling across the lower panes on very loose +and limp strings. Neither, when the door was +opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward +promise, as there was a faded carpeting +on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; +in addition to which discomforts a gentleman +Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlor +(though it was not yet noon), while the lady of +the house was busily engaged in turpentining +the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at +the door of the back parlor, as if in preparation +for the reception of some new lodger who had +been fortunate enough to engage it.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>The Fleet had its rules like the King’s Bench, +but there was no such legalized stretching of +the bounds of confinement tolerated at the Marshalsea. +There the prisoner was supposed to +remain a close prisoner within the walls until +the courts ordained his release. In fact, however, +if he had money he might buy sly periods +of liberty under the eye of the keeper, and this +abuse of his office brought the Marshal and his +subordinates many a sovereign above their legitimate +emoluments. One young gentleman +<span id="pg_157" class="page_anchor">157 </span> +of sporting proclivities, who was committed to +the Marshalsea while his lawyer was settling +up the wreck of his handsome patrimonial estate, +afterwards published an account of his experiences +as a detained debtor. From this it +appears that during the entire term of his detention +he was a regular spectator at the cock +fights, dog fights and prize fights, of the day, +and that he kept his wherry on the Thames, +and went out for a row whenever he felt the +need of air and exercise. The keeper who +accompanied him on these excursions, and +who was of a sporting turn himself, left the +prison to enter his employ, and was his +faithful henchman at the time he printed his +book, in the most genteel and elegant style, for +circulation among his friends.</p> + +<p>It is curious to note that even to our own +day, and in our own country, this system of +prison favoritism is not entirely unknown. If +a man is arrested on a judgment for debt, he +can, if he knows the way, save himself from +being locked up for a night at least by paying +the sheriff’s deputy for it. To be sure the +deputy will have to be in his company until he +is duly handed over at Ludlow street Jail, and +<span id="pg_158" class="page_anchor">158 </span> +properly receipted for, but there are such +things as double bedded rooms in New York +hotels. In the same way, it is shrewdly suspected, +prisoners in Ludlow street who can pay +for it can enjoy a night out once in a while. It +used to be so at least; and by the evidence +brought out by investigations in the past it was +not even an unusual occurrence. It is popularly +believed, by the way, that there is no such +thing in New York state as imprisonment for +debt. Some native realist in the line of fiction +ought to take a turn over to the east side of +the commercial metropolis of the United +States, and weave his experiences of the Ludlow +street cage into some such shape as Dickens +did his of the Fleet, the Marshalsea, and +the King’s Bench.</p> + +<span id="pg_159" class="page_anchor">159 </span> +<br> +<span id="pg_160" class="page_anchor">160 </span> + +<div class="illustration"> +<a href="images/ill-02.jpg"><img src="images/min-02.jpg" alt="THE NEW YORK TOMBS"></a> +</div> + +<span id="pg_161" class="page_anchor">161 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-6">CHAPTER VI.<br> +<span>THE NEW YORK TOMBS.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-d.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>D</span>ickens</span> may fairly be said to have begun +his sight-seeing in America by going to +jail. He commenced with those in Boston, and +wherever else he found a prison he had a look +at it. The interest he took in penal reform, +which rendered him familiar with nearly every +gaol in England, did not desert him when he +made his first voyage across the Atlantic. In +the “American Notes,” among a number of +minor and comparatively unimportant observations, +most of which are, in fact, long out of +date, and lost in the changed conditions of jail +construction, discipline and government, there +are two descriptions, which retain their interest. +The first in order of occurrence in the +book, relates to a prison as famous throughout +America as Newgate is in Great Britain, and +which, indeed, is the closest approach we have +to the gloomy criminal cage of London. You +may find it in a description of a walk about +New York in Chapter 6:</p> + +<span id="pg_162" class="page_anchor">162 </span> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“What is this dismal-fronted pile of bastard +Egyptian, like an enchanter’s palace in a melodrama? +A famous prison called the Tombs. +Shall we go in?</p> + +<p>“So. A long, narrow and lofty building, +stove-heated as usual, with four galleries, one +above the other, going round it, and communicating +by stairs. Between the two sides of each +gallery, and in its center, a bridge for the greater +convenience of crossing. On each of these +bridges sits a man, dozing or reading, or talking +to an idle companion. On each tier are two +opposite rows of small iron doors. They look +like furnace doors, but are cold and black, as +though the fires within had all gone out. Some +two or three are open, and women with drooping +heads bent down are talking to the inmates. +The whole is lighted by a skylight, but it is fast +closed; and from the roof there dangle, limp +and drooping, two useless windsails.</p> + +<p>“A man with keys appears to show us round. +A good-looking fellow, and in his way civil and +obliging.</p> + +<p>“‘Are those black doors the cells?’</p> + +<p>“‘Yes.’</p> + +<p>“‘Are they all full?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, they’re pretty nigh full, and that’s a +fact and no two ways about it.’</p> + +<p>“‘Those at the bottom are unwholesome, +surely.’</p> + +<span id="pg_163" class="page_anchor">163 </span> + +<p>“‘Why, we do only put colored people in ’em. +That’s the truth.’</p> + +<p>“‘When do the prisoners take exercise?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, they do without it pretty much.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do they never walk in the yard?’</p> + +<p>“‘Considerable seldom.’</p> + +<p>“‘Sometimes, I suppose?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, it’s rare they do. They keep pretty +bright without it.’</p> + +<p>“‘But suppose a man were here for a twelve-month? +I know this is only a prison for criminals +who are charged with some grave offenses, +while they are awaiting trial, or are under remand, +but the law affords criminals many +means of delay. What with motions for new +trials, arrest of judgment and what not, a prisoner +might be here for twelve months, I take it, +might he not?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, I guess he might.’</p> + +<p>“‘Do you mean to say that in all that time he +would never come out at that little iron door for +exercise?’</p> + +<p>“‘He might walk some, perhaps—not much.’</p> + +<p>“‘Will you open one of the doors?’</p> + +<p>“‘All, if you like.’</p> + +<p>“The fastenings jar and rattle, and one of the +doors turns slowly on its hinges. Let us look +in. A small, bare cell, into which the light enters +through a high chink in the wall. There +is a rude means of washing, a table, and a bedstead. +Upon the latter sits a man of sixty, reading. +<span id="pg_164" class="page_anchor">164 </span> +He looks up for a moment, gives an impatient, +dogged shake, and fixes his eyes upon +his book again. As we withdraw our heads the +door closes on him, and is fastened as before. +This man has murdered his wife and will probably +be hanged.</p> + +<p>“‘How long has he been here?’</p> + +<p>“‘A month.’</p> + +<p>“‘When will he be tried?’</p> + +<p>“‘Next term.’</p> + +<p>“‘When is that?’</p> + +<p>“‘Next month.’</p> + +<p>“‘In England, if a man is under sentence of +death even, he has air and exercise at certain +periods of the day.’</p> + +<p>“‘Possible?’</p> + +<p>“With what stupendous and untranslatable +coolness he says this, and how loungingly he +leads on to the woman’s side, making, as he +goes, a kind of castanet of the key on the stair +rail.</p> + +<p>“Each cell-door on this side has a square aperture +in it. Some of the women peep anxiously +through it at the sound of footsteps; others +shrink away in shame. For what offense can +that lonely child, of ten or twelve years old, be +shut up here? Oh, that boy? He is the son of +a prisoner we saw just now; is a witness +against his father, and is detained here for safe +keeping until the trial, that’s all.</p> + +<p>“But it is a dreadful place for the child to +<span id="pg_165" class="page_anchor">165 </span> +pass the long days and nights in. This is rather +hard treatment for a young witness, is it not? +What says our conductor?</p> + +<p>“‘Well, it ain’t a very rowdy life, and that’s +a fact.’</p> + +<p>“Again he clinks his metal castanet and leads +us leisurely away. I have a question to ask +him as we go.</p> + +<p>“‘Pray, why do they call this place the +Tombs?’</p> + +<p>“‘Well, it’s the cant name.’</p> + +<p>“‘I know it is. Why?’</p> + +<p>“‘Some suicides happened here when it was +first built. I expect it came about from that.’”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>It did not “come about from that” by any +means. The Tombs was a comparatively new +prison when Dickens saw it first. It was +erected under an authorization of the Common +Council of the city of New York, issued in 1833. +At that time, Mr. John L. Stevens, of the Hoboken +family who still keep up seigneurial state +on the bank of the Hudson, having recently returned +from an extended tour through Asia and +the Holy Land, issued an account of his travels, +with many illustrations of the rare and curious +things he had seen. Among these was a representation +of an ancient Egyptian tomb, accompanied +by a full and accurate description. The +<span id="pg_166" class="page_anchor">166 </span> +majestic proportions and sombre beauty of this +mortuary structure so impressed the committee +of the Common Council who had the selection +of plans for the new jail that they adopted it as +their model, and the general appearance and +construction of the building was made to conform +as closely as the necessities of its use permitted +to Stevens’s design. As it stands it is +probably the finest specimen of Egyptian architecture +of its order to be found outside of +Egypt itself, and the filth, squalor and grimy +ugliness that hem it in only serve to accentuate +its architectural beauty. Its official title is the +City Prison, but the one by which it is best +known was derived from the character of the +edifice in “Stevens’s Travels,” after which it +was planned.</p> + +<p>From an artistic point of view the selection +of a site for the Tombs was singularly unfortunate. +At the date of its erection its location +was upon the upper outskirts of the city. Now +the town has grown beyond it miles upon miles. +For years it stood in the heart of the lowest and +most dangerous criminal district. Even now +its surroundings of tenement-houses, workshops, +dirty streets harboring dirty shops of the +<span id="pg_167" class="page_anchor">167 </span> +basest order, are anything but inviting to the +sightseer. Through Leonard and Franklin +streets, which bound its lower and upper ends, +one catches eastward glimpses of Baxter street +festooned with the sidewalk displays of the old +clo’ shops, and westward sees the passing life +of Broadway. Elm street in the rear and Centre +street in front of it abound in sour-savored +groggeries and the shabby hang-dog offices +of the lower order of criminal lawyers who +practice at the bar of the Tombs court. The +streets swarm with the children of the tenements, +which line them with towering piles of +unclean brick and mortar; and the pedestrians +who navigate them, and who hang about the +outside of the prison, as if held there by a spell +and only awaiting their turn to pass within its +walls, are for the most part of that skulking, +evil class which knows the interior of the jail +quite as well as its outer barriers, and the ways +which lead to its frowning gate. For many +years the passenger traffic of the New York +Central Railroad was embarked at a depot occupying +the block above the Tombs. Travelers +were here taken on board cars which were +dragged by mules or horses up to Fourth avenue +<span id="pg_168" class="page_anchor">168 </span> +and Twenty-sixth street, where the locomotive +replaced the teams as a motor. As the town +grew the railroad removed its station to the +site of the present Madison Square Garden +building, and converted the old depot into a +freight-house, in and out of which lines of cars +drawn by long tandems of mules clanked day +and night the year round. Now the freight depot +is gone, and an enormous granite structure, +which accommodates the various criminal +courts, rises on its site. Between this building +and the Tombs an enclosed bridge for the passage +of prisoners to and from court spans the +street.</p> + +<p>The Tombs itself was built in the basin of a +little lake which was once one of the romantic +spots of Manhattan Island, and a favorite resort +of the angler and the pleasure seeker. The +lake was known as the Collect Pond, a corruption +of the Dutch title “Kalckhoek,” or Shell +Point, from a beach of shells which existed on +its margin. The Collect was a fresh-water +pond, fed by natural springs, and having an outlet +by small streams into both the North and +East rivers. Thus the pond and its creeks actually +cut Manhattan Island in half and made +<span id="pg_169" class="page_anchor">169 </span> +two islands of it. There were pleasure houses +on the hillocks around the Collect, and on an +island, in its centre, the city powder house was +erected. The course of time worked the usual +changes upon it for the worse. Tanners set up +their tan pits near it, the city garbage was +dumped into it, and among the marshes to the +eastward the criminal colony, since infamous +as the Five Points, commenced to form itself. +There was still water enough in it in 1796 for +John Fitch to experiment in navigating the +first steamboat America ever saw, but a few +years later, to give employment to clamorous +and starving labor, at a period of industrial and +commercial stagnation, the city ordered the +hills around it to be leveled and the pond filled +up with the earth removed from them. In spite +of the reduction of the ground to the westward, +the site remained much lower than the grade of +Broadway, and the Tombs roof is scarcely +above the line of that thoroughfare. To support +the ponderous mass of Maine granite, +which constituted the prison, a forest of piles +was sunk deep in the sodden soil. The work +of construction occupied five years, so that the +prison had been in use scarcely four years when +<span id="pg_170" class="page_anchor">170 </span> +Dickens made his visit to it—and, while its +outer walls remain substantially the same, its +internal construction has been vastly augmented +and improved. When he saw it the city +watch-house occupied part of the building; and +he makes a record of a night visit to “those +black sties” where “men and women, against +whom no crime is proved, lie all night in perfect +darkness, surrounded by the noisome vapors +which encircle that flagging lamp you +light us with, and breathing this filthy and offensive +stench.” The watch-house was on the +Franklin street side of the jail, and was long +kept up as a police station. Now it is used as +a common room for the confinement of vagrants +and drunkards picked up on the streets, pending +their confinement to the penal institutions.</p> + +<p>Of another old and hideous institution which +one cannot disassociate with the Tombs, in +spite of the abolition of it which has been decreed +by law, Dickens wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“The prison yard, in which he pauses now, +has been the scene of terrible performances. +Into this narrow, grave-like place men are +brought out to die. The wretched creature stands +beneath the gibbet on the ground; the rope is +about his neck; and when the sign is given a +<span id="pg_171" class="page_anchor">171 </span> +weight at its other end comes running down +and swings him up into the air—a corpse. The +law requires that there be present at this dismal +spectacle the judge, the jury, and citizens +to the amount of twenty-five. From the community +it is hidden. To the dissolute and bad +the thing remains a frightful mystery. Between +the criminal and them the prison wall is +interposed as a thick and gloomy veil. It is +the curtain to his bed of death, his winding +sheet and grave. From him it shuts out life +and all the motives to unrepenting hardihood +in that last hour, which its mere sight and presence +is often all sufficient to sustain. There +are no bold eyes to make him bold; no ruffians +to uphold a ruffian’s name before. All beyond +the pitiless stone wall is unknown space.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>At the time of <ins title="Note: “Dicken’s” in the original">Dickens’s</ins> visit (1842) London +was still the scene of public hangings, and the +privacy with which the executions in the +Tombs were conducted furnished him with a +text for one of his protests against the existing +state of things at home. The Tombs hangings +were private, as he stated, but they were not +unattended by morbid interest on the part of +the mob. On the morning of an execution, the +obscene streets all about would swarm with +obscene life. From their festering dens in the +Five Points, and from the remoter haunts of +<span id="pg_172" class="page_anchor">172 </span> +vice and crime which had grown up with the +growth of the town, the social banditti came in +a scowling, ribald and revolting legion. They +camped on doorsteps before dawn, and all the +groggeries drove a roaring trade. They beguiled +the time with gloating reminiscences of +their criminal lives, and watched the jail roof for +a signal that the ghastly work within was done. +Curiously enough, nature had provided them +with a sign as certain as the running up of the +black flag upon the wall of Newgate. A great +number of pigeons had found lodgment in the +Tombs yard, nesting in cotes which had been +put up for them along the inner jail walls and +in the eaves of the buildings themselves. Long +immunity from human aggressions had rendered +them fearless, and when the audience +gathered for an execution, under the gray +shadow of the jail walls, the pigeons were +equally certain to assemble, cooing and pluming +themselves in the sunlight above. When, +at the fatal moment, the heavy thud of the executioner’s +axe denoted the severing of the cord +which supported the counterweights and sent +the victim whirling to his death, the birds, +startled by the sound, would rise upward in +<span id="pg_173" class="page_anchor">173 </span> +flurried flight, circle about a couple of times +and settle at their perches again. It was by +this confused and frightened movement of the +pigeons above the walls that the waiting +rabble knew the unseen tragedy of the law was +done.</p> + +<p>A moment later the race of reporters and +messenger boys from the prison gate to the +newspaper offices close by would begin, and in +half an hour all the ghastly details of the event, +described with such circumstantiality and such +sensational exaggeration as the horror-hungry +public was expected to crave for, would be +hawked at every street corner and carried by +swift runners and overdriven wagons to the +most distant quarters of the town. To such +extreme was this practice stretched that, on +the occasions of later executions in the Tombs, +reporters would actually be sent to spend the +night in prison, and to record the last hours of +a worthless brute whose just doom should have +been a swift death and complete oblivion. Evil +as the influence of a public hanging may have +been, it may be doubted if it was any worse +than the practice of the press in investing the +attendant circumstances of a vile and dangerous +<span id="pg_174" class="page_anchor">174 </span> +wretch’s end with the mock heroism of +cheap bravado and the clap-trap sentiment of +literary fustian. The law providing for the +execution of criminals by electricity, and in +secret, has performed one public service, at +least, in doing away with these outdoor gatherings +at the Tombs on hanging day.</p> + +<span id="pg_175" class="page_anchor">175 </span> +<br> +<span id="pg_176" class="page_anchor">176 </span> + +<div class="illustration"> +<a href="images/ill-03.jpg"><img src="images/min-03.jpg" alt="THE PHILADELPHIA BASTILE"></a> +</div> + +<span id="pg_177" class="page_anchor">177 </span> + +<h2 id="chapter-7">CHAPTER VII.<br> +<span>PHILADELPHIA’S BASTILE.</span></h2> + +<p class="no_indent"><img class="drop_cap" src="images/init-i.png" alt=""><span class="first_word"><span>I</span>n</span> Philadelphia Dickens made a special request +for permission to visit the great +prison of the State, remarking that it and the +Falls of Niagara were the two objects he most +wished to see in America. Exceptional facilities +were afforded him to gratify his desire, +and make his investigation as thorough as he +chose. Nothing was concealed from him, and +his account and opinion of the Eastern State +Penitentiary (“American Notes,” Chapter 7) +created a vast deal of comment in their day. +He put himself on record as a violent opponent +of the solitary system, and while he intended +to make this chapter the strongest, it was really +one of the weakest in the book. He had assailed +the outrages of the debtors’ prisons of +London manfully. Over the Philadelphia system +he became almost hysterical. In the former +he had actual evils and wrongs and outrages +to combat. In the latter his grievance +<span id="pg_178" class="page_anchor">178 </span> +was largely founded on sentimentality and +purely personal feeling. He describes his +visit:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In the outskirts stands a great prison +called the Eastern Penitentiary, conducted on +a plan peculiar to the State of Pennsylvania. +The system here is rigid, strict and hopeless +solitary confinement. I believe it, in its effects, +to be cruel and wrong.</p> + +<p>“I was accompanied to this prison by two +gentlemen officially connected with its management, +and passed the day in going from cell +to cell and talking with the inmates. Every +facility was afforded me that the utmost courtesy +could suggest. Nothing was concealed or +hidden from my view, and every piece of information +that I sought was openly and frankly +given. The perfect order of the building cannot +be praised too highly, and of the excellent +motives of all who are immediately concerned +in the administration of the system there can +be no kind of question.</p> + +<p>“Between the body of the prison and the +outer wall there is a spacious garden. Entering +it by a wicket in the massive gate, we pursued +the path before us to its other termination, +and passed into a large chamber, from which +seven long passages radiate. On either side +of each is a long, long row of low cell-doors +with a certain number over every one. Above +<span id="pg_179" class="page_anchor">179 </span> +a gallery of cells like those below, except that +they have no narrow yard attached (as those in +the ground tier have), and are somewhat +smaller. The possession of two of these is +supposed to compensate for the absence of so +much air and exercise as can be had in the dull +strip attached to each of the others, in an hour’s +time every day; and, therefore, every prisoner +in this upper story has two cells, adjoining and +communicating with each other.</p> + +<p>“Standing at the central point and looking +down these dreary passages, the dull repose +and quiet that prevails is awful. Occasionally +there is a drowsy sound from some lone weaver’s +shuttle or shoemaker’s last, but it is stilled +by the thick walls and heavy dungeon door, and +only serves to make the general stillness more +profound. Over the head and face of every +prisoner who comes into this melancholy house +a black hood is drawn; and in this dark shroud, +an emblem of the curtain dropped between +him and the living world, he is led to the cell +from which he never again comes forth until +his whole term of imprisonment has expired. +He never hears of wife or children, home or +friends; the life or death of any single creature. +He sees the prison officers, but, with that exception, +he never looks upon a human countenance, +or hears a human voice. He is a man +buried alive, to be dug out in the slow rounds +of years, and, in the meantime, dead to everything +<span id="pg_180" class="page_anchor">180 </span> +but torturing anxieties and horrible despair.</p> + +<p>“His name, and crime, and term of suffering +are unknown, even to the officer who delivers +him his daily food. There is a number over +his cell-door, and in a book, of which the governor +of the prison has one copy and the moral +instructor another, this is the index to his history. +Beyond these pages the prison has no +record of his existence; and though he live to +be in the same cell ten weary years, he has no +means of knowing, down to the very last hour, +in what part of the building it is situated; what +kind of men there are about him; whether in +the long winter nights there are living people +near, or he is in some lonely corner of the +great gaol, with walls and passages, and iron +doors between him and the nearest sharer in +its solitary horrors.</p> + +<p>“Every cell has double doors—the outer one +of sturdy oak, the other of grated iron, wherein +there is a trap through which his food is handed. +He has a bible and a slate and pencil, and, +under certain restrictions, has sometimes other +books, provided for the purpose, and pen and +ink and paper. His razor, plate and can, and +basin hang upon the wall, or shine upon the little +shelf. Fresh water is laid on in every cell, +and he can draw it at his pleasure. During the +day his bedstead turns up against the wall and +leaves more space for him to work in. His +<span id="pg_181" class="page_anchor">181 </span> +loom, or bench, or wheel is there, and there he +labors, sleeps and wakes and counts the seasons +as they change, and grows old.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>Over the inmates of this Philadelphia gaol +Dickens exuded a great deal of sympathy and +sentiment. He invested each man he wrote +about with a pathos that made good reading at +any rate, and no doubt sincerely believed all +that he wrote. To a man of a convivial and +companionable nature like himself the idea of +a life of solitude was naturally horrible. To +a man fond of long walks among other men the +enforced absence of exercise as well as of companionship +was naturally dreadful. To Charles +Dickens, in short, a term of imprisonment in +the Eastern Penitentiary would unquestionably +have been the cruelest torture. He would, in +all likelihood, have worn his life out speedily +here, like a wild bird in a cage, or have laid +violent hands upon himself, or have become a +madman. To the felons whom he visited, men +for the most part of blunt sensibilities and brutal +natures, he credited the same qualities as +belonged to his own refined and sensitive composition, +and he put himself in their place and +spoke for them from his own standpoint. How +<span id="pg_182" class="page_anchor">182 </span> +far he was led astray by this was shown by the +case of the character long known as “Dickens’s +Dutchman.” Of this fellow he wrote:</p> + +<blockquote> + +<p>“In another cell there was a German, sentenced +to five years’ imprisonment for larceny, +two of which had just expired. With colors +procured in the same manner (extracted from +dyed yarn given him to weave) he had painted +every inch of the walls and ceiling quite beautifully. +He had laid out the few feet of ground +behind him with exquisite neatness, and had +made a little bed in the centre, that looked, by +the bye, like a grave. The taste and ingenuity +he had displayed in everything was most extraordinary, +and yet a more dejected, heartbroken, +wretched creature it would be difficult +to imagine. I never saw such a picture of forlorn +affliction and distress of mind. My heart +bled for him, and when the tears ran down his +cheeks, and he took one of the visitors aside to +ask, with his trembling hands nervously clutching +at his coat to detain him, whether there +was no hope of his dismal sentence being commuted, +the spectacle was really too painful to +witness. I never saw or heard any kind of +misery that impressed me more than the +wretchedness of this man.”</p> + +</blockquote> + +<p>This was the Dickensesque of it, and it gave +its unfortunate subject an international notoriety. +Now mark the plain, unvarnished facts.</p> + +<span id="pg_183" class="page_anchor">183 </span> + +<p>The name of “Dickens’s Dutchman” was +Charles Langheimer. He was sentenced to the +Eastern Penitentiary for the first time on May +15, 1840, and it was while he was serving this +term that Dickens saw him. On June 25, 1852, +he came back on a year’s sentence, and on Feb. +24, 1855, he was a third time convicted, for two +years on this occasion. On April 4, 1861, he +came again for a year, on March 12, 1872, he +was returned for two years, on Sept. 9, 1875, +and on April 4, 1877, he began two terms of a +year each. On Sept. 10, 1879, he received a +three years’ term, and he was no sooner +through with this than he was once more convicted +and sent up for a year, in 1882. In the +intervals of the sixteen years he spent in this +one prison, since his first conviction, he had +served five terms in other prisons, three in the +County Jail, of Philadelphia, one in the Baltimore +Penitentiary, and one in New York. In +plain English, the man was a confirmed pauper +and thief. He lived by mendicancy, and from +time to time he would commit some larceny, +for which offense all his sentences were imposed +on him, merely in order to be sent to jail +to be cared for—just as he might have gone on +<span id="pg_184" class="page_anchor">184 </span> +a vacation from his regular and miserable life +upon the chance of charity.</p> + +<p>In view of Dickens’s positive and unqualified +expression of sentiment in regard to him, +the most curious fact of his life remains to be +noted. This is that, fourteen years after +Dickens’s own death, he returned voluntarily +to the penitentiary, where he had ended a year’s +term only a few months before, and begged to +be taken in. This place, so dreadful to the impressionable +novelist, was the only approach +to home the poor wretch knew. He was in a +deplorable condition, was nearly eighty years +of age, and had a horror of the almshouse. +The inspectors consented that he should have +his wish, and he was cared for for a month, +until his death, which occurred on March 14, +1884. It is interesting to know that Dickens +died at the age of fifty-eight years. This “picture +of forlorn affliction and distress of mind,” +this “dejected, heartbroken, wretched creature,” +who was born eight years before Dickens, +survived him nearly twice that period, and outlived +him, in the mere number of his years, by +twenty-two. It may be remembered, in connection +with the Fleet Prison episode of “Pickwick,” +<span id="pg_185" class="page_anchor">185 </span> +that Sam Weller adverts to the almost +identical case of an old prisoner, to whom +the jail had become such a home that the fear +of being locked out of it eventually deterred +him from taking the sly tastes of liberty which +the turnkeys were willing to allow him.</p> + +<p>The Eastern State Penitentiary is, in this +day, admitted to be one of the model penal institutions +of the world. When built it was in +the northern suburb, but it is now in the heart +of Philadelphia. It occupies an entire block, +comprising ten or twelve acres, and its site was +originally known as Cherry Hill, a name which +is often locally applied to the jail itself. The +ground is elevated, and from the gateway tower +a fine panorama of the vast city, spreading +about for miles, may be obtained. All that is +visible externally is a massive granite wall, +some thirty-five feet high, slightly relieved or +buttressed with towers at the angles and on +the front. The enclosure is square, and the entrance, +in the centre of the front wall, is by a +lofty portal, defended by a heavy outer gate, in +which there is a wicket, and an inner gate, and +dominated by a tower taller than the others. +Within the walls the ranges of cells radiate +<span id="pg_186" class="page_anchor">186 </span> +from an octagonal central building, which is +crowned with an observatory. To simplify the +description it may be said that this central +building forms the hub from which branch +branch forth the spokes of this enormous +wheel. A system of lighting the entire grounds +by night is provided in a lantern of special ingenious +construction, in the tower below the +observatory or lookout. There are some detached +buildings on the grounds, used for mechanical +and culinary purposes. The living +apartments of the warden and his family, +offices, etc., are in the front building. The +outer and inner gates of the prison are never +opened at the same time. Even a visitor or an +official becomes in a manner a prisoner when +he leaves the street.</p> + +<p>Dickens’s general description of the prison is +good enough, but some of his statements are +more picturesque than precise. Prisoners are +not shut off from intercourse by letter, or even +personally, with their families. They do see +various persons connected with the prison, although +they cannot see other prisoners. Even +this, which Dickens thought so cruel, and the +concealment of their faces when they are +<span id="pg_187" class="page_anchor">187 </span> +brought in to the jail, is a precaution born of +benevolence and mercy. The idea is that after +a man has served a term at Cherry Hill and +been discharged he may go where he will, and +if he wishes to live an honest life no man can +point him out as an ex-convict. Except in the +private record of the prison, known only and +accessible only to a few responsible persons, +John Jimpson never existed in the Eastern +State Penitentiary. The keepers, the doctor, +the jail attendants only knew him as No. 99. +The librarian never issued books to John Jimpson, +but to No. 99. The nurses in the infirmary +never attended him when he was sick, but cared +for No. 99. No one but the warden knew +whether the letters sent to him by his wife or +family or friends were meant for No. 99 or No. +199. As far as the stigma of his crime and its +punishment can be effaced it is effaced. He +loses his social identity when he enters the +prison, and puts it on when he comes out, like +a new suit of clothes.</p> + +<p>It is a rule of the prison that each convict, +when he enters, shall be taught a useful trade, +if he has not one already. He then has a daily +task set, and all that he can or cares to produce +<span id="pg_188" class="page_anchor">188 </span> +above this task is credited to him, and the +money is paid to him when he departs. The +illiterate convicts are taught to read and write. +Those who display intelligence are encouraged +to cultivate it. Convicts of superior education—such, +for instance, as can produce +literary work or paint pictures—are permitted +the means to do so. The entire system of the +prison is reformatory as well as punitive; the +idea is not merely to cage a social beast, but to +tame him and train him, so that he may be of +use to the world when he has served his term of +isolation.</p> + +<p>The idea of separate confinement—the Philadelphia +Idea, as it has been called—originated +nearly a century ago. In an admirable sketch +of the origin and history of the Eastern District +Penitentiary, compiled by Mr. Richard Vaux, +president of the board of Inspectors, the history +of Pennsylvania’s system of prison discipline +and management is given in brief but interesting +style. In 1776 the common jail of +Philadelphia was as horrible a den as the worst +of London jails at its worst. An attempt was +made by Richard Wistar, one of the famous +family of that name, to reform it, but in 1777 +<span id="pg_189" class="page_anchor">189 </span> +the British army occupied the city and the +good work was, perforce, suspended. In 1787 +it was taken up again, and the Philadelphia +Prison Society was formed. The first president +of the society was Bishop William White, +the first Protestant Episcopal Archbishop of +Pennsylvania, and he held the office for forty +years. The society’s first work was to have the +chain gangs, employed at cleaning the streets +and repairing the roads, abolished. The next +was to secure a separation of the sexes in the +common jail. Then the separation of actual +criminals and of persons merely accused but +not yet found guilty of crime demanded attention. +So, by degrees, the idea of separate confinement +took shape. In 1790 a law was passed +by which this principle was put to the test, and +finally, in 1821, the Legislature authorized the +construction of the State Penitentiary for the +Eastern district of Pennsylvania.</p> + +<p>At this date the site of the present Penitentiary +was a farm, remarkable for its grove of +fine cherry trees. It belonged to the Warner +family. The farm-house was a cheery old colonial +mansion, and it is worth noting that when +the Warners sold the land they reserved the +<span id="pg_190" class="page_anchor">190 </span> +right to remove the mantels and fireplaces +from the house. The place was purchased in +1821. The plans of several competing architects +were submitted to the board appointed +by the Legislature, and that of John Haviland +was selected. The cornerstone of the Penitentiary +was laid in 1823, and it was opened for +the reception of convicts in 1829. Up to that +time about $340,000 had been expended on it, +but since then the necessary enlargements and +improvements have brought its cost up to +probably $1,000,000 or more. If Dickens could +revisit it in the flesh to-day he would find it a +much more extensive establishment than the +one he criticised so severely and unjustly; and +his confidence in himself would perhaps be +shaken when he read the record of his woebegone +“Dutchman.”</p> + +<div class="end"> +THE END. +</div> + +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's In Jail with Charles Dickens, by Alfred Trumble + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN JAIL WITH CHARLES DICKENS *** + +***** This file should be named 34112-h.htm or 34112-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/3/4/1/1/34112/ + +Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was +produced from scanned images of public domain material +from the Google Print project.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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